With the increasing interest in the show, there has also been some confusion about where the series fits into the story of The Lord of the Rings and the overall mythology of Middle-Earth. Audiences’ primary exposure to this world has come through the films from director Peter Jackson. Jackson directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the early 2000s to immense critical and box office success. Those films were then followed by another trilogy of movies based on Tolkien’s book The Hobbit. While the Hobbit movies didn’t spark the same cultural phenomenon as the previous films, with the critical reception being a bit more mixed on the prequel trilogy, the films each still pulled in nearly a billion dollars at the worldwide box office.
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With financial success like that, it was only a matter of time until audiences got to revisit Middle-Earth on-screen again. However, The Rings of Power has some notable differences from Jackson’s work in terms of story and development. Here is how the new show does (and doesn’t) connect to the previous films.
Does: Returning Characters
There are numerous characters that were first introduced to audiences through the Lord of the Rings films that will be playing key parts in The Rings of Power. The newest trailers have specifically highlighted the inclusion of the Elves Galadriel and Elrond. Though those roles were originally played by the likes of Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving, the characters have been re-cast for The Rings of Power. Elrond will be played in the series by Robert Aramayo, a familiar face to fantasy fans, as he played a young Ned Stark in various flashbacks in the final seasons of Game of Thrones. Galadriel, on the other hand, will be brought to life by the Welsh actor Morfydd Clark, who has previously worked on A24’s Saint Maud and HBO’s His Dark Materials.
Sauron will also serve a pivotal role as the villain of The Rings of Power. Though at this point there seems to be some confusion as to who will be portraying the true lord of the rings. The actor Anson Boon has reportedly been cast as the Dark Lord, who went by the name Annatar before he deceived the realm, but there has been no official confirmation from Prime Video. He can be seen as a fair white-haired mystery figure a few times in the latest trailers for the series.
Other familiar characters include the man Isildur and his father Elendil. They were the first kings of Gondor seen in the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring, and their family line eventually leads to Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings. This series will show them earlier in their lives while they still lived in the island kingdom of Númenor. Isildur will be played by Maxim Baldry and Elendil by Lloyd Owen. Gil-Galad, the High King of the Elves, who also briefly appeared in the Fellowship prologue, will also be portrayed by Benjamin Walker in the series.
Doesn’t: Separate Time Period
As can be assumed from the inclusion of Isildur and Elendil, The Rings of Power takes place much earlier in the history of Middle-Earth than the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings stories. The series is set in the Second Age of Middle-Earth, thousands of years prior to the epic tales told in Jackson’s films. The Second Age began after the defeat of the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, at the end of the War of Wrath. The Second Age was the lengthiest in Middle-Earth’s history, lasting well over 3,000 years. The Rings of Power will be adapting much of Tolkien’s chronicled history of the Second Age into one cohesive story.
With that, die-hard fans of Tolkien’s literature will likely have much to adjust to with The Rings of Power. The series seems to be re-writing and re-arranging much of Middle-Earth’s history that Tolkien laid out in The Silmarillion and the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings. These changes could be a good or a bad thing. The freedom from the source material could give the showrunners and writers the room they need to tell a great story. But at the same time, much of Middle-Earth’s history is meticulously laid out, and changing it too much could lead to some logical and historical inconsistencies.
The Rings of Power being set in the Second Age also explains why only a few Elven characters have returned for the series, while most other characters from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have not. It should be noted that while the likes of Elrond and Galadriel are returning for The Rings of Power, don’t expect to see any surprise appearances from Gandalf or any other wizards of Middle-Earth either. Despite their old age, the wizards did not arrive on the shores of Middle-Earth until some time into the Third Age.
Does: The Fellowship of the Ring Prologue
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The prologue to Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring depicts the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and their march against Sauron and the forces of Mordor. The Rings of Power already has a story outlined that will span five seasons, and this story is more than likely building toward that epic battle, the defeat of Sauron, and Isildur’s taking of the One Ring. The film’s prologue has already shown much of the battle that ended the Second Age, with particular focus given to Elrond and Isildur’s roles in the fight. By building out and establishing the various corners of Middle-Earth leading into those events, The Rings of Power likely hopes to build to an epic final season with that battle as the climax.
Fellowship’s prologue also tells of the forging of the great rings, with three given to the Elves, seven to the Dwarves, and nine to Men. Though it has not been explicitly shown in any trailers, this story is all but certain to be the central driving plot of The Rings of Power, as the series is directly named after these rings. Celebrimbor, an Elf who was instrumental to the forging of the rings, has also been cast in the series, with Charles Edwards portraying the master blacksmith.
Doesn’t: New Creative Team
On the whole, the creative team behind The Rings of Power is an entirely new group of people, with very little overlap with those who worked on Jackson’s films. Other creatives involved in The Rings of Power include: J.A. Bayona (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, A Monster Calls), Lindsey Weber (10 Cloverfield Lane), Jason Cahil (The Sopranos), Justin Doble (Stranger Things) and numerous Game of Thrones alums like Bruce Richmond and Bryan Cogman.
Does: Overall Production
Even though the creative team behind The Rings of Power differs from that of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, that doesn’t mean they are abandoning all the work that was done on those movies. In fact, much of the overall production design and atmosphere of this series is intentionally replicating and evoking that of Jackson’s films. The look and feel of Middle Earth was pitch perfectly established in those films, so audiences already have a very specific idea in their minds of what this world is. The team behind The Rings of Power is aware of that. Instead of going out of their way to do something completely new and different with the world, they are embracing what has already been laid out for them in the films and running with it in this new story.
Howard Shore, who composed the music for all the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, has also returned to help with the music for The Rings of Power. Shore composed the main title theme for the series, while the Emmy-winning composer Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica, The Walking Dead and the recent God of War games) has come on-board to pen the music for the full show.
Based on what has been seen and heard in the recent trailers, it looks like the team behind The Rings of Power have really gone out of their way to re-capture the essence of Middle Earth that was previously established in the movies. The music sounds as beautiful and sweeping as always, and the visuals of the various Elven realms, the Dwarven city of Khazad-dûm and the ancient kingdom of Númenor evoke the same architecture and overall atmosphere of the films.
Doesn’t: Different Continuity
The big kicker of all of this is that, as much as The Rings of Power is building off the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, the series appears to exist in an entirely new continuity. So the events of this series don’t actually take place in the same universe as the films that audiences have already fallen in love with. That is one reason for the recasting of characters such as Elrond and Galadriel, and overall, that is why this series will likely avoid any very specific callbacks or references to anything that eventually happens in those stories. So don’t expect to see any flash-forwards to Viggo Mortensen’s Aragorn, Elijah Wood’s Frodo, or Ian McKellen’s Gandalf telling these old tales to anyone.
