Rings of Power

2022 - 9 - 1

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Image courtesy of "New York Post"

This 'Rings of Power' character could be a 'Lord of the Rings' movie ... (New York Post)

“The Rings of Power” is set around a thousand years before Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his Fellowship took their journey in the movies. So, very few characters are ...

His exact identity before he was corrupted by the rings is unknown. “The Rings of Power” is set around a thousand years before Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his Fellowship took their journey in the movies. [Nazgûl](https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Nazg%C3%BBl). And there’s no reason to think he could still be alive thousands of years from this time period, to meet Frodo. Spoiler alert — since they’re in the movies a thousand years later, obviously, they’re not. The show chronicles the rise of the villain Sauron and the forging of the Rings of Power (one of which is the One Ring that Frodo will eventually destroy).

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Image courtesy of "Forbes"

5 Reasons You Should Watch 'The Rings Of Power' (Forbes)

Amazon's new Lord Of The Rings TV show, The Rings Of Power, debuts on Amazon Prime Video tonight. Here's five good reasons to tune in.

Amazon has adapted the appendices to The Silmarillion, and the only way to do that and make it a palatable TV show is to make a lot of changes. Some of these mysteries include a mysterious stranger encountered by some of our heroes, who may or may not be connected to The Lord Of The Rings. I’ll be recapping each episode as we go as well, so be sure to [follow me here on this blog](https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/#196d790943ab) and on It’s simply outstanding, adding layers of drama and emotion to the show that simply wouldn’t exist without it. Could he already be there right before our noses, hiding in plain sight disguised as one of the characters? The good news is that this show, at least in its first two episodes, stays faithful to Tolkien’s themes, if not the letter of his writing. The Rings Of Power is anything but cheap. Galadriel, Elrond, Durin, Bronwyn and and every other character introduced in the sprawling two-episode premiere already have my attention. Everything from the special effects to the wildly detailed costumes is extraordinary. It’s one of the best-looking TV shows I’ve ever seen. I entered a skeptic, but walked away a believer. Here are five.

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Is Shiny but Not Yet ... (The New York Times)

Amazon's pricey, gorgeous fantasy spectacle delivers what fans expect, but it could thrive by giving them what they don't.

“Rings of Power” is spectacular on the screen, but This could make “Rings of Power” an outlier in the TV-fantasy environment post-“Game of Thrones,” whose good-guys-get-decapitated ethos was in many ways a reaction to Tolkien. But she is interesting, and that’s what “Rings of Power” will need to be, more than faithful, to sustain itself over multiple seasons. One day, fate serves one up in the form of a meteor. And in an outpost deep in human country, the elf warrior Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) nurses a forbidden crush on a mortal healer, Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), whose downtrodden neighbors picked Sauron’s side in the last war. A multiseason series can’t live in the operatic intensity of a fantasy film; it needs to build a world, evolve character and develop story arcs over time. (Númenor, the Atlantis-like kingdom of humans whose rise and fall dominates the Second Age, doesn’t even figure into the opening hours.) Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and the Peter Jackson movie adaptations, to the era when the fateful magic knickknacks of the title were forged. Payne and Patrick McKay, have a Wikipedia-like mishmash of family trees and invented alphabets that describes the series’s time period, the Second Age, this way: “Of events in Middle-earth the records are few and brief, and their dates are often uncertain.” But while I am a middling-level Middle-earth-ophile (have read “The Silmarillion”; do not speak Here she’s a young, headstrong and deadly warrior, with “Crouching Tiger” moves and a conviction that Sauron, the once and future big bad, is still alive and plotting. [current fantasy competition](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/arts/television/house-of-the-dragon-review.html), a sky filled with wheeling and menacing dragons.

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Is The Rings of Power for Lord of the Rings Diehards or Casual Fans? (Literary Hub)

Artist/JRR Tolkien devotee Jenna Kass and TV critic/fantasy philistine Dylan Roth are a married couple who have joined forces to review the new original ...

That being said, if this premiere is anything to go by, I think it’s important to acknowledge that this isn’t a show made for the lovers of Tolkien’s writings. I care about some of the threads more than others, of course, and I’m still nursing some very petty grumblings, but I’m certainly not hate-watching. The other characters are a mix of canon and creation. And since she’s the main character, her being stubbornly right in the face of everyone being patronizingly wrong takes up a lot of air, especially in Episode 1. (The viewer is clearly supposed to assume this is Gandalf, though this could be a deliberate mislead.) DYLAN: I can’t blame Rings of Power creators JD Payne and Patrick McKay for choosing a character who’s familiar to mass audiences as the lead of their show, nor for the decision to reimagine Galadriel as an action hero. I understand that the series uses a mix of original and refurbished characters and concepts from the Sil and other Tolkien back matter. I came to this show telling myself I wasn’t expecting—or necessarily looking for—orthodoxy, that instead my focus would be on whether this felt like Tolkien to me in the way that the best moments of the Jackson films did. I’m interested in Galadriel having fought for so long that she can’t imagine moving on, and the way that’s frightening both to her and to her peers. High fantasy isn’t my preferred genre to read or to watch, but like most people of my generation I was swept up in the splendor and excitement of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film trilogy, which I’ve watched front to back at least a dozen times. This is probably the context that the producers and financiers of The Rings of Power are expecting from the bulk of their audience, whereas your interest, Jenna, is coming from a more educated place. Can this latest on-screen voyage to Middle Earth satisfy both a diehard with the wisdom of the Eldar and your average Sam, Pip, or Merry?

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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is here! Check out the ... (Economic Times)

Amazon Prime Videos much-awaited The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series is starting soon. Meanwhile, the first reviews are positive, ...

The characters are also a breath of fresh air, nuanced with their strengths and weaknesses. The world of men, however, looks grey and dull. It is thousand years before the Lord of the Rings. The story revolves around the creation of the nine rings and Sauron’s evil villainy before he was slain. One of the familiar aspects is Khazad-dum, the stronghold of the dwarfs. The Khazad-dum shown in the series is not a ruin but a busy kingdom complete with lush greenery, a giant mirror reflecting the depths, and busy dwarfs going about their business.

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Image courtesy of "DualShockers"

The Rings Of Power Release Date And Time For Prime Video (DualShockers)

The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power will premiere with the first two episodes, and here's all you need to know about the show's release schedule.

