This Is What We Need To See In Amazon's Lord Of The Rings Prequel

The Lord of the Rings might seem like a pretty contained story, what with its beginning, middle, and five hundred endings. It is regularly pointed to as an example of epic three-part story structure, and as viewers of the Star Wars prequels or the upcoming sitcom Fetal Sheldon can tell you, tacking on details about a fictional world's past doesn't necessarily mean that you're making that world any better. Still, there's never been a Tolkien fan who didn't start salivating at the prospect of more fantasy minutia. At least, that's what Amazon is banking on, having invested an estimated $1 billion into their forthcoming Tolkien adaptation, according to the Hollywood Reporter. That sort of cheddar, even spread out across a proposed five season run, buys a lot of story, and fans know what they want to get out of it. Spoiler alert, it involves some ambiguously ominous jewelry and the lords thereof.

The history of Middle Earth unspooled from J.R.R. Tolkien's head like a high fantasy scarf being pulled by a magician from the mouth of a very special birthday boy, and Stephen Colbert-level fans of the mythos know that the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy were only the punctuation mark at the end of a decidedly long run-on sentence. There were literally thousands of years of history outlined by the author, and according to IndieWire, Amazon's series is set to focus on the period known as the Second Age.

The Second Age covers nearly 3,500 years of fictional history, including the forging of the Rings of Power and the transformation of a group of human kings into the altogether ookie Nazgul. That one's a classic supervillain origin story: Nine men are given powerful artifacts, and spend some time living that good life, before slowly warping into shadowy monsters. It's like The Fly if Jeff Goldblum got to ride a dragon at the end.

Sauron himself, relegated to the roles of Boss Fight Armor Monster and Eyeball Skyscraper in the movies, could get some great play here as well. The Dark Lord spent a good chunk of the Second Age Palpatine-ing his way into power, disguising himself as a hot tamale called Annatar the Lord of Gifts, and buying the Elves' friendship with presents. That's some bankable, television-ready treachery right there.

Most of all, though, a concrete onscreen explanation of what the One Ring does, exactly, would be a welcome addition ... besides turning people invisible and triggering hypoglycemic mood swings. Barring all of that, fans would readily accept a wacky CGI proto-Gollum sidekick. Something along the lines of Slimer from The Real Ghostbusters. That merch isn't going to sell itself, Jeff Bezos.