The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power review
The IndependentGet our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. In 2017, when Amazon paid author JRR Tolkien’s estate $250m not for the rights to remake Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit but merely to set a story within the author’s fantastical world of Middle-earth, financial observers described the deal as “insane”. By comparison HBO’s Game of Thrones, the blockbuster fantasy hit whose runaway success Amazon evidently hope to emulate, cost a relatively reasonable $15m per episode. Payne and McKay’s new epic takes place in what Tolkien described as Middle-earth’s “Second Age”, thousands of years before the well-trodden events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. If you’re into breathtaking panoramas of fantasy cities soaring across your screen then ‘The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power’ is the show for you Fans of hobbits should note that the show takes place so far before The Hobbit that hobbits aren’t even hobbits yet.