The show will follow a weekly release schedule, and a new episode will release Thanks to the time difference, fans in some regions (the US, Latin America, and Canada) will get the episodes on Thursday, September 1st, 2022, at 6 PM PT (Pacific Timing). The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power will premiere with the first two episodes on Friday, September 2nd, 2022, at 1 AM GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), but the release time will vary depending on your region.

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Who plays Sauron in Rings of Power? (The Digital Fix)

In Amazon Prime's The Rings of Power series, Sauron is played by the British actor Anson Boon. Boon has a relatively small filmography, which includes roles in ...

But who plays Sauron in Rings of Power? [The Lord of the Rings](https://www.thedigitalfix.com/the-lord-of-the-rings) The Rings of Power episode 1 and 2 review – a promising but slow start The Rings of Power series is expected to follow the creation of these rings, and their impact, as its major plot thread. Instead, it primarily tells the story of Middle-earth’s Second Age, based on the information that can be found in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings appendices, and other mentions elsewhere within his Middle-earth novels. The series will also include the Lord of Evil, Sauron. [Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power](https://www.thedigitalfix.com/the-lord-of-the-rings/amazon-lotr-series) will be the next major fantasy [TV series](https://www.thedigitalfix.com/best-tv-series) to hit screens when it makes its debut in just a few days, on September 2.

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Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power – a cheat's guide to Middle-earth ... (The Conversation UK)

The new series is part of the expansive world created by J.R.R Tolkien across several books, including The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit.

Sauron, who appeared in The Lord of the Rings as a flaming red eye, is still the big bad. However, as Amazon has only acquired the rights for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, none of the stories from either Unfinished Tales or The Silmarillion will feature in the new series. [Galadriel and Elrond](https://ew.com/tv/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-character-guide/), here much younger than they appeared in the films. While his estate is known to be protective (and litigious) over the original works, Tolkien stated that he wanted In light of that, he would probably have been delighted to see his creation still so beloved and still expanding. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. Arda starts as a flat disc and evolves into something more recognisably planet-like over the course of cataclysmic events during repeated battles between forces of good and evil. In Tolkien’s world, moral courage is just as important, if not more so, than physical prowess for the enduring heroes of Middle-earth. [This article is part of Quarter Life](https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop), a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. For a newcomer to the wonderful world of Middle-earth, the universe created by the British author and academic J.R.R. Along the way, he finds a ring that gives him the power of invisibility. So if you want to watch the series and keep up with inevitable social media debates, here is a guide to this sprawling world to initiate newcomers to Tolkien’s Middle-earth.

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Image courtesy of "The Washington Post"

The new Lord of the Rings series, explained (The Washington Post)

Executive producer Lindsey Weber talks about where “Rings of Power” fits into J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology, and how it hopes to appeal to newbies as well as ...

Q: What is at stake in “The Rings of Power”? Were viewers like that considered when creating “The Rings of Power?” We know what the last shot of the series will be. It is the rise of the dark lord Sauron. [“The Rings of Power”] is really the length of three feature tent-pole films shot on the schedule of two for the price of one. It’s a very different time for the people of Middle-earth in the Second Age. Q: “The Rings of Power” reportedly had an enormous budget. A: The rings of power takes place in the Second Age, which is thousands of years before the events of the Third Age, which most people know — Frodo and Bilbo and all of that. It is the rise and fall of Tolkien’s Atlantis, the story of Númenor. It’s based on the appendices, which tell the story of the Second Age. New characters will be introduced, as well as younger versions of immortal characters first met in the original Lord of the Rings trilogy (which is currently streaming on HBO Max, if you’d like a refresher on this world). A: Anyone who has the Lord of the Rings books in their home already has it.

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Jeff Bezos says his son told him 'not to eff up' Rings of Power series ... (The Independent)

Speaking at the UK premiere of the Amazon Prime Video series – at the Odeon Luxe cinema in Leicester Square, London – Bezos talked about how his children are ...

“In fact one of my boys, I think, approaches the level of a Tolkien scholar he knows so much about this universe,” Bezos said in a rare speech. [Terms of use,](https://www.independent.co.uk/service/user-policies-a6184151.html) [Cookie policy](https://www.independent.co.uk/service/cookie-policy-a6184186.html) and [Privacy notice.](https://www.independent.co.uk/service/privacy-policy-a6184181.html) [Privacy policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en) and [Terms of service](https://policies.google.com/terms?hl=en) apply.

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'Lord of the Rings' is back: Everything you need to know about 'The ... (Globalnews.ca)

In order to secure the rights to make a LOTR TV show, Amazon shelled out an unprecedented US$250 million to the Tolkien Estate. (In comparison, the original ...

“We felt there was so much there that hadn’t been seen onscreen before, and we were determined to realize it in a way that had the scope and the breadth and the depth of what we feel when we read those books.” Afro Latino actor Ismael Cruz Cordova hails from Puerto Rico and is the first elf of colour in the world of the Rings. We put up cities in the middle of the woods at night, in some cases, just to house the crews so that we could get to shoot and relocations,” Weber said. “For the characters of colour on the show … “He hasn’t gone through some of the things that will make him the Elrond that we meet in the books,” Aramayo said. In the show, viewers will meet the harfoots, a race of early hobbits that feel like a slightly wilder, Celtic version of Bilbo, Frodo, Samwise, Merry and Pippin. The heroism and grave mistakes made during this time will leave a legacy that is remembered as history during the LOTR. It also includes a history of the romance between Aragorn, a human, and Arwen, an elf who gives up immortality to be with her love. In a media climate rife with franchising, remakes, prequels and sequels, will Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power be able to stand out? This is a small-screen project with a vitality you’d expect of the silver screen. (In comparison, the original three Lord of the Rings movies had a budget of $281 million.) Tolkien’s books and the original movie trilogy will not be disappointed when it comes to the scope and spectacle of the show — unsurprising, considering how much Amazon Studios spent to develop it.

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Image courtesy of "Hindustan Times"

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power review: A slow-paced ... (Hindustan Times)

The series, starring Robert Aramayo, Charles Edwards, Nazanin Boniadi, Lloyd Owens, Sara Zwangobani, Maxim Baldry, Megan Richards, Tyroe Muhafidin, Ema Horvath, ...

