The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is finally here. After what has felt like an eternity of anticipation, fans are finally able to venture back to Middle-earth. The new series tells a story many fans of the previous cinematic adaptions will be unfamiliar with. As a result, they are asking “Is The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power based on The Silmarillion?”.
For those who don’t know, The Silmarillion is a collection of mythopoeic stories about Middle-earth and the wider universe it exists within – Eä.
The Silmarillion expands on the lore established in J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
It tells of the creation of the universe, its gods – the Valar, the angelic Maia (which includes wizards like Gandalf), and the extensive histories of Middle-Earth. These histories span from before the First Age, through the wars with the Dark Lord Morgoth, and up to the Third Age (when The Lord of the Rings takes place).
Amazon’s The Ring’s of Power series is set in Middle-Earth’s Second Age. This has led many to believe that The Ring’s of Power is based on The Silmarillion. But is it?
Is The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power Based on The Silmarillion?
The Silmarillion expands Tolkien’s fictional universe in a massive way. Unfortunately, it was unedited and unpublished at the time of his death. But his son, Christopher Tolkien, compiled his father’s work and released The Silmarillion in 1977.
The book itself has never received an adaption in its own right, but ideas have been taken from it and implemented into both Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film series.
After a legal dispute between Warner Bros. (the studio behind Jackson’s films) and Tolkien’s estate was settled in 2017, the rights to a TV adaption were offered out to bidders. Amazon emerged as the winners. It ultimately cost $250 million before any production costs had been incurred.
However, that price didn’t include the rights to adapt all of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books.
So, is The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power based on The Silmarillion? No, the new series is not based on The Silmarillion. Amazon only purchased rights to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and its appendices. As a result, LotR: The Rings of Power TV series is based exclusively on Tolkien’s writings from those works.
While The Silmarillion includes a huge amount of expanded lore, the appendices published in The Return of the King (the third LotR book) are also pretty extensive.
Before The Silmarillion was ever published, the appendices offered deep insight into the wider universe and histories of Middle-Earth. This has allowed Amazon to produce a series without having to delve into The Silmarillion.
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