Amazon’s Lord of the Rings is an ambitious project with a big budget to support it, but no matter how good it ends up being, it won’t have the same cultural impact as the movies did. The best Amazon can hope for is moderate, but sustained success and an audience that will stick with the show and talk about it.

The reasons for this are numerous. The Lord of the Rings movies were a surprise to audiences when they came out: far-reaching, well-thought-out adaptations with a great production value and a dedicated, talented cast. And yet, they were also made by a fan, and fans alike recognized the care put into bringing a trilogy many had said was too complicated to life. Visually, the movies spared no expense, leaving fans feeling like they’d stepped into Middle-Earth, but more importantly, the movies kept a lot of the backstory, the characters, and even some of the songs from the book. The movies just weren’t an abridged version of Lord of the Rings; they were long, complicated, and yet also much easier to understand than the books.

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It was one of the main feats of the movies and one of the reasons for its success. The Lord of the Rings movies didn’t dumb down the trilogy for the audience, and yet they somehow did a really good job of bringing new fans into the story they were telling. This puts the new Amazon series in a very difficult place as a follow-up. Even if the Amazon project ends up feeling the same, that’s not the expectation, so the show must do even more than the movies had to in order to stand out. It’s always easier to follow a disappointing movie than a universally beloved one.

This isn’t the only issue. Amazon’s Lord of the Rings adaptations also has to stand out in an entertainment landscape that’s more wary of adaptations than it was twenty years ago. The next big fantasy hit after Lord of the RingsGame of Thrones – was a mega success for HBO, breaking records year after year. After a disappointing ending, however, fans might be a little more cautious when it comes to trusting the next big project.

One thing working in this show’s favor? The Amazon Lord of the Rings project won’t feature the characters people have come to know and love, and will instead take place in Tolkien’s Second Age, thousands of years before the events of  The Hobbit and the main Lord of the Rings trilogy. That still doesn’t mean the expectations placed on the show – especially considering the hefty 450$ million price tag for the first season – won’t be larger than most shows of its kind.

Timing is another issue that might make or break this show. The Lord of the Rings movies had very little competition in the way of fantasy adaptations. The same thing could be said of Game of Thrones, which debuted when fantasy wasn’t as popular – at least not translated to TV – and became a surprise hit. But everyone has wised up to the fantasy genre now, and more and more streamers are betting on the next big fantasy hit. So, Amazon’s Lord of the Rings will have a lot of competition when it finally makes it to air.

HBO has The Nevers, and presumably a great many Game of Thrones spinoffs which could possibly see the light of day around the same time as the first season of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series. Netflix is betting big on fantasy, with not just The Witcher but the YA adaptation Shadow and Bone, but also The Irregulars, different kinds of fantasy adaptations, but still occupying more or less the same space in people’s minds. Even Apple TV+’s forthcoming Foundation could be seen as competition.

All of this leaves the new Lord of the Rings show in a bit of a weird place. Yes, there’s a lot of anticipation for it, and clearly, Amazon believes in the story they’ve got enough to throw a lot of money behind the show. But what does success mean when the expectations are already so high to begin with? How does one compare to a movie trilogy that marked a before and after in the way people think of fantasy adaptations? There’s no way to, and that means that no matter what the Amazon project does, it likely won’t be able to live up to the expectations placed on it.

Not that it should have to. Fans will be happy with an entertaining show that goes deeper into Tolkien’s lore than the movies had a chance to. The question is, of course, will Amazon be content with a possible moderate success or is Game of Thrones the bar they, themselves, are going to hold this Lord of the Rings adaptation to? The answer to this question might determine the future of the show, and what fans ultimately get.

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