Thread by @VanityFair

Exclusive 🚨: V.F. has your first official look at @PrimeVideo’s The Lord of the Rings: #TheRingsOfPower. Welcome back to Middle-earth. vntyfr.com/y9KiQsf

#TheRingsOfPower, set within Tolkien’s Second Age, will juggle 22 stars and multiple storylines—from deep within the dwarf mines to the elven kingdom of Lindon. Here, the adventures of the fellowship are still some 2,000 years in the future.

🔗: vntyfr.com/y9KiQsf

Patrick McKay and JD Payne are first-time showrunners undertaking a daunting task for Tolkien fan Jeff Bezos. Their series—based not on a novel but the Middle-earth prehistory attached to the end of #LOTR—will be the costliest TV show ever.

🔗: vntyfr.com/y9KiQsf

Despite being set thousands of years before the stories we know, familiar immortals do turn up as their younger selves: Morfydd Clarke as the elven queen Galadriel, now a hardscrabble warrior leading the Northern Armies.

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Robert Aramayo plays Elrond, the elven statesman who is just beginning to build his reputation—starting with mending the relationship between his people and the dwarves of Khazad-dûm.

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In a bold move, #TheRingsOfPower condenses Tolkien’s Middle-earth timeline and adds entirely new characters. Sophia Nomvete’s dwarven princess, Disa, and Ismael Cruz Córdova’s Silvan elf, Arondir, broaden the notion of who lives in Middle-earth.

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What of Sauron? Or Isildur, the warrior who cuts the One Ring off the villain’s hand? “The speculation is welcome,” says Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios. But the secrecy that has blanketed this series is finally lifting. vntyfr.com/y9KiQsf

At its core, #TheRingsOfPower takes its biggest cue from the heart of Tolkien’s books. “It’s about friendship,” says McKay. “It’s about brotherhood and underdogs overcoming great darkness.”

🔗: vntyfr.com/y9KiQsf