Three years ago, it was announced that Amazon was developing a television series based off the world of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s Lord of the Rings novels for its Prime streaming service. Several months later, it was announced that at least the first season would focus on the earlier years of Aragorn, one of the central characters in Lord of the Rings.
It was then a surprise to many fans when the production released a map and video announcing that the series would focus on the Second Age of Middle-earth. This was definitely a change in direction, as the Second Age takes place several thousand years before the events of The Lord of the Rings.
Since then, the two-part pilot has concluded filming under the supervision of director J.A. Bayona in New Zealand, and seasons 1 & 2 will begin back-to-back filming this month. Yesterday, TheOneRing.net announced that they had received an official synopsis for the show:
Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama 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.
While the synopsis may seem a bit vague, there are certainly ways to read into this if you know your Tolkien. The Second Age certainly has its share of heroes, many of them Elves who we may know from Lord of the Rings. The first King of Númenor was Elros, the brother of Elrond, and we could likely expect to see characters such as Galadriel and Celeborn, humans such as Elendil, and many others over the course of the series. With so many stories to pull from and a minimum of 5 seasons expected from the show, the sky’s the limit as to what we might see!
