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QuoteWarner Bros. Television and the estate of J.R.R. Tolkien are in talks with Amazon Studios to develop a series based on the late author's "The Lord of the Rings" novels. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is said by sources with knowledge of the situation to be personally involved in the negotiations, which are still in very early stages. No deal has been set.

The studio and the Tolkien estate have been shopping a series based on the classic fantasy novels and their assortment of hobbits, wizards, and warriors, sparking a competitive situation from which Amazon has emerged as the frontrunner. Representatives for Amazon and Warner Bros. declined to comment.

Quote from: Ingwar on Nov 04, 2017, 07:56:57 PM
Why not?

Quote from: skhellter on Nov 04, 2017, 08:11:51 PM
....


Use the John Boorman script.

plz.  :laugh:

Quote from: KiramidHead on Nov 04, 2017, 08:11:22 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Nov 04, 2017, 07:56:57 PM
Why not?

Because I love the whole trilogy. This is just a shameless cash grab by WB.

Quote from: x-M-x on Nov 05, 2017, 07:05:00 PM
Screw this.... i want a SILMARILLION MOVIE NOW.

Quote from: Shasvre on Feb 19, 2019, 06:52:58 PM
I think they've already established that this won't be an adaptation of the books, but rather a show that will take place before the events of LOTR.

Quote from: KiramidHead on Feb 20, 2019, 02:02:27 AM

I'm mainly still miffed that Amazon apparently binned the Conan series they had in development.

Quote from: The Kurgan on Mar 21, 2019, 03:00:34 PM

Quote from: KiramidHead on Feb 20, 2019, 02:02:27 AM

I'm mainly still miffed that Amazon apparently binned the Conan series they had in development.

oh geez...

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Mar 21, 2019, 03:47:38 PM

Quote from: The Kurgan on Mar 21, 2019, 03:00:34 PM

Quote from: KiramidHead on Feb 20, 2019, 02:02:27 AM

I'm mainly still miffed that Amazon apparently binned the Conan series they had in development.

oh geez...

What's wrong with KH being miffed about that?

Quote from: The Kurgan on Mar 21, 2019, 03:53:30 PM

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Mar 21, 2019, 03:47:38 PM

Quote from: The Kurgan on Mar 21, 2019, 03:00:34 PM

Quote from: KiramidHead on Feb 20, 2019, 02:02:27 AM

I'm mainly still miffed that Amazon apparently binned the Conan series they had in development.

oh geez...

What's wrong with KH being miffed about that?

Absolutely nothing.
I didn't knew it was binned, my oh geez was related to the news  :-[

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Mar 21, 2019, 03:54:40 PM

Quote from: The Kurgan on Mar 21, 2019, 03:53:30 PM

Quote from: Voodoo Magic on Mar 21, 2019, 03:47:38 PM

Quote from: The Kurgan on Mar 21, 2019, 03:00:34 PM

Quote from: KiramidHead on Feb 20, 2019, 02:02:27 AM

I'm mainly still miffed that Amazon apparently binned the Conan series they had in development.

oh geez...

What's wrong with KH being miffed about that?

Absolutely nothing.
I didn't knew it was binned, my oh geez was related to the news  :-[

Ah. My apologies! Misread that I guess I have.

Quote"J.R.R. Tolkien created one of the most extraordinary and inspiring stories of all time, and as a lifelong fan it is an honor and a joy to join this amazing team. I can't wait to take audiences around the world to Middle-earth and have them discover the wonders of the Second Age, with a never before seen story."

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Jul 03, 2019, 09:50:38 PM
Great, more LotR tourists :/

Quote from: KiramidHead on Jul 28, 2019, 02:42:47 AM
She moved on to Better Call Sauron.

Quote from: The Old One on Jul 28, 2019, 04:30:22 PM
I only hope it's close to the LOTR Trilogy's quality and not the Prequel Trilogy.

Quote from: KiramidHead on Sep 04, 2019, 07:30:34 PM
Will Poulter has been cast. (https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/lord-of-the-rings-series-amazon-will-poulter-cast-1203321951/)

After Midsommar I can't help but imagine his character pissing on a tree and upsetting the elves. :laugh:

Quote

'The Lord Of The Rings': Joseph Mawle To Star In Amazon Series

By Nellie Andreeva


EXCLUSIVE: Game Of Thrones alum Joseph Mawle is set as a lead opposite Will Poulter and Markella Kavenagh in Amazon Studios' Lord of the Rings TV series, I have learned. Amazon had no comment.

The high-profile fantasy series, which hails from writers JD Payne and Patrick McKay and director Juan Antonio (J.A.) Bayona, is set in Middle-earth and explores new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring.

No details about the characters are being revealed but it is believed that English actor Mawle will play the series' lead villain, Oren, opposite Poulter's young hero Beldor and female lead Tyra (Kavenagh)

Amazon cast a wide net in its talent search for the big-budget project, reading actors around the world with casting directors in the US, UK and Australia.

The Lord of the Rings series is produced by Amazon Studios in cooperation with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins and New Line Cinema, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which produced the 2000s Peter Jackson trilogy. Pre-production has started, and production on the series will begin in Auckland, New Zealand in the coming months.

Mawle is known for his role on Game Of Thrones where he played Benjen Stark, a First Ranger of the Night's Watch, the youngest brother of Eddard (Ned) Stark, and the uncle of the six Stark children: Robb, Rickon, Bran, Sansa, Arya, and Jon Snow. He represents the latest link between HBO's fantasy mega hit and LOTR, along with GoT co-executive producer Bryan Cogman, who is consulting producer on LOTR, and former HBO EVP Production Bruce Richmond, who worked on GOT and now serves as LOTR executive producer.

Mawle received a BAFTA TV nomination for Birdsong. He recently co-starred in the BBC/Starz limited series MotherFatherSon opposite Richard Gere.

Quote from: SM on Dec 18, 2019, 01:37:18 AM
How far are they going back with this show?  Before the First Age?

Quote from:  The IndependentCasting agents for Amazon's big-budget Lord of the Rings TV series are looking for "hairy hairy people" with "wrinkles and lots of them please" to play orcs in the new show.

In the original trilogy of films, orcs were the primary foot soldiers of the Dark Lords' armies. Physically, they were short in stature and humanoid in shape, with stretched and twisted skin.

The casting calls appeal to people under 5ft or over 6ft 5in with "character faces" and "hairy hairy people of all ages and ethnicities" to apply.

Also sought are "stocky mean-looking bikers" and "circus performers who can juggle".

The ad concludes with a plea for people with "HAIR HAIR HAIR – if you have natural red hair, white hair, or lots and lots of freckles".

Another ad reads: "Do you have a few wrinkles? Have you been out in that sunshine? Is your face a little ugh?"

Quote

Robert Aramayo To Star In 'The Lord Of the Rings' Amazon TV Series

By Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Game of Thrones alum Robert Aramayo has been tapped for the lead in Amazon's The Lord of the Rings TV series, I have learned. He replaces Will Poulter, who had been in negotiations for the young hero role, referred to as Beldor, until he recently exited the project due to scheduling conflicts. Reps for Amazon and Aramayo declined comment.

Amazon in November moved ahead with an early Season 2 renewal for the sprawling adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy novels. In conjunction with that renewal, the series will be going on a 4-5-month hiatus after filming the first two episodes from Season 1 to map out and write the bulk of the scripts for Season 2.

Set in Middle Earth, the LOTR TV series will explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring. The show's cast, which has yet to be confirmed by Amazon, is believed to include Ema Horvath, Markella Kavenagh, Joseph Mawle and Morfydd Clark.

The Lord of the Rings series is produced by Amazon Studios. Showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay executive produce with director J.A. Bayona and his producing partner Belén Atienza, Lindsey Weber, Bruce Richmond, Gene Kelly, Sharon Tal Yguado as well as writers Gennifer Hutchison; Jason Cahill and Justin Doble.

