“This could be the beginning of a new era.”
And it is! The first full-length trailer for The Rings of Power, the new Prime Video spinoff series of The Lord of the Rings, has arrived.
“There was a time when the world was so young,” a new character narrates in the beginning of the trailer. “There had not yet been a sunrise. But even then, there was light.”
While everyone in the world has land to protect—elves have their forests, men have fields of grain, dwarves have mines—the trailer proclaims that Harfoots have a different kind of property to keep an eye on. Harfoots must stay alert for one another as an unknown enemy lurks in the shadows.
The epic will take place thousands of years before the events of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies, taking fans back to a time before the great kingdoms had arisen. Though there is peace in the land, clearly, a dark shadow lingers over the fantastical world, threatening to wreak havoc on the serenity at any time.
The Rings of Power boasts an immeasurable amount of beauty in its worlds, just like its predecessors. At certain times, the trailer shows off grand cities stacked on a hill above the clear blue ocean; at others, we’re taken into the mossy coves of the forest. Dwarves march across grand bridges. One scene even looks like it was taken straight out of Vecna’s evil lair in Stranger Things.
That’s probably because Prime Video earned just a little allowance—only $465 million—to craft these far off lands. The series made history as the most expensive television series ever produced with the massive budget, and this first trailer seems to justify why it was so expensive. But will people actually watch? If you’re Amazon, and you’re worth over $1 trillion, perhaps it doesn’t even matter.
The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power will premiere on Prime Video on September 2.
