The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will feature an enemy audiences know well. Long before he kept a watchful eye over Middle-earth looking for his lost ring, Sauron wielded it. He used it to bring death, destruction, and misery to the Second Age. He turned a time of peace into a time of war. That will mean pain and suffering for elves, dwarves, and men alike. But if Prime Video’s final trailer for the show’s first season is any indication, seeing Sauron rise to power will make for one very epic television show. With a story defined not by evil, but by those who stood against it.
If you’re not ready to grab a sword and follow Galadriel into battle after that trailer you’re probably a spy of Sauron. Speaking of the Dark Lord, it’s not clear how often he actually appears in this trailer. Sauron was a shapeshifter, and we expect to find some characters are not who they say they are.
As for the show, we know what to expect from the first season. Here’s the official synopsis for the big-budget series from Prime Video:
This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. 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, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.
The show might start in a “relative” time of peace, but this trailer makes clear that won’t last long. It will feature plenty of battles and wars. And we can’t wait. Not because of all the death and destruction that is coming, though. It’s because with an evil as great as Sauron, it will take heroes even greater to defeat him.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power comes to Prime Video on September 2. But fans in select cities can get an early look at the first two episodes on August 31 at select theaters. You can find participating locations at Cinemark’s website. Just make sure you don’t accidentally invite Sauron along. The Second Age is still a sore subject for him.