English actor Aramayo played Young Ned Stark on seasons six and seven of HBO's fantasy blockbuster series Game Of Thrones. He also starred as Bill Harley in Discovery's Harley and the Davidsons miniseries and co-stars in the upcoming Netflix miniseries Behind the Eyes. His feature credits includes Nocturnal Animals, Eternal Beauty and the upcoming Antebellum, The Empty Man and The King's Man. He is repped by UTA and MJ Management.

Quote from: SM on Dec 18, 2019, 01:37:18 AM
How far are they going back with this show?  Before the First Age?

Quote
Amazon Studios' forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-Earth's history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien's pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness. Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.

Quote from: via THRJen, there were reports about Lord of the Rings, which put the first-season budget at $465 million — making it the most expensive series ever. What does that price tag say about the market today, and how well will it need to do to justify that price tag?

Salke: The market is crazy, as you saw with the Knives Out deal. [Netflix paid $469 million for two sequels.] This is a full season of a huge world-building show. The number is a sexy headline or a crazy headline that's fun to click on, but that is really building the infrastructure of what will sustain the whole series. But it is a crazy world and various people on this Zoom, mostly Bela and me, have been in bidding situations where it starts to go incredibly high. There's a lot of wooing and we have to make decisions on where we want to stretch and where we want to draw the line. As for how many people need to watch Lord of the Rings? A lot. (Laughs.) A giant, global audience needs to show up to it as appointment television, and we are pretty confident that that will happen.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Apr 19, 2021, 10:02:55 PM
They're starting on their scummy union busting antics already. Go film it somewhere else please.

Quote from: nanison on Aug 02, 2021, 10:20:24 PM
Another show or film I will never watch unless I pay up for endless streaming subscriptions. Can't we just go back in time and enjoy the good ol' days :-P

Quote from: KiramidHead on Jan 20, 2022, 02:24:23 AM
She really over did her reading of "Mordor."

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 05, 2022, 11:40:08 AM
Is this going to be woke disaster?

QuoteRenown Tolkien scholar and author Tom Shippey is off the Lord of the Rings project, according to twitch broadcaster Tolkien Professor, confirming our early reports from March.

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Feb 05, 2022, 08:18:55 PM
LOTR wOkE?!!!

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 05, 2022, 07:57:39 PM
If you have read Tolkien novels and if you have seen the posters then the answer is obvious. It's self-explanatory.

Quote from: Master on Feb 05, 2022, 09:49:32 PM
That's the point though, isn't it. Tolkien had literal diarrhea of characters.  Creating new for the show and color specyfic, for such author is wrong at best, but for me highly disrespectful.

Quote"I'm a Harfoot, because J.R.R. Tolkien, who was also from Birmingham, suddenly there were black hobbits, I'm a black hobbit, it's brilliant, and what's notable about this run of the books, its a prequel to the Age that we've seen in the films, it's about the early days of the Shire and Tolkien's environment, so we're an indigenous population of Harfoots, we're hobbits but we're called Harfoots, we're multi-cultural, we're a tribe not a race, so we're black, asian and brown, even Maori types within it."

Quote from: SiL on Feb 06, 2022, 12:14:12 AM
Since nobody's actually articulating a coherent thought all I'm getting is "women and brown people are disrespectful to Tolkien".

Quote from: SiL on Feb 05, 2022, 09:43:09 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 05, 2022, 07:57:39 PM
If you have read Tolkien novels and if you have seen the posters then the answer is obvious. It's self-explanatory.

So self explanatory you can't even explain it?

I'd really like to hear in your words what you think is "woke" about it.

Quote from: Master on Feb 06, 2022, 07:37:50 AM
Coherent thought was "It's disrespectful to create new character for Tolkien adaptation,  when you have legions of already existing. It's disrespectful to add new family members  to achieve gender diversity as Tolkien did wrote whole genealogical trees to keep things complete."

QuoteShire was essentially the Idyllic British village and should be presented as such. You want brown Hobbits? Place them in Harad. Creating diversity for the sake of diversity is funny at best and stupid at worst ( see Dark Tower and The Witcher adaptation).

Quote from: SiL on Feb 06, 2022, 09:07:12 AM

Quote from: Master on Feb 06, 2022, 07:37:50 AM
Coherent thought was "It's disrespectful to create new character for Tolkien adaptation,  when you have legions of already existing. It's disrespectful to add new family members  to achieve gender diversity as Tolkien did wrote whole genealogical trees to keep things complete."

"It's disrespectful to create new characters in a story that doesn't adapt any specific existing story" doesn't sound very coherent.

QuoteShire was essentially the Idyllic British village and should be presented as such. You want brown Hobbits? Place them in Harad. Creating diversity for the sake of diversity is funny at best and stupid at worst ( see Dark Tower and The Witcher adaptation).

Bown people stop a village being idyllic?

Quote from: Master on Feb 06, 2022, 09:44:37 AM
Yeah, brown people are exactly what you imagine when thinking about british village from early 20 century... ::)

Quote from: Kradan on Feb 06, 2022, 10:09:57 AM
Isn't it fantasy world though ?

Quote from: Master on Feb 06, 2022, 10:38:15 AM
Fantasy worlds have clearly stated rules and history and like in real world stories you should stick to it, to preserve logic and credibility.

Quote from: Master on Feb 06, 2022, 10:38:15 AM

Quote from: Kradan on Feb 06, 2022, 10:09:57 AM
Isn't it fantasy world though ?

It happens every time when the arguments end. I'm not picking on you, just stating the fact. Fantasy worlds have clearly stated rules and history and like in real world stories you should stick to it, to preserve logic and credibility. If not, you cast black actor to play Roland Eld (and I do love Idris Elba in... like every movie he started) and make Kingdoms of North look like backstreet in bronx.
Same thing starts to happen in historical films. At this rate, I fully expect black guy playing Atilla the Hun. Oh and I demand film about American slavery where all slavers are black and indigenous population of Africa is played by white folks only. If anything goes, then why not?

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 06, 2022, 11:05:37 AM

Quote from: Master on Feb 06, 2022, 10:38:15 AM
Fantasy worlds have clearly stated rules and history and like in real world stories you should stick to it, to preserve logic and credibility.

It happened with The Witcher. In season 2 Geralt and Ciri visit Kaer Morhen, an old keep where witchers of the School of the Wolf used to be trained. Keep was located somewhere in kingdom of Kaedwen, one of the Northen Kingdoms. According to Blood of Elves there were four witchers (all white) in Kaer Morhen at that time: Vesimir, Lamber, Coen and Eskel. Obviously Netflix changed that by adding unknown witchers (including black and Asian looking) and changing Coen's skin colour. They did it because of so called diversity but it killed world credibility as it obviously was forced agenda. The saddest and funniest thing about it is instead of diversity in turned out to be total travesty. Why? Because those non-white additional witchers are completely anonymous. They don't even say a line. We don't even know their names. They were put there so Netflix would tick off diversity on the chart. These non-white actors were treated as part of furniture and their characters were killed at the end. Stage props.

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Feb 06, 2022, 01:01:18 PM
To a degree I agree but Yennefer not being white changes absolutely nothing about the story and she's probably the best actor in the whole thing, it's more the story divergences that killed that Series for me like completely leaving out Ciri and Geralt's first meeting, not really changing nationalities especially in a franchise where the Elves and Dwarves and Mages and Witchers are the focus of racial tension anyway.

Quote from: Master on Feb 06, 2022, 09:44:37 AM
Yeah, brown people are exactly what you imagine when thinking about british village from early 20 century... ::)

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 06, 2022, 01:35:09 PM
And dwarves being portrayed by people with dwarfism is just so bad. Cringe as hell.

Quote from: SiL on Feb 06, 2022, 08:48:09 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 06, 2022, 01:35:09 PM
And dwarves being portrayed by people with dwarfism is just so bad. Cringe as hell.

And this right here is the absolute dumbest take in the thread, amazing.

Quote from: SiL on Feb 06, 2022, 08:48:09 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 06, 2022, 01:35:09 PM
And dwarves being portrayed by people with dwarfism is just so bad. Cringe as hell.

And this right here is the absolute dumbest take in the thread, amazing.

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 06, 2022, 08:56:45 PM
People with dwarfism playing dwarves looks absolutely comical.