With emotional core, the two episodes set the pace for the story, all it needs to do going forward is gain some speed. Showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay have infused the spirit of Tolkien’s musings, rhythms and grandeur to The Rings of Power very well. The one downside is that it often feels like a lot is going on in each episode, and one might feel a little lost. When it comes to the familiar, there is Galadriel and Elrond, played by Morfydd Clark and Robert Aramayo, respectively. Set many centuries earlier, The Rings of Power dives into the familiar landscape, revisiting Middle-Earth for a new adventure and a ton of nostalgia. It marks the arrival of dwarfs, giants packed with humour and banter between characters, which puts focus on the bonds between new characters.

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When Frodo Met Bezos: How The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of ... (TownandCountrymag.com)

“The show asks, as Tolkien did, how far you would go to protect the people and the places that you love,” says Lindsey Weber, an executive producer on the ...

“It’s not a revisiting of the Third Age story that people might have seen on film or read in the books,” Weber says, “but rather a fantastic story that stands on its own two feet.” The series is based on Tolkien’s appendices to The Lord of the Rings and follows its characters—played by a cast including Nazanin Boniadi, Benjamin Walker, Cynthia Addai-Robinson, and breakout star Morfydd Clark—across six realms as they confront the reemergence of evil in Middle-earth. “He didn’t write a story about people giving up, he wrote a story about people doing the right thing. Some aspects of the series may feel familiar to fans of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films, which combined pulled in nearly $4 billion worldwide. The rumored $1 billion price tag for the project includes the $250 million Amazon laid out in 2017 to secure the rights to a selection of Tolkien’s work and the eye-popping costs of production around the globe, with nearly two dozen stars over a planned five seasons. [The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power](https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a40614268/how-to-watch-stream-lord-of-the-rings-rings-of-power/) premieres on Prime Video on September 2, the series—which tells the story of the Second Age of J.R.R. “How far into the darkness would you step if those things were being taken from you?

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The Rings Of Power: 8 essential locations you should know before ... (The A.V. Club)

The A.V. Club takes a detailed look at the most important realms and lands in the new version of Middle-earth.

To Lord Of The Rings fans, it’s best-known as the realm Frodo and Bilbo sail to after the destruction of the One Ring and the fall of Sauron, and therefore basically serves within that narrative as a version of Heaven. In terms of the land itself, it’s exactly what it sounds like: A wasteland of snow and ice that’s barely habitable and full of threats from both the elements and the creatures who dare to live there. Valinor is the realm of the Valar–the 14 deities who shaped the world at the behest of Tolkien’s supreme deity, Eru Ilúvatar–and as such is almost unimaginably beautiful and peaceful. Though the primary seat of Elvish rule in The Rings Of Power is Lindon, there are other wondrous places to behold in Middle-earth that were built by the Elves. How and why Celebrimbor creates these rings, and who influences their crafting along the way, is all for the series to tell you, but if you’ve read The Lord Of The Rings, you know it’s about much more than making some cool jewelry. In the trailers for The Rings Of Power, you may have noticed Galadriel spending quite a bit of time in a snowy landscape, climbing ice cliffs with her knife and searching for something evil amid the freeze. Of all the locations viewers will get to know throughout The Rings Of Power, Númenor might ultimately prove to be the most consequential. [The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power](https://www.avclub.com/tv/reviews/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-2022) will finally take us back to the Second Age, the era before The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and bring with it a new live-action version of the Middle-earth landscape. Speaking of realms that aren’t faring well by the time we see them in The Lord Of The Rings, there’s Khazad-dûm, the Dwarven kingdom in the Misty Mountains that’s perhaps better known to fans of Tolkien’s trilogy as Moria. During the War of Wrath, Morgoth (the original Dark Lord) sought to mold Middle-earth in his own dark image, and he had more than a few converts along the way. It’s also, as gateways to paradise should be, a beautiful realm filled with structures made in harmony with the earth, and tributes to Elven achievements and losses in their struggle against the forces of Evil. While they’re still found all over the map in The Rings Of Power, a key feature of the Second Age is the centralized power of Lindon, the realm of High King of the Elves Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker).

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How THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER's Rotten ... (SFFGazette.com)

With the reviews in for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, we're taking a closer look at how the Prime Video series' Rotten Tomatoes score compares ...

So, right between the two trilogies, making it better than those hit-and-miss prequels, but perhaps not quite as good as Jackson's original visit to Middle-earth. This score will obviously change in the coming weeks, though it's a percentage that bodes well for The Rings of Power's success. R.

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Here's When Every New The Rings of Power Episode Drops (TownandCountrymag.com)

The highly anticipated show set in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth will air on Fridays this fall. The first two episodes drop on September 2, 2022, ...

Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at [Hey Alma](https://www.heyalma.com/), a Jewish culture site. EDT Follow her @emburack on [Twitter ](https://twitter.com/emburack)and The show is the most expensive television show ever made. Set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R.

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Image courtesy of "WTOP"

'Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' star travels from Silver ... (WTOP)

Actress Cynthia Addai-Robinson told WTOP that she's gone from playing Annie at Montgomery Blair High School's production of 'Annie' to a queen in “The Lord ...

“In the past, we’ve seen a lot of The Fellowship in a male-heavy way. “For younger viewers, this is their first time getting to see a story from Tolkien’s imagination,” she said. “You don’t need prior knowledge to be able to go along this ride.”

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Image courtesy of "Variety"

'Rings of Power': A Spoiler-Free Guide to Amazon's 'Lord of the ... (Variety)

Tolkien's high-fantasy world. Before you read our review of those two episodes, which premiere Friday, September 2, avail yourself of this spoiler-free guide to ...

There are six of them: “Annals of the Kings and Rulers,” “The Tale of Years,” “Family Trees,” “Calendars,” “Writing and Spelling,” and “Languages and Peoples of the Third Age” and “On Translation” (these last two form one appendix). Shore handled the theme music for “The Rings of Power,” while “The Rings of Power” isn’t a direct adaptation of any one book the way Jackson’s two trilogies were. Peter Jackson’s trilogy was set during the Third Age of Middle-earth, whereas “The Rings of Power” takes place in the Second Age — a difference that accounts for thousands of years. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men — who above all else, desire power.” But they were all of them deceived, you’ll surely recall, for another ring was made as well — the One Ring to Rule Them All. Five years after it was announced that Amazon would bring “The Lord of the Rings” to television, “The Rings of Power” is finally here.

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Early Rings Of Power reactions laud production value and vast world (The A.V. Club)

The Prime Video series, reportedly the most expensive of all time, had the first leg of its premiere rollout last night.

