The Rings of Power

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is a television series prequel to The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings films currently on Amazon Prime. The first of five seasons has been available this fall on Amazon. I have been watching over the past several weeks and this evening I watched the first season finale. There were eight episodes for this first season. 

I also went back and watched the three Lord of the Rings expanded edition of the films and the three expanded editions of The Hobbit. I wrote about that here in my Lord of the Rings... Again post.

This story takes place thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in what is referred to as the Second Age of Middle Earth. 

I've read J. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings back in the 1970's but never did read any of his stories about the history of Middle Earth which this new series is based on. The main book following the death of Tolkien was The Sirmarillion that was published in 1977. In the 1980's there was a series of books by Tolkien and edited by his son that described this history of Middle Earth. The events that are described in this five season series takes place over several thousand years in these books but for this show are condensed into a much shorter time period. 

I was a little lost in following what was going on although there were lots of familiar people and places especially among the Elves. I did have to read up on the backstory of the Rings in Wikipedia. 

I'm looking forward to seeing more of this fantasy series and I'm thinking of maybe even checking out one of these books.