The trailer for the Rings of Power series has finally been released,
along with a few more snippets of information about the series like the Vanity Fair articles
and the character posters, so Iet’s talk about it. And I know what you’re thinking – the trailer came
out like a week ago and you’re only just doing a reaction video? My answer to that
is that this isn’t late, it’s arriving precisely when it means to. We need to
move away from an expectation that people must immediately form an opinion about something.
Sometimes we need to mull things over, revisit them, and let them settle before
we truly know what we think. Ohh, I get it. Don’t be hasty.
So take a walk with me, because for the first time on this channel, it’s time to get real.
Do you recognise where I am? No? Any guesses? Does this tree
look familiar? No? Let me jog your memory. This is the exact spot where the very first
shots of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy were put to film. The hobbits came rolling down
that bank, found some mushrooms about here, then hid from the Nazgul under this tree … oh.
Turns out that the tree they hid under was a custom-made prop, but if you get off the road,
you can still see the ledge here that the hobbits hid against. Even without the tree,
standing here you can still almost hear the hoofs. There’s no place like nature to compose your
thoughts, and where better to compose your thoughts about a Tolkien adaptation
than the place where the most iconic one began? Because even though the focus of this video will
be the trailer for the Rings of Power and the broader conversation around this adaptation,
I will be drawing a lot of comparisons between the Amazon series and the Jackson trilogy.
Because whatever flaws those films may have, they remain the
gold standard for adapting Tolkien to film. They are the definitive portrayal of his work
in the minds of millions of people, and so any live action series based in Middle-earth
should be expected to meet that standard. Tolkien deserves no less. We saw in The Hobbit
trilogy what can happen when an adaptation goes too far with it’s creative licence.
So let’s talk about the Rings of Power, and let’s get something out of the way up front.
I’m an optimist by nature. I am always hopeful that movies and TV shows will be good because
I want to watch good movies and TV shows. I honestly don’t get people who actively
root for things to fail, or who passionately and aggressively hate things before they’ve
even had a chance to judge them on their merits. You know, the kind of people who
thought Heath Ledger being cast as the Joker would destroy the Batman franchise.
And as you’ll see from my channel I also love all things Middle-earth.
So of course I want the Rings of Power to be good, because I want to have more quality adaptations
of Tolkien’s work in my life. I want the work of Tolkien to reach new people and a well-made
adaptation can inspire a whole new generation to delve greedily and deeply into his world.
The trailer and the Vanity Fair previews have made me both more excited, and more nervous for the
Rings of Power because based on what we have seen so far, this adaptation could still go either way.
So let’s look at what we know. Opening with Numenor was almost inevitable,
and straight away it is fantastic to see the similarities in production design to
the Jackson trilogy. This could very well be the architectural ancestor of Minis Tirith.
I know that this series does not directly share a narrative continuity with the Jackson
films but I am still glad to see that they have at least kept a thematic continuity.
For most people, these films are the definitive image of what Middle-earth looks like, but that’s
in no small part because the production design came from people like Alan Lee and John Howe,
whose artwork had adorned Tolkien’s books for years before the live action films.
So it makes sense for the Amazon series to also draw its production design from that same artwork.
We see those parallels in Numenor, but not so much in the shot of Nori, whose design seems
more reminiscent of the fairy tale-esque elements that we saw in the Hobbit films.
It definitely made me raise an eyebrow, but this character design may be an exception because the
only other thing in the trailer that really seemed to echo this sort of aesthetic were the nomads.
But frankly in this shot I was too distracted by the fact that they are walking through what
is unmistakably a New Zealand landscape. Vistas like this are a huge part of how we
picture Middle-earth and I am so glad to see some real-world locations being used for the series.
But then we have this shot of the northern waste, and it seems a bit jarring coming
after this one because the landscape here and the waterfall seem almost entirely digital,
like the earlier shot of Numenor was. So it remains to be seen if scenes like
this will be the exception or the rule, but I for one am really hoping that they made full
use of New Zealand’s epic landscapes, at least for the establishing shots of key locations.
Moving on, and Galadriel looks awesome here. Morfydd Clark looks like pitch perfect casting and
I am so glad that she will be a focal character for this series because she is one of the most
intriguing characters in the legendarium. I know that images like this one and some
of the comments around her being the commander of the northern armies has set some alarms bells
ringing about the show possibly changing her in-universe backstory and marginalising her
inherent magical powers so as to give her a more traditional action heroine role.
To that, I would simply say this. One of the early promotional images for the Lord of the
Rings trilogy was this. Predictably people online started screaming about how this was
a blight on Tolkien’s legacy and started talking about Arwen warrior princess,
speculated wildly about how she was going to replace Eowyn or become part of the Fellowship
and how all of this was just and PC gone mad. Well it turned out that this scene was fucking
awesome and it made total sense in the context of the films to replace Glorfindel
with Arwen for the flight to the ford scene. So once again, I am going to withhold judgement
on Galadriel’s role in the Rings of Power until after I have seen the whole thing.
Don’t be hasty. After a glimpse of the new
character of Halbrand on the raft, we then we see Arondir – another new character – grab an
arrow and launch it back at his attacker, which is possibly my favourite moment of the trailer.
