The first footage from Amazon’s $1 billion ($800 million) TV series has been revealed by fans of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is considered to be the most costly television program ever produced.
It will be the first time JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth has been depicted on television, hundreds of years before the novels and Peter Jackson’s films.
The 60-second preview clip appears to feature hobbit ancestors, as well as a slew of other intriguing characters.
“Before the King, before the Fellowship, before the Ring – a new legend begins this fall,” according to captions in the trailer.
It begins, as Markella Kavenagh plays what appears to be a harfoot – a type of Hobbit – asking: “haven’t you ever wanted to find out what else there is?
The clip begins with a village populated by humans, dwarves, elves and orcs. It travels through snowy mountains, tumultuous seas and gloomy Forests as it progresses.
Galadriel, played by Morfydd Clark, is shown clinging to an ice cliff face with a dagger in her hands as a young Galadriel, while Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) is seen stranded on a floating vessel in the sea.
Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova), a silvan elf, catches a flying arrow and returns it to its origin before Prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur) ponders.
We also see a young Elrond (Robert Aramayo) in this shot, as Disa, princess of Khazad-dum (Sophia Nomvete), sings to the heavens, and a soldier (Will Fletcher) fights an orc.
Finally, a nearly naked guy is surrounded by flames, reaching out to someone, and a child’s hand grasps his.
The trailer prompted a buzz online, with one fan writing: “Hell yeah! In the new Lord of the Rings series, a black elf and black Dwarven Princess is bringing me so much life, and I’m sobbing with joy. I’m ecstatic that I’ve at last witnessed!”
“Have elves in stuff become less… elfish,” one user wrote.
“Ever since the first Lord of the Rings movies, elves have just begun to seem like regular humans with prosthetic ears; they don’t have that elf look. I’m not sure what it is.”
The film’s big names include Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Joseph Mawle, Sir Lenny Henry, and Peter Mullan. It was shot in New Zealand, but it will relocate to the United Kingdom for the second of an anticipated five series.