Incensed The Lord of the Rings fans are spamming Amazon's The Rings of Power trailer, but what does the quote they are using mean? First released on February 13th, 2022, via a Super Bowl commercial, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power teaser trailer has amassed over 17 million views on YouTube in the first two days since its initial upload. Yet despite these mammoth engagement numbers, there are over 58,000 comments on The Rings of Power video that all say the same thing as an act of defiance against Amazon's The Lord of the Rings vision.
Set for a September 2nd, 2022 release date, The Rings of Power focuses primarily on the Second Age of Middle Earth, over 2,500 years before Frodo (Elijah Wood) and the Fellowship set off on their perilous quest from Rivendell. The Rings of Power teaser trailer grants audiences a first look at many of the Second Age's key locations, including the seafaring kingdom of Númenor, the grinding ice wastes of Helcaraxë, and the great Dwarven halls of Khazad-dûm. Furthermore, the teaser showcases several brand new characters for the series, such as Disa (Sophia Nomvete), the Dwarven princess, while also reimagining classic The Lord of the Rings characters such as Elrond (Robert Aramayo) and Galadriel (Morfydd Clark) in their younger years.
Commented over 58,000 times on The Rings of Power trailer to date in many languages, the quote being used by The Lord of the Rings fans is: "Evil is unable to create anything new, it can only distort and destroy what has been invented or created by the forces of good." This is a direct quote from The Lord of the Rings creator J.R.R. Tolkien himself and is being used in this context to display the rampant displeasure the LOTR fanbase feels towards the clips shown in the Amazon trailer. While there were always likely to be detractors when reimagining a franchise as beloved as The Lord of the Rings, the scale of the response to the teaser is nonetheless staggering - highlighting the perceived depth of the issues already plaguing Amazon's The Rings of Power.
The charges leveled by sections of The Lord of the Rings fandom at The Rings of Power are numerous despite the trailer only containing 51 seconds of content. Among these purported issues is the gratuitous use of CG effects in the teaser, Galadriel's character wearing the wrong sigil on her armor, the series using a cleaner aesthetic than Peter Jackson's original The Lord of the Rings trilogy, several characters having modern-looking haircuts, and Disa not having a beard as Dwarven woman.
While some of these gripes may be more valid than others, for example, Disa's lack of a beard breaking Tolkien's established lore, it must be placed into context. Firstly, this Amazon Rings of Power teaser was designed primarily to engage Super Bowl audiences, with the trailer always likely to include dazzling shots and flashy action sequences to establish a common denominator with potential viewers not already engaged with The Lord of the Rings stories. Second, the minute amount of footage in the teaser is a snapshot at best, and while it is far from a perfect trailer, patience should be counseled until the finished product is released. Put simply, many The Lord of the Rings fans are spamming The Rings of Power trailer in an act of defiance and outrage against the new teaser, and while Tolkien's quote remains as prescient today as it did during his lifetime, it does not mean all hope is lost for the new Amazon series already.