What happens when a Lord of the Rings fan decides to put one billion dollars into making the TV show of his dreams? Well, looks like we finally get to find out. Released during the Super Bowl LVI, Amazon Studios put out the much-awaited teaser for Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. Check it out below:

The teaser opens up with a breathtaking establishing shot of Númenor, a powerful and illustrious island kingdom governed by humans—and destroyed before the events of The Lord of the Rings.

These shots are followed by an action-packed 50 seconds of New Zealand’s iconic landscape—a hark back to Peter Jackson’s on-location shots of the 2000s. The scene then flips to Morfydd Clark’s portrayal of Galadriel, perhaps the most prominent from the show’s fascinating list of characters.

Along with Clark, the trailer also highlights Dwarven royalty Durin IV (Owain Arthur) and Princess Disa (Sophia Nomvete), while taking a moment to showcase Ismael Cruz Córdova as elf Arondir—using his enemies’ arrows against them with his superhuman agility and reflexes.

While soaked in fascinating imagery and key characters, the teaser wasn’t a universal hit with fans. A host of complaints and criticisms rang in, with the most common being the show’s apparent overuse of CGI, especially for backgrounds. Others called out the show’s character design.

Others fought back against this, citing that the Second Age—in which this series is set—was a ‘Golden Era’ of sorts for Middle Earth,  which is why the more ‘polished’ visual style made sense.

The season is scheduled to premiere on Prime Video on September 2, 2022.

 (Image Credits: Amazon Studios)