Quote from: Crazy Rich on Feb 06, 2022, 08:59:11 PM
I'm just wondering what kind of mental gymnastics were required to reach such a conclusion.

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 06, 2022, 09:09:45 PM
I've never said that people with dwarfism look funny. I said: " People with dwarfism playing dwarves looks absolutely comical". There is a big difference. Why did you change meaning of my statement? They are not suitable to play dwarves.

Quote from: SiL on Feb 06, 2022, 09:30:01 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 06, 2022, 09:09:45 PM
I've never said that people with dwarfism look funny. I said: " People with dwarfism playing dwarves looks absolutely comical". There is a big difference. Why did you change meaning of my statement? They are not suitable to play dwarves.

You think they're not suitable because you think it looks funny when they play dwarves. If you didn't think there was anything funny about their appearance, why would it matter?

What next, it's cringe when brown people play brown people?

QuoteI'm taking here about performance.

Quote from: SiL on Feb 06, 2022, 09:36:33 PM

QuoteI'm taking here about performance.

So are you saying they're all just bad actors?

If you don't think there's anything funny about their appearance then it shouldn't matter to you who plays a dwarven character. I'm not getting the problem and you're failing to explain yourself in the least.

And no, I'm comparing people born with certain physical attributes to people born with certain physical attributes. Obviously.

Quote from: SiL on Feb 06, 2022, 09:36:33 PM

QuoteI'm taking here about performance.

I'm not getting the problem and you're failing to explain yourself in the least.

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 06, 2022, 09:40:02 PM
It's not about acting. It's just looks cringe and comical that people with dwarfism are used to play dwarves. Why? Because they are small so it fits? Travesty.

Quote from: SiL on Feb 06, 2022, 09:36:33 PM

And no, I'm comparing people born with certain physical attributes to people born with certain physical attributes. Obviously.

Quote from: Master on Feb 07, 2022, 11:27:35 AM
Midgets playing Dwarfs looks stupid. Dwarfism is not about being short. Not only. You have totally different proportions, which include short hands, that makes swinging melee weapons impossible in any effective way. So, no Dwarves are not midgets, they have totally different proportions and shouldn't be portrayed as such.

Quote from: SiL on Feb 06, 2022, 08:48:09 PM
the absolute dumbest take in the thread, amazing.

Quote from: Master on Feb 07, 2022, 11:27:35 AM
The Witcher adaptation is antithesis of how fantasy series should be presented. It's fanfic when it comes to plot and total trash with presentation. In years to come, it will be an example of how not to do fantasy.

Quote from: SiL on Feb 07, 2022, 11:38:45 AM
The only coherent argument anyone has is "they look funny"

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 07, 2022, 08:22:44 PM
... but I'm not a nazi. Eat what you want. Your body your temple.

Quote

EXCLUSIVE

Amazon's Lord of the Rings Series Rises: Inside The Rings of Power

One show to rule them all—the first look at a billion-dollar saga set thousands of years before J.R.R. Tolkien's legendary trilogy.

BY ANTHONY BREZNICAN AND JOANNA ROBINSON

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

Galadriel's world is a raging sea. Far from the wise, ethereal elven queen that Cate Blanchett brought to Peter Jackson's acclaimed films, the Galadriel played by Morfydd Clark in Amazon's upcoming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is thousands of years younger, as angry and brash as she is clever, and certain that evil is looming closer than anyone realizes. By episode two, her warnings set her adrift, literally and figuratively, until she's struggling for survival on a raft in the storm-swept Sundering Seas alongside a mortal castaway named Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), who is a new character introduced in the show. Galadriel is fighting for the future; Halbrand is running from the past. Their entwined destinies are just two of the stories woven together for a TV series that, if it works, could become a global phenomenon. If it falls short, it could become a cautionary tale for anyone who, to quote J.R.R. Tolkien, delves too greedily and too deep.

Amazon's show, which debuts on Prime Video on September 2, is based not on a Tolkien novel per se but on the vast backstory he laid out in the appendices to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Five seasons will likely cost the studio well over $1 billion. That kind of budget might decimate most other studios, but Tolkien, like space travel, is a personal obsession for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who's among the richest people in the world. This is a big-ticket business venture that will allow him to create the most expensive, elaborate TV series ever made. While Jackson is not connected to the project, his movies, as well as their spiritual successor Game of Thrones, proved that there's a massive audience for immersive fantasy. Of course, many have tried to capture that same audience, and few have survived or thrived.

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b3741f168f94e9f9d88/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-002.jpg)
Galadriel, commander of the Northern Armies.MATT GRACE/AMAZON STUDIOS.


Because of Bezos's immense wealth, The Rings of Power is actually less of a financial risk than it is a reputational one. Amazon needs to definitively make the case that it can produce giant prestige shows, and with this series, it's courting the additional danger of amending and elaborating on the canon of a beloved storyteller. The showrunners, Patrick McKay and JD Payne, are agonizingly aware of the pressure. Their series will juggle 22 stars and multiple story lines, from deep within the dwarf mines of the Misty Mountains to the high politics of the elven kingdom of Lindon and the humans' powerful, Atlantis-like island, Númenor. All this will center, eventually, around the incident that gives the trilogy its name. "The forging of the rings," says McKay. "Rings for the elves, rings for dwarves, rings for men, and then the one ring Sauron used to deceive them all. It's the story of the creation of all those powers, where they came from, and what they did to each of those races." The driving question behind the production, he adds, was this: "Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?"


Galadriel's survival at sea is not just a crucial story point at the start of the series—the showrunners remember it as a pivotal moment on set in New Zealand back in March 2020. "Morfydd was a few days into being Galadriel, which is probably terrifying," says McKay. "She's in water. There's a lot of visual effects. There's music and light." But despite the momentous scene in front of them, the show's crew were glued to their phones: Within 45 minutes, word spread that in nearby Australia Tom Hanks had contracted COVID, the NBA had canceled its season, and the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic. "We're all just going, 'Oh, my God, what are we going to do? We're going to have to shut everything down,' " says Payne. The panic metastasized, setting off other anxieties, big and small. "It was terrifying. 'Oh, my God, is anyone going to understand what we're trying to do here? Is this way too ambitious? We have no idea what's going to happen tomorrow.' "

"Can you imagine going back to such a beloved world and facing the high bar of the Peter Jackson movies? We were, all the time, very aware of the massive expectations."

But one by one, the crew put down their phones. "Everyone was crowding around the monitor as we're doing this close-up where Galadriel's face fills the screen and she cries, and she decides: I have to fight," says McKay. As soon as the scene ended, the soundstage erupted in cheers. "It's a perfect example of how Tolkien and Middle-earth have a way of finding you, even in the darkest and most uncertain moments," says Payne.

Whatever other chaos might befall them, they finally felt they were on the right path. The first three episodes, which V.F. has seen, suggest they were. The show is a lavish, compelling mix of palace intrigue, magic, warfare, and mythology—and there are enough mysteries to power a thousand podcasts. Some characters will be familiar, and they will be the initial attraction as viewers watch their legendary fates unfurl. But the entirely new faces may ultimately become even more involving, since their destinies are literally unwritten.

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b370d588f3835866768/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-003.jpg)
Owain Arthur as Prince Durin IV, prince of the bustling subterranean realm of Khazad-dûm.COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS.

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b3859963d2b4b169bbd/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-004.jpg)
The dwarven princess Disa, played by Sophia Nomvete, standing at Khazad-dûm's entrance.BEN ROTHSTEIN/AMAZON STUDIOS.

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b380d588f383586676a/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-005.jpg)
The silvan elf Arondir, played by Ismael Cruz Córdova, is a character who's been created for the series.MATT GRACE/AMAZON STUDIOS.

Previously, this part of the story was most famous as ruins. After the success of his 1937 children's story, The Hobbit, Tolkien turned his attention back to a volume of Middle-earth history, which his publishers rejected. (A more complete version was published posthumously as The Silmarillion.) So, as the second world war of his lifetime raged around him, Tolkien crafted an adventure about beings from very different societies putting aside their differences to stamp out an overpowering evil. This, of course, was The Lord of the Rings.

