Welcome to the Heavy Spoilers show I'm your host Paul aka the guy who's always Merry and Saruman
for how bad the puns are gonna be in this video. The Lord Of The Rings Ring Of Power Superbowl
trailer has just dropped and throughout this video we're gonna be breaking it all down.
Superbowl teasers are often short because they cost more than Mythril so to pad out the video
I'm also gonna be talking about the cast, release date and everything we know about the show.
Gotta hit above them 8 minutes if you want mid roll ads.
I've wasted enough of your time so with that out the way let's get into The Ring Of Power Trailer.
Ok so as of now, The Ring Of Power is the most expensive TV show of all time.
Back in 2017 the company purchased the rights to the project for $250 million
and since then they've been working away to bring it to our screens. At the start of the
year we got a title sequence released on Youtube that showed it being formed from Molten Metal.
Over the top of it we heard Galadriel discussing the formation of the rings
which was taken word for word from the Fellowship prologue.
These rings as we saw gave power to Men, The Elves, Dwarves and the Dark
Lord Sauron who you've probably Sauron TV. Look didn't say the puns were gonna be good.
What we know about the show is that it's going to be a prequel to the movies and that it'll
show the creation of the rings rather than just trying to redo what we had in the films.
I think that this is a smart move as it would be difficult to match the spectacle of the movies
and it would also end up drawing direct comparison to some of the best movies ever made.
Not you. When discussing the series,
showrunners JD Payne and Patrick Mckay said that the series will chronicle the forging
of the rings, the rise of Sauron, The Fall of Numernor and the alliance between Elves and Men.
You might remember in the movies that after defeating Sauron the parties
involved in his demise became fractured and the fellowship was very much about
bringing these distant hoses together. The showrunners said that we pretty much
only know the story of the one ring and that this series will show us the others that haven't
really been touched upon outside of the opening scenes of the movie. As we know the Men ended up
becoming Ring Wraiths and I think it's gonna be really interesting to see how they're corrupted
by the power that they bring. They all end up becoming twisted creatures not really living but
not dead either and I think that there's some fascinating things that they can do with them.
Sauron hasn't really taken that much of a focus before either and though he was obviously in the
original trilogy, he was just basically an eye at the top of a tower for the majority of the movies.
We've never got to hear what he thinks, feels, what his dreams are and the fall of
Numenor could be something that explores this. Numenor was an island that Men with settled
on and due to being surrounded by the ocean they became great seaman.
Don't, don't think like that. A map was released by amazon
that showed this and it's likely that we will see it's downfall in the show.
Now they were pretty prosperous but like all Men they faced death. Sauron weaponised this
fear and their desire to become immortal like the elves which may be a plot point in the show.
He told them that he could give them eternal life and that all they had to do was join him
in his war against the Gods. They lost and the Gods, angered by the island,
ended up submerging it under water. At the Earth was actually flat and the Gods reshaped
it into a Globe which caused the oceans to change and kill the majority of those on it.
Those that survived fled to middle earth and here they formed Gondor.
In the posters we can also see what might be the Scepter of Annúminas.
This belonged to Elendil, who managed to grab it whilst he fled Numenor. He actually
ended up forming Gondor so the series is hinting at that being a big plot point.
It's also possible that Osgiliath was also shown in the first image released by Amazon.
This is a city that was shown in the Peter Jackson movies and it's
a place that was almost reduced to rubble. The image also potentially showed the trees
of Telperion and Laurelin which were known to light the world during the Years Of The Trees.
You can't see them with the brightness turned up but if you darken what appears to be the sun,
you can see them there. Sauron was connected to
these too and his lieutenant Melkor started a war that ended with them being destroyed.
This caused the Gods to create the sun and moon so that the world could have light and whether this
happens in the series or not remains to be seen. Galadriel is of course also going to play a big
part and in case you don't know she's actually Elrond's mother in law so we might get some of
their relationship explored in the series. Take my mother in law, no go on, take her.
She of course possesses a ring of power and I think that she's very much gonna be
a guide through the series that fills us in on the big exposition dumps.
In one of the promo images we can catch her meeting Halbrand on a stormy sea
and there's also an image of her coming up from the water. This ties in heavily with her
origins and she will be played by Morfyyd Clark. According to the lore at the time the show takes
place she'd just be hanging in the elf capital of Lindon which we've had glimpses of for the city.
START FROM HERE - Now the trailer opens
with The Kingdom of Numenor in all its glory before its downfall. This happened with the
drowning of the island kingdom by The Valar and it went down about as well as this trailer did.
We will likely start here and culminate with the War of the Last Alliance which the really
cool prologue scene in Fellowship of the Ring. It’s unclear which city in Numenor we see at the
open but the trailer and voice over is clear that The Rings of Power will be expansive and
adventurous with the trademark sweeping vistas. Just like the beloved original trilogy of books
and movies, it will feature Hobbits. In a way.
