"Rings of Power" trailer analysis

[Huinesoron]

Trailer release! I've gone through this with a fine-toothed comb, and at two and a half minutes it's taken me long enough. A few pictures in here to break up the long, long list of shots.

1. Flythrough of a river canyon to a Numenorean city. This is the same as shot #22 in the mini-teaser. Galadriel: "There was a time when the world was so young."

2. Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, looking very Cate Blanchett. I think the music here is the Rivendell theme from Fellowship too.

3. Galadriel: "There had not yet been a sunrise." Cloaked figure walks up a hill, overwhich a white/gold city and a bright light come into view. This shot appeared in the very first image we saw from the series, back in August '21, and it revealed...

3a. ... the Two Trees of Valinor in all their glory, with a city (Tirion? Valmar?) in the foreground. Galadriel: "But even then, there was light."



Fade out to white.

4. Flyover of an unidentified group of ~20 running through a wintry-looking, possibly marshy valley.

5. Similar flyover of 10 figures trudging over a snowy mountain. Over the landscape beyond a Great Eagle soars, beating its wings only once. Song: "Come to me, come to me, lands far away..."

6. Harfoot: "Elves have forests to protect..." Flypast of an elvish city on a forested hillside. Style is like FotR!Rivendell.

7. Harfoot: "... Dwarves their mines..." A beautifully well-lit interior shot of Khazad-dum, including vines hanging from the ceiling and mirrors to fill the space with sunlight.

8. Harfoot: "... Men their fields of grain." A village of thatched wooden houses, with farmers out the front. All very Anglo-Saxon.

9. Harfoot: "But we Harfoots have each other." Shot of the Meeples on a hillside, and then, surprise! The foreground grass is actually a Harfoot in camoflague. She lifts a whistle(?) to her lips.

10. A forest, with Harfoots ("HarFEET!") dancing between the trees. Song: "For I must now wander this wandering day..."

11. Closeup of the Harfoot speaker from the last few shots as she shrugs: "We're safe." I think this is Poppy Proudfellow, but I'm not great with faces.

12a/b. Nori Brandyfoot watches the Meteor fly over and crash. Shots 20 & 21 from the mini-teaser.

13. The waterfall from shot 4 of the first trailer. Elrond: "You have fought long enough, Galadriel." I love the way he says her name here.

14a/b/c. Galadriel and Elrond standing in the snow. She glowers at him, stabs her sword into the ground, and then there's a wide shot of them both.

15. Elrond in a forest setting: "Put up your sword."

16. Galadriel looking at Elrond in the same scene. She is wearing the simple white dress from her swanship scene in the mini-teaser.

17. Group of torch-bearing figures in a blizzard. Galadriel: "The enemy is still out there."

18. Galadriel in sunlight: "The question now is where?"

19. Torch-figures in a ruined underground city.

20. A long shot of a white city built into a cliff. Could be Numenor, or maybe Tirion again.

21a/b/c. Elrond and Galadriel, in the forest setting from a few shots ago. E: "It is over." G: "You have not seen what I have seen." E: "I have seen my share."

22. Galadriel on red, with sparks flying past. She looks to be covered with mud or something else. Galadriel: "You have not seen..."

23. This:



There is water above the figures and buildings, which probably makes this either a flashback to Alqualonde, or her vision of the fall of Numenor.

24. Galadriel looking very pointed: "... what I have seen."

25. A Numenorean ship sailing into harbour. Its sails evoke stylised wings.

26. The harbour in Numenor and grand statue; I think we've seen this shot before but I'm not sure where.

27. Elves under a tree at night. Gil-Galad: "Darkness will march..."

28. Gil-Galad close-up: "... over the face of the Earth."

29. Elrond turns in alarm.

30. Torchbearing Orcs - an army of them. They may be led by a black-haired elvish-styled figure.

31a/b. The swanship, and Galadriel on it. Shots 8 & 10 from the mini-teaser. Gil-Galad: "It will be the end not just of our people..."

32a/b. Gil-Galad: "... but all peoples." Miriel walks down a street as petals/snow fly past, then looks up at the fall. The first half is shot 18 from the mini-teaser.

33. Nori and another Harfoot with sparks around them.

34. The Stranger, very out of focus, looking at his hands in a similar setting.

35a/b. Elrond with Dwarf escort looking around as they walk through Khazad-dum. Dwarf: "I am sorry."

