Prime Video has embarked on a mammoth project that is sure to stir tempers. The producers are relaunching “The Lord of the Rings” as a series. Now women are taking the fate of Middle-earth into their own hands.
20 years. That’s no more than a blink of an eye for an elf from JRR Tolkien’s magical Middle-earth. In pop culture, it can be an eternity.
From 2001, Peter Jackson conquered 17 Oscars and an audience of millions around the world with the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Only a few noticed at the time that the makers had only allowed white people in front of the cinema camera for their heroes. Hardly anyone has made it known that there weren’t any strong female characters worth mentioning, unless Miranda Otto is accepted as Éowyn with benevolence.
Only white people in Middle-earth
Was it really wise to help Tolkien’s (1892-1973) view of the world, which was shaped by Nordic legends and black-and-white thinking, more or less unfiltered, to Hollywood glamor?
These are questions that come to mind when you look at Prime Video’s project, which can almost be called megalomaniacal: “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” goes worldwide as a streaming series this Friday (September 2nd). on-line.
The makers go very far for the opus magnum. You don’t start with the backstory “The Hobbit”, which has already been made into a film and had significantly less success at the box office than “The Lord of the Rings”. They begin even earlier: with the great centuries-long battle of the Elves against Morgoth.
A character and an epoch of Middle-earth more familiar to hardcore Tolkien fans who have worked their way up to his fragment text “The Silmarillion”: a posthumously published 1977 book in which good and evil are at times blurred in the characters. A work that does not make such rigid specifications as the legendary classic.
What is the series about? The focus is on the young Galadriel (Morfydd Clark), who will later play a role in the Tolkien cosmos thanks to the huge lifespan of elves. The fighter lost her brother in the war against Morgoth and his successor Sauron and seeks revenge. The dark hosts have long since retreated, but Galadriel does not trust peace. While her High King is withdrawing the Elvish occupying troops from all parts of Middle-earth, the blond Amazon is to be deported to Valinor, a kind of Valhalla for great heroes.
The whole thing is reminiscent of a video game
Galadriel jumps into the open sea shortly before the Ascension of Heroes and fights his way back towards the coast. Meanwhile, signs are growing that Middle-earth is about to face an apocalyptic invasion. In the land of men, elf soldier Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova) falls in love with the graceful Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi). When the command to withdraw comes, he stays to follow the dark omens: cows that give black milk. villagers disappearing. What does that mean? And Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), a girl from the tribe of hobbit relatives Harfuss, sees an old man fall from the sky. Meanwhile, superheroine Galadriel is being hunted by a sea monster.
“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” works with a dense number of hits. Battles, monsters, overwhelming landscapes: like in a computer game, the viewer is chased from one strong trigger to the next, while the authors spin a story loosely based on Tolkien. In general, the series project is visually reminiscent of a video game. With a Middle-earth world in which there are suddenly also strong heroines and non-whites.
“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” goes online as a streaming series on Amazon Prime Video on Friday. There are two episodes to start with, followed by one episode each week. Eight episodes. (dpa)