J.R.R. Tolkien's Grandson Was a Consultant on THE RINGS OF POWER Series and Here's How He Helped
So far I’ve enjoyed everything that I’ve seen from Amazon Prime Video’s upcoming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The series looks great, and I just hope that the stories that are told are just as impressive as the visuals.
Showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay have been working on developing this show for quite some time and it turns out that they had some help from J.R.R. Tolkien’s grandson, Simon Tolkien. He was a consultant on the film and in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, McKay talked about his involvement and how he helped shape the show's story and character arc development:
"The first time we met Simon Tolkien, we had to pinch ourselves — here we were, sitting across the table from the grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien himself. And that was only the beginning of what has proven to be an extremely enriching and rewarding dialogue. His insights, attention to detail and passion for both the characters and the overall architecture of The Rings of Power are woven throughout the pages of our story. Working with Simon has been the experience of a lifetime."
Tolkien also had a great time working on the series saying, "I have enjoyed assisting Amazon Studios in connection with the series, and in particular providing input to JD Payne and Patrick McKay on matters including my grandfather's original writing."
Before becoming a professional writer, Simon Tolkien worked as a London barrister, specializing in criminal defense. Over the last 20 years, he's published books including No Man's Land, Orders from Berlin, and The King of Diamonds.
The story for The Rings of Power is set during the Second Age, which is set thousands of years before events in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Tolkien chronicled the Second Age in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, and it explores stories like Sauron's first rise to power and the original forging of the One Ring. McKay said:
"We were not interested in doing a show about the younger version of the same world you knew, where it's a little bit of a prequel. We wanted to go way, way, way back and find a story that could exist on its own two feet. This was one that we felt hadn't been told on the level and the scale and with the depth that we felt it deserved."
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power “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 series is set to premiere on Prime Video on September 2, 2022.