‘Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Director on What Will Surprise People About the Series
Many Lord of the Rings fans are enthusiastic about the new series coming to Amazon Prime Video. The new series, titled The Rings of Power, takes viewers to a new era of Middle Earth, thousands of years before the events of J. R. R. Tolkien’s novels. While the world is familiar to many, director J.A. Bayona says Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will still surprise many viewers.
‘Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ is set thousands of years before the main events of the franchise
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It covers many events of Middle Earth, including the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron and the forging of the Rings of Power. There are familiar faces, including Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) and Elrond (Robert Aramayo), but also many new characters and groups being introduced.
It’s been eight years since the last trip to Middle Earth with The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Bayona is ecstatic to bring Middle earth back to viewers and hopes audiences feel the same.
“I will be very excited if people are as excited again about Middle-earth,” Bayona said in an interview with Collider. “Because being such a fan of Tolkien books, I think all the values that you can find in those books are so needed nowadays. So if we can get people excited and go back to the books and read them or discover them, that would be fantastic.”
Director J.A. Bayona reveals what will surprise people about the ‘Lord of the Rings’ series
Many hardcore Lord of the Rings fans and all of Tolkien’s works exist. Director Bayona says aspects of The Rings of Power will feel familiar to Lord of the Rings fans, but there are also many new storylines for audiences to discover. Even though the world is familiar, elements of this series will feel fresh to viewers.
“What I think is very exciting is that you don’t know really the story,” Bayona told Collider. “Because from the appendices, we have the main events. And in that sense, you have the impression that you are working in something solid that is faithful to the spirit of Tolkien because Tolkien designed it himself. But then you have the storylines that feel new and fresh. And in that sense, it was exciting.”
Additionally, Bayona says this series is mature and complex. There are a lot of grey areas besides just good vs. evil. He also says the series will be closer to director Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and not The Hobbit.
“I think what I really like about what Patrick [McKay] and J.D. [Payne] pitched me about the whole five seasons was the complexity, that things are not black and white,” Bayona added. “There’s lots of gray areas. In that sense, it’s closer to Lord of the Rings, not The Hobbit. It feels more mature.”
‘The Rings of Power’ is an absolute spectacle
Amazon threw the budget out the window for The Rings of Power as it is one of the most expensive TV shows ever. The first two episodes are epic in scope, and Bayona says viewers will be further impressed by the show’s grand spectacle.
“It’s like when you read the books again,” Bayona teases. “I mean, that sense of beauty, this sense of epic that you have. The way he portrays the landscape, we try to get the biggest canvas possible. So we use the Cinemascope in order to get that same sense of epic that you have when you read the books. It’s a very ambitious show, but it’s the biggest monumental feat in literature in the 20th century. So I think that I’m grateful that Amazon really had the ambition to put all those resources in order to give the audience what they are expecting.”
The first two episodes of Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
