Patrick McKay, co-showrunner for Prime Video’s upcoming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, confirmed that the series is free of any explicit Game of Thrones-style sex and violence.
“We know what it’s like to be anticipating something and to be terrified that it won’t be what you hope,” McKay said in an interview with Vanity Fair. “We’ve been those guys many times over.” Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works have one less thing to worry about as McKay confirmed the goal of the show was to “make a show for everyone, for kids who are 11, 12, and 13, even though sometimes they might have to pull the blanket up over their eyes if it’s a little too scary.”
News of an intimacy coordinator being hired during filming led to some questions from fans about the tone of the show. “My worry would be if it becomes a Game of Thrones in the Second Age,” said Dimitra Fimi, a Tolkien scholar and lecturer at the University of Glasgow. “That wouldn’t be what one would associate with Tolkien’s vision. It would also be derivative.”
However, McKay reassured fans that the showrunners “talked about the tone in Tolkien’s books.” He said, “This is material that is sometimes scary — and sometimes very intense, sometimes quite political, sometimes quite sophisticated — but it’s also heartwarming and life-affirming and optimistic. It’s about friendship and it’s about brotherhood and underdogs overcoming great darkness.”
The Rings of Power is set thousands of years before Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and spans the time period on Middle-earth known as the Second Age. The synopsis for the show says that the series starts in a time of peace, but that peace is threatened by “the long-feared reemergence of evil to Middle-earth.” It also promises a large cast of characters, “both familiar and new.”
Among the familiar characters are younger versions of the elves Galadriel and Elrond, played by Morfydd Clark and Robert Aramayo, respectively. Recently released photos show offered the first look at these younger versions of the characters, originally played by Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. One of the new characters created for the show is Halbrand, played by Charlie Vickers, a fugitive who meets Galadriel while hiding on a ship as a stowaway.
According to a recent promotional video, fans won’t have long to wait before the first teaser trailer for The Rings of Power arrives. The video included some text in Elvish, and this was quickly translated as referring to Super Bowl Sunday, suggesting the teaser trailer will debut on Feb. 13.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power premieres Sept. 2 on Prime Video.
Source: Vanity Fair
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