I love seeing elven speed and reflexes in combat. But this brings us on to the thorny topic of this
elf’s appearance. This has proved to be a controversial element among the fandom
because it seems to diverge from how Tolkien described the appearance of Silvan elves.
Well, that may be true but it’s 2022 and I for one have no problem with a short haired elf.
A core theme of Tolkien’s work was that of fellowship. His work is about all
sorts of different people setting aside their differences and working together,
and I think it’s great that the Amazon series is representing all sorts of diverse hair styles,
not just among the elves, but dwarves too, one of whom controversially does not have a beard.
That’s the only thing that’s controversial about these characters appearances, right?
Look, film adaptations of any literary character can result in them being very different from the
original description. This is not by default a bad thing. Sometimes it makes sense in
the context of the story being told on film. Like, in the Lord of the Rings books Frodo is 51,
hobbits don’t have very pointy ears, and Gandalf’s eyebrows are supposed to extend
beyond the brim of his hat. Gollum was supposed to wear dark clothes for crying out loud.
You don’t see fans ranting about how unfaithful that is to the books, just like you don’t see fans
ranting about how Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury is unfaithful to the comics, or that Jeffry Wright’s
Felix Leiter is unfaithful to Fleming’s books because in these cases the change from the literal
book description is not, by itself, a bad thing. Fans accepted the change because the
characterisation of those characters in the context of that story
was still faithful to the source material even though it was not a carbon copy of it.
You often hear people say that Tolkien intended for Middle-earth to be a sort of
mythology for England. Well, putting to one side the fact that that’s actually not the
consensus of actual Tolkien scholars, even if it was true, the whole point of a mythology is
to give people a common shared history that they can tell and retell over generations.
In the same letter in which Tolkien supposedly suggests this mythology idea, he goes on to say:
“I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in
the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole,
and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.”
To the extent Tolkien wanted to create a mythology, he also wanted people to take
that mythology and make it their own, and to fill in the sketches that he left behind.
I see no issue with a mythology of England being adapted for a modern audience in a way
that reflects what that modern audience looks like – short haired or not.
The second half of the trailer is a collection of fairly straightforward shots that are designed to
show off more of the production design and give clues as to the story, setting, and introduce us
to characters like Gil-Galad and Durin. And Elrond Like with Numenor there is still a strong element
of visual continuity with the Jackson films, which is welcome, but we also have things like
the troll. You don’t get a great look at its design, but for me, this shot felt the most out
of place of the whole trailer, along with this Snyder-esque slow motion jump – a trope I am
getting really bored of in modern action scenes and that I don’t think belongs in Middle-earth.
That pretty much wraps up the trailer, but let me quickly address the music. Now, the trailer
music was not written by Howard Shore but he did do the music in the title reveal and Amazon have
confirmed he is helping with the series. This was such a relief to hear and is a
huge part of why I am still optimistic about the series. For me, Shore’s music in the Lord of the
Rings trilogy remains the single best musical score of any film, and it was a huge part of
why those movies were able to so successfully bring the depth of Tolkien’s vision to life.
So that’s what I think of the trailer. On the whole,
I think the series looks and feels consistent with my mental image of Tolkien’s world,
even if some aspects seem more reminiscent of the more questionable stylistic choices
of the Hobbit than the timeless effects from the Rings trilogy. I am still
excited to see the full story play out on screen – whatever that story ends up being.
That said, there have been hints at things like the apparent co-existence of two Durins
and the compressed timeframe of the story that Tolkien geeks are right to be sceptical over,
as well as the fact that Amazon don’t actually have the rights to
a lot of the source material for this era. I totally understand the trepidation people
have about the potential for too much narrative independence or creative licence to be taken with
such beloved and well-known characters. They are right to feel protective of this world,
its history and its people, and to demand nothing but the highest standards of adaptation.
All I would say in response is that adaptation is an art not a science, especially when
dealing with an era of Middle-earth that does not have every detail fleshed out.
Which brings us back to Mount Victoria, and inevitably the Jackson trilogy.
Because don’t forget that the Jackson trilogy took heaps of creative liberties and departures
from the books, in small ways and big ones. Some of these have been criticised, like
the change of Faramir’s character or omitting the scouring of the shire, while others like changing
Glorfindel to Arwen in this scene, or removing the seventeen year gap between this moment and this
one in the books make total sense and were barely even noticed by all but the most ardent book fans.
One of the most inspiring and iconic moments of the Rings films – Sam’s speech at the
end of the Two Towers – is completely different in the books. In the books
Pippin’s lament for Faramir is a cheerful walking song. The whole scene filmed here with the four
hobbits hiding from the wraith is not in the books – Merry doesn’t even join them until they reach
the Brandywine Bridge. But all of these changes were justified and, dare I say it, improvements.
My point is that what matters to me is not that the adaptation is a carbon copy of the
source material. What matters is that when the adaptation does deviate from the source,
it does so in a way that is still faithful to the original.
On balance, the Jackson trilogy got this right. In The Hobbit, I think these creative liberties
and changes went too far, as did many of the production design and film-making choices.
I think that even with the trailer it is still too early to tell where the Rings of Power will fall
on this spectrum until we have seen the whole thing, but it and the accompanying material has
given us reason to believe it could go either way. All I know is that I cannot wait to find out.
Because if they get it right, like Jackson did, it’ll last forever.