As fan @ [@Sarenity93](https://twitter.com/Sarenity93) puts it simply: “If you love LOTR and/or fantasy, it’s a must watch.” The Rings Of Power is a go big or go home series if ever one existed, and that’s a fact that’s drawn equal amounts of respect and anxiety. [@acpovcrew](https://twitter.com/acpovcrew) urges fans to go in without qualms about the “incredible” series, and just let it speak for itself. [@cadecalrayn](https://twitter.com/cadecalrayn), the series is “visually stunning” and immediately merits a rewatch. Of course, it’s impossible to talk about the enormous scale of The Rings Of Power premiere without mentioning another small-budget, indie series that’s been getting some buzz: HBO’s Game Of Thrones prequel House Of The Dragon. [Save $150Galaxy Z Fold4](https://events.release.narrativ.com/api/v0/client_redirect/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.samsung.com%2Fus%2Fsmartphones%2Fgalaxy-z-fold4%2Fbuy%2F%3FmodelCode%3DSM-F936UZEAXAA%26nrtv_cid%3D.nrtv_plchldr.%26cid%3Dopmc-ecomm-nrtiv-mob-042720-142014-theinventory-12497918%26utm_source%3Dtheinventory%26utm_medium%3Dnarrativ%26utm_campaign%3D12497918%26utm_content%3Dmob%26nrtv_as_src%3D1%26offerCID%3Dreserve%26source%3Dnarrativ&a=1782524447985141847&uuid=487f3a13-58da-4f51-b4e1-af644198317f&uid_bam=1741179819279353350&ar=1782651785371609546)

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How to Watch 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Tonight (Collider.com)

The highly-anticipated live-action series set in the fantasy world created by J.R.R. Tolkien serves as a prequel to Peter Jackson's beloved film trilogy and ...

ET. Check out the trailer and official synopsis for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power below: Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and one of the greatest villains that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres exclusively on Prime Video with two episodes today, September 1, at 9 p.m. Set in the Second Age of Middle-Earth, The Rings of Power explores the past of some key characters of Jackson’s trilogy, including Elrond (Robert Aramayo), Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), and Isildur (Maxim Baldry). [The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power](https://collider.com/tag/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power/) is finally getting released today, September 1, with two episodes.

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Image courtesy of "Variety"

'Rings of Power' Used 20 VFX Studios, Nearly 10000 VFX Shots to ... (Variety)

'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' VFX sequences used 1500 visual effect artists and 20 studios, and generated over 9500 VFX shots to recapture ...

What made “Rings of Power” unique was “we found a way that all assets could be shared and they all talked to each other. The Sundering Seas sequence took weeks to put together, with a special focus on making the waves look terrifying and violently strong. Their goal wasn’t about who could do the job, it was ensuring everyone could come together and work cohesively to deliver the spectacle that was required of it. “Rings of Power,” streaming on Prime Video, is set thousands of years before the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, in the Second Age of Middle-earth. As for finding the right VFX studios, he compares it to a casting audition. It is finished to a theatrical resolution.”

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Lord of the Rings maps to navigate The Rings of Power's Middle-earth (Polygon)

A set of zooming J.R.R. Tolkien maps will help you understand where locations in LOTR: The Rings of Power are in the Second Age, and how that fits into the ...

Tolkien](https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings/22550950/sam-frodo-queer-romance-lord-of-the-rings-tolkien-quotes) didn’t just love maps — he ascribed the entire world-building success of [The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings](https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings/22550950/sam-frodo-queer-romance-lord-of-the-rings-tolkien-quotes) to his cartographical exercises. In Rings of Power, the camera swoops over sections of this map like an Indiana Jones movie might. A few key locations emerge in the opening two episodes of Rings of Power, including Forodwaith, where Galadriel is hunting down clues of an lingering evil; Rhovanion, home to the hobbit-like harfoots; and the Eregion region, where one can find the dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dûm tucked away underneath a mountain range. It’s such a thrill to see the dang map on screen that I was left wanting to see the full thing. And it’s no surprise that the new Amazon series [The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power](https://www.polygon.com/23329258/lord-rings-power-review-episode-release) honors Tolkien’s achievement in rendering Middle-earth in map form. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is an exception to a point; as the first two episodes jump around Middle-earth to introduce us to new elves, dwarves, humans, harfoots, and others, the action occasionally cuts away to the same designs Tolkien drew from as he pieced together Frodo’s story.

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Image courtesy of "The New York Times"

What Critics Are Saying About 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of ... (The New York Times)

James Poniewozik, The New York Times's chief television critic, writes that in the early going, the series “does not reinvent the ring.” It does, however, “add ...

The critic Nick Schager admires how the show incorporates beloved characters — particularly Galadriel (“the soul of “The Rings of Power”) — while also establishing stunning new kingdoms. (“Its emotional core, though simplistic, is just as big and openhearted.”) The brute force of its size also raises some existential questions: “At what point is a television show so big and so uninterested in being TV-shaped that it essentially makes it another species?” “These pastoral scenes manage to capture the magic of the late-80s BBC version of ‘The Chronicles of Narnia.’” And despite the enormous computer-generated expenditures in evidence, Pulliam-Moore most appreciates practical effects like the hide-y holes at the Harfoot encampment, which provide “some of the series’ most truly magical moments.” Despite the promise of an “awfully big adventure,” he thinks one of the best parts of the show is something — or someone — small: the proto-hobbits known as the Harfoots. The critic Robert Lloyd thinks the series fits into a gray middle area, “neither a disaster nor a triumph,” adding that he feels that casting actors of color and foregrounding female characters, particularly Galadriel (played by Morfydd Clark), benefit the show. Variety’s chief TV critic, Caroline Framke, sees beauty in how the series balances so many disparate characters and story lines, like spinning plates: “When one threatens to come crashing down, the show can simply move on to the next until it’s ready to pick up where it left off.” The steadiest of those plates, though, remains Galadriel. karaoke.” For now, he frets about finding laughs where there aren’t supposed to be any — in the maps (“more funny than informative”), the special effects (almost “Monty Python”) and the plotting. “Look for inflammatory statements in ALL CAPs and words like ‘woke,’ ‘SJW,’ and ‘normies’ used in the pejorative sense,” she writes. If viewers are disappointed by the Amazon series, Drout predicts, it will because it lacks the “literary and moral depth” of Tolkien’s world. The show “needs more politics and personality and nonmagical conflict,” Douthat writes. More important, it manages, eventually and occasionally, to create its own swashbuckling, storytelling magic.” Some of those magic sparks come in the form of a “star-man,” who travels to Middle-earth via a meteor, and a nuanced portrayal of Galadriel: “A troubled, obsessed Carrie Mathison-like Galadriel may not be purely Tolkien,” Poniewozik writes.

