At first, we appear to be looking at a vast landscape. Mist drifts off a sunlit plateau like a slow-motion waterfall. A winding river cuts deep through a rocky canyon. But this is not actually a faraway view, it’s a close-up one. That orange glow is not the illumination of a sun, but the fire beneath a crucible, and the cracks and crevices are part of a mold, now flowing with molten metal. 

The O at the center, inscribed with elvish script, becomes part of the subtitle of Amazon’s upcoming series based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This show—set thousands of years before the tale of Frodo, Samwise, Aragorn, and Gollum—will be called The Rings of Power.

Only a little is publicly known about the series, which debuts on the Prime Video streaming service on September 2. It will delve into the Second Age of Middle-earth, which is when Sauron rose to full power and countless civilizations fell, creating the landscape of ruins that fans have read about in Tolkien’s books and seen onscreen in the Peter Jackson films. 

The title confirms that this series will focus not just on that One Ring, but on the others that were forged to control the kingdoms that Sauron wished to dominate. The source material is the series of appendices that Tolkien added to the end of his trilogy, but the voice-over in the teaser, delivered by actor Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud), is taken from the “Ring Verse”:

“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie…”

The rest of Tolkien’s epigram, which goes unspoken here, is: 

“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”

In a synopsis released last August, showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay tantalized fans with the realms they intended to explore, with filmmaker J.A. Bayona (A Monster Calls, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) directing the first two episodes. 

That summary said the show would venture “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 furthest reaches of the map.”

But it did not say who would be on that trek, or what they might be pursuing. “Until now, audiences have only seen onscreen the story of the One Ring—but before there was one, there were many,” said Payne and McKay in a statement. “We’re excited to share the epic story of them all.”

The Rings of Power tells us this show will focus on how Sauron seduced and defeated the various leaders of Middle-earth. But it also tells us something more…

What is “the power” of these rings? What is the allure of them that led to so much misery and destruction? This series promises to be about corruption, frailty, and evil, as well as (presumably) their inverse: selflessness, strength, decency. 

The genius of Tolkien’s tale was that it focused not on the accumulation of power, but on the rejection of it, the casting of that One Ring that rules them all into the fiery abyss. With this show, we will likely see the many mistakes that paid for that wisdom.

For its title treatment, Amazon rejected the age of digital effects and created it through actual metal forging. Artist Landon Ryan operated the foundry at thousands of degrees and poured the aluminum and bronze into the redwood slab for director Klaus Obermeyer. Consulting on the process was special effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull, known for his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, and The Tree of Life.

Some pictures of their work are featured below…

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