According to GQ:
Amazon is betting big on Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The Lord of the Rings prequel series, which is rumored to have cost over $1 billion, is the streamer’s foray into providing its service with a Game of Thrones-style fantasy epic. Outside of a brief Super Bowl spot, a few teaser posters, and some cover stories, details on the show were few and far between—until today, when Amazon unveiled an extensive trailer for Rings of Power. The sneak peek arrives one week before the show holds its Comic-Con panel next week, where we’ll undoubtedly learn even more about the series, which hits Prime Video on September 2.
But for now, the trailer reveals a good bit about just exactly when and where the show will take place within the history of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic saga. To help make sense of it all, let’s break down the footage to give you context on what you may have missed. (Mild spoilers from Tolkien’s The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings book and film series do follow, so skip if you want to enter the show completely cold.)
The two giant trees seen in this screencap are Telperion and Laurelin, aka the Two Trees of Valinor. You may remember Valinor by another name: the Undying Lands, which is where Frodo sails off to with Gandalf, Bilbo, Galadriel, and Elrond at the end of Return of the King, and is basically Tolkien’s version of the Garden of Eden. Everything is beautiful and perfect…until it’s not.
A voiceover from Galadriel (Morfydd Clark, in Cate Blanchett’s old role) provides more context: Her mention that “there had not yet been a sunrise” indicates we’ll see some of Middle Earth’s First Age, as detailed in The Silmarillion. There was no sun in the initial half of the First Age, as it wasn’t created until the second half by a Middle-Earth god known as the Valar. Perhaps the series will begin with a Fellowship of the Ring-style prologue covering that First Age, establishing where we are when events in the Second Age begin? For reference: The events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit take place during Middle Earth’s Third Age.
