The first image released for the Amazon Lord of the Rings series is breathtaking. I’m so ready for another adventure in Middle Earth.

I see a lot of potential here. The visuals feel right to me. At the same time, I realize everything is far off in the distance. Seeing characters up close and interacting with the world might be a different story.

There are so many ways this series could go wrong. I’ve tried to list them all before and got lost because the possibilities start to spin off into their own disasters.

This image at least gives me hope that the setting will be done well. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much. One picture doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story. I need to see more to know if this feels more like LotR or The Hobbit to me. Too much of The Hobbit’s visual style could ruin it for me and more LotR’s style might get me to stick around for the whole series.

Speaking of the story, I’m thrilled that we’re heading back to the 2nd age. There’s so much unexplored potential there! I want to see the stories Tolkien did write about this time adapted well, and I want to see the show fill in the gaps between those stories in a satisfactory way.

There are a lot of characters from the 2nd age that never became much more than names in the histories. I’ve built them up in my own mind over the years from my own interpretations as well as fanworks that resonated with me.

What if I disagree with their portrayal of someone like Gil-galad? Will it ruin the show for me? I’ve accepted characters that were wildly different from how I envisioned them while reading books before, but none of those books were as close to my heart as the world of Middle Earth. I’ve been a fan since I was 13. My interpretation of these barely mentioned but very important characters is firmly set in my mind. The show is going to need to be compelling to get me to accept anything different.

What about characters like Galadriel and Elrond? Is it going to bother me that they don’t look like their movie selves? Yes, they’re elves (or half-elven) and thousands of years younger in the 2nd age, but being younger doesn’t mean they’re completely different people. Maybe they’ll try to avoid copying the characters from the movies altogether, but I don’t know if that would bother me more or less. Like most of my thoughts on this series, it will all come down to execution.

Maybe I’m nervous and excited at the same time. I want it to be good but I care too much not to guarded against disappointment.

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What are your thoughts on the Amazon Lord of the Rings series?

Do you want to see more of this sort of blog post from me? I’ve wanted to try sharing my thoughts about various things here for a while now but I’ve always stopped because I’m not sure anyone would want to read about my opinion on random things.