The First Teaser For 'The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power' Is Here And We Should Be Cautiously Optimistic About It

Nori and The Stranger will embark on a journey to Rhûn to uncover The Stranger's true identity. Simultaneously, Sauron is now in Mordor, and a central storyline revolves around the hunt for Sauron's blood.

Rings of Power is an interesting series. 

Interesting in that Amazon spent a billion dollars just getting their foot in the door but didn't even get the rights to all of the source material. Interesting in that all the technical aspects of the series are amazing. Production value, CGI, music, cinematography, costumes are all A+++. And interesting in that the acting is relatively solid across the board and helps make the world, which is very dense, easier to immerse yourself into. 

The biggest problem I have with this series, in retrospect, is that there is simply too much going on across multiple storylines. At any given point, there are separate scenes and storylines going on for:

- Galadriel 
- Elrond
- Arondir
- The Harfoots/The Stranger 
- Isildur/The Numenorians 
- Durin
- Adar(?)

Thats just way too much shit to be jumping around with. Especially when the Harfoot and Arondir storylines are just absolute duds that act as annoying and bland speedbumps for the series. To me, the big strengths lie in Galadriel's story and the friendship between Elrond and Durin. This was one of my favorite fella scenes from the show so far. 

Numenor has also been a great spot for the show to flex it's budget but that's been a weaker line so far. 

As far as this trailer goes, it looks like we get a lot more Sauron and a lot less of the Harfoots. Both are big wins, in my opinion. As long as this show can stick heavily to what works, maybe they can get into the conversation with other high-quality fantasy products like GoT. 

From what we know so far, Charlotte Brändström will be directing most of the episodes this season. She did a few in season 1, and has also directed episodes of 'Shōgun', 'The Witcher' and 'The Continental'. New cast members include Ben Daniels (The Crown, House of Cards), Ciarán Hinds(GoT, Justice League, Belfast) and Rory Kinnear (Skyfall, Men, The Imitation Game). One of the big negatives as far as production goes is the fact that the production moved from New Zealand, where S1 and the LOTR trilogy was shot, to England. To me, that hurts big time. 

The new season drops August 29th.