We might have only just recently got a better glimpse at Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show, but today at San Diego Comic-Con the streamer gave us another glimpse back into Middle-Earth’s Second Age — and it’s looking quite fantastic.
The new trailer, just a week after our last look at the series, focuses on Morfydd Clark’s young Galadriel, dealing with the trauma from having fought in the last war between the elves and the forces of the Dark Lord. But even as the Second Age of Middle-Earth begins with what its peoples — Dwarf, Elf, Numenorian, and Harfoot alike — hope is a time of peace, Galadriel and her allies across the world are quickly finding out that in the shadows, the lingering evil of Sauron still lies waiting…
There’s a lot going on in this trailer, and almost all of it outside of Galadriel’s fears that evil has returned to Middle-Earth — there are shots of Numenor, Human home of what will eventually become Gondor and other Kingdoms by the time this vast period of Tolkien’s history is done with, the Dwarven underground mining empires, and the occasional halfling, although they’re not quite the Hobbits we know and love just yet. But what’s clear is the return of threats the Elves and other beings thought were vanquished. There are a lot of goblin attacks in here, and some very mysterious-looking mystics who seem to have a connection to the evils thought defeated at the end of the First Age.
And then, of course, there’s a Balrog. And it’s just… straight-up the Balrog as we saw it in Peter Jackson’s movies. I guess we finally have an idea of what Amazon meant when it said it could use elements of those iconic films’ imagery, even when it’s set thousands of years before them?
We’ll no doubt find out more when The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power begins on Prime Video on September 22.
Want more Gizmodo news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel and Star Wars releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.