Here’s what Vanity Fair’s article reveals (or confirms, or in some cases, suggests…) about those 23 character posters we saw last week. (All quotations are from VF’s ‘First Look’ article.)
This is Owain Arthur as Prince Durin IV, ‘prince of the bustling subterranean realm of Khazad-dûm’. As we noted, his hammer hilt reads ‘Awake Sleeping Stone’.
Dwarf princess Disa, played by Sophia Nomvete. Durin’s wife?
Galadriel, played by Morfydd Clark, and described in Vanity Fair as ‘Commander of the Northern Armies’. There had been rumours of short hair for Galadriel – the Vanity Fair images show us otherwise! We also see an eight pointed, Feanorian star on her chest. Significant…?
Elrond, played by Robert Aramayo. Vanity Fair describes him as, ‘a politically ambitious young elven leader’ – and he does have short(ish) hair.
This is silvan elf Arondir, a newly created character, who is played by Ismael Cruz Cordova. His closely cropped hair is the shortest of the lot; his earthy, rugged attire sets him apart from the other elves we have seen. Clearly silvan elves are not quite like their high elven kin…
This is Bronwyn, a created human character, and Arondir’s ‘forbidden love’. She is described as a ‘single mother and healer’ – we see her apothecary’s sickle in this image. She’s played by Nazanin Boniadi.
The Rings of Power includes ‘Two lovable, curious harfoots, played by Megan Richards and Markella Kavenagh’. The two character posters above seem most likely to be them.
As we already knew, ‘Brit of Jamaican descent, Sir Lenny Henry, plays a harfoot elder’. Could this image show him? Perhaps the clutched scroll is an indication of his elder wisdom?
From VF: ‘Another story line will follow a sailor named Isildur (Maxim Baldry) years before he becomes a warrior and cuts the soul-corrupting ring off Sauron’s hand, then falls victim to its powers himself.’ Could the rope here suggest a sailor?
The Rings of Power will feature ‘the elven smith Celebrimbor ([played by] Charles Edwards)’. Could either of these seemingly elvish characters be Celebrimbor? Most likely not the one all in gold; this is rumoured to be Gil-galad, and certainly he seems kingly. So do we see Celebrimbor in red?
(My original thinking was this – but see below for an update!)
This one is total guesswork… VF says we encounter, in the ‘Sundering Seas … a mortal castaway named Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), who is a new character introduced in the show. Galadriel is fighting for the future; Halbrand is running from the past. ‘ There aren’t many of the character posters which look like they might be from the world of men. Could THIS be Halbrand? Could the evil looking, broken blade be part of the past from which he is running? (We do see a wooden chest on the raft, when he and Galadriel meet at sea – so it’s possible he bears with him artefacts from his past…)
UPDATE – VF reached out to let us know that this image in fact shows Bronwyn’s (seen above with sickle) son, and the hilt he is holding is hers. But WHY would she have such a sinister looking object…? Some interesting backstory to come there, methinks, about this ‘broken heirloom’…
Finally, VF tells us that our two Harfoots ‘encounter a mysterious lost man whose origin promises to be one of the show’s most enticing enigmas’. Of all the character posters, this to me is the most enigmatic. So I’m putting my money on this dishevelled, grubby character being our mysterious being…
Vanity Fair’s just published an article on Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Click here for ‘the first look at a billion-dollar saga set thousands of years before J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary trilogy’. We’ll bring you our own closer look at this article shortly!
The silvan elf Arondir, played by Ismael Cruz Córdova.
Entertainment rag Variety is reporting that The Saul Zaentz Company is set to sell all of its Tolkien IP.
The company holds, according to its site, “exclusive worldwide rights to motion picture, merchandising, stage and other rights in certain literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.”
It originally acquired the rights in 1976 in an arrangement with United Artists. It subsequently licensed rights to filmmaker Ralph Bakshi for an animated film (released in 1978) and for director Peter Jackson to produce live-action trilogies of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
Variety states that the sale could be worth at least US $2 billion, “based on recent high valuations for top-tier IP and content producers”. ACF Investment Bank is currently shopping a deal around with a number of prospective buyers.
Official Amazon Prime LOTR reveals now include the recent 23 character torsos, a slick title reveal, a single frame image from episode 1 (but not even 2nd Age), a now one-year-old synopsis and a lovely map of wider Arda; all of which may have left Lord of the Rings fans puzzled as to what this billion-dollar TV show is really all about. We asked the fans to list their most burning current questions that we could ask the Showrunners, just 8 months before the show’s debut on September 2, 2022.
