If you love fantasy, 2022 is the place to be. Not only did a brand new Game of Thrones show just roar its way onto HBO, but Prime Video is gearing up to debut the latest installment in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings series. And apparently, it’s quite good.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power takes place thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It’s a story set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, created by picking through the appendices and detailed descriptions in Tolkien’s work. Series creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay got every bit of info Tolkien had on the era, put it all together, and created this brand new story: a show about Sauron’s rise to power, the creation of the Rings, and much much more.
The eight-episode first season begins September 2 with the debut of the first two episodes. Critics who were already sent the first two episodes for editorial purposes were allowed to talk about them as of Tuesday evening. Below you’ll find a ton of reactions, beginning with two from writers on this very website, myself and editor James Whitbrook.
James and I both agree that the show is beautiful and shows a lot of promise, but moves a little slowly because it’s juggling so many stories. Basically you’ve got the elves, the dwarves, the humans, and the Harfoots. Then inside each of those groups, two or three characters apiece are doing different things. Galadriel is hunting something. Elrond has a journey to go on. The dwarves have scores to settle. And while the Harfoots just want to migrate to a new place, two of their kind find a mysterious stranger who falls from the sky.
Yeah, it’s a lot, and while James and I were two of the more measured reactions, we were more or less alone in that. Almost everyone else was a full-on rave. Here are more.
And there you have it. Just a small smattering of fans and critics who are all in on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Are you going to watch come September 2? Let us know below, and check back soon for even more coverage.
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