Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Composer Bear McCreary Teases “We Made the Show I Want to See”

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is debuting on Prime Video next month, and the series will be set thousands of years before Lord of the Rings. Recently, concept artist John Howe teased, “This isn’t the Middle-earth you remember.” Other people involved with the series are also speaking out about the differences between the new show and the beloved films, including composer Bear McCreary (The Walking Dead, Agents of SHIELD, Godzilla: King of Monsters). During a recent interview with TV Line, McCreary praised the series and spoke about hesitation from fans. 

“I understand fans being hesitant to embrace The Rings of Power,” McCreary said the show’s Los Angeles premiere. “What I’ve wanted to say to everybody for the last two years is: Every person you would want on every job is there. For a long time, it was just, ‘Who from the movies is there?’ And then they’re not, so ‘I don’t trust you.’”

“I get it,” McCreary added, “but the person doing the costumes is the right person. The person writing is definitely the right person. The actors, the editors, and me… It’s going to surprise fans in a pleasant way. I think we did it. We made the show I want to see.”

McCreary also talked about creating the music for the show and following in the footsteps of Lord of the Rings composer Howard Shore who won Oscars for all three movies. 

“In my mind, the theme that [Howard Shore] wrote is the Shire theme. It’s nostalgia for a very specific place, and that’s not what our show is about,” McCreary explained. “There is no Shire when we open on our show. They are nomadic people. They’re off the grid. So for me, I wanted to draw that influence from British and Celtic folk music that Howard Shore used, but I also wanted something that was more nomadic that took me to another place, and I used West African percussion.”

In a recent interview with SFX Magazine (via CBR), Rings of Power executive-producer J.A. Bayona revealed that embodying Tolkien’s “optimism and love” were the biggest priorities when bringing the narrative to life.

“When you read Tolkien’s books, you can tell how much he appreciates beauty, so the show is full of beauty,” said Bayona. “Tolkien is inherently optimistic, warm and emotional. This is a man who went through some of the darkest things in human history [in the First World War] and he didn’t come out of that and write a despairing, awful story.”

“[Tolkien] wrote a story about hope, and a little guy succeeding,” Bayona explained. “We always felt that it was rule number one that there needed to be true optimism and love, even in the darkest, scariest moments of the show.”

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will debut on Prime Video on September 2nd.