36. Dwarf: "But their time has come." Durin III [sic] talking to someone.

37. Durin IV smashes a rock. Shot 17 of the original trailer.

38a/b. Elrond hanging off the icy waterfall, just like Galadriel in the first trailer. I guess they were in it together!

39. Viggo??! No, wait, it's Elendil, in a grand audience chamber, looking like a mess. Arondir: "The past is with us all."

40. Arondir (finishing his line), in what looks like a mortal house, complete with aging peasant.

41a/b. The ride of the Rohirrim... er, no, of Galadriel's cavalry from original trailer shot 9. Elendil: "The past is dead."

42. Two Harfeet hugging. One is Nori.

43a/b. Flashes of the raft in a storm.

44a/b. Numenorean ship on the high seas. Isildur on its deck. Elendil: "We either move forward..."

45a/b. Elendil and Galadriel riding along a beach.

46. Elendil, by a fire, looking at someone who might be Isildur. Elendil: "... or we die with it."

47a/b. Numenoreans cheering Pharazon.

48. One of the cavalry grabs a spear. Is it Elendil?

49. Durin IV holding up a jewel. Durin IV: "This could be the beginning-"

50. "-of a new era." At least four elf-men in Noldorin armour draw swords in a ritual manner under a dome and a starry sky:



Speculation says "Oath of Feanor" and honestly I'm convinced and also aaaaaaa.

51. Arondir(?) fighting a wolf. At least one of them is chained.

52a/b. Galadriel fighting a troll. Might be the same ruined city from earlier.

53a/b/c. The Stranger in the Meteor crater. The fire whooshes into him, and looks very Eye of Sauron-y while it does so.

54. Four Harfeet walk across the landscape. Song: "Away I must wander, this wandering day."

Oof, I'm exhausted! Thoughts will come later.

hS

[Tar Elenion]

"3. Galadriel: "There had not yet been a sunrise.""

A contradiction to The Hobbit (rev.) and Lord of the Rings.

"Though their [the Wood-elves] magic was strong, even in those days they were wary. They differed from the High Elves of the West, and were more dangerous and less wise. For most of them (together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West. There the Light-elves and the Deep-elves and the Sea-elves went and lived for ages, and grew fairer and wiser and more learned, and invented their magic and their cunning craft, in the making of beautiful and marvellous things, before some came back into the Wide World. In the Wide World the Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon but loved best the stars; and they wandered in the great forests that grew tall in lands that are now lost."
The Hobbit, Flies and Spiders
Wood-elves linger in the twilight of the sun and moon before the High Elves return to Middle-earth.
Note that Tolkien deliberately revised this passage to have an extant sun and moon (see Anderson's The Annotated Hobbit).

"The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone
When Durin woke and walked alone.
[...]
A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power upon the door.
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone for ever fair and bright."
LotR, A Journey in the Dark

Durin wakes with a moon present, and is able to capture the light of sun, star and moon in crystal lamps.

Galadriel's song:
"I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree.
Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone,
In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion."
LotR, Farewell to Lorien

Gandalf's Ent riddle:
"Ere iron was found or tree was hewn,
When young was mountain under moon;
Ere ring was made, or wrought was woe,
It walked the forests long ago."
LotR, The Road to Isengard

[Galadriel55]

Not sure what you mean about the contradiction. Galadriel seems to be referencing the time of the Two Trees, before the sun and moon. Third Age songs may say what they will, but there was no sun or moon during the Oath or Alqualonde, if these are the scenes she is referencing.

[Tar Elenion]

The mythological creation of the Sun and Moon from the Two Trees is not present in LotR or the Hobbit.
Tolkien deliberately revised the Hobbit to have an extant sun and moon while the High Elves were dwelling in Aman, before the return of the Noldor.
Durin wakes with a moon, and is able to capture moonlight and sunlight in lamps.
Galadriel sings of her time in Valinor, beyond the sun and moon (not before the sun and moon). Beyond is probably a reference to the Dome of Varda.
Gandalf says the Ents were walking in forests, with a moon overhead, before any tree was cut down, or iron found.
In the mythological tale:
Durin woke thousands of years before the Sun and Moon.
Galadriel could not have sung of leaves in Valinor, beyond a sun and moon (which did not exist until after she left).
Iron was found and trees cut down long before the Sun and Moon were created, in the myth version.
These are consistent with the (so called) 'round-world cosmology' (deliberately so in the case of the Hobbit).

