What Can The Rings Of Power Adapt? A Guide To The Lord Of The Rings’ Rights Issues
Prime Video By Jeremy Mathai/Oct. 4, 2022 5:40 pm EST
Warriors have their swords, wizards have their walking sticks, and harfoots have their, well, hairy feet. But for those of us on the outside looking in at fantastical shows like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” we may have nothing but questions about how exactly this sprawling story in season 1 came together to begin with. The endless handwringing over fidelity to author J.R.R. Tolkien’s work and whether this story truly “feels like Tolkien” enough have driven plenty of headlines, but there may remain some confusion over just what source material “The Rings of Power” is adapting in the first place and how exactly this new story is meant to fit into the vast legendarium.
The short answer? Unlike Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” (or even other fantasy contemporaries, like the ongoing “House of the Dragon”), series creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay didn’t have the benefit of any single text to draw upon in order to build out their scripts. More to the point, this show technically exists in a separate continuity altogether from Jackson’s acclaimed trilogy of movies — a legal obstacle that makes many of the shared characters, locations, and even designs between “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Rings of Power” that much more complicated. The long answer, then? Well, that would require clearing up the muddied water surrounding most discussions of this fascinating and relatively complicated take on Middle-earth.
So for those who may not know their “Silmarillion” from Sauron — and even for those who do — consider this a handy explainer rounding up all the information we know about “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” the specific Tolkien writing it’s adapting, and how it conquered its toughest foe yet: those pesky rights issues.
What Can The Rings Of Power Adapt? A Guide To The Lord Of The Rings’ Rights Issues
Prime Video
By Jeremy Mathai/Oct. 4, 2022 5:40 pm EST
Warriors have their swords, wizards have their walking sticks, and harfoots have their, well, hairy feet. But for those of us on the outside looking in at fantastical shows like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” we may have nothing but questions about how exactly this sprawling story in season 1 came together to begin with. The endless handwringing over fidelity to author J.R.R. Tolkien’s work and whether this story truly “feels like Tolkien” enough have driven plenty of headlines, but there may remain some confusion over just what source material “The Rings of Power” is adapting in the first place and how exactly this new story is meant to fit into the vast legendarium.
The short answer? Unlike Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” (or even other fantasy contemporaries, like the ongoing “House of the Dragon”), series creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay didn’t have the benefit of any single text to draw upon in order to build out their scripts. More to the point, this show technically exists in a separate continuity altogether from Jackson’s acclaimed trilogy of movies — a legal obstacle that makes many of the shared characters, locations, and even designs between “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Rings of Power” that much more complicated. The long answer, then? Well, that would require clearing up the muddied water surrounding most discussions of this fascinating and relatively complicated take on Middle-earth.
So for those who may not know their “Silmarillion” from Sauron — and even for those who do — consider this a handy explainer rounding up all the information we know about “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” the specific Tolkien writing it’s adapting, and how it conquered its toughest foe yet: those pesky rights issues.
The short answer? Unlike Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” (or even other fantasy contemporaries, like the ongoing “House of the Dragon”), series creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay didn’t have the benefit of any single text to draw upon in order to build out their scripts. More to the point, this show technically exists in a separate continuity altogether from Jackson’s acclaimed trilogy of movies — a legal obstacle that makes many of the shared characters, locations, and even designs between “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Rings of Power” that much more complicated. The long answer, then? Well, that would require clearing up the muddied water surrounding most discussions of this fascinating and relatively complicated take on Middle-earth.
So for those who may not know their “Silmarillion” from Sauron — and even for those who do — consider this a handy explainer rounding up all the information we know about “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” the specific Tolkien writing it’s adapting, and how it conquered its toughest foe yet: those pesky rights issues.
Hesitant fans immediately wondered what material this show could even adapt in the first place. Such skepticism came from the knowledge that the Tolkien Estate — the notoriously hard-to-please legal entity considered to be custodians and caretakers of Tolkien’s legacy — jealously guard the rights to “The Silmarillion” under lock and key, preventing it from being adapted in any form after the Tolkien family felt jilted by the liberties Peter Jackson took with his film trilogy. This meant that the author’s golden goose, a veritable treasure trove of epic poems and tales depicting events taking place long before “The Lord of the Rings,” remains strictly off-limits.
So the writers resorted to loopholes: adapting “The Lord of the Rings” chapters where characters reference historical events that took place in the First and Second Ages and, more than anything else, the lengthy appendices included at the end of “The Return of the King” that went into greater detail and provided the basis for “The Rings of Power.”
“We have the rights solely to ‘The Fellowship of the Ring,’ ‘The Two Towers,’ ‘The Return of the King,’ the appendices, and ‘The Hobbit.’ And that is it. We do not have the rights to ‘The Silmarillion,’ ‘Unfinished Tales,’ ‘The History of Middle-earth,’ or any of those other books.”
Wait, so The Rings of Power isn’t a prequel to the movies?
Admittedly, this doesn’t really affect the viewing experience of “The Rings of Power” all that much since both properties are rooted in the same source material, which means there are ample opportunities for clever retconning.
Familiar characters like Elrond and Galadriel, portrayed by Robert Aramayo and Morfyyd Clark respectively, are known quantities to those who watched Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett play different (and much older) versions of those characters in “The Lord of the Rings.” The fact that they aren’t literally the same heroes we saw before, however, shouldn’t make much of a difference to anyone except the biggest lore obsessives. Their characterizations still draw upon how Tolkien originally envisioned them, which means it’s fair game to compare their younger selves in the show with how the movies interpreted them much later on in their lives.
The showrunners addressed this as well, citing a mandate of “different but familiar” in taking inspiration from Jackson’s Middle-earth without staying beholden to it.
Bending the rules
How to explain the studio’s apparent flouting of their own deal?
This partnership seems to have worked out so far on “The Rings of Power,” giving us a thrilling and unique fantasy story that — complicated rights issues and all — should provide even more excitement to come.