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How to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power online ... (GamesRadar+)

Stream with a VPN. One of the most hotly anticipated, and also most expensive TV shows of all time is finally hitting screens, with Amazon's big budget ...

Here you can shop as normal and once you set your location, visit the service you're interested in and sign up as normal or log in, and start watching. Here's our guide on how to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power online from anywhere. Select a server located back in your home country and you'll be in and away. There are plenty of options, but we'd point you in the direction of ExpressVPN. 2: Connect to an appropriate server. The show will be available to stream in a whopping 195 different countries overall. There's even an offer on right now where you can A VPN gets around geo-restrictions allowing you to access BBC iPlayer from anywhere as if you were in the UK. Tolkien's beloved fantasy novels, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power finally arriving on Prime Video. Try it for 30 days and get your money back if you're not happy. [Amazon Prime Video](https://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?tsid=8426&GR_URL=https%3A%2F%2Famazon.com%2Famazonprime%2F%3Ftag%3Dhawk-future-20%26ascsubtag%3Dgrd-gb-1200569101309487900-20) (opens in new tab). [Amazon Prime Video](https://target.georiot.com/Proxy.ashx?tsid=8426&GR_URL=https%3A%2F%2Famazon.com%2Famazonprime%2F%3Ftag%3Dhawk-future-20%26ascsubtag%3Dgrd-gb-7516108925002817000-20) (opens in new tab) subscription.

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What The Lord Of The Rings' Morfydd Clark Already Knows About ... (Cinema Blend)

Amazon Prime Video already confirmed multiple seasons of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. But how much information does the new cast have about ...

[Reviews for the new program](https://www.cinemablend.com/streaming-news/first-reactions-are-here-for-the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-see-what-people-are-saying-about-the-amazon-prime-series) have been strong, with even die hard creators like The Sandman’s [Neil Gaiman giving the show his seal of approval](https://www.cinemablend.com/streaming-news/neil-gaiman-has-seen-some-of-new-lotr-series-rings-of-power-shares-seal-of-approval-with-silmarillion-oriented-comment). In the early going of this show, her mission is to continue a quest started by her brother, and to pound the warning drums that a massive evil is heading to Middle-earth. [air five complete seasons of the show](https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2485140/how-lord-of-the-rings-season-2-renewal-at-amazon-will-help-the-show-be-more-like-the-films), giving the bulk of the cast job security. Morfydd Clark’s courageous Galadriel is one of those characters who we will catch up with in the debut episode of the new series, and one who is going to be very important as the saga rolls on. The sprawling epic takes viewers through numerous lands and introduces waves of new (and familiar) characters, though we are seeing them in early stages compared to when we caught up with them in the Peter Jackson trilogy films. [Amazon Prime Video program](https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2570421/the-best-amazon-prime-original-shows-to-binge-watch-now) The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power makes its debut on the streaming service.

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'The Rings of Power' Review: A Familiar, Epic Middle-Earth Adventure (CNET)

Among the many familiar elements in the Prime Video series coming Sept. 2 is the dwarf stronghold of Khazad-dûm. If you've watched Peter Jackson's classic Lord ...

The Rings of Power takes place in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before Frodo and friends ever thought about leaving the Shire. This is the challenge The Rings of Power faces. Instead, these elements do a lot of heavy lifting in settling the viewer into this complex story. The first two episodes alone serve up a feast of sweeping shots over snowy mountains, open plains and painfully gorgeous elven architecture. Judging from screeners of the first two episodes provided by Prime Video, The Rings of Power makes a steady return to Middle-earth, offering all the things that endeared the originals to so many of us those many years ago: the breathtaking vistas, the latex prosthetics and even the occasional bouts of ponderous dialogue delivered to some point on the horizon. If you've watched Peter Jackson's classic Lord of the Rings film trilogy, you've visited Khazad-dûm as a terrifying tomb littered with skeletons, festooned with cobwebs and policed by a particularly nasty fire demon.

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The Casual LOTR Fan's Guide to The Rings of Power (Slate Magazine)

Is Elrond not an elf? Is this show related to the movies? Was that Gandalf? And more.

Chiefly, we learn that he can use some kind of magic (he whispers to the fireflies to command them, the same way Gandalf whispers to the moth in Fellowship of the Ring), and it seems to be dark (the fireflies die)—or maybe it just appears that way because he’s lost and frightened. We do learn a tiny bit more about him in The Rings of Power’s second episode, which contains all the makings of a classic At this point in the timeline, Elrond has not yet established Rivendell, the elegant Elven stronghold where the Fellowship of the Ring is formed, so it may simply be that he has no lands to rule. Eventually, Tolkien goes on to explain, the three groups migrated and mixed, so the distinctions between Hobbits are no longer as clear by the time of The Fellowship of the Ring. (You might remember some of this from the prologue to the movie version of The Fellowship of the Ring, which itself is narrated by Galadriel.) The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless; their hands and feet neat and nimble; and they preferred highlands and hillsides. You may recall that Frodo and his fellows were allowed to sail there at the end of The original Lord of the Rings trilogy takes place in a period of Middle-earth’s history known as the Third Age. During the Second Age, when this show takes place, he and the other wizards are usually thought to still be in the west, far from the events of the show, where he goes by the name Olórin. In Tolkien’s writings, Gandalf has been alive since the beginning of time, but he doesn’t arrive in the Middle-earth till later, in the Third Age. The Rings of Power takes place much earlier, in the Second Age. You can’t really blame them, then, for not splurging on the rights to Tolkien’s other books, many of which deal with the history of Middle Earth in greater depth.

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How Galadriel Became One of <i>Lord of the Rings'</i> Most ... (TIME)

Tolkien frequently changed his mind about the the character. The Rings of Power showrunners and actor Morfydd Clark talk about their version.

