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Event / announcement: 30 October 2026 report
Rivendell’s next television appearance has a visual reference older than any screen adaptation. A report published on 30 October describes how the designers of The Rings of Power used Tolkien’s own watercolour when developing the settlement for the third season.
According to the report, the production also scanned Switzerland’s Lauterbrunnen Valley, combining a physical set with a digital landscape. The settlement is presented at an early stage of its existence, rather than as an already completed version of the refuge familiar to film audiences.
This makes the design process a useful subject in its own right. Tolkien’s paintings offer spatial decisions as well as atmosphere: the relationship between a house, a bridge, a river and the enclosing valley can guide the viewer’s sense of place.
The finished episodes will show how those references function on screen. The production account already offers a more concrete discussion of adaptation than a simple comparison of whether two versions look alike.