Two decades ago, previous Middle-earth director Peter Jackson famously took “20 Questions” direct from the online fandom on AICN; facing innocent inquiries on just about everything. He returned with surprisingly generous answers to assuage the broadest of fan curiosities: offering up the earliest details of what Weta Digital’s MASSIVE software could create and even addressing for the first time “How will Gollum be created?” (we had no idea yet what motion capture miracles Andy Serkis and WETA had in store for us). It was a genuine treat.
In honor of 23 poster images we submit these 23 Questions in that same spirit as twenty years ago.
What weighs heavily on a Ringer’s soul?
Will there be singing in the show? Songs (and poetry) are a big part of Tolkien’s world.
Describe the challenge in writing a show with such extensive established lore – that yet has the least full narrative written by Tolkien himself? How do your writers approach this?
Will we see the various different types of beings within a race (example: Noldor Elves vs. Teleri Elves)?
Where is Sexy Sauron? No, really; where?
Will the production seek to film in other locations globally?
Why Harfoots? Did Halflings in the 2nd Age seem essential for continuity?
Fans are mainly concerned if this show will be true to the lore – Who is the Lore expert(s) on the show?
Will David Salo return as Languages expert?
What percentage of characters will be Tolkien canon versus newly created for the show?
Looks like this is shaping up to have the most diverse casting of any Tolkien adaptation as the scope of the story expands across the planet of Arda. What do the Showrunners have front-of-mind when presenting these new characters and cultures through a wider lens?
With many thousands of years of tumultuous events in the 2nd Age, when will the main timeline of the show focus on?
Is John Howe involved (beyond the marketing Map)?
Are the Showrunners fans of Tolkien? We know that they wrote a Star Trek screenplay, but would love to know more about their personal tastes as geeks.
Are the accomplished people in the Writer’s Room pre-existing fans themselves?
Why did Amazon decide to leave New Zealand as a filming location, especially when it has become so synonymous with Middle-earth all this time?
Is Weta Workshop involved with physical props, weapons, costumes, and practical sets (not just Weta Digital)?
Is Industrial Light & Magic involved with their “Mandalorian” digital screen set technology?
Does this show connect with P.J.’s previous six films set in Middle-earth?
Was Tolkien scholar/author Tom Shippey’s departure from the production amicable?
End credits songs!!! We had some gems in the form of end credits songs for the movies. With a TV show, might we expect something similar at the end of each season?
The Lurtz vs. Azog thing: will we get more practical makeup effects or more CGI creatures?
The stories of the 2nd Age are notably bereft of magical creatures like Dragons and Balrogs. Is there a desire to include fantastical beasts and (houses of) dragons per the recent wave of poplar TV?
To what degree is Howard Shore involved, since one of the most desired components of this entire enterprise is the returning embrace of his music?
Let’s hope all this recent marketing activity means the fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s works have some more information to fuel their anticipation, sooner rather than later!
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Partially hidden behind the show title on one of the new Amazon Prime The Lord of the Rings–The Rings of Power posters is a hammer handle bearing Cirth runes. They appear to say “AWAKE SLEEPING STONE”, which is appropriate since the poster seems clearly to portray a Dwarf, hands permeated with gold dust.
The words on the sword seem to translate as “Awake Sleeping Stone”
Perhaps the meaning behind these words can be discovered in The Silmarillion. When Aulë, one of the Valar, created the Dwarves in secret “in a hall under the mountains in Middle-earth”, he preempted Eru Ilúvatar’s desire that the Elves, the Firstborn of his design, be the first sentient beings in Middle-earth. Instead of destroying Aulë’s creations, Ilúvatar granted them life, but not until after the Elves were awakened. Ilúvatar tells Aulë:
“They shall sleep now in the darkness under stone, and shall not come forth until the Firstborn have awakened upon Earth; and until that time thou and they shall wait, though long it may seem. But when the time comes, I will awaken them…”
J.R.R Tolkien, The Silmarillion, Of Aulë and Yavanna
Or it could be that the inscription on the hammer refers to the Dwarves’ love of delving deep under the earth, awakening the stone to its potential to become vast and glorious halls, such as Menegroth, the realm of King Thingol and Queen Melian, and Moria, or as it is called in the Dwarven tongue, Khazad-dûm.
In regards to the runes that appear on the hammer, they are a system of writing called the Cirth, or the Angerthas. They were created by Tolkien and appear in a chart in the Lord of the Rings in ‘Appendix E: Writing and Spelling’. Historically, runes were used across Northern Europe during the Middle Ages by the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings. Tolkien borrowed from these sources and others to create his own unique set of runes. In Tolkien’s legendarium, the origins of the Dwarven runes as we know them date back to the Sindar and Noldor Elves, and the Dwarves did not come to learn them until the beginning of the Second Age, which fits in with the show’s timeline. The Elves later abandoned Cirth for Tengwar, used commonly to write Quenya and Sindarin. Cirth only represented the sounds of Sindarin, and were primarily used for engraving into stone, metal, or wood, the reason for the straight edges and angles of the letters. The Dwarves of Moria added to and expanded the Angerthas to serve their own language and purposes.
