The Journey Begins

Last week, I was invited to London by Prime Studios to join a handful of other Tolkien scholars and creatives for a sneak peek of their forthcoming series, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”.

For full disclosure, the costs of this trip were paid by Prime Studios and I was under the very clear impression that their top priority was to impress us at all costs. However, I’ve tried to keep a level head throughout the whole thing and my thoughts and opinions of this experience are all my own.

A New Fellowship

It was an incredible joy to meet so many other Tolkien scholars and creatives in person for the first time — podcasters I’ve listened to for years, authors I’ve learned so much from, friends I’ve made on twitter — and I feel so grateful to have been included among them. While the entire experience felt like a dream, I think the best part of all was the friendships formed and strengthened over the course of the trip.

We spent our first day in Oxford where we explored the University, visited Blackwell’s bookshop, enjoyed a beautiful lunch at the Divinity School, and were treated to a (surprise!) talk from the esteemed Tolkien scholar John Garth. Afterwards, we stopped for a pint (or in my case, a coke) at the Lamb & Flag in Oxford.

The entire day was like a small Tolkien pilgrimage and it meant a lot to be able to visit so many sites of importance to the Professor’s life. This was an absolute joy and despite not being particularly related to the show itself, I felt it helped all of us get into the right mindset for the next day’s sneak peek.

A First Look at “The Rings of Power”

The next afternoon, we were given a sneak peek of some exclusive footage from the first season of The Rings of Power, followed by a long Q&A session with a handful of the show’s writers and top creative minds.

The passion that these folks have for faithfully bringing the Second Age to life was really touching and was evident in the way they spoke about Middle-earth and Tolkien himself. I was actually very impressed by their knowledge of the Legendarium and Tolkien’s letters particularly.

As I watched the footage, I began to feel immersed in Middle-earth in a way that I hadn’t when watching the teaser trailer released earlier this year. There were moments of breathtaking high beauty, exhilarating heroism, and beautifully captured humanity which evoked many of the same feelings I experienced when reading Tolkien for the first time. One shot in particular completely took my breath away and I’m tearing up over again thinking about it as I type this.

Despite many of the darkest events of Middle-earth’s history occurring in the Second Age, I believe that the show will approach these events with the same life-affirming and hopeful tone that Tolkien himself wrote with. (Or at least, I believe the writers have this explicit goal in mind.)

It’s become very plain to me that Amazon knows the importance of earning the trust and approval of Tolkien’s most devoted fans. Without the approval of the Tolkien Estate, the show won’t be made; and without the approval of Tolkien fans and scholars, the show won’t succeed. In short, they can’t do this without us.

At times I felt like I was being offered a Ring of Power by Annatar himself — the entire experience was so lavish and everything I saw and heard about the show was so captivating, that it did cause me to pause and step back a bit at times throughout the trip.

As a lifelong Tolkien fan, I’m no stranger to seeing adaptations go off the rails or Tolkien’s creative works being exploited for profit, so I will always retain some level of nervousness toward anything set in or inspired by Middle-earth.

In a sense I don’t think I’ll be fully able to relax until the series finale has ended. There is no such thing as a perfect adaptation, especially when Tolkien provided so few details about the Second Age and the studio has rights to a limited amount of material.

But after learning so much more about the show and its creators, I do feel quite a bit more confident going forward. From what I’ve seen, it seems to me that this show is in competent hands.

After this past week, I’m looking forward to watching the first season of the show when it premieres and discussing it with all of you this fall as we finally see the Second Age of Middle-earth come to life on the screen.

#LOTRROP #RingsofPower #PrimeVideoCreator