In that story, an unlikely fellowship ventures into Mordor to destroy Sauron's ring. Along the way, Tolkien wanted the characters to pass through a scarred landscape full of the remains of the many civilizations and battles that had come before. Their journey, after all, was not about confronting a new danger but finally eradicating an ancient one—a scourge of malevolence that had tormented the land for eons. Tolkien dreamed up whole kingdoms, then collapsed them for background.

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b395a5e7b6e9e9180cb/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-006.jpg)
Galadriel and Halbrand (Charlie Vickers) meet in dire circumstances. BEN ROTHSTEIN/AMAZON STUDIOS.

The effect worked almost too well. After the publication of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers—in July and November of 1954, respectively—readers became obsessive. "Most people want more (and better) maps," Tolkien wrote to a friend in 1956. "Musicians want tunes and musical notations. Archeologists enquire about ceramics, metallurgy, tools and architecture.... Historians require more details about the social and political structure." To give them everything, Tolkien informed his publisher, "would require a book at least the size of Vol. 1."

Instead, borrowing from his rejected Silmarillion, he squeezed thousands of years of history into about 150 pages of postscript, which became known as the Appendices. These timelines, genealogies, and notes on language and culture became so important to Tolkien that he even stalled the publication of the final book, The Return of the King, to complete them. "They play a major part in producing the total effect," Tolkien explained to a foreign publisher in 1961, "producing the compelling sense of historical reality."

After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher took the reins of the estate and was famously protective, if not intransigent, about adaptations of his father's work, fearing commercialization at every turn. "Christopher really disliked Lord of the Onion Rings and the glorification of violence for its own sake," says Tolkien scholar and Wheaton College professor Michael Drout. "He was born in 1924, and so the big special-effects movie franchise thing was just not something he cared about. If his father hadn't sold all the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit rights to pay the inheritance taxes, I don't think Christopher would have sold them."

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b3a1e27550f81bac98f/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-007.jpg)
Elrond (Robert Aramayo) is a politically ambitious young elven leader.BEN ROTHSTEIN/AMAZON STUDIOS.

Over the years Christopher Tolkien left lucrative bids for other Middle-earth material on the table. But in 2017, as he was preparing to retire, the Tolkiens held a surprising auction. They were selling the rights to the Appendices that outlined what the author had referred to as the Second Age of Middle-earth, along with any references to that time period in The Lord of the Rings itself. If you're not up-to-date on your ages, the second one is (seemingly) a time of peace for Middle-earth after an era of horror and conflict. The wicked god Morgoth has been defeated, and his apprentice, Sauron, has vanished. As the series begins, Galadriel is hunting down the last remnants of their collaborators, who claimed the life of her brother. The Third Age—and the adventures of Frodo, Sam, and the fellowship—awaits some thousands of years in the future.

The starting price for the Tolkien estate's auction was a gobsmacking $200 million, which would have been a nonstarter if not for the industry's obsession with finding the next Game of Thrones. And money wasn't the only daunting factor. A handful of ageless characters, like the elves Galadriel and Elrond, could appear in the new series as their younger selves, but the studio making it would have to forgo fan-favorite hobbits and wizards, who weren't major players in the Second Age. The Tolkien estate also wanted input into the direction of the series.

This kind of budget could decimate other studios, but Tolkien, like space travel, is a personal obsession for Jeff Bezos.

The potential upside, though, was a must-see show with a built-in audience that could virtually guarantee survival in the Great Global Streaming War. HBO and Netflix were among the bidders, but Bezos's Amazon team won the rights for $250 million. "He is personally a huge fan of Tolkien and incredibly passionate about all of it and very well-versed," says Jennifer Salke, the head of Amazon Studios. "His desire to be ambitious—​and for us to be ambitious with our content—has always been clear from the moment I got here. This fit perfectly with that big ambition, to take on something that would require the whole company working together to execute."

Amazon won't confirm the show's budget, but on top of the money for the rights, the government of New Zealand has placed production expenditures at $462 million for the first season alone. That figure includes building infrastructure that will be used in later seasons—and it's been offset by a $108 million tax rebate. But by contrast, Amazon's recent fantasy series The Wheel of Time reportedly cost $80 million a season. Once you factor in the eventual global marketing campaign—and the cost of those subsequent seasons—there's no question that The Rings of Power will eventually speed far beyond the billion-dollar mark.

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b3a8ed373a03270cf79/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-008.jpg)
Bronwyn (played by Nazanin Boniadi) with her forbidden love, Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova), in the village of Tirharad.
BEN ROTHSTEIN/AMAZON STUDIOS.

Just as Tolkien entrusted his quest to Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, Amazon chose two unlikely newcomers. McKay and Payne are high school friends from northern Virginia who have been writing in Hollywood together for 13 years. The Rings of Power is their first credited IMDB listing. They know—it's astounding to them too. "We've worked on so many projects with so many awesome and exciting people that never got made or worked on things that did get made and we didn't get credit," says McKay. "We were a little bit of a dark horse. And Amazon talked to absolutely everybody—whoever had any idea for Lord of the Rings." Adds Payne: "We were passionate about the material and had a take that matched Amazon's appetites and ambition." They also apparently had a significant champion in J.J. Abrams, who knew them from their writing on a Star Trek movie and reportedly sang their praises.

Pitching 50 hours of television to Amazon executives—and ultimately to the Tolkien family as well—was arduous but nothing compared to writing, producing, and bringing the show to life. "We felt like hobbits," Payne says. "We felt like two very small people in a very big world who had just been entrusted with something that meant so much to so many different people." The showrunners found themselves quoting Frodo's famous line from the end of The Fellowship of the Ring. "Patrick and I will often look at each other in challenging moments of the show and say, 'I'm glad you're with me, Sam.' "

"He's Sam," McKay adds. "Just kidding, I'm Sam."

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b3b41f168f94e9f9d8a/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-009.jpg)
Elrond and Galadriel are reunited in the majestic elven kingdom of Lindon. COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS.

A project of this size would never be pulled off alone. Amazon executives, still relatively new to original content, assembled an experienced support team. Game of Thrones co–executive producer Bryan Cogman stepped in as an adviser to help McKay and Payne get the project off the ground, and veteran filmmaker J.A. Bayona (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom) established the tone of the series by directing the first two episodes.

Bayona was attracted not just by the duo's script but by their willingness to accept advice. "From the very beginning, I trusted these guys," Bayona says. "I knew what they were going through and they knew what I was going through also, because can you imagine going back to such a beloved world and [facing] the high bar of the Peter Jackson movies? We were, all the time, very aware of the massive expectations."

A fellowship was formed.

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b3c0d588f383586676c/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-010.jpg)
Nazanin Boniadi's Bronwyn is a single mother and healer, seen here in her apothecary in Middle-earth's Southlands.
COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS.

Until now, Amazon has said virtually nothing about its show. The secrecy has irked some in the fandom, accustomed, as they were, to the close relationship and steady flow of behind-the-scenes information from Jackson and New Line Studios. Can a 66-year-old text really be spoiled? Given that many are unfamiliar with the Appendices, the answer is actually yes. "We believe all of that work and all of that security and all of that protection will actually be to the benefit of our customers," says Vernon Sanders, head of U.S./global television for Amazon. For her part, Salke thinks the secrecy and the intense fan curiosity it generates is healthy for the show. "Anybody who's scrutinizing, or chasing fliers, or trying to peek in any crack they can to get details, or even speculating—that's all about fan engagement and passion. So we view it as such," she says. "The speculation is welcome." Radio silence has been the norm with Marvel, DC, Star Wars, and latter-season Game of Thrones, but Amazon's clandestine tactics reached new levels. Even the cast members were hired without being told which parts they would play.

There was one leak in 2019 that, however innocuous, worried some of those watching from afar. The show's resident Tolkien scholar—a widely respected academic named Tom Shippey—gave an apparently unsanctioned interview to a German fan site that July, opining on what the show could and could not explore. Not long after that, Shippey was no longer involved with the series. Both he and the showrunners decline to say what exactly happened, but the obvious assumption was made by fans. "It seems like the NDA is basically 'If you tell anyone, we can put you through a wood chipper,' " says Drout, the Tolkien professor. Amazon no longer shares the names of its scholars.

