Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power First Reactions Are Out

Though the first episode The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will not premier on Amazon Prime Video until this September, the streamer invited several Tolkien-fans to view some early footage from the show. After being shown the series, and speaking with some of the creatives involved in the series, several outlets that are dyed in the wool fans of the Lord of the Rings texts (and its many spinoffs) have shared their thoughts. Several seemed to still have restrained optimism about the series and perhaps even more impressive to many over the visuals of the show itself was getting to talk with the showrunners, J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay. Check out the varied reactions below!

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series will be released on Friday, September 2, 2022, on Prime Video, with new episodes being released weekly. Amazon's official description for the upcoming series reads as follows: "The new epic drama brings to screens for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien's fabled Second Age of Middle-earth's history. Beginning in a time of relative peace, thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings' books, 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."  

Confirmed cast members that will star in the series includes Robert Aramayo (Game of Thrones, The King's Man), Joseph Mawle (Game of Thrones), Markella Kavenagh (Picnic at Hanging Rock), Morfydd Clark (His Dark Materials), Ema Horvath (Like.Share.Follow., Don't Look Deeper), Benjamin Walker (Jessica Jones), Charles Edwards (The Crown), Will Fletcher (The Girl Who Fell), Amelie Child-Villiers (The Machine), and newcomer Beau Cassidy, in addition to many more.