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15 reasons Amazon’s Lord of the Rings will be the next Game of Thrones

By Corey Smith

LOS ANGELES - DECEMBER 3: Actors (from left to right) Bernard Hill, John Rhys-Davies and Viggo Mortensen pose at the premiere of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" held on December 3, 2003 at the Village Theater, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES - DECEMBER 3: Actors (from left to right) Bernard Hill, John Rhys-Davies and Viggo Mortensen pose at the premiere of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" held on December 3, 2003 at the Village Theater, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) /
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LOS ANGELES – DECEMBER 3: Actors (from left to right) Bernard Hill, John Rhys-Davies and Viggo Mortensen pose at the premiere of “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” held on December 3, 2003 at the Village Theater, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES – DECEMBER 3: Actors (from left to right) Bernard Hill, John Rhys-Davies and Viggo Mortensen pose at the premiere of “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” held on December 3, 2003 at the Village Theater, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) /

4. Middle-earth is full of unique cultures waiting to be explored in detail

One of the strengths of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work is its array of complex and fleshed-out societies. From the elves to the men of Rohan, each society comes complete with history, traditions and even unique clothing. With its extended running time, a television series set in Middle-earth can fully explore some of its lesser-known peoples, and that’s a good thing.

Take the Easterlings, a group that served Sauron during the Lord of the Rings. We get very little of them in the movies or the books. What’s their story? Did all of them want to serve Sauron? Were there divisions? Do they all have a warriors-first mentality like the Klingons of Star Trek? A multi-season show can dig into questions like that.

If Amazon wants to get really creative, it could replicate the mixed composition of the Fellowship of the Ring and send a band of heroes from every corner of Middle Earth on adventures through new and interesting lands. Fish out of water scenarios could follow, or perhaps some of our heroes could not be welcome back into their own communities as punishment for associating with filthy outsiders. Racial tensions were always an underlying theme in Tolkien’s work, and a series could explore these issues further.

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