The Rings of Power Trivia | 70 facts about the new series

“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is a new fantasy television series that premiered on Amazon Prime Video.

Let’s find out some trivia and facts about the new series.

1. “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” is an American fantasy television series
2. It is based on the novel The Lord of the Rings and its appendices by J. R. R. Tolkien
3. Developed by showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay for the streaming service Prime Video
4. The series is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
5. It is produced by Amazon Studios in cooperation with HarperCollins and New Line Cinema
6. And in consultation with the Tolkien Estate
7. Amazon bought the television rights for The Lord of the Rings for US$250 million in November 2017
8. Making a five-season production commitment worth at least US$1 billion
9. This would make it the most expensive television series ever made
10. Payne and McKay were hired in July 2018
11. The series is primarily based on the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, which include discussion of the Second Age
12. Tolkien’s grandson Simon Tolkien consulted on the development of the series
13. Per the requirements of Amazon’s deal with the Tolkien Estate, it is not a continuation of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film trilogies
14. Despite this, the production intended to evoke the films using similar production design, younger versions of characters from the films, and a main theme by Howard Shore who composed the music for both trilogies
15. Bear McCreary composed the series’ score
16. A large international cast was hired
17. Filming for the eight-episode first season took place in New Zealand
18. There the films were produced, from February 2020 to August 2021
19. There was a production break of several months during that time due to the COVID-19 pandemic
20. “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” premiered on September 1, 2022
21. It will consist of eight episodes, concluding on October 14
22. It has received generally positive reviews from critics
23. With particular praise for its visuals and musical score
24. It drew criticism for its pacing
25. Amazon moved production for future seasons to the United Kingdom
26. There filming for the second season is expected to begin in October 2022
27. Set thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the series is based on author J. R. R. Tolkien’s history of Middle-earth
28. It begins during a time of relative peace and covers all the major events of Middle-earth’s Second Age: the forging of the Rings of Power, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the fall of the island kingdom of Númenor, and the last alliance between Elves and Men
29. These events take place over thousands of years in Tolkien’s original stories but are condensed for the series
30. In July 2017, a lawsuit was settled between Warner Bros., the studio behind the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit film trilogies, and the estate of author J. R. R. Tolkien upon whose books those films were based
31. With the two sides “on better terms”, they began offering the rights to a potential television series based on Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to several outlets, including Amazon, Netflix, and HBO, with a starting price of US$200 million
32. Amazon emerged as the frontrunner by September and entered negotiations
33. Uncommonly for programming developments at the studio, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was personally involved with the negotiations
34. A fan of the franchise, Bezos had previously given Amazon Studios a mandate to develop an ambitious fantasy series of comparable scale to HBO’s Game of Thrones which made Amazon the lead contender for the project
35. On November 13, 2017, Amazon acquired the global television rights for close to US$250 million
36. Industry commentators described this amount—before any production costs and without any creative talent attached to the project—as “insane”
37. Although some considered the project to be more of a reputational risk for Amazon than a financial one due to Bezos’s wealth
38. Amazon’s streaming service Prime Video gave a multi-season commitment to the series that was believed to be for five seasons, with the possibility of a spin-off series as well
39. Despite this, Prime Video had to give a formal greenlight to future seasons before work could begin on them
40. The budget was expected to be in the range of US$100–150 million per season
41. This was likely to eventually exceed US$1 billion which would make it the most expensive television series ever made
42. Warner Bros. Television was not involved in the project because Amazon Studios wanted to produce it themselves
43. Amazon was working with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins, and New Line Cinema (the Warner Bros. division who produced the films)
44. New Line was reportedly included to allow the series to use material from the films
45. The Tolkien Estate imposed some creative restrictions on the series
46. And the deal stipulated that production begin within two years
47. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 84%
48. With an average rating of 7.5/10
49. Based on 221 reviews
50. On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the premiere has received a score of 71 out of 100
51. Based on 37 critic reviews
52. Indicating “generally favorable reviews”
53. Henry revealed in October 2021 that he and other people of color had been cast as Harfoots in the series, which aligned with Tolkien’s description of the Harfoots as being “browner of skin”
54. Several non-white actors were also cast as Elves and Dwarves for the first time in the franchise
55. After this was revealed through announcements and promotional images, Amazon received backlash from social media users complaining about these casting decisions
56. The series’ official social media accounts removed some of these comments
57. The producers expected to receive responses like this, but they wanted to ensure that the series reflected “what the world actually looks like” and felt this would be closer to the spirit of the books
58. Weber stated, “Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their best work when they leave the isolation of their own cultures and come together”
59. Members of the cast praised this approach, including Henry
60. Addai-Robinson reiterated Weber’s comments, stating that Tolkien explores “people of different ethnicities, backgrounds, and walks of life all coming together for a common cause. For me personally, as a viewer, I would have the expectation that [the series] would reflect the real world, as well as the world as I aspire it to be”
61. Mooney described these responses to the more diverse cast as “the reactionary backlash accompanying any modern project with female characters or characters of color”
62. Andrew Blair at Den of Geek discussed how this was an example of the increasing racist and sexist complaints made by certain online groups about different media projects over the prior decade (such as the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot and the Star Wars sequel trilogy), using some established techniques such as “spamming and overwhelming conversation”
63. As part of the backlash on various online forums and comment sections, members of these groups often used the following quote which they incorrectly attributed to Tolkien: “Evil is not able to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or made by the forces of good”
64. Blair felt this was “colossally lacking in self-awareness”
65. TheGamer’s Ben Sledge compared the backlash to homophobic complaints about Ian McKellen’s casting as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films
66. Sledge acknowledged the argument that Tolkien had hoped to create a mythology and fictional history for Britain in his writings
67. But said the assumption that all people in Britain’s history were white was not historically accurate and did not actually apply to a fantasy story
68. Dimitra Fimi, an academic researching Tolkien’s writings and his depiction of race, wrote a piece with Mariana Rios Maldonado for The Conversation that concurred with Sledge in this view
69. Discussing Britain’s history of diversity, the freedom of adaptations to make changes where needed, and the fact that Tolkien often did not discuss the biology of his characters
70. Although, he did suggest the existence of dark-skinned Elves in drafts of The Silmarillion