YouTuber Creates ‘The Tolkien Cut’ Version For The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Comic-Con Trailer, Blows Up “Back To The Book” Narrative Professed By Showrunners

John F. Trent |

Aug 5, 2022

Robert Aramayo as Elrond in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

YouTuber The One Ring recently created what he describes as “The Tolkien Cut” for the latest The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power trailer that was debuted at San Diego Comic-Con.

In the description of the video he explains that this cut was created in response to the showrunners of The Rings of Power constantly reiterating that they are always referring back to Tolkien’s work for their show.

“With the Showrunners of The Rings of Power assuring fans that in all the decisions they make, in everything they film, they’re going ‘back to the books, back to the books, back to the books’, we decided it was the perfect moment to show how much the 2022 Comic-Con trailer goes ‘back to the books’!”

At San Diego Comic-Con, during The Rings of Power Hall H presentation, showrunner JD Payne was asked by host Stephen Colbert, “There are characters played by actors who will be out here in just a moment who are not canonical to Tolkien, that must be one of the greatest challenges, how do you fill out that world with characters that are implied — they are implied cultures that you are drawing from, but they are not necessarily described to the depth that you are going to represent them. What guidance did you take for those characters’ creations?”

As part of his answer, Payne said, “So, one, always back to Tolkien. And two, when Tolkien was silent, we tried to invent as Tolkienian a way as possible.”

Payne’s fellow showrunner Patrick McKay would add, “Go back to the book. Go back to the book. Go back to the book.”

Take a look at “The Tolkien Cut” trailer that “contains only scenes and characters directly out of Tolkien’s works.”

Clearly, the trailer does not have a lot of Tolkien’s work in it.

And it really shouldn’t be a surprise because for as much as Payne and McKay said they always go back to Tolkien and his work at San Diego Comic-Con, in one of the first promotional pieces for the show with Vanity Fair in February, Payne made it clear the opposite was actually true.

He said, “If you are true to the exact letter of the law, you are going to be telling a story in which your human characters are dying off every season because you’re jumping 200 years in time, and then you’re not meeting really big, important canon characters until season four.”

“Look, there might be some fans who want us to do a documentary of Middle-earth, but we’re going to tell one story that unites all these things,” he said.