“What else is out there,” wonders an unseen narrator as the The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power teaser trailer fades in. It’s a trailer’s job to get viewers asking the right questions, but this feels like a particularly apt question given how little we know about the Second Age of Middle-earth.
Check out the trailer below.
Leading into Super Bowl weekend, Prime Video began to drop all kinds of tidbits for The Rings of Power. We’ve learned character names — which, let’s face it, half of the internet had guessed by the time they were released — more cast images, and have seen full pictures of some members of whatever odd fellowship will form as Middle-earth transitions from its time of peace into what will become an endless war for the rest of many creatures’ entire lifespans. And remember, there’s still way more to come so far as reveals go. We know little about the Second Age (because Tolkien wrote little about it) and the series touts a huge 22-person main cast that will span multiple storylines throughout the Lord of the Ri Rings of Power saga.
The quick, sixty-second Big Game Spot showcases a host of locales and gives us more of a glimpse at what will be iconic moments in the series like Mairon’s — the Ainur who will become Sauron — body engulfed in flame (at least we assume that’s the dude chilling out in the fire) and Galadriel’s ascent. But the heady, character-driven stuff will be coming more down the line. This teaser seems to serve a different purpose. Storytelling is always a game of showing, not telling. You can hear over and over again that you’re going to be taken back to Middle-earth, but that awe comes from spectacle.
And that is perhaps the greatest success of this teaser trailer. It feels like The Lord of the Rings. While we learned of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power trailer well ahead of the Super Bowl, we had no way of knowing that it would be able to transport us back to a story many of us grew up with. Back are the sweeping forests, the grand palaces of the Elves, and the grand caves and caverns of the Dwarves. Like the Lord of the Rings trilogy before it, it seems that Rings of Power may once again succeed at balancing the serenity and dangers of Middle-earth.
The teaser hints at the danger to come for the would-be leaders of their varied lands. Though details are still pretty sparse for the upcoming series, we know that it will show us Sauron’s (currently Mairon) rise to power while an unsuspecting Middle-earth sits in a time of peace.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will premiere on September 2nd exclusively on Prime Video. “Shadow of the Past,” the series pilot, will be directed by J.A. Bayona.
If you’re dying to see anything else you can of the series, check out our behind the scenes video on how they made The Rings of Power title sequence.
Amelia is a Streaming Editor here at IGN. She’s also a film and television critic who spends too much time
talking about dinosaurs, superheroes, and folk horror. You can usually find her with her dog, Rogers. There may be cheeseburgers involved.
