Like millions of people waiting for it during the Super Bowl, I was already so excited to check out the first trailer for Amazon’s new Lord of the Rings series that’s coming this fall. And oh boy, did the first footage released by Amazon deliver, in spades, starting from the moment a voice can be heard uttering: “Haven’t you ever wondered what else is out there? There’s wonders in this world, beyond our wandering.”
But there was an especially exciting moment that I want to highlight in this post — one that lasted just a few seconds.
The long-awaited first footage
It’s not just that, with a budget of more than $450 million, this highly anticipated series is already the most expensive TV show in history. It also tells an all-new story set within the Second Age of Middle Earth’s history, introduces a slew of new characters as well as incorporates younger versions of well-known figures like the royal Elf Galadriel — and the sumptuous visual are impossible to take your eyes off of. That extends to the action scenes, one of which in the trailer left my jaw hanging open.
The blick-and-you-missed-it moment I’m referring to is embedded in the tweet above (which you can also check out here).
In this snippet of footage, we see an Elf warrior named Arondir (played by actor Ismael Cruz Cordova), looking at, and following with his hand, an arrow that’s been fired in his direction. With one fluid motion, he grabs the arrow in mid-flight, flips it around, strings his bow, and then fires it back into the fray. It looked so freaking cool.
And, sure, it wasn’t the biggest moment in the trailer. But it got me excited for more — for the fleshed-out, epic battle scenes this series is sure to include, for example, along the lines of the Helm’s Deep confrontation from the first movie trilogy.
The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power trailer
You can enjoy that scene yourself in the full trailer, which we’ve embedded here:
The whole thing, really, was so satisfying and promises quite a ride for Tolkein fans. But Lord of the Rings fans still have to wait a bit longer for the full thing, unfortunately. The series’ first episode arrives on Amazon Prime Video on September 2nd, with new episodes dropping weekly.
For my part, I’m keen to see Arondir in action, because the battles in the now six feature-length films set in the LOTR universe have all given us one spectacle after another. Young Galadriel, meanwhile, also features prominently in the newly released trailer, in an especially satisfying tease for fans of the movies. We see her at least a couple of times, decked out in full armor. Once, using a dagger to climb up a frozen waterfall. We also see her riding a white horse, with other riders trailing behind her.
As far as what else to know about Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series? J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay will serve as showrunners and executive producers. Amazon has also tapped J. A. Bayona (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), Wayne Che Yip (Doctor Who), and Charlotte Brändström (The Witcher) to direct. And the cast includes Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur, Maxim Baldry, and Nazanin Boniadi.
The series will also debut in more than 240 countries and territories around the world, in multiple languages.
Amazon’s description
For anyone still unclear about what the Lord of the Rings series will entail, Amazon has provided a general summary. Oh, and we can also look forward to the fact that there’s at least one additional season coming. That’s because Amazon has already confirmed Season 2 will shoot in the UK instead of New Zealand.
The show summary:
“This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and one of the greatest villains that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.
“Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared reemergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the farthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.”
