‘Lord of The Rings’ EPs Reveal There’s No Last Second VFX Crunch: “It’s All Done”

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is reportedly the most expensive television show ever made. And like many other big budget sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero shows, is leaning on a lot of VFX. The new series is set to take us to the Second Age of Middle-earth, when Elves were at their height, Khazad-dûm was a gorgeous underground wonderland, and humans lived on a utopian island called Númenor. So Prime Video will be leaning on artists at all levels — particularly in VFX — a lot. And with more and more reports of industry-wide abuse of VFX artists, you have to wonder… Is Amazon going to be able to get all the visual effects in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power done in time for its September 1 premiere? Decider has learned that yes, they will… Because the show is already done.

While Marvel has recently come under the most scrutiny for its VFX practices — with Vulture publishing an account of an artist saying they’re being “pixel-fucked” by the studio — it’s not the only production house pushing visual effects artists through grueling hours. Decider has received early episodes for other major genre shows premiering this fall that still have missing VFX sequences, as this has become an industry norm. Albeit, it’s an industry norm that is adversely affecting VFX artists more than anyone else. Defector recently published an in-depth report of the industry, revealing many insiders fear it’s on the verge of collapse.

Amazon, however, is not still pushing VFX artists to finish The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. During a recent interview, Decider asked executive producers whether or not the first season’s visual effects were completed yet, or if some episodes were still works in progress.

“It’s done. It’s all done,” executive producer Lindsey Weber told Decider. “Part of launching a new show around the world on Amazon — I forget how many languages. It’s lots and lots of languages. We need to give them time to localize it into the corners of the world — so we’ve delivered it fully.”

However Weber admitted that doesn’t mean the process was wholly without VFX crunch at some point.

“We did have a lot of visual effects,” Weber continued. “We did have a lot of visual effects crunch, but our visual effects producers dealt with it masterfully and we can’t wait for the world to see.”

So The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 1 is done. Now we just have to patiently wait for the first two episodes to premiere at 9 PM ET on September 1.