The ones were are dealing with are called Harfoots which were one of three breeds of
Hobbits that do not live in the shire. We get a look at one as we see Markella
Kavanagh who will be playing a Harfoot and we can see the ‘Smial’ which is a less sophisticated
Hobbit hole than that we saw in the Shire. We get a good look at Galadriel in action
as she does her best Modern Warfare 2 ice climbing activity up the side of a mountain.
As mentioned the show is set 1000’s of years before we saw her in The Fellowship of the ring
and we know for better or worse that this will be a prequel to the movies.
She is set to be the commander of The Northern Armies in the show, marking a
major difference from the source material. Galadriel will be travelling across
Middle-Earth and considering that the second age featured Sauron’s rise to power
I think that she’s likely investigating his rise which went down worse…worse than the…nevermind.
I do hope Amazon don’t see this as I wanna keep getting work off them.
Anyway we see her adventuring on horseback and also fighting a monster in an ice cave and she’s
definitely gonna prove that girls get it done. Tying back to the shot from before,
we are also introduced to the new character Halbrand portrayed by Charlie Vickers.
We can see this as they are together on a raft in the Sundering Sea.
We don’t know much about him but it has been said that he has a dark past that he is running from.
It’s bold of the writers to create original characters but time will tell if it pays off.
We see another original character named Arondir who is a Silvan Elf.
You may remember them from the Hobbit movies which featured an original character for that
trilogy named Tauriel played by Evangeline Lily. Just like Aragorn and Arwen, Arondir is in a
forbidden relationship with a human woman called Bronyn so it looks like they’ll be
retreading this ground in the new series. Next we catch an elf that is none other
than Gil-Galad the ruler Lindon. It’s possible that we see this in a brief shot
showing woodland and a beautiful waterfall. Of course we know that he died from wounds
fighting Sauron in the War of the Last Alliance but here he is at the height of his power.
Next we jump to Prince Duran who’s father is the ruler of
Khaza Dum. The Rings of Power will show the dwarves as we haven’t seen before,
only in brief flashbacks. Durin would be the leader who took them into battle at the War
of the Last Alliance. This locale will be key to the show as we see a few shots of
dwarves and we could see throughout the show the creation of the rings of power themselves
which would set Middle Earth on the course to war. Featured here is also another original character
named Princess Dieza. She will be one of the dwarf queens and so far we haven’t really
seen any female Dwarves in the Franchise. Diez will help rule over Khazad Dum which
is a location Galadriel travelled through to get to Lothlorien.
You can expect to see them cross paths at some points whilst Galadriel goes to investigate Sauron
We get to see Elrond who was played by Hugo Weaving in the original
movie adaptations and is integral to the story of
Sauron’s multiple downfalls. Over the course of the show we will see the rings and alliance
form possibly forming the spine of the show. Shown in the trailer also is a bizarre shot
of a man inside what looks like a fiery explosion. As per Vanity Fair we know that
the Harfoots will find a lost man and that he is one of the main mysteries in the show.
That’s evidently what we see here and please can this actually lead somewhere
unlike the White Walker mystery and origins in Game of Thrones. Yes I am still salty.
Lastly we cut to a battle between the elves and the orcs. While we have seen this fight in the
original trilogy, it would be many many years and at the end of the second age. The show is
condensing canon so we could actually be seeing the War of Elves and Sauron. However it could
be a prologue to the show featuring the War of Wrath which was an alliance of Dwarves,
early men and Elves to defeat the first Dark Lord Melkor,Morgoth.
This closed off the first age and would lead us into the events of the Second Age. Maybe in 20
years we will get a show called Before Before The RIngs of Power focussing on The First Age.
Now as for my thoughts on the trailer, I’m pretty mixed on it in all honesty. I know
there’s a lot of discourse on the internet at the moment with people slating it and others
defending it to the death but personally for me it just kinda sits in the middle.
It doesn’t look atrocious but I’m also not seeing anything here that makes me think
it’s gonna live up to the original trilogy. The budget for the show being a billion is very
expensive for something that could end up tanking and I think it’s a big risk on Amazons part.
Even the like and dislike joke I keep doing, pretty much split down the middle
and yeah, I feel that way too. I didn’t hate it, but didn’t like it that
much either so I really dunno what to think. Bit of a…bit of a weird reaction to give
but that’s honestly how I feel. Now I do have faith that Amazon can
do it right and obviously the Boys and Invincible showed that they have the know how to get people
involved that can knock stuff out the park. I’ll eagerly await a second trailer but for now,
yeah not sure how I feel…which isn’t really a good sign.
Doesn’t really have many Tolkien points…ey. Now the series drops in September and I will
of course be here with weekly breakdowns on it so I hope to see you there.
Now I'd of course love to hear your thoughts so make sure you comment below and let me know.
We're running a competition right now and giving away 3 copies The Dune Boxset of your choice on
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If you want something else to watch then make sure you check out our breakdown of perfect scene
in Spider-Man Homecoming. We break down the entire thing so it's definitely worth
checking out if you wanna know more. With that out the way thank you for
sitting through the video, I’ve been Paul and I’ll see you next time. Take care, Peace