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Prime Video’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power reminded fans Friday that San Diego Comic-Con is really back and that it’s the place where nerd news is truly made.
The show, which Amazon spent $250 million to acquire the rights to, tells the story of the original rise of Dark Lord Sauron and the forging of the rings of power. On Friday, Tolkien superfan and late-night host Stephen Colbert hosted a Hall H panel that included some of the show’s executive producers and much of the cast.
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As the Elven Queen Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) says in the original trilogy: “Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of Men, who, above all else, desire power. But they were, all of them, deceived, for another ring was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged in secret a Master Ring, to control all others. And into this ring he poured his cruelty, his malice and his will to dominate all life. One Ring to rule them all!”
A much younger Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) – say, 3,000 years younger – is the central character of the series, which is set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, long before the events of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.
When the series starts, things seem to be peaceful. The Dark Lord Morgoth has been defeated.
“We thought the war, at least, was ended,” Galadriel says in the above trailer, released on Friday at Comic-Con. “We thought our joys would be unending. We thought our light would never dim.”
But “the skies are strange,” notes harfoot Sadoc Burrows (Lenny Henry) and Galadriel soon realizes that all is not as calm as it seems. A new evil is rising and “he has not one name, but many.”
The main one, of course, is Sauron, key servant to Morgoth who lived to survive him and is now rising in the shadows.
Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will premiere September 2 on Prime Video with eight episodes – produced for a reported $465 million – comprising the first season and five seasons expected to be produced.
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