My thoughts exactly! Amazon seemed to be all proud that the title announcement video used practical effects for the ring forging, so I was really disappointed that the trailer had SO much CGI. And with Season 2 going to be filmed in the UK and not New Zealand, the plan seems to be to lean more heavily on CGI even for landscape shots. Guess I'll just have to keep watching my LOTR extended-edition DVDs haha.

Though I will certainly watch every single episode and likely enjoy it, I have to say after watching the trailer that I’m missing the practical elements used in the original films. 

It’s almost a happy accident that the movies used miniatures instead of 100% CGI (since the latter was still in its infancy, and mostly just used to present crowds in battle scenes) — the result felt so much more tangible than any hyper-produced film since (including The Hobbit). Being able to use practicals makes things a little grittier, which makes otherworldly things look so much more grounded. 

I know it’s cheaper overall to use CGI, and spending months to build miniatures doesn’t make much sense, but it feels like a lost art to movie-making. (I mean, even Jurassic Park, which used puppets back in 1993, looked more authentic than any of the Jurassic World.) 

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News, commentary, theories, and exclusives about the upcoming Amazon Prime Video 'Lord of the Rings' prequel series, as well as Peter Jackson's 2000s film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy saga.