Ambitious 'Lord of the Rings' prequel hopes to slay dragons

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Tolkien’s writings and asides about Middle-earth’s Second Age, which preceded the Third Age’s “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” films and books. In another scene, an elf counsels another who is confused: “Sometimes we cannot know unless we touch the darkness.” The new series debuts in the long shadow left by Peter Jackson, whose film trilogy adaptation of Tolkien's books won critical and commercial praise in the early 2000s and claimed the best picture Oscar for “Return of the King.” For the series, there was more freedom to create as long as it was true to the author. “A show like this that has definitely dark themes — darkness within oneself, the fight to do what’s right, battling great forces greater than you — but it also just has themes of friendship and loyalty and love and hope,” said Sara Zwangobani, who plays the new character Marigold Brandyfoot. The series will have to thread a careful needle by enchanting hard-core fans of Tolkien who will be searching for connections to the universe, attracting those who have hazy memories of the books and don't want to be burdened with tons of new material, and young people whose perhaps last epic adventure series was “Harry Potter.” “It’s kind of the gateway for new fans in that it's kind of the first chapter, the adolescence of Middle-earth, where the films you could imagine are the adulthood of Middle-earth,” said Walker.