How good is Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series? Spoiler-free check of the first 2 episodes

There’s no denying it: The launch of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was accompanied by as much fear as anticipation. What if Amazon’s billion-dollar fantasy epic ended up being a flop? What if it was more like the Hobbit movies than the Lord of the Rings trilogy? That concern is now a thing of the past. Because skillfully the series pulls us back to Middle-earth.

Don’t worry, the Lord of the Rings series is nothing like its trailers

A journey to Middle-earth is by no means a guarantee of successful fantasy entertainment. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy taught us that epic fantasy relied not only on bombast and attention to detail, but also on haunting characters. His Hobbit movies forgot about that and switched effects over the “feeling” of a loved world. The concern was correspondingly high after Amazon’s series trailers offered many glossy pictures, but hardly any character insights. Luckily, the series is nothing like its trailers.

Watch the trailer for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series

light and darkgood and evil, are closely related in Tolkien’s world, which is also called Amazon’s series common thread picks up. Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) takes us into a world that has gone through a devastating war. Evil in the form of the terrible adversary Morgoth has been defeated.

Most Elves believe that they are finally at peace. Only Galadriel can’t ignore her gut feeling that a shadow lurks somewhere. A shadow named Sauron, who was once Morgoth’s worst servant. It is a menace that is slow to emerge in the series but secretly extends its dark arms to every region and race of Middle-earth.

The beginning of the first two episodes take your time and that’s a good thing. This leaves room to gently rediscover the many cultures and protagonists of the new Middle-earth (thousands of years before Frodo Baggins): the elves, the hobbit-like harfeet, the human southerners and the dwarves.

The Rings of Power: The Art of Big and Small Moments

However, the time for development should not be misunderstood as doing nothing: It is not long before Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series has the first (but by no means the last) epic moments unpacks. Visually captivating, fighting an ice troll or fleeing a sea monster (above and below water) provides a good dose of adrenaline. But The Rings of Power
understands from the start that size alone is not everything.

Anyone can take wooden beams and build four walls and a roof from them – and the house is done. But only those who carve flourishes into the support beams of this house and fill it with life can make it a home with real character. That’s what the Lord of the Rings series does with its successful world building. She presents New Zealand’s breathtaking landscapes and a gigantic underground dwarf city attention to detail opposite to. Be it the filigree embroidery on costumes, foreign wooden ladders with staggered steps, fantastic-creepy orc make-up or casual gestures like a sword jump aid in an elf fight.

That The Rings of Power that right level of Lord of the Rings film homage and originality find is a work of art in itself. Sauron’s armour, the buildings in the Elven capital of Lindon and insect communication may be reminiscent of Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth vision. But there are just as many exciting new facets to explore, from wooden armor to nomadic hide-and-seek. Connoisseurs of JRR Tolkien’s work will also get their money’s worth with small references. But fan background knowledge is never mandatory, but rather an inconspicuous decoration in the new Lord of the Rings house.

Getting a feel for a world, however, takes more than great costumes, sets, action, and effects. It needs believable characters.
Middle-earth is nothing without love for the characters. And The Rings of Power has them too. Luckily.

The heart of Middle-earth beats in the chests of the characters

If we hadn’t rooted for Aragorn, Frodo, Legolas and Eowyn, every mighty battle in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy would have been in vain. The same applies to the main characters of the series The Rings of Power. Despite the mass of 38 new Lord of the Rings stars, series creators John D. Payne and Patrick McKay succeed in capturing them within a very short time with real personalities to provide.

Instead of Middle-earth tokens intended only to advance the series in the fight against Sauron, the individuals blossom through character moments before our eyes Figures with corners and edges. An example: We get to know Elrond (Robert Aramayo) as an Elven politician in Lindon. He still has room for improvement in his career, but at the same time a self-confidence that could take him exactly there. His pride shines through when he silently joins in a speech he has written at the Hochkönig’s lecture.

That Characters best defined by their relationships is shown in The Rings of Power on Elrond in perfect form: As the herald of the Elven king Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker), his unexpected “transfer” to the side of the Elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) doesn’t suit him at first, but he makes the best of it . Beyond his ambitions, his sympathy with Galadriel’s doubts shows a softer side of his character. Only in the interaction with his “old friend”, the dwarf Prince Durin (Owain Arthur), does Elrond really snap in episode 2: He is an Elf with strengths and weaknesses. As befits a multi-faceted character.

The same can be observed in the rest of the Middle-earth staff: from the stubborn-sad Elven warrior Galadriel to the curious harfoot girl Nori (Markella Kavenagh) to the human healer Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), who is still burdened by the dark past of her ancestors , creates Amazon’s series little by little Protagonists to whom we can lay our hearts. The fact that ambivalent characters like the stranger who fell from the sky (Daniel Weyman) or the raft traveler Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) can still swing into both sides of good and evil increases the joy of puzzles.

Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series hits the right note

That The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power as Series planned for 5 seasons and is planned through to the end, we already feel it in the first episodes. The enormous Tolkien underpinning is there without overwhelming us with too much information at once. So it doesn’t matter that by the end of Episode 2 we haven’t even met all the characters (the Númenoreans are still missing, for example).

Amazon’s fantasy series is like its beguiling soundtrack* – epic without being lurid. It strikes the right tone of its own to stand out from other similar genre formats (like House of The Dragon or The Witcher). We can confidently banish memories of the Hobbit trilogy to the back of our minds after this strong new Lord of the Rings opener. The sails are inflated, the journey into the light has begun.

This series check is based on the first two episodes (of eight) of Season 1 of The Lord of the Rings: The Power Rings. The Amazon series will premiere on Prime Video on Friday, September 2, 2022 with a double episode, followed by one episode per week on Fridays.

Podcast: The Lord of the Rings Series Must Save Middle-earth

On September 2nd, the most expensive series of all time will start on Amazon Prime Video: The Lord of the Rings – The Rings of Power. In it we return to Middle-earth for the first time since Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films.

In this episode, Jenny and Esther discuss what the show needs to do to make the disappointing Hobbit films go away. But they also clarify a few important questions about the plot for those who still don’t have an overview after the trailers.

*The links to the Amazon offer are so-called affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, we will receive a commission.

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