The Lord of the Rings books are some of the most-beloved books of all time. Then, Peter Jackson made the LOTR movie trilogy and set the tone of what a truly fantasy spectacle should be. And then, he did The Hobbit Trilogy and…well let’s just move on. The point is, people love the stories of Middle-Earth, but when it was announced that Amazon Prime would be making a story in that universe via Rings Of Power, many wondered if it would be like the first trilogy, or the second.
Enter Patrick McKay, who had a lot to say about these questions in a recent interview:
“Anyone approaching Lord Of The Rings on screen would be wrong not to think about how wonderfully right Jackson got so much of it,” McKay said. “But we’re admirers from afar, that’s it. The Rings Of Power doesn’t try to compete with him.”
He went on, “You can psych yourself out in keeping up with the Joneses, but one of the mantras on this was ‘go back to the source material … What would Tolkien do?”
McKay added, “Some of these other competing properties – they play one octave really beautifully … But Tolkien was playing every note on the piano. He had that variety of tones. There’s the whimsy, friendship, and humour that Harry Potter is so beloved for – but there’s sophistication, politics, history, mythology, and depth, too. So for us, it was about going deeper into what we are, rather than worrying about what other folks are doing.”
It also helps that this series isn’t set in the time of The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. Rather, it’s 1000 years before the main events of the book happened. So as such, fans should at least give it a shot when the movie releases in September.
Source: Empire
