Welcome back to Middle-earth, and by that I mean thousands of years back. It is the Second Age of JRR Tolkien’s mythical land (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were set in the Third Age) and Frodo Baggins is but a glint in his distant ancestor’s eye. In fact, hobbits are here still a tribe of nomadic creatures called Harfoots.
Luckily, elves being immortal means there are at least some familiar names from the past films, though they have different faces. Robert Aramayo takes over from Hugo Weaving as Elrond, an aspiring young politician and not yet the master of Rivendell; Cate Blanchett is succeeded by the luminous Morfydd Clark as Galadriel, now a young commander in the elven army. New characters include an elf warrior, Arondir, played by Ismael Cruz Córdova, and an intrepid young Harfoot called Nori (Markella Kavenagh).
