The weekend of San Diego Comic-Con is over and we were treated to plenty of news about our most anticipated movies and shows. One of the biggest news was the reveal of a great new trailer for the second season of Prime Videos Lord of the rings Prehistory, The Rings of Power.
The series, which follows a younger Galadriel in the Second Age of Middle Earth, officially tackles the rise of Sauron in its epic-looking second season. Now that he’s come out of the shadows after hiding in plain sight for the first season, it seems like things are picking up pace pretty dramatically. This is great news for people who bored by the explanatory first season.
However, there is something that bothers me about this latest trailer. It is full of sights and sounds that are sure to delight long-time fans, like a Balrog seemingly laying siege to Moria, the Stranger using sick-looking Istari magic, Tom playing the hell out of Bombadil, and at least one large-scale battle that is set in the style of The two Towers‘ awesome Battle of Helm’s Deep. There is also a suspicious lack of The Rings of PowerThere are minority actors in the film and it’s disgusting to watch.
If you look closely, the nearly four-minute trailer barely features Ismael Cruz Córdova, Sophia Nomvete, and Cynthia Addai-Robinson as Arondir, Disa, and Tar-Míriel. Of the three, Disa has the most screen time, but despite leading an entire storyline in the first season, the second season trailer only features fleeting glimpses of Arondir wordlessly encountering an Ent in the dark. Míriel also silently dives into the water. Aside from these moments, Disa is the only person of color who actually says a word.
In comparison, Galadriel, Elrond, and even Sauron get to speak much more than any other cast member. Heck, the tree that speaks to Arondir speaks more in this trailer than Arondir himself. Granted, I understand that most of the above characters are obviously central to the rest of the series and most fans love and recognize names, but it remains a stark and unsettling contrast.
When The Rings of PowerWhen the cast of r was announced, the show faced numerous sexist and racist backlash about Morfydd Clark’s lead role as Galadriel and the presence of black and brown people in the cast. It has unfortunately become the norm that every media company that diversifies its portfolio Minority actors are confronted with hatred for their participation in the project. In case of The Rings of PowerAmazon, as well as some of the actors from the popular Peter Jackson films – namely Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan and other members of the community – spoke out in favor of the casting.
Read more: Rings of PowerThe epic Comic-Con trailer brings war to Middle Earth
I do not want to draw any hasty conclusions about the above Rings of Power characters, but this latest trailer doesn’t give a good indication of their roles in upcoming scenes. Arondir was a key part of some great action scenes in the first season, which is why his absence from such scenes in this trailer seems suspicious. Disa and her husband Durin are closely tied to Moria as well as the storyline surrounding the discovery of mithril there, but the focus in the trailer seems to be on Durin and his fractious relationship with his father, who comes into possession of one of the rings Sauron made for the dwarven people. Tar-Míriel is literally the queen and regent of Númenor, a central location in the first season, and plays a major role in the conflicts that erupt near the end, and yet she only makes a tiny appearance here. This shit stinks.
To make things even clearer, Rings of Power has indeed hired a number of black and minority actors for season two, but that’s not what you get from this trailer. Even if they hadn’t provided lines for it, it would have been nice to see some of them, but you only get a tiny glimpse of Selina Lo’s new character. Something feels weird about all of this.
I can’t help but believe that due to the backlash that Rings of Power Based on the cast and the lukewarm reviews of the first season, the roles of these characters could be reduced or obscured. At least the promotional materials do not seem to reveal the full extent of The Rings of PowerThe diversity of the cast and characters as strengths of the show, which feels like a Decision™ that someone made to increase the show’s reputation among a certain subset of the Lord of the Rings Fandom. I hope I’m wrong and it’s just my imagination, but even if I am, Amazon still released a whitewashed trailer and it doesn’t feel so much like an accident.
Otherwise I can hardly wait Rings of Power Returning in late August, it looks like something is actually going to happen, rather than the constant talk of something happening, which was much of the first season. Now that the central mystery of Sauron’s identity has also been revealed, there’s another compelling player on the field, and I look forward to the greater emphasis on Sauron’s motivations and machinations in the second season. Hopefully he’ll become a sort of deuteragonist that we follow in parallel with Galadriel. But again, this production looks paler than Frodo after being stabbed by the Nazgûl. Maybe it’s time to pinch it and add some color back to its cheeks.
