Drink in the Visually Splendid Trailer for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

At this point, it feels safe to say that we’re well past the point of debating whether Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Rings series, The Rings of Power, will be a visually resplendent piece of television. The company has spent such an ungodly sum that anything less would have been completely unacceptable, and every bit of footage we see from The Rings of Power—including the new trailer below—have indicated that the show is beautiful to look at. The costuming, the makeup, the CGI and expansiveness of the show all feel like they reflect that massive budget. That’s the good news.

The real question, of course, is everything else about The Rings of Power, its plot and its characters, and whether an “inspired by” Tolkien story, rather than a direct adaptation of one of the author’s novels, will really carry on the same spirit. One thing is for certain, though: Amazon isn’t leaving much, if anything, out. Just look at how many Tolkien locales are namechecked in the most recent official synopsis:

Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.

If there’s one thing this series undoubtedly has, it’s ambition—Amazon so badly wants this show to be the next Game of Thrones-style event series, one gets the sense that the marketing blitz before this thing debuts on Sept. 2, 2022 will be truly epic in scope. In the meantime, check out the latest tantalizing footage below.