She has been interpreted and reinterpreted and will continue to bet the subject of fascination: “I’m not the first, and I’m sure I won’t be the last Galadriel.” “There’s four versions of how Galadriel met a certain person, and we don’t have the rights to any of them, but we have to be aware of them,” says McKay. “Having that level of self-knowledge is extraordinary and speaks to what journey did she go on that she knows herself that well and can make the right choice? The showrunners wanted to focus on that moment where Galdriel rejects the ring and figure out how she grew into that character. “So the idea of Galadriel as a warrior is built into Though she appeared in the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien also wrote extensively about the powerful elf in the appendices to that work, his notes, and various other texts, often contradicting himself in the process. But in various other works, Tolkien writes about Galadriel as a warrior, which clearly influenced her portray in Rings of Power. This means Galadriel will undergo millennia of growth and experience before she becomes the version of the character we’re familiar with from that seminal text. But the immortal and powerful elf Galadriel is perhaps the closest we come to a hero in the series. The sprawling Lord of the Rings prequel, The Rings of Power, doesn’t have a main character. Payne and Patrick McKay about how they created a new version of one of Tolkien’s most iconic characters. In Jackson’s trilogy, Cate Blanchett plays an older version of Galadriel who serves as more as a stateswoman.

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'Rings of Power' premiere recap: What Galadriel's 'huge sacrifice ... (USA TODAY)

Spoiler alert! The following contains important plot points from the first two episodes of Amazon's "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power," now ...

They run to the place where it landed, where they discover a giant man (Daniel Weyman) lying in a fiery crater. Elsewhere, Elrond travels to the dwarf kingdom of Khazad-dûm to make amends with Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur) and partake in a glorious feast with Durin's wife, Princess Disa (Sophia Nomvete). Along the way, she meets a man named Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), who's stranded on a raft. "She has a difficult conversation with Elrond (Robert Aramayo) where she says, 'If I go to Valinor right now, it would be heaven. "She feels that's a duty of hers," Clark says. Although she and her warriors come up short, the elven high king Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) rewards them for their efforts by sending them to Valinor, otherwise known as the Undying Lands or Grey Havens.

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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power recap episodes one and ... (The Guardian)

Amazon's hugely anticipated take on Tolkien finally arrives – and it's so packed with scale and ambition it's only matched by Marvel's biggest budget ...

The first episode took a while to get going, but then there is a gigantic world to establish. That said, the way he spoke to the fireflies (before they all dropped dead) was very reminiscent of [Gandalf, on top of the Orthanc, speaking to the moth](https://youtu.be/kNnvcs-sQB8?t=50) in The Fellowship of the Ring. But only Elrond was allowed in to the kingdom and, after losing to Prince Durin (Owain Arthur) in a rock-smashing contest, he had some bridges to rebuild with his old friend. I enjoyed the interplay between Prince Durin and his wife, Disa (Sophia Nomvete), particularly as she undermined him when he was trying to give Elrond the cold shoulder. It was immediately obvious she didn’t want to go, and by the time we reached the end of the second episode, she had jumped ship, to be rescued by Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), a mysterious, morally ambivalent character, another created specifically for this series. In the Southlands, we met Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and other elven warriors who have been watching over the region for signs of evil since the end of the conflict with Morgoth. First thought is a younger version of Gandalf, although I think the hair and beard are red herrings – plus Gandalf, Saruman and the rest of the Istari weren’t sent to Middle-earth until some way into the Third Age, thousands of years after the events of this series. It was all pretty superficial in the first episode, and it wasn’t until the aftermath of the falling object from the sky that we learned more about Poppy and Nori’s characters. Let’s just say that from the first frame to the last, The Rings of Power looks quite Harfoots are a type of hobbit – along with the stoor and fallohide – not written about a great deal by JRR Tolkien. Presumably: “Pay attention to this bit about sinking, it’s going to come in handy at the end of the episode when you get cold feet about being on that boat.” It has been a big couple of weeks for fantasy TV – you may have noticed a certain other show began a few weeks ago – but we’re here to celebrate, not make constant comparisons with House of the Dragon, so I’m going to keep those to an absolute minimum – plus my colleague

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The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Series-Premiere Recap ... (Vulture)

The first episode of Prime Video's 'LOTR' series takes us to the Second Age of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, many of years before the Fellowship.

They’re sure to find something of note in the ruins, but that will have to wait. For her reward, she is allowed to return to the Undying Lands of Valinor, away from Middle-earth and all its troubles. Arondir returns to Bronwyn, who we soon learn is a single mom raising Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), a boy whose father’s identity remains a mystery (and who has to put up with all kinds of innuendo about his mom possibly being involved with a “pointy”). And thanks to the rest of the appendixes and The Silmarillion, the massive collection of Tolkienana that doubles as a history of Middle-earth, we know the highlights of what happens in between. When Morgoth comes to Valinor, Galadriel transforms into a warrior, taking the fight across the sea to Middle-earth for centuries of epic battles involving orcs, dragons, humans, and dwarfs that ends in victory for the side of good but leaves the continent in ruins and still vulnerable to the attacks of Morgoth’s disciple Sauron and his minions. “We Harfoots are free from the worries of the wide world,” she is told by her mother, Marigold (Sara Zwangobani). It’s here that The Rings of Power leaves Galadriel’s side for the first time. The Rings of Power smartly does a bit of standing on the shoulders of giants. (Maybe Ents?) Though Jackson is not involved in the series, its Middle-earth, Middle-earth’s inhabitants, and the series’ CGI effects all owe a debt to his films, which seems like the right choice. That’s not to say that The Rings of Power doesn’t relay the exposition with a tremendous amount of flair. Here’s how Tolkien sums up this era in one of the appendixes to The Lord of the Rings: “The Second Age ended with the first overthrow of Sauron, servant of Morgoth, and the taking of the One Ring.” So — oops, belated spoiler warning — we know how this story will eventually end. We’re over 20 years out from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the film in which Peter Jackson & Co.

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Prime Video's Rings of Power Is Based on Unexplored Tolkien Lord ... (menshealth.com)

The movies are an example of how faithful adaptations of literature can keep devoted fans of an almost 70-year-old book series glued to the silver screen, and ...

For those looking to scour Tolkien’s published texts for the prequel show’s premise, here’s what Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is based on. If you want to read the story of what goes on in the new Prime Video show, you’re out of luck. Prepare yourself if you’re a Tolkien fan—you’ll be in uncharted territory. “People have heard about it in montages and flashes, but these are massive untold stories.” Both the beloved series and movies have longevity because of their top quality, even all these years later. The movies are an example of how faithful adaptations of literature can keep devoted fans of an almost 70-year-old book series glued to the silver screen, and even gain some new fans along the way.

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Why Galadriel jumps in The Rings of Power episode 1's ending ... (Polygon)

Why does Galadriel leap off the boat at the end of the first episode of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime Video?