In translating the poster, there were two runes that confused the meaning at first. The first was the rune used for “ng” in “Sleeping”. The poster uses the rune for “nj” instead of “ng”. According to the LotR appendices, the “ng” rune was one of the newer cirth introduced by the Dwarves of Moria, though it does not say at what date. It does say “This Angerthas Moria is represented in the tomb-inscription.” Assuming this references Balin’s Tomb, the “ng” rune might not have been in popular usage until later than the series may portray. The second thing that tripped me up was the rune used for the silent “e” in “Awake” and “Stone”. The symbol for the silent “e” is given a value of “*” on the chart in the appendices, and it was only through further research that I was able to confirm the corresponding letter and sound.
It’s really wonderful to return to Arda! There is so much to look forward to when The Rings of Power airs this fall – and even sooner if these posters are any indication.
Amazon’s Prime Video is gearing up for the much anticipated Lord of the Rings show, coming this September; and today they have revealed the title for the show. It is The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.
This, however, is to be no ordinary tv show; the budget and time already invested, and anticipated investment to come, make that clear. So it is only fitting that the title reveal was no ordinary reveal… The title was in fact (as the official press release states) ‘forged from real molten metal running like fiery rivers through hand-carved wooden ravines to craft its silvery letter forms.’ You can watch a dramatic video of this happening, here:
As an indication of the showrunners’ desire to connect with the fanbase, TORn staffers Justin and Quickbeam were fortunate enough to be invited to witness this moment in person; and TORn can now share with you some EXCLUSIVE behind the scenes glimpses of this epic moment, in the images and quotations below.
First, some more from the official press release, which goes with this magical reveal:
Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power officially has a name and it hints at what’s to come.
The television series’ complete title was revealed today, and the significance behind the subtitle will not be lost on J.R.R. Tolkien fans, foreshadowing an epic story that welds the major events of Tolkien’s Second Age together: the forging of the iconic rings.
‘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 Numenor, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men,’ said Showrunners J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay. ‘Until now, audiences have only seen on-screen the story of the One Ring – but before there was one, there were many … and we’re excited to share the epic story of them all.’
Just as so many elements of the show itself were hand-crafted, Prime Video chose to physically forge the title in a blacksmith foundry, pouring fiery molten metal into hand-carved wooden ravines shaped to the letterforms. … The bespoke title treatment appears crafted in a silvery metal, with lines of Elvish script inscribed along the crest of each letterform.
Of course, this newly revealed title gives fans much to talk about, speculating about both content and tone of the coming series. Let’s just consider here, however, the nature of this reveal. It is extraordinary that the film makers should go to such lengths, pouring (ha, pun intended) their passion for the series into this artisanal moment. A large, highly skilled and experienced team, including director Klaus Obermeyer, special effects adviser Douglas Trumball, and special effects supervisor Lee Nelson, and using advanced 4K camera systems, worked with metal foundryman Landon Ryan, a highly skilled craftsman with 28 years of experience. Ryan says:
“With art, so much of it is about experimentation and materials and using materials in a way that they’re really not designed for and seeing where the limits are. With this [project], it was the freedom to do things that you wouldn’t do in a normal world, because they don’t make sense. But in this sense, it was to achieve a certain look or feeling.”
“It was such a pleasure seeing {Klaus’} vision and then coming up with ways to help him achieve what he was looking for. Experimentation and the willingness to try different things was a lot of fun. I am so thankful that I got to experience metal on that level. Because that’s my world. I pour metal every day and it’s a new understanding.”
TORn staffers Quickbeam and Justin witness an epic reveal
Special effects adviser Douglas Trumball is an Academy Award winner, and has worked on classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner, and more. He tells us:
We all had in mind this idea of molten metal brilliantly glowing -so that there’s no question that what you’re looking at is a hot metal. What we settled on was to mix some of these metals to get a certain color and a certain brightness. It was a combination of bronze and aluminum.
Knowing that a legend such as Douglas Trumbull worked on this project, you realise the extent of the care and attention which was given to what is, in the grand scale of the entire project, a relatively small moment. But it’s a crucial one, getting the ball rolling in 2022, the year of the launch of this series. Speaking personally, the level of lavish artistry shown here makes me very optimistic for what lies ahead. The visual and audio tone shown in the title reveal video seem entirely in keeping with what we expect from Middle-earth; and the enduring, metal letters neatly mirror the enduring artistry and legacy of the Professor himself.
With many more exciting reveals coming, we the fans can really allow ourselves to start to get excited. So it begins…