Hence a contradiction to LotR and The Hobbit.
(As Amazon only has rights to the Hobbit and LotR, I do wonder if they had to get permission from the Estate to refer to the 'Sun and Moon creation myth', or if the show-runners are ignorant of the fact that the creation of the sun and moon myth is contradicted by LotR and, quite deliberately, The Hobbit.)

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Tar Elenion

Hence a contradiction to LotR and The Hobbit.
(As Amazon only has rights to the Hobbit and LotR, I do wonder if they had to get permission from the Estate to refer to the 'Sun and Moon creation myth', or if the show-runners are ignorant of the fact that the creation of the sun and moon myth is contradicted by LotR and, quite deliberately, The Hobbit.)

So the issue is more that the showrunners are technically using something they don't have rights to? Because it seems like the real problem you're underlining is not that the show is discrepant from the legendarium, but that there are discrepancies in Tolkien's own materials. And frankly, this one I would give to the show - imagine if they followed your scenario, what the reaction would be then. People would be shouting from rooftops that the show has no respect for Tolkien if they never heard about the Trees and how the sun and moon were created. I would much rather they stick to The Sil cosmology and Sun&Moon creation myths. And at the very least Telperion makes a brief cameo in LOTR, so while the creation myth is not there (and, in-world, probably long forgotten by anyone who is not an Elf and perhaps a few very keen scholars of history and Elf lore), the Trees are. Well, one Tree.

[Tar Elenion]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

So the issue is more that the showrunners are technically using something they don't have rights to? Because it seems like the real problem you're underlining is not that the show is discrepant from the legendarium, but that there are discrepancies in Tolkien's own materials. And frankly, this one I would give to the show - imagine if they followed your scenario, what the reaction would be then. People would be shouting from rooftops that the show has no respect for Tolkien if they never heard about the Trees and how the sun and moon were created. I would much rather they stick to The Sil cosmology and Sun&Moon creation myths. And at the very least Telperion makes a brief cameo in LOTR, so while the creation myth is not there (and, in-world, probably long forgotten by anyone who is not an Elf and perhaps a few very keen scholars of history and Elf lore), the Trees are. Well, one Tree.

Correct, the show-runners are using something they don't have the rights to, and I am curious if it is due to ignorance on their part, or if they actually realize it and had to get permission from the Estate.
(Both Telperion and Laurelin are mentioned in LotR, App. A)

I rather doubt that they are that concerned with 'people shouting from the roof-tops', considering all the bending and twisting done.

[Galadriel55]

I rather doubt that they are that concerned with 'people shouting from the roof-tops', considering all the bending and twisting done.

My argument though is that their choice accomplishes less twisting. If you are portraying the FA directly, then do it FA style. Don't make 3rd Age rhymes and riddles into a reality no one will recognize. Of course, we might rather that they did not touch the FA at all. But assuming they do anyways... would you really rather they depicted Valinor without the Two Trees cosmology? In my mind that would have been the much greater evil.

As for rights, wasn't there a clause somewhere that they couldn't contradict published material?

[Blind Guardian]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

So the issue is more that the showrunners are technically using something they don't have rights to?

I haven't read this entire thread, but I have a feeling that lawsuits will come out of this show.

I think, visually, the RoP series looks great. I am tentative about the story. In my head, I'm thinking of this entire Amazon series as a giant myth, which makes it a little better and easier to ignore any inconsistencies. I actually enjoy reading different myths when told by different cultures.

You know, I've been trying to get a copy of the Sil as an eBook. I have access to 3 libraries and NONE of them have it. I am 21 on a waiting list in OR, ? in Hawaii (their website is crap and doesn't even tell you what you've requested), and 6 in AZ. I have a physical copy in AZ but I'm in HI right now I just wanna read some Sil again darn it!!

Edit: libgen has the Sil! WAHOO!

[Mithadan]

Good to see you Blind Guardian.

Pretending that RoP is a myth or tale independent of (or unreported by) Tolkien may be an option available to some here. However, the series is using characters, places and a general mythological setting familiar to me. The Hobbit movies almost lost me at the depiction of Radagast, and did lose me in goblin town. Tauriel was simply annoying to me, though perhaps I would have enjoyed her character in a non-Tolkien setting.

Attempting to view RoP as if it were unrelated to or independent of Middle Earth is not an option for me. For this reason, I hope that its quality and faithfulness to at least the spirit of the Legendarium is enough to let me enjoy it. There are gaps in the "history," particularly in the Second Age, broad enough to craft a believable effort to fill in the empty spaces so long as some creditable attempt at consistency is made.