Even if you haven’t read J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or seen Peter Jackson’s film adaptation, you probably know about the One Ring. Amazon Studios is leaning into that iconic aspect of Middle-earth for its Lord of the Rings TV series. They revealed the title on Wednesday morning and it’s revealing. The series is called The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
Amazon unveiled the news with a hand-crafted title treatment. Watch:
Lines from Tolkien’s verse about the One Ring play over the treatment. Jackson pulled inspiration from this poem for the opening of The Fellowship of the Ring. That’s when Galadriel shares a brief history of the One Ring. It explains who holds the 20 rings, including the one Sauron wields. While Sauron made his own ring, the Elves of Eregion crafted the others… under the influence of Sauron disguised as a fairer being called Annatar. Sauron/Annatar taught the Elven-smiths how to create Rings.
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.
Using the forging of the rings of power makes the show more inviting. Though it’s set in the Second Age, calling it by that name likely wouldn’t be as recognizable to as many people. Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay said in a release, “This is a title that we imagine could live on the spine of a book next to J.R.R. Tolkien’s other classics. The Rings of Power unites all the major stories of Middle-earth’s Second Age: the forging of the rings, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the epic tale of Númenor, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.”
The Lord of the Rings‘ appendices relate information about the Second Age. Read Appendix B. And if you want to dig deeper into the lore, pick up The Silmarillion. You can jump right to the “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age” to see what happens after the forging of the rings.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will premiere on Prime Video on September 2, 2022.
Amy Ratcliffe is the Managing Editor for Nerdist and the author of A Kid’s Guide to Fandom, available now. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