The Rings of Power has lost a few other players along the way, including actors Will Poulter and Tom Budge. Coupled with the departures of Shippey, production designer Rick Heinrichs, and one of the executives who helped negotiate the Tolkien deal in the first place, Amazon head of genre Susan Tal Yguado, those losses sparked concern that the production was chaotic early on. But fans of the movies will remember that Stuart Townsend was replaced by Viggo Mortensen even after he began swinging a sword in New Zealand. On any long trip, the executives and showrunners insist, it is inevitable that some don't complete the journey.

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b3dd49729c13d3d170b/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-011.jpg)
Director J.A. Bayona points the way for two nomadic hunters wandering the fields of Middle-earth.COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS.

As lifelong genre fans, Payne and McKay understand the anxiety some feel about the show. "We know what it's like to be anticipating something and to be terrified that it won't be what you hope," says McKay. "We've been those guys many times over." The duo can officially settle some concerns.

After news broke that Amazon had hired an intimacy coordinator for its New Zealand set, some fans feared that the production might have lost sight of what makes Tolkien Tolkien. "My worry would be if it becomes a Game of Thrones in the Second Age," says Dimitra Fimi, a Tolkien scholar and lecturer at the University of Glasgow. "That wouldn't be what one would associate with Tolkien's vision. It would also be derivative."

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b3dd49729c13d3d170a/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-012.jpg)
Showrunners Patrick McKay (left) and J.D. Payne (right) on the New Zealand set of The Rings of Power.COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS.

So will there be Westerosi levels of violence and sex in Amazon's Middle-earth? In short, no. McKay says the goal was "to make a show for everyone, for kids who are 11, 12, and 13, even though sometimes they might have to pull the blanket up over their eyes if it's a little too scary. We talked about the tone in Tolkien's books. This is material that is sometimes scary—and sometimes very intense, sometimes quite political, sometimes quite sophisticated—but it's also heartwarming and life-affirming and optimistic. It's about friendship and it's about brotherhood and underdogs overcoming great darkness."

Another concern: Is the series going to put hobbits in the Second Age? In short (so to speak), yes and no. "One of the very specific things the texts say is that hobbits never did anything historic or noteworthy before the Third Age," says McKay. "But really, does it feel like Middle-earth if you don't have hobbits or something like hobbits in it?" The hobbit ancestors in this era are called harfoots. They may not live in The Shire, but they are satisfyingly hobbit-adjacent. McKay and Payne have constructed a pastoral harfoot society that thrives on secrecy and evading detection so that they can play out a kind of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead story in the margins of the bigger quests. Two lovable, curious harfoots, played by Megan Richards and Markella Kavenagh, encounter a mysterious lost man whose origin promises to be one of the show's most enticing enigmas.

The driving question behind the production: "Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?"


Amazon's series will also broaden the notion of who shares the world of Middle-earth. One original story line centers on a silvan elf named Arondir, played by Ismael Cruz Córdova, who will be the first person of color to play an elf onscreen in a Tolkien project. He is involved in a forbidden relationship with Bronwyn, a human village healer played by Nazanin Boniadi, a British actor of Iranian heritage. Elsewhere, a Brit of Jamaican descent, Sir Lenny Henry, plays a harfoot elder, and Sophia Nomvete has a scene-stealing role as a dwarven princess named Disa—the latter being the first Black woman to play a dwarf in a Lord of the Rings movie, as well as the first female dwarf. "It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien's work would reflect what the world actually looks like," says Lindsey Weber, executive producer of the series. "Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their best work when they leave the isolation of their own cultures and come together."

When Amazon released photos of its multicultural cast, even without character names or plot details, the studio endured a reflexive attack from trolls—the anonymous online kind. "Obviously there was going to be push and backlash," says Tolkien scholar Mariana Rios Maldonado, "but the question is from whom? Who are these people that feel so threatened or disgusted by the idea that an elf is Black or Latino or Asian?"

Even hard-core fans who regard Tolkien's work as sacrosanct will recognize his message of unity. Staying true to that is as important as realizing his vision of places and characters from this little known era in his fiction. We will finally see the full glory of Khazad-dûm—the cavernous necropolis carved into the Misty Mountains, where, in Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf famously bellowed at the Balrog, "You shall not pass!" The show will explore that kingdom when it was still full of light, food, and music. It will also bring the elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) to life, as his skill with metals and magic lead to the forging of the rings. And a canny young elven architect and politician named Elrond (Robert Aramayo) will rise to prominence in the mystical capital of Lindon. Another story line will follow a sailor named Isildur (Maxim Baldry) years before he becomes a warrior and cuts the soul-corrupting ring off Sauron's hand, then falls victim to its powers himself.

(https://media.vanityfair.com/photos/62019b3dd49729c13d3d170d/master/w_1600,c_limit/lord-of-the-rings-013.jpg)
Charlie Vickers as Halbrand, a new character who is a fugitive from his own past. COURTESY OF AMAZON STUDIOS.

Speaking of Sauron, the villain's presence is a major factor throughout the Second Age, culminating in his resurrection as a tyrant. As the show begins, there are only hints of the danger to come. Some see them clearly; others don't necessarily want to. Bayona drew from his memories growing up in Spain, a country still recovering from a civil war decades before he was born. "We had a dictatorship for 40 years, so you notice the repercussions of war and the shadow of the past," he says, noting that "Shadow of the Past" is in fact the title of the first episode. "I think this is all about the repercussions of war. There is an idea that feels very faithful to Tolkien, which is intuition. Galadriel has an intuition that things are not fixed, and there is still something lurking."

In the novels, the aforementioned things take place over thousands of years, but Payne and McKay have compressed events into a single point in time. It is their biggest deviation from the text, and they know it's a big swing. "We talked with the Tolkien estate," says Payne. "If you are true to the exact letter of the law, you are going to be telling a story in which your human characters are dying off every season because you're jumping 200 years in time, and then you're not meeting really big, important canon characters until season four. Look, there might be some fans who want us to do a documentary of Middle-earth, but we're going to tell one story that unites all these things."

The showrunners clearly have great respect for Tolkien, but you can't make a 50-hour adaptation without taking creative risks. "We think the work will eventually speak for itself," Payne says when asked if fan concern and speculation ever unnerves him. "Before an orchestra starts, audiences will talk to each other, but then as soon as the music begins, you're in and you're listening to that music."

Quote from: Master on Feb 07, 2022, 11:44:54 AM
Since when you ever cared to reply to arguments? All you see is bigot and racist, especially when not agreeing with your point of view. As stated before, you argue for the sake of argument.

Quote from: Master on Feb 08, 2022, 12:22:02 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 07, 2022, 08:22:44 PM
... but I'm not a nazi. Eat what you want. Your body your temple.

My body is no temple. It's more like Catholic Church, full of wine, guilt and sin  ;D

Quote from: TheGreenSolution on Feb 10, 2022, 02:53:56 PM

Quote from: Master on Feb 07, 2022, 11:44:54 AM
Since when you ever cared to reply to arguments? All you see is bigot and racist, especially when not agreeing with your point of view. As stated before, you argue for the sake of argument.

I have been reading many threads with Mr. SiL's comments and your statement has merit. Maybe it is more for the post counts? But maybe I am wrong.

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Feb 10, 2022, 04:03:13 PM
I think he and SM are like synonyms.

Quote from: TheGreenSolution on Feb 10, 2022, 04:12:40 PM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Feb 10, 2022, 04:03:13 PM
I think he and SM are like synonyms.

I do not know this SM.

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Feb 10, 2022, 04:03:13 PM
I think he and SM are like synonyms.

Quote from: TheGreenSolution on Feb 10, 2022, 10:50:48 PM
With all due respcet sir, I do not understand why there is so much discussion about two people who cause such disruption? AvPG is a place I like because of the fun people have discussing the movies and things? I am sorry, maybe I don't undersatnd.

