The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

***The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power*** (formerly nicknamed **LOTRonPrime**) is a series produced by Amazon Studios, alongside HarperCollins, New Line Cinema, Middle-earth Enterprises, and the Tolkien Estate. It is a spin-off of J.R.R. Tolkien's lore of Middle-earth. The first season premiered in September, 2022.

Its plot covers a span of Middle-earth's history in the Second Age, long before the setting of *The Lord of the Rings* books and before, but apparently in continuity with, *The Lord of the Rings* and *The Hobbit* film trilogies. The series is a Machiavellian drama led by Morfydd Clark as a younger Galadriel with Robert Aramayo as Elrond, featuring the forging of the Great Rings, the Downfall of Númenor, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and numerous original story-lines. The initial two episodes, "A Shadow of the Past" and "Adrift", were released on September 2, 2022 on Prime Video.

The show's first season concluded filming in New Zealand in July 2021, with J.A. Bayona helming the two-part pilot episode out of a first season of eight episodes, to be followed by four more seasons and a possible additional, connected show. The first season's budget is around $650 million NZD.

## Plot

The show is projected to progress at least five seasons and some 50-hours of TV, and - possibly with a spinoff - over a period of eight to ten years; and, as of November 2019, the first two seasons have been greenlit. In January 2020, Amazon announced that the first season would consist of eight episodes. The Tolkien Estate will reportedly have veto-power "on strategy and on vision" and will maintain the "main shape of the Second Age".

### Premise

The plot will cover events of the Second Age. A preliminary interactive map, featured on the Amazon Prime Video site, pointed towards the show being set in the mid-Second Age, circa SA 1500-1701. However, characters from a much later period in the Second Age, such as Elendil and Isildur will also appear. The two periods will be condensed into a single timeline, to prevent jumps in time. Both periods do not focus on an adventure story, but rather Machiavellian drama.

The earlier of the two epochs is centered around the forging of the Rings of Power in Eregion, whereby Sauron (disguised as Annatar) convinces Celebrimbor and the Gwaith-i-Mírdain guild to forge Rings of Power, against the advice of Galadriel and Gil-galad: in some versions of the story, Annatar even convinces the conflicted Celebrimbor to lead a coup that ousts Galadriel. A leaked story synopsis also points in this direction, as well as towards concurrent events in other realms of Middle-earth, namely Moria, and Lindon: led by Gil-galad and Durin III, respectively, they are trying to maintain their foreign relations with Eregion as it falls under Annatar's influence, and then fending his forces off during the War of Sauron and the Elves. Many of these plot-lines will have to play-out in isolation before the war causes them to intersect, and as such as said to have separate units producing them.

However, the inclusion of Isildur and Elendil indicates the *Akallabêth*, set in the late Second Age, will be concurrently adapted, likely up to the events of the War of the Last Alliance and possibly the Disaster of the Gladden Fields.