Amazon’s long-awaited Lord of the Rings TV series, The Rings of Power, premieres in September. While it is connected to the wider fantasy world of Middle-earth, it will stand apart from Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films, according to concept artist John Howe.
Howe, who also worked on Jackson’s Middle-earth films, told Empire, “This isn’t the Middle-earth you remember.”
The Rings of Power takes place in the Second Age, which is thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. It will tell a story involving the forging of the rings and Sauron’s rise, among other things, and its world will look and feel very alive, Howe teased.
“This is a world that’s very vibrant. The elves are not hidden away in Mirkwood or lingering in Rivendell. They’re busy constructing kingdoms. The dwarven kingdom of Moria is not an abandoned mine and the Grey Havens is not yet an abandoned city,” Howe said. “I loved having the opportunity to explore that unseen history.”