Quote from: Kradan on Feb 10, 2022, 11:12:05 PM

Quote from: TheGreenSolution on Feb 10, 2022, 10:50:48 PM
With all due respcet sir, I do not understand why there is so much discussion about two people who cause such disruption? AvPG is a place I like because of the fun people have discussing the movies and things? I am sorry, maybe I don't undersatnd.

If you're feeling I'm spoiling your fun you're quite welcome to bring me up to mods' and admins' attention  ;)

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Feb 10, 2022, 11:36:40 PM
I don't think he means any harm mate.

Just to get back on topic.

Quote from: Crazy Rich on Feb 11, 2022, 12:18:57 AM
I really don't see the issue with SiL, I've even known him since 2007 and while we've had many disagreements I've come to value his thoughts.

I think y'all just being too defensive, speaking from experience too.

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 13, 2022, 10:24:21 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QJbAbe2yyo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QJbAbe2yyo)

Quote from: Local Trouble on Feb 14, 2022, 03:29:54 AM
Looks insipid.

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Feb 14, 2022, 12:09:01 PM
The irony of changing existing characters and races in a way antithetical to J.R.R Tolkien whilst, not including say Khamûl apparently anyway, not lost on me.

QuoteNext, Tolkien makes it very clear that canon should be respected no matter what the medium is, "The canons of narrative in any medium cannot be wholly different; and the failure of poor films is often precisely in exaggeration, and in the intrusion of unwarranted matter owing to not perceiving where the core of the original lies."

Quote from: SiL on Feb 16, 2022, 11:50:16 PM
Brand recognition.

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Feb 16, 2022, 11:40:28 PM
I'm a very progressive individual, but I can't help but wonder why they don't invent their own universe where they can do whatever they want with the characters instead of changing the ones that belong to an already established canon?

Quote from: SiL on Feb 18, 2022, 02:57:22 AM

Quote from: SiL on Feb 16, 2022, 11:50:16 PM
Brand recognition.

Quote from: Kradan on Feb 20, 2022, 11:36:39 AM
These days everything causes fans' outrage

Quote from: Master on Feb 07, 2022, 11:27:35 AM
Midgets playing Dwarfs looks stupid.

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 20, 2022, 11:48:18 AM

Quote from: Kradan on Feb 20, 2022, 11:36:39 AM
These days everything causes fans' outrage

Don't remember that happening with Blade Runner sequel. I can be done right.

Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Feb 20, 2022, 12:08:29 PM
Just for the record, Blade Runner scholars like Charles de Lauzirika, myself and many others did not approve of 2049.

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 20, 2022, 11:48:18 AM

Quote from: Kradan on Feb 20, 2022, 11:36:39 AM
These days everything causes fans' outrage

Don't remember that happening with Blade Runner sequel. I can be done right.

Don't underestimate LOTR fans. Tolkien legacy is different kettle of fish than, let's say, The Song of Ice and Fire and The Witcher. This is sacred to many people. Mark my words when this show will be released. You gonna see.

Quote from: St_Eddie on Feb 20, 2022, 12:05:09 PM

Quote from: Master on Feb 07, 2022, 11:27:35 AM
Midgets playing Dwarfs looks stupid.

The word "midget" is offensive.  Please educate yourself.

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 20, 2022, 11:48:18 AM
Don't underestimate LOTR fans

Quote from: Master on Feb 20, 2022, 03:59:42 PM

Quote from: St_Eddie on Feb 20, 2022, 12:05:09 PM

Quote from: Master on Feb 07, 2022, 11:27:35 AM
Midgets playing Dwarfs looks stupid.

The word "midget" is offensive.  Please educate yourself.

I stand educated though my dictionary says otherwise. I, of coures, meant those smallest of peaople not being children. Apologies,  apologise.

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 20, 2022, 11:48:18 AM
Mark my words when this show will be released. You gonna see.

QuoteOne wonders why in the world someone would endeavor to bring to live-action the Second Age when you don't have the rights to the key materials that document the Second Age.

Well, McKay has an answer, "There's a version of everything we need for the Second Age in the books we have the rights to."

"As long as we're painting within those lines and not egregiously contradicting something we don't have the rights to, there's a lot of leeway and room to dramatize and tell some of the best stories that [Tolkien] ever came up with," he added.

(...) Interestingly, they try to justify their hubris by claiming, "We worked in conjunction with world-renowned Tolkien scholars and the Tolkien estate to make sure that the ways we connected the dots were Tolkienian and gelled with the experts' and the estate's understanding of the material."

However, the production canned Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey. It's unclear why he was canned. Vanity Fair suggested it was over a NDA breach claiming he gave "an apparently unsanctioned interview to a German fan site that July, opining on what the show could and could not explore. Not long after that, Shippey was no longer involved with the series."

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Feb 22, 2022, 12:14:36 AM
Fanfiction maybe. Just kidding :laugh:

Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Jun 07, 2022, 12:16:03 PMIs that a female dwarf on cover 2?

New still:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FUk0nLBWAAILIDX?format=jpg&name=large

QuoteRumor: The Lord Of The Rings Scholar Tom Shippey Fired For Telling Prime Video They Were "Polluting The Lore"

A new rumor claims that Tom Shippey, The Lord of the Rings scholar and former consultant on The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, was fired from the Prime Video show because he was warning them that they were "polluting the lore."

When Prime Video first announced The Lord of the Rings series in July 2019, they revealed Shippey was part of the production as a Tolkien Scholar.

However, back in February, Vanity Fair led their readers to believe that Shippey was canned for giving an "unsanctioned interview to a German fan site" where he opined "on what the show could and could not explore."

Now this new rumor from YouTuber George Molho of YouTube channel George The Giant Slayer claims Shippey was actually canned because he was warning Prime Video that they were "polluting the lore."

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Jul 21, 2022, 10:04:10 AMWe simply don't know why exactly as yet.

Quote from: Master on Jul 21, 2022, 10:11:06 AMI fully expect they'll do to LotR what they did with The Witcher.

Quote from: Kradan on Aug 03, 2022, 02:16:15 PMOn a related note, Mr. Bean is da shit

Quote from: PredatorvsAliens on Aug 03, 2022, 09:06:03 PMGaladriel is not a warrior and this will be awful
For the money they put into this show it doesn't come across on screen it looks very cheap.

Quote from: Master on Aug 03, 2022, 09:53:58 PM

Quote from: PredatorvsAliens on Aug 03, 2022, 09:06:03 PMGaladriel is not a warrior and this will be awful
For the money they put into this show it doesn't come across on screen it looks very cheap.

Agreed. Galadriel powers are not of a warrior. She's one of the greatest magic wielders of Middle Earth and could f**k up just about everyone.

Quote from: Ingwar on Aug 04, 2022, 09:36:22 AMThey needed strong independent female representative ;D

Quote from: SiL on Aug 04, 2022, 11:12:17 AMIt'll fail because of terrible writing, not mishandling a character.

QuoteThe Oscar-winning director says Amazon asked him to be involved with its megabudget 'LOTR' series — and then cut off contact. Amazon suggests the story isn't quite so simple.

The Oscar-winning director of the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies reveals the studio asked him to be involved with its upcoming megabudget series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and promised to send him scripts — then never contacted him again.

"They asked me if I wanted to be involved — [writer-producer Fran Walsh] and I — and I said, 'That's an impossible question to answer without seeing a script,'" Jackson recalled to Scott Feinberg on The Hollywood Reporter's Awards Chatter podcast. "So they said, 'As soon as we get the first couple scripts, we'll send them to you.' And the scripts never showed up. That's the last thing I heard, which is fine. No complaints at all.

In an upcoming The Business podcast, talking to The Hollywood Reporter's Kim Masters, the filmmaker echoes the anecdote and phrases it slightly differently, yet makes the same point: "About four, five years ago, they asked if I would be interested in it," he says. "So I said, 'Have you got the scripts yet?' Because I know how hard the scripts were to write for the films, and I didn't know the people writing their scripts. They said, 'Oh no, we haven't got the scripts yet, but as soon as we do, we'll send you the scripts.' So I was waiting for the scripts to arrive, and they never did."

