48/16

cast and more actors who totally transformed for their roles

Tale

Epic drama set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. Amazon's original pitch for the television rights to J.R.R.

Amazon eventually obtained the rights under the conditions that the series be distinct from Peter Jackson's earlier adaptations, and that they couldn't contradict anything that Tolkien had previously written

Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' novels were to make the series a new adaptation of the latter (effectively a retelling of Gospodar Prstenova: Prstenova Družina (2001), Gospodar Prstenova: Dvije Kule (2002) and Gospodar Prstenova: Povratak Kralja (2003)), but the Tolkien estate rejected this proposal. Early ideas that were proposed included prequel stories featuring characters such as Aragorn, Gimli and Gandalf, but the showrunners preferred to focus on important untold events from the novels' lore rather than simple side stories, so they settled with the studio that the series would take place during the books' Second Age. Since they didn't have the rights to Tolkien's 'The Silmarillion', 'Unfinished Tales' and 'The History of Middle-earth' (which explores the First and Second Ages), they checked The Lord of the Rings novels and appendices for passages about and references to the Second Age that they could set their story in.

Tolkien's "The Silmarillion"

They consulted with the estate and several Tolkien lore experts (including grandson and novelist Simon Tolkien) about the inclusion of new characters and plot elements. The opening titles are a musical sequence of matter forming various shapes, based on the "Music of the Ainur" creation myth from J.R.R. Featured in The Critical Drinker: The Rings of Power - War For A Fandom (2022).

I didn't see anything like that

We all know liberties were taken with this series so my review is not based on faithfulness to the source material.A lot of the marketing for this show led people to fear it would be woke. I wasn't rolling my eyes or cringing at any virtue signaling.The pace is a little rough in parts but since it's the beginning of the series I almost expect a little dawdling. There's a lot going on, things to be set up and introduced etc...The characters and the story are engaging though, the cinematography was well done, and the score seemed to fit...

so I'm honestly excited to see where this series goesDefinitely give this a shot and decide for yourself

in all of their most iconic roles from Morfydd Clark in Saint Maud to Benjamin Walker in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and more.