When evil Sauron hit Singapore

If master fantasist JRR Tolkien who wrote Lord of the Rings LOTR trilogy between 193749 was a young man in 2024mdashor even in his mid40s for when he startedmdashitrsquos safe to suggest he wouldrsquove been the showrunner of his own OTT seriesTolkien 18921973 of course lives on with LOTR and his earlier work The Hobbit in books and big screen But more so through the Tolkien Estate With his grandson Simon as custodian of characters and stories that Tolkien Super Senior left behind decades agoYou can sense that as JD Payne cocreator of The Rings of Power explains to midday how a short prelude and appendices from LOTR is being expanded into a 50hour series for Amazon Prime Video as we speak Recreating the Tolkien universe but also imagining it anewmdashas a prequel set thousands of years before Tolkienrsquos talesThe cast of The Rings of Power in SingaporePaynersquos process goes something like this ldquoFor each season we write a document that gives a summary of what we plan on doing in detail We share that first with the Tolkien Estate They give us their thoughtful reflections ldquoSometimes the feedback from Simon will say lsquoTherersquos a corner in my grandfatherrsquos works that could be more deeply explored Thought about thatrsquo lsquoOr what yoursquore doing here is promising but if you tweak it another way could work betterhelliprsquo We welcome and value that contribution from the Estatemdashboth through this process and throughout as a working relationshiprdquoAs Payne puts it this relationship with Tolkien Estate and grandson Simon as consultant began right from when he and his partner Patrick McKay landed the job as showrunners on The Rings of Power A tough task no doubt The show in a sense is supposed to be Prime Videorsquos answer to HBOrsquos Game of Thrones Reportedly HBO had also pitched for the Tolkien franchise The budget for the fiveseason series has been pegged at 1 billion over Rs 80000 crore Payne is quick to clarify ldquoWell you should talk to Amazon about the money partrdquoThat said the sheer scale and splendour shows up on screen Rather than simply in the drawing power of wellknown actors or stars as it wereEver since The Rings of Power debuted in September 2022 ending in October that year The second season with first three episodes dropped on August 29 2024 with the season finale slated for October 3 For brief pressmeets and second season premiegravere some of the major cast flew down to Singapore This is alongside similar events in Mexico City SydneyConsider actor Ismael Cordova as he tells us where all hersquos been promoting his series before we meet up in Singapore ldquoSan Diego California NYC Miami Sao Paulo Brazil London now off to Milanrdquo Budgets be damned He canrsquot tell night from day Puerto Rican actor of African descent Ismael plays the solid Silvan Elf Arondir in The Rings of Power Thatrsquos a character created only for television therefore noncanonical Besides hersquos the first person of colour to play an ElfIsmael admits ldquoWhether I want to carry that mantle or notmdashthis is important to me and itrsquos gonna have an impact The Tolkien universe is a beautiful space We have the right to be in it And I focus on being the lsquoElfiest Elfrsquo there can bersquo Arondir has a young warrior partner in Theo thatrsquos actor Tyro Muhafidin who was 14 when the series started shoot Hersquos 19 nowTired Tyro smiles ldquoThere is nobody else who can say I spent my teenage in Middleearthrdquo He did in a village in Southlands to be precise Under the care of his mother Bromwyn played by Nanzanin BonyadiBromwyn seemed like one of the showrsquos stunning leads Only that actor Nanzanin opted out of the series after the first season choosing to pursue a career in activismSuch offscreen twists must clearly throw the writing out of whack Ismael says she had laid the groundwork ldquoIrsquom not privy to particulars of her decisionrdquo Be that as it may for the entire arc of the Tolkien timeline cocreator Payne informs ldquoWersquove mapped out full 50 hours of the seriesmdashin the sense of a road trip across the country and the cities yoursquoll hit along the way But therersquos also room for exploration improvisation as you go alongrdquoTo be sure Payne has even the showrsquos last scene on paper that at this rate will drop in 2030 ldquoYesrdquo he saysSpoiler alert If you havenrsquot caught the first season of The Rings of Power you must skip this report and return only once you haveThis relates to the showrsquos big twist That the character pretending to be the lsquotragedy kingrsquo Halbrand ie Charlie Vickers mildly serenading the heroine Galadriel Morfydd Clark as her saviour is actually the arch villain SauronThis makes Charliersquos presence in the show a performance within a performance ldquoInceptionrdquo Charlie laughs letting us in how he pulled off this striking actWhich was by ldquobeing Halbrand all alongrdquo He placed no spoilers in his own head ldquoThatrsquos how Sauron wouldrsquove immersed himselfmdashhersquos a method actorrdquo The other minor turn is Cynthia AddaiRobinson as Queen Regent Miriel going blind battling the evil Orcs So much of an actorrsquos confidencepresence comes through their eyesShe says ldquoThatrsquos a good point We thought about it But this is also an allegory Mirielrsquos other senses heighten as a resultmdashand whatrsquos going on in terms of conflict is more internal Logistically the challenge is I canrsquot connect the same way with fellow actorsrdquo Queen Miriel belongs to Neumenor whose residents are humans if you may As against Elves of Middleearth whom they descended from but envyhateSpeaking of allegories you could see parallels between countries in modern politics in this We wonder what Cynthia makes of it She passes on the mic to her chancellor in the series Pharazon played by Trystan Gravelle who in turn makes it clear ldquoThink about itldquoThere are two species of hominids We are mortals while the other that is Elves are immortal Thatrsquos gotta be gallingmdashto be deemed second class citizens Nordquo Yes Trystan is evidently still in characterThe other political subtext in the series one could argue emanates straight from the villain Sauron Charlie says for his shapeshifting part ldquoHe wants to rule In the sense that he thinks he can heal Middleearthrdquo But hersquos also pure evil Which can be said for plenty of devious modern politicians ancient too Charlie agreesNarrow it further still Itrsquos interesting how Charles Edwards who plays Celebrimbor mastersmith forging powerful eponymous rings in the series about power likens his mythical role to physicist J Robert Oppenheimer father of AbombCharles has never said this in an interview Itrsquos been attributed to him across the Internet still He corrects no one because he agrees with the analogy nonetheless ldquoHerersquos a guy dabbling with things he knows a lot about But doesnrsquot know how itrsquoll come togetherrdquo Same To be fair as The Rings of Power director Charlotte Brandstrom puts it plainly echoing others in these short oneonone interactions ldquoAs audiences wersquore free to make the linkages we want Tolkien didnrsquot want to talk about specific country erahellip Corruption and power as issues will remain valid foreverrdquoThis is perhaps also why Tolkien like the Elves remains immortal Also carrying along with his canonmdasha cult for fansYou merely have to scour social media and fansites to sense the level of online outrage heaped on the show purely because the cult bordering on religion would like nothing touched in Tolkienrsquos parallel universe In fact the word lsquotrollsrsquo itself has origins in MiddleearthSurely the cast and creators of The Rings of Power are aware of this expectedly purist backlashEach person from the show that midday interviewed had roughly the same viewpoint on the matter Summed up best by the genteel giant Ismael aka Arondir ldquoYou do your job And drop the micrdquo