Back in 2018, Jackson told the U.K.'s Metro, "I think they're going to send us some scripts to see if we can help them along."

Still, Jackson emphasized that he harbors no hard feelings toward Amazon's series and is eager to watch it as a fan of the franchise.

"I'll be watching it," he says. "I'm not the sort of guy who wishes ill will. Filmmaking is hard enough. If somebody makes a good film or TV show, it's something to celebrate. The one thing I am looking forward to is actually seeing it as a perfectly neutral viewer." Jackson adds that Amazon is "betting the farm on Tolkien," given its massive half-billion-dollar budget for the show's debut season.

Amazon Studios responded to Jackson's comments with the following statement: "In pursuing the rights for our show, we were obligated to keep the series distinct and separate from the films. We have the utmost respect for Peter Jackson and The Lord of The Rings films and are thrilled that he is looking forward to watching The Rings of Power."

Sources close to the project describe a complicated and delicate backstory to the situation. First, that the studio has high regard for Jackson, and that Rings of Power showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have privately attempted to make overtures to the filmmaker. But as the statement suggests, there were also legal concerns about keeping the films (which are owned by Warner Bros.) and TV show separate. There have been executive changes during the time period in question, as well, with former head of genre programming Sharon Tal Yguado — whom one source described as an advocate of luring Jackson to the project — departing the company in 2019. Perhaps even more crucially, sources say author J.R.R. Tolkien's estate was against having Jackson on board. This shouldn't be surprising, as the estate had no involvement with his films and Christopher Tolkien has previously slammed the trilogy in the press as "eviscerating" his father's books, claiming they turned his novels into action movies for young people that lack "beauty and seriousness." But the estate is involved with the series — Amazon paid the estate an astounding $250 million for the rights to make the show. All that said: One does not simply offer to send Peter Jackson a LOTR script and then leave the man hanging.

Moving on, Jackson was also asked if a movie studio would greenlight his trilogy today, answering: "probably not. ... Not with a director like me and a studio that would put its money on the line for three movies," he says.

As for his trilogy's legacy, Jackson says, "If there was anything we gave to the ongoing community of filmmaking, [it's] that we opened up the CGI bag of tricks to have huge battle scenes." That's a bit of a modest answer considering epic fantasy shows such as HBO's Game of Thrones would likely have never been greenlit if not for his trilogy's massive box office and awards success.

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Aug 27, 2022, 07:41:26 AMThat's good to hear.

Quote from: nanison on Sep 01, 2022, 12:19:53 PMI caved in with both subscriptions to disneyplus and netflix in the last months. But amazon prime I don't think it is even available where I live so this will remain unseen forever.
It's a shame cause I hear good things about it.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 02, 2022, 03:32:48 AMI'm watching the first episode now and I can't stop fixating on the modern haircuts.  Elves just look wrong with short hair.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 02, 2022, 03:32:48 AMI'm watching the first episode now and I can't stop fixating on the modern haircuts.  Elves just look wrong with short hair.

Quote from: Prez on Sep 02, 2022, 01:49:53 AMWatching it tonight. A great (hopefully) way to kick off my Father's Day weekend.

---

Quote from: nanison on Sep 01, 2022, 12:19:53 PM:) I caved in with both subscriptions to disneyplus and netflix in the last months. But amazon prime I don't think it is even available where I live so this will remain unseen forever.
It's a shame cause I hear good things about it.

Invest in a VPN my friend. Good luck :-)

Quote from: nanison on Sep 03, 2022, 08:31:12 PMGoing cheap with the cast should be great. It saves tons of money that can perhaps go into the movie and not into the actors pockets.

As for the ratings, it does seem there is a force at work here. I'm gonna trust the reviews.

Quote from: Rudiger on Sep 04, 2022, 07:09:50 AM

Quote from: nanison on Sep 03, 2022, 08:31:12 PMGoing cheap with the cast should be great. It saves tons of money that can perhaps go into the movie and not into the actors pockets.

As for the ratings, it does seem there is a force at work here. I'm gonna trust the reviews.

You need quality character actors to pull off the dialogue. They can bring the level of gravitas that's missing here. The scenes with the King of the elves were toe curling as the guy they cast is very wooden.

Quote from: Prez on Sep 03, 2022, 08:24:45 AMFirst episode down and I loved it. It hit a few beats that took me back to PJ's tone.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 06, 2022, 02:55:53 AMhttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1566852513235705856

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 06, 2022, 02:55:53 AMhttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1566852513235705856

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 06, 2022, 09:56:49 PMWatched the first episode. The budget is definitely there on the screen, but I can't say it wowed me.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 06, 2022, 09:45:08 PMThat's what happens when SM isn't around to keep me in line.  I'm totally out of control. :'(

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Sep 06, 2022, 04:12:01 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 06, 2022, 02:55:53 AMhttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1566852513235705856

You look like a conservative Mr. Trouble...

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 08, 2022, 10:56:54 PM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Sep 06, 2022, 04:12:01 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 06, 2022, 02:55:53 AMhttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1566852513235705856

You look like a conservative Mr. Trouble...

Does one need to be conservative to not like it? Or maybe it's just because it's betrayal of Tolkien's vision, it's badly written and boring?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVi4CYRL8m8

Quote from: KiramidHead on Sep 09, 2022, 03:36:35 PMThe only LotR related Tolkien I haven't read is most of the Histories of Middle Earth, because I figured out pretty quickly that I only have so much patience for seventeen million early drafts of The Silmarillion.  :laugh:

Quote from: Nightmare Asylum on Sep 09, 2022, 03:28:35 PMhate Jackson's The Hobbit

Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Sep 09, 2022, 09:24:21 AMIs Tom Bombadil in this show?

Quote from: Local Trouble on Mar 26, 2020, 09:13:04 PMBut what is he?

Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Sep 09, 2022, 09:24:21 AMIs Tom Bombadil in this show?

QuoteAmazon has shut down access to the "Rings of Power" series rating, and IMDb deletes ratings due to a lot of criticism and negative reviews

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 09, 2022, 11:04:28 PM

Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Sep 09, 2022, 09:24:21 AMIs Tom Bombadil in this show?

Quote from: Local Trouble on Mar 26, 2020, 09:13:04 PMBut what is he?

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 09, 2022, 11:32:30 PM

Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Sep 09, 2022, 09:24:21 AMIs Tom Bombadil in this show?

Not yet but he might be the meteor man. Oh wait, he might be Gandalf.

QuoteI think many of the criticisms leveled at this version of Galadriel have missed the mark. She is not a 'Mary Sue' as some have claimed. She's far too unlikable to be a Mary Sue, for one thing. And her character is much too old and experienced to qualify. Mary Sues, by definition, are characters who are good at everything despite not having the training or experience required for such mastery.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 11, 2022, 05:06:26 AMNah, it's always been a pretty specific thing, based in Star Trek fanfic. This Galadriel is just a 2 dimensional superhero, which legitimately is a different thing.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 11, 2022, 06:09:26 AM

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 11, 2022, 05:06:26 AMNah, it's always been a pretty specific thing, based in Star Trek fanfic. This Galadriel is just a 2 dimensional superhero, which legitimately is a different thing.

I hope Noah Hawley's show is better than this.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Sep 11, 2022, 06:39:56 PMI have never seen anyone ever complain about those characters being a Mary Sue, ever.

Quote from: 426Buddy on Sep 11, 2022, 04:18:50 PMYeah lots of Male characters get called out for being the male equivalent of Mary Sue  ::)

Except they don't, I've never seen anyone be like "That guy didn't earn his skillz to be such a badass, such a Harry Foo."

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Sep 11, 2022, 06:55:42 PMNo Time To Die's good.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 11, 2022, 07:13:29 PMGamergate

Quote from: Kradan on Sep 11, 2022, 07:28:58 PM

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 11, 2022, 07:13:29 PMGamergate

*one quick Google search later*

Sooo ... while here, in Ukraine in 2014 we had government overthrow and Crimea/Donbas shenanigans, America's biggest problem was ... a bunch of angry misogynistic gamers ?

