Showrunners show their qualities.
J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay had twin impossible tasks when they set out on the road to create The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. With the legacy of the Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy to live up to (I don’t count his terrible 3-movie rendition of The Hobbit), a five-season commitment contracted with the Tolkien estate with a projected $1 billion production budget—on top of the $250 million paid to the estate for the rights to The Lord of the Rings trilogy—the stakes are almost impossibly high. Their series has to drive massive Amazon Prime subscriberships or the whole thing goes down as Bezos’s Folly.
The other impossible task: satisfy the legions of Tolkien purists, such as myself.
Tolkien wisely said when beginning his long journey to create his Legendarium, the mythopoeic universe he worked on for over sixty years that is the basis of the show, “I wisely started with a map, and made the story fit.” J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have done the same.
But there’s a problem with that map.
Amazon only purchased the rights to the Lord of the Rings and its appendixes. In the later, Tolkien extremely briefly sketched the Second and Third Ages of his Legendarium, stories that are only slightly more fleshed out in The Silmarillion, his masterwork and compendium of the history of Arda (Middle Earth) and Valinor (the home of the gods). In his defense, his Legendarium runs from before the beginning of time through the Third Age, concluding with the events recounted in The Lord of the Rings. We’re talking 60,000 years, people!
Tolkien spent most of his time filling in the gaps in his schema for the First Age. The grimness of The Lord of the Rings is nothing compared to the multiple catastrophes of that age. Sure, we’ve got the battle between absolute good and evil, but many of the tragedies are brought about by the greed, avarice and thirst for revenge of Middle Earth’s supposed good guys: elves, dwarves and men.
Given that Tolkien spent so little time on his Second Age and what Payne and McKay have access to is merely a smidgeon of that—as outlined in The Lord of the Rings appendixes—their source material is indeed thin broth. Think of it as the Cliff Notes version of the Cliff Notes version of the Second Age.
So, Payne and McKay were required to use the broad strokes of the licensed material to create a sandbox in which to tell their own stories. Those stories aren’t exactly those Tolkien told, but they don’t much contradict them. (The Tolkien Estate—Simon Tolkien in particular—has general script approval for The Rings of Power.)
Case in point, the original characters. SPOILER ALERTS: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
The Harfoots
The Hobbits had to come from somewhere. Enough said.
Adar
No, Tolkien says nothing about the bad guy of most of this first season of The Rings of Power. He does, however, mention elves who were captured by Morgoth and twisted to serve his ends. (Morgoth is the divine super-baddie defeated at the end of the First Age. Sauron is just his semi-divine lapdog.)
Men allying with Morgoth/Sauron
Yes, this did happen during the First Age and the Elves did establish watchtowers over Morgoth’s stronghold. Only they were in the far north of Middle Earth, not the south as in the TV show. But why quibble when over $1 billion is on the line?
The love affair between the elf Arondir and the human Browyn
No, there were no such people in the Legendarium, but before them there were Beren and Lúthien and after them Aragorn and Arwen. So, I guess it’s possible.
The Stranger
Tolkien mentions five Maiar Istari, semi-divine wizards sent to Middle Earth by the Valar (gods) to intervene for good. Three, most people know: Gandalf, Saruman and Radagast. The other two were called the Blue Wizards, who went East and disappeared into the unknown. And where is our friend going, the wizard heretofore called The Stranger? To Rhûn in the far east, a place Tolkien mentions but thinly describes. Of course The Stranger could simply be Gandalf, his arrival on the scene earlier than Tolkien conceived it. Payne and McKay are compressing the heck out of the Legendarium’s timeline, so it’s entirely possible. Add that to remarks some cast and crew members have made saying The Stranger is someone familiar to fans and you’ve got a good case for Mr. Mithrandir. And thumbs down, by the way, on the internet chatter. No, The Stranger is not Sauron. Who is?
Lord Halbrand
Tolkien doesn’t say anything about a Lord Halbrand, but he does lay out how Sauron deceived the elves (and later the Númenóreans) by taking the comely shape of one Annatar, the Lord of Gifts. The show’s writers barely justify Halbrand’s switch to Sauron. Worse, the moment where Halbrand/Annatar/Sauron inserts himself into the elves’ ring-making feels rushed, making what should be a significant moment look like writers ticking off yet another plot point. Still, Charlie Vickers is comely as all get-out; at least they nailed that part. So, thumbs up on the internet chatter that was convinced early on that Lord Halbrand was Sauron.
Other stuff Payne and McKay made up that Tolkien never mentioned but that could have happened
The creation of Mordor, the birth of the orcs, the origin story of mithril.
This latter in this show is nonsense: The Song of the Roots of Hithaeglir is pure non-Tolkien balderdash. It does, however, justify the dwarves overreaching in Khazad-dûm and the elves thirst for power in creating their three rings: Vilya, Nenya and Narya.
More nonsense: a badass Galadriel. Sure, she was a super ninja in the First Age during the The Helcaraxë (look it up!) But she largely refrained from participating in the wars against Morgoth, electing instead to hide out in the forest kingdom of Doriath, remaining there through the Second Age under the tutelage of Melian, another member of the Maiar. That said, I think it was the right decision to move her front and center. She is such a powerful presence in the trilogy. Plus, we need portrayals of powerful women and Morfydd Clark’s certainly fits the bill.
As for the rest, the show manages to be compelling viewing, its epic edge-of-your-seat set pieces balanced with smaller, intimate scenes. The design and special effects look terrific. The line between film and television has been totally erased. It feels absolutely one with Peter Jackson’s trilogy. The first season was shot in New Zealand. Weta Workshop and conceptual artist John Howe are seminal players in both. Bear McCreary’s music virtually channels Howard Shore’s in composition and instrumentation. The dialog features the same ponderous speechifying, which is either inspiring or insufferable depending on your point of view.
So, all and all, kudos to J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, showrunners with very short track records. Sirs, like Lord Faramir in The Lord of the Rings, you have shown your qualities—the very highest.
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