THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER Director Explains Why They Disconnected From Peter Jackson's Trilogy

Earlier this week, director Peter Jackson shared that the team behind Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power initially approached him for his help, and they told him that they’d send him the first couple of scripts when they were complete. After that, Jackson never heard from them again.

It seems like the reason behind that is that as they were developing the story for The Rings of Power, they found themselves disconnecting from what Jackson had done with his films. Series Director J.A. Bayona recently told SFX Magazine:

"We all love what Peter Jackson did, and at the very beginning, we thought about establishing some kind of a bridge between the show and the movies. But then, as you realise the complexity of each world, you get invested in your own story. Then, unconsciously, you start to create something that has its own life.

"The bar was set very high, and I’m glad that Amazon had the ambition of going there – I tried to at least match what Peter Jackson did – but the more we were working with the characters and the story, the more we were unconsciously disconnecting from the movies."

It makes sense that this series would stand on its own apart from Jackson’s trilogy, but at the same time, the visual aspect of the series was clearly inspired by Jackson’s films. I really hope that this series is great and that it, at least, gets close to the high bar that Jackson set.

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.