One Streaming Service to Rule Them All

Bringing The Lord of the Rings to the Digital Age

Amazon is a company that, for better and worse, dominates our lives. Their video on demand service Amazon Unbox launched in 2006. Similar to iTunes, which debuted in 2001, users could purchase digital content to enjoy on their home devices. There was no original content and “streaming” was still a few years away. In 2007, Netflix began their transition from DVDs towards streaming and original content. This marked a shift in the film and television landscape, most notably with the arrival of “binge watching”. I’m not going to bother explaining the words in quotes, because I’m assuming we’ve all been guilty of it more than a few times. Amazon was in a unique position compared to other companies—they had the technology, they had a built-in user base of Prime subscribers, but they didn’t have the content. That changed in 2013 when Prime Video launched in its current iteration.

It was clear that Prime Video needed a flagship show. Netflix had Stranger Things, Hulu had The Handmaid’s Tale, and Disney+ would enter the scene with The Mandalorian in a few years. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a company that began as an online bookstore, most of their programming is adaptations. A quick run through of their catalog: The Boys (graphic novel), The Wheel of Time (book series), Reacher (book series), The Summer I Turned Pretty (book series), Mr. and Mrs. Smith (movie). The only significant original concept is Citadel, which is barely certified fresh at Rotten Tomatoes with a 63% Audience Score. Remember, this was the era of Game of Thrones, a massive, global hit that sent Hollywood scrambling to find a successor or rival. You’ve already read the subject line, but it’s probably clear what intellectual property Jeff Bezos and Amazon found the most…precious.

Now, the reason I include Bezos here is because he was directly involved in the rights negotiations with the Tolkien estate. This is highly unusual for the founder. First, Bezos has been on the record of being a huge Lord of the Rings fan since he was a teenager. Second, Amazon desperately needed a marquee title to prove Prime Video was a serious contender alongside classic studios.

The rights situation is murky at best with various bits and pieces owned by New Line Cinema, Warner Bros., and the Embracer Group, but Amazon is the holder for television adaptations of The Lord of The Rings and its appendices. There’s some other details about minimum length that we’ll skip for now. The important bit are those appendices. Readers of The Return of the King might be in for a bit of surprise when (spoiler alert) the One Ring is destroyed a little over halfway through the book. A lot happens afterwards, including Saruman attacking the Shire. Beyond the main story, there are six appendices that give more information about the history of Middle-Earth. These appendices which cover the creation of the rings of power thousands of years before The Fellowship of the Ring are where The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power show runners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay are living.

Of course, as with any adaptation, there are significant differences between the original work and what we see on the screen. For The Rings of Power, the biggest change is a significant compression of thousands of years into a shorter time span. Without ruining one of the reveals from the Season 2 finale, not only is the conflict between the Elves and Sauron happening at a rapid pace, certain characters that shouldn’t exist yet are very much wandering around and affecting the activities of Middle-Earth. This is part of the nature of filmed media versus literature. There are practical reasons; actors age naturally in ways that don’t fit fantasy worlds. There are also storytelling reasons; while book readers might enjoy five pages describing an autumnal Hobbit harvest, viewers would rather get to the action. 

A common debate amongst fans is the intricacies between “lore” and “canon”. While these terms are often used interchangeably, I don’t see them that way. “Lore” is the traditional story. “Canon” are works by the original author that are seen as genuine. In many circles, going against canon is borderline sacrilegious. But here’s the thing—J.R.R. Tolkien’s History of Middle-Earth never had a canon. Without getting too into the weeds, J.R.R. Tolkien used a literary device called a “found manuscript conceit” when writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In Tolkien’s world building, he is merely a translator working from a fictional work called the Red Book of Westmarch written by the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins. While diehard fans lament the changes to the book, The Rings of Power is simply another translation from Bilbo’s original manuscript. Tolkien’s own framing device gives the writers more leeway in what they’re showing on screen. This has been used to great effect, from the creation of Mount Doom (a really big volcano) in Season 1 to the forging of many of the rings in Season 2. 

In The Rings of Power, the three elven rings are the first to be made. This is the complete opposite of the source material, where the elven rings were crafted to balance the other rings of power that Sauron had corrupted. Payne and McKay showed real inexperience at times in Season 1. This was to be expected. Bizarrely, The Rings of Power is the duo’s first official screenwriting credit. However, they’ve pulled it together and really come into their own for Season 2. The order of events may be changing, but emotion central to the conflict between light and dark is as strong as the original works.

So, is the reveal at the end of Season 2 fan service or economical storytelling? That’s to be determined, but Amazon has promised five seasons. That gives time to figure beats out, something that most modern television doesn’t get a chance to do. Amazon has spent $1 billion on this show (not an exaggeration). So far, it seems to be worth the price of admission. If this pattern of carefully tweaking lore to appeal to a modern audience while retaining the original emotional motivations holds, we are all in for a fantastic journey.

See you next week when Adaptation Station dives head first into our first short story!