Lord of the Rings fans make same Peter Jackson request as Rings of Power arrives

Viewers are taking umbrage with one particular criticism of series

Lord of the Rings fans are making a request about Peter Jackson following the release of The Rings of Power

The high-profile new series was released on Friday (2 September) on Prime Video, showcasing a part of JRR Tolkien’s world that was yet to be depicted on screen.

The Rings of Power, which has been in the works since 2017, is set thousands of years before Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Jackson is not involved in the making of the series despite being contacted at an early stage of production.

The director himself, who has said he”ll “be watching” the series, revealed on The Business podcast last month, that the show’s production team “asked if [he] would be interested in it... about four, five years ago”.

He recalled: “So I said, ‘Have you got the scripts yet?’ Because I know how hard the scripts were to write for the films, and I didn’t know the people writing their scripts. They said, ‘Oh no, we haven’t got the scripts yet, but as soon as we do, we’ll send you the scripts.’ So I was waiting for the scripts to arrive, and they never did.”

Patrick McKay and JD Payne are showrunning the series, with the former describing themselves as “admirers from afar” of Jackson’s work.

Speaking about the director’s success at adapting Tolkien for the screen, McKay told Empire: “Anyone approaching Lord of the Rings on screen would be wrong not to think about [that],” adding that the series “doesn’t try to compete with him”.

Now the series has arrived, many are taking umbrage with the fact that many of the the reviews of the show’s first episode are comparing it to Jackson’s trilogy.

Morfydd Clark in ‘Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ (Prime Video)

“Stop comparing it to Peter Jackson’s films!!” one fan wrote, adding: “Yes they’re great but Rings of Power is not them and that’s okay!!! let it be good without having to ‘follow the footsteps’ of PJ’s Middle Earth.”

‘You’ve already got ‘purists’ comparing it to Peter Jackson‘s trilogy like it’s the Bible,’ another frustrated fan wrote, while another added: “When people say Rings of Power don't look like Lord of the Rings, do they actually mean it doesn't look like Peter Jackson's movies? The movies are not and should not be the only visual reference for Tolkien's books.”

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is available to stream on Prime Video now. Find The Independent’s verdict here.