Quote from: Kradan on Sep 11, 2022, 08:03:15 PMFascinating

Quote from: KiramidHead on Nov 04, 2017, 08:11:22 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Nov 04, 2017, 07:56:57 PMWhy not?

Because I love the whole trilogy. This is just a shameless cash grab by WB.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 11, 2022, 09:02:33 PMWith all the money Amazon threw at this thing, you'd think they could have just invented some new characters to carry the show, then brought back Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving for brief appearances.

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 11, 2022, 09:03:14 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 11, 2022, 09:02:33 PMWith all the money Amazon threw at this thing, you'd think they could have just invented some new characters to carry the show, then brought back Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving for brief appearances.

But they have.

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 11, 2022, 08:39:25 PM

Quote from: Kradan on Sep 11, 2022, 08:03:15 PMFascinating

It's interesting for sure, however it makes me angry when person is being stigmatised as left or right wing because of movies he likes/dislikes. Why making it political in the first place?

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 11, 2022, 09:05:31 PMYeah, but they also made Galadriel the main protagonist.  That's the problem most people seem to have with this.

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 11, 2022, 09:03:14 PM

Quote from: KiramidHead on Nov 04, 2017, 08:11:22 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Nov 04, 2017, 07:56:57 PMWhy not?

Because I love the whole trilogy. This is just a shameless cash grab by WB.

But they have.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 11, 2022, 09:12:50 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 11, 2022, 08:39:25 PM

Quote from: Kradan on Sep 11, 2022, 08:03:15 PMFascinating

It's interesting for sure, however it makes me angry when person is being stigmatised as left or right wing because of movies he likes/dislikes. Why making it political in the first place?

Is anyone doing that here?

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 11, 2022, 09:12:56 PMBeing serious, what other character would carry the show?

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 11, 2022, 09:12:56 PMBeing serious, what other character would carry the show?

Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Sep 11, 2022, 09:27:17 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 11, 2022, 09:12:56 PMBeing serious, what other character would carry the show?

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/lotr/images/c/c7/Tom_bombadil.jpg

Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Sep 11, 2022, 09:27:17 PM

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 11, 2022, 09:12:56 PMBeing serious, what other character would carry the show?

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/lotr/images/c/c7/Tom_bombadil.jpg

Quote from: kwisatz on Sep 11, 2022, 09:31:58 PMMy biggest gripe with this show is the continuous aping of Jackson's approach/overall LotR-style tbh   

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 11, 2022, 10:01:43 PM

Quote from: kwisatz on Sep 11, 2022, 09:31:58 PMMy biggest gripe with this show is the continuous aping of Jackson's approach/overall LotR-style tbh   

It's what people expect.  Imagine if it was a bunch of shaky cam and MCU-style quips.

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Sep 11, 2022, 10:34:19 PMNo it started in Two Towers with the skateboarding shield

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 11, 2022, 10:32:31 PMI feel like that was more simply over the top silly than a stylistic choice to use bullet time, but it's been a while.

Quote from: kwisatz on Sep 11, 2022, 10:43:22 PM

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 11, 2022, 10:32:31 PMI feel like that was more simply over the top silly than a stylistic choice to use bullet time, but it's been a while.

I'm not even sure there's any slomo at all in that scene. I think in the original trilogy slomos are limited to some dramatic scenes and dreamy sequences.

Which I thought was fitting.

(I could be wrong here though)     

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 11, 2022, 10:42:11 PMEither way, the slow motion axe swinging in ep3 really shat me.

Quote from: xShadowFoxX on Sep 13, 2022, 01:56:52 AMNot to defend the Amazon series, but I always thought the Elves were always lighter on their feet than their mortal counterparts, a fact that translated well from the books. This is why I forgave Legolas' crazier, gravity-defying stunts.

Quote from: kwisatz on Sep 13, 2022, 01:22:00 AMThe one where they're on the hunt and he turns around?

I think I really like that shot   

Quote from: Prez on Sep 13, 2022, 03:54:54 AM

Quote from: xShadowFoxX on Sep 13, 2022, 01:56:52 AMNot to defend the Amazon series, but I always thought the Elves were always lighter on their feet than their mortal counterparts, a fact that translated well from the books. This is why I forgave Legolas' crazier, gravity-defying stunts.

Exactly my thinking too. There is that great scene in FOTR when you clearly see Legolas walking atop the snow on the Misty Mountains (?) whilst the rest of the fellowship are knee deep.

Quote from: KiramidHead on Sep 13, 2022, 04:45:28 AM

Quote from: kwisatz on Sep 13, 2022, 01:22:00 AMThe one where they're on the hunt and he turns around?

I think I really like that shot   

I may be conflating it with the much more jarring use of that effect in King Kong, with the villager getting shot so hard the frame rate dies.  :laugh:

Quote from: 426Buddy on Sep 13, 2022, 12:22:28 PMI dunno, the elves seem just as elvy as Legoland was.

Quote from: KiramidHead on Sep 21, 2022, 12:53:56 AMStill enjoying the show. Also holy hell, Isildur was Caesarion in HBO's Rome wayyyy back when. And Elendil was Henry Jones in Young Indy.  :laugh:

Quote from: Prez on Sep 21, 2022, 01:59:57 AM

Quote from: KiramidHead on Sep 21, 2022, 12:53:56 AMStill enjoying the show. Also holy hell, Isildur was Caesarion in HBO's Rome wayyyy back when. And Elendil was Henry Jones in Young Indy.  :laugh:

Enjoying it too.

Spoiler

Loved the whole vision of Numenor getting smashed by that massive wave. Always wondered what that would look like when I first read about it ages ago in the books. Wow!!

[close]

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 21, 2022, 02:03:21 AM

Quote from: Prez on Sep 21, 2022, 01:59:57 AM

Quote from: KiramidHead on Sep 21, 2022, 12:53:56 AMStill enjoying the show. Also holy hell, Isildur was Caesarion in HBO's Rome wayyyy back when. And Elendil was Henry Jones in Young Indy.  :laugh:

Enjoying it too.

Spoiler

Loved the whole vision of Numenor getting smashed by that massive wave. Always wondered what that would look like when I first read about it ages ago in the books. Wow!!

[close]

Remember when those cartoons were the only Lord of the Rings we got?

Quote from: Prez on Sep 21, 2022, 03:57:24 AM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 21, 2022, 02:03:21 AM

Quote from: Prez on Sep 21, 2022, 01:59:57 AM

Quote from: KiramidHead on Sep 21, 2022, 12:53:56 AMStill enjoying the show. Also holy hell, Isildur was Caesarion in HBO's Rome wayyyy back when. And Elendil was Henry Jones in Young Indy.  :laugh:

Enjoying it too.

Spoiler

Loved the whole vision of Numenor getting smashed by that massive wave. Always wondered what that would look like when I first read about it ages ago in the books. Wow!!

[close]

Remember when those cartoons were the only Lord of the Rings we got?

You mean the Ralph Bakshi animated film? I still have a copy of (Star Log) somewhere with a special write up on it in there. Wish we got the rest of the story in animated form.

Quote from: KiramidHead on Sep 21, 2022, 04:33:36 AM

Quote from: Prez on Sep 21, 2022, 03:57:24 AM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 21, 2022, 02:03:21 AM

Quote from: Prez on Sep 21, 2022, 01:59:57 AM

Quote from: KiramidHead on Sep 21, 2022, 12:53:56 AMStill enjoying the show. Also holy hell, Isildur was Caesarion in HBO's Rome wayyyy back when. And Elendil was Henry Jones in Young Indy.  :laugh:

Enjoying it too.

Spoiler

Loved the whole vision of Numenor getting smashed by that massive wave. Always wondered what that would look like when I first read about it ages ago in the books. Wow!!

[close]

Remember when those cartoons were the only Lord of the Rings we got?

You mean the Ralph Bakshi animated film? I still have a copy of (Star Log) somewhere with a special write up on it in there. Wish we got the rest of the story in animated form.

We sort of did, Rankin/Bass did a Return of the King tv special. Notable for making the Orcs semi-sympathetic with a musical number. Also spoiