BrutalGamer Bringing you Brutally Honest feedback from today's entertainment industry.
Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power hasn’t been seen in a while, but it’s just gotten a surprising SDCC trailer.
Rise of a Dark Lord
To put it mildly, the first season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power was divisive. The core property has a rabid fanbase after all, and the show played way too fast and loose (in our opinion) with a a lot of its lore. The Rings of Power came off more like a riff on J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic work than an earnest adaptation, which was of course sure to rile up more than a few fans. That it definitely did, setting fire to social media at times.
Well, fast-forward a few years, and The Rings of Power is heading towards its second season on Prime Video. Yesterday we got our first look that sophomore run, and it… looks pretty good actually. Now, we can’t vouch for any kind of shifts made, to get the episodic closer to the actual lore of Lord of the Rings, but what debuted in Hall H at Comic Con had some potential.
The trailer was screened in front of 6500 fans in SDCC’s notable Hall, showcasing an elven Sauron (which should be way more familiar to fans), who is looking to cement his power and rise to the top of the food chain in Middle-earth. But he wasn’t all that stood out, as there were also Barrow-wights, Ents, Shelob, and even someone who looks an awful lot like old Tom Bombadil.
Check it out:
In Season Two of The Rings of Power, Sauron has returned. Cast out by Galadriel, without an army or ally, the rising Dark Lord must now rely on his own cunning to rebuild his strength and oversee the creation of the Rings of Power, which will allow him to bind all the peoples of Middle-earth to his sinister will. Building on Season One’s epic scope and ambition, the new season plunges even its most beloved and vulnerable characters into a rising tide of darkness, challenging each to find their place in a world that is increasingly on the brink of calamity. As friendships are strained and kingdoms begin to fracture, the forces of good—Elves and dwarves, orcs and men, wizards and Harfoots—will struggle ever more valiantly to hold on to what matters to them most of all: each other.
Prime Video press release
What’d you think?
We totally understand that the characterizations and elements might still be too outside of the realm to some fans. That’s not something that you’re realistically going to be able to change either, since the actors are set and the characters kind of ‘are who they are’ at this point. Still, it’s tough not to say that this brief glimpse doesn’t make season two look better in just about every way than the first one. At least, it does right now, so we’ll be (very) cautiously optimistic at this point.
But does this trailer change anything for you, if you were down on Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s first season? Will you be checking season two out when it launches on Prime Video on August 29th, or taking another pass?