The difficulty of that decision comes from the longing for the Undying Lands in the west that all elves feel to at least some extent, even characters like Legolas and Elrond. It’s hard to think of anything worse than being denied your destined place in heaven — except for being the only person in heaven who deeply longs to leave. “It’s a yearning and longing for a place that you can never return to, almost a place that you might not even have experienced. They were banned from returning to Valinor forever, but also cursed to grow quickly weary of the wider world and yearn for a home they could never see again. Most elves are then given new bodies for their spirits to inhabit and join all the other elves living in Valinor. And if you just want to generally refer to all of that, you can call it the Undying Lands or just the West with a capital W. The gods advised them not to, but they did it anyway, and in the process they got into a fight over boats that escalated into the first time elves had ever killed other elves. This doesn’t necessarily contradict with Tolkien either; Galadriel did have a brother, Finrod, who was captured by Sauron and died in the dark lord’s dungeons in single, unarmed combat with a werewolf, whom he also killed. If you want to talk about the nation of elves and gods there, it’s Valinor. The Noldor have all actually been to Valinor and lived centuries among its splendor — It may be that the show has more explanation up its sleeve, especially as it looks like Galadriel will be spending a bunch of time with human characters next — they’ll probably have questions about how she wound up in the middle of the ocean. [great war isn’t over with Sauron still at large](https://www.polygon.com/e/23094758) against her desire to return home to the Undying Lands across the sea.

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'The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power' Premiere Recap ... (Deadline)

However, that peace doesn't last long. When Morgoth engulfs Valinor in darkness, the elves fight back. After hundreds of years of war, Morgoth is deleted but ...

[‘The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power’ Character Posters: 22 Stars Of Amazon’s Epic Fantasy Series](https://deadline.com/gallery/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-character-posters-photo-gallery/) [‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Season 1 Photo Gallery (Spoilers)](https://deadline.com/gallery/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-season-1-photo-gallery-spoilers/) However, because nothing can stay good in a world leading up to the re-emergence of Sauron, a shooting star crashes outside the Harfoots’ camp, revealing The Stranger (Daniel Weyman). And in Bronwyn’s home village, there are signs of danger when her son Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin), reveals a kilt engraved with Sauron’s symbol. In the Southlands, a land of men, the elves who were watching over them (protecting them from Morgoth ad the Orcs) are finally allowed to return home, forcing Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) to say goodbye to Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), a human healer for whom he has feelings despite their two species not necessarily seeing eye to eye. This younger Galadriel is from the start quite different from the character played by Cate Blanchett in Peter Jackson’s movies.

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'The Rings of Power': All the Tolkien Terminology Explained (CNET)

There's a reason folks who wax lyrical about the nitty gritty of JRR Tolkien's works are often referred to as scholars. Watching The Lord of the Rings and ...

Unlike the scattered, separated version of the Dwarves we see in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, we're going to see Dwarves in their prime throughout The Rings of Power. As Amazon was unable to secure the rights to use The Silmarillion to craft the stories in The Rings of Power, the actual source material being used will instead be the Appendices in The Lord of The Rings. Most folks only know the kingdom of the Dwarves as a tomb and home to an angry Balrog who loses a fight with Gandalf. The Men of Númenor aren't quite like the men of the rest of Middle-Earth. That means their evolution happens much faster than the other races of Middle-earth, and what we will see in The Rings of Power are one of the ancestors of Third Age Hobbits, known in this time as Harfoots. The ships Bilbo, Frodo and other board at the end of the movie are traveling back to Valinor. The way Elves and other creatures of Valinor lived while there is wildly different from the way they live in Middle-earth. The Elves you have seen across all of Tolkien's movies -- and soon this TV series -- live in Middle-earth, but they are not from Middle-earth. The Rings of Power takes place before what you've seen in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but not like 10 years back like you might see in lots of other prequel stories. The Rings of Power takes place thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit, during a period of time referred to as the Second Age. Arondir was created as a new character out of necessity; the race he represents is mentioned several times across Tolkien's works but never given the same kind of attention as many of the other races in Middle-earth. Armed with whatever you remember from the last time you watched The Lord of the Rings and this quick terminology guide, you'll be prepared to enjoy this series without feeling terribly lost at these words you've never heard used in the movies before.

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Everything The Rings of Power revisits from the Lord of the Rings ... (Polygon)

Amazon's Lord of the Rings TV show premieres on Sept. 1 and provides a new look at Middle-earth, Sauron, Galadriel, and other iconic things audiences will ...

One of the best locations in The Rings of Power is also one of the worst in the Lord of the Rings movies: Moria. In both The Rings of Power and The Lord of the Rings, elves that wish to retire from the land of mortals can sail off to paradise in a very somber ceremony. [a fictional history of Middle-earth](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Orcs#Years_of_the_Trees), a race of exclusively evil people that exist solely to give the bad guys an army. Early on in The Rings of Power, we do get a glimpse of LOTR’s big bad as he appears in those movies, but he almost certainly will take on a different and surprising form in The Rings of Power. So they brought in the harfoots, a nomadic group of little folk who stay out of sight but still get into trouble. One thing that appears to have changed very little between then and now in Middle-earth is its orc problem. This makes it all the more sad to see him as such a chill elf lad in The Rings of Power — he’s going to see some stuff that makes him a significantly less fun person. He’s one of the few links between every screen adaptation of Tolkien’s work, as Elrond was there for it all. For now, the show is taking us [mostly someplace new](https://www.polygon.com/23331136/lord-of-the-rings-middle-earth-map-rings-of-power). [sprawling cast](https://www.polygon.com/23032806/lotr-rings-power-release-date-cast-trailer). This lets fans participate on another level entirely, making every new tidbit that the show reveals a puzzle in and of itself, a pocket mystery where we already know the end, but not the “how” or “why.” [isn’t overly familiar yet](https://www.polygon.com/23329258/lord-rings-power-review-episode-release).

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Rings of Power's Stranger: If meteor beard guy isn't Gandalf, who is ... (Polygon)

Amazon's Lord of the Rings prequel Rings of Power introduces a mysterious stranger in a meteor hanging out with hobbits. But while it might seem like ...

It is, however, one of the only mentions of an actual meteor in Tolkien, and Tilion is a Maiar, making McKay and Payne’s status as lore experts and comments about the Maiar as a “class” interesting, at the very least. Personally, I am into the idea of it being Glorfindel, who dies fighting a Balrog in the First Age and is brought back as an emissary of the Valar in S.A. The main reason this would be cool is because Glorfindel was done dirty in Jackson’s trilogy, and absolutely deserves to be in The Rings of Power despite currently not being listed in the cast. In the books, Gandalf speaks to his own nakedness preceding his resurrection as Gandalf the White, noting, “Darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell. Sauron’s orcs are gathering strength, which is indicative of the secret construction of Barad-dur (depicted in [Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy](https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings/22858403/lord-of-the-rings-movie-history-what-if) as the tower [with Sauron’s eye](https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings/22724426/lord-of-the-rings-sauron-eye-explained)) from around S.A. With all of this being said, it makes sense for the Stranger to be a new character, of which we already have a few. It’s not the cleverest theory — Galadriel is the only person in Eregion to distrust Annatar in the books, so having her be the one who is betrayed in the show would be a disservice to her character. And the mystery and the journey of it is all of the fun, I would say. And in terms of the Stranger’s appearance as an old man… But again, the best course of action here is to argue why it probably isn’t Sauron and definitely isn’t Gandalf. Meteor Man could therefore be one of many people — that’s not to mention the possibility he could also be a totally original character. [The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power](https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings) has been a subject of mass debate.

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'Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power': A cheat's guide to Middle-earth ... (Interaksyon)

For a newcomer to the wonderful world of Middle-earth, the universe created by the British author and academic J.R.R. Tolkien can seem as large and.

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Who is the mystery man in The Rings Of Power premiere? (The A.V. Club)

The Stranger made an impact with his crash landing in episode one and, though we still don't know his identity, his demeanor seems awfully familiar.

So, it’s entirely possible that the showrunners opted to move up Gandalf’s arrival in Middle-earth, to tie his story more closely with that of the Rings of Power themselves and give him a greater sense of awareness that Sauron’s presence and influence lingers. For it is said indeed that being embodied the Istari [wizards] had need to learn much anew by slow experience, and though they knew whence they came the memory of the Blessed Realm was to them a vision from afar off, for which (so long as they remained true to their mission) they yearned exceedingly. The Rings Of Power is set firmly in the Second Age, which would suggest that Gandalf’s arrival is off by more than a millennium. Tolkien’s own limited writings on the origins of the wizard suggest that none of them set foot on the continent until 1,000 years into the Third Age, when the rising threat of Sauron grew too great to ignore, and the Valar decided the peoples of Middle-earth needed some extra help. It’s there, on the verge of more discovery, that we leave Nori, Poppy, and The Stranger at the end of episode 2, as our mystery man drapes himself in ragged fabrics and looks for answers after his arrival in Middle-earth. Tolkien’s own writing about the history of his fictional world, The Rings Of Power nevertheless proved right away that it’s as interested in blazing its own trail as it is in paying homage to its creator, introducing us to myriad new characters and situations that will all play a role in Amazon’s epic, 50-episode grand plan.

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Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – 5 theories on who the ... (British GQ)

The same cannot be said for the strange bearded man who came shooting out of the sky and crash-landed a few hundred metres from the harfoots' latest sticking ...

From what we learn in the Fellowship of the Ring, Saruman was somewhat of a good guy until he became a Sauron acolyte in the Third Age. Before Gandalf was wrangling hobbits, he was known as Olórin, and during that time he was a sort of spirit that lived in Valinor (the heavenly elf kingdom across the sea), watching over the Elves. Sauron's whereabouts are unknown, and we're not really all that sure what he looks like under all that armour (or as a big eye flame). So, maybe Olórin got himself into a bit of trouble in some far-flung part of the globe, and wound up getting hoofed out by some sort of mythical beast. With the aid of, presumably, some sort of momentary superhuman strength (and her pal Poppy), she sticks him in her cart, drags him to a nearby field and keeps him hidden away, trying to nurse him back to good health like a lost cat. Our initial assumptions are that the harfoots will figure quite prominently in whatever the overarching story of the series turns out to be, as the hobbits did in the original trilogy.

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Is THE RINGS OF POWER's 'Stranger' a Character We've Met Before? (Nerdist)

The Rings of Power's Stranger doesn't just have a lot in common with wizards, he might actually be The Lord of the Rings' Gandalf.

The Valar sent he Stranger to Middle-earth. And like Gandalf, Sauron is one of the Maiar. Gandalf the Grey died in The Fellowship of the Ring. “There I lay staring upward” from a mountaintop he said, “While the stars wheeled over, and each day was as long as a life-age of the earth.” Like the Stranger, Gandalf looked to the stars for guidance. This powerful being sent by the Valar—who came from the sky, is impervious to fire, and has powers of a wizard—really loves the color grey. And what was the significance of the constellation he highlighted with fireflies? So if he ever came to Middle-earth previously they might not have even known the shapeshifter’s real identity and purpose. So is the Stranger a wizard? By the start of the Third Age, the Valar had separated Aman from the physical world. The Valar eventually relented and came to Middle-earth to defeated Morgoth for good. He might also be the first incarnation of a great hero [The Lord of the Rings](https://www.theonering.com/) fans know and love. That’s where Valinor sits, the realm to which Galadriel refused to return at the end of episode one.

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The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power: who is The Stranger ... (NationalWorld)

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We are going to learn and learn and learn, and finding out what exactly is going on might not be so quick” In J.R.R. Weyman said: “They were pretty clear at the beginning that what they were bringing me was a character who had, at his core, a really deep and primal purpose. Once I began to tap into that, and feel that deep in the core, then other things flowed out of that.” One of the most popular theories about who the Stranger could be is Sauron - the main bad guy from the Lord of the Rings films. The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power: who is The Stranger?

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'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Decoded: Episodes I and II (Vanity Fair)

Fire that doesn't burn. Sunlight and moonlight trees. A “Stranger” who falls from the sky. Fëanor's hammer. What does it all mean?

For the casual viewer, you might think of this as Tolkien’s World War I, except it lasted for centuries. It’s also a conflict that found the human beings of the Southland on the wrong side, joining with the forces of evil. In Tolkien’s telling, the remains of Laurelin become the sun and Telperion becomes the moon. They are the sources of the light. Melkor](https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Melkor), the demonic presence who first ravages Middle-earth and has Sauron—the glowing eye and the main villain of The Lord of the Rings novels—as his apprentice. Tolkien’s novels came to control the many other rings that gave Sauron near-limitless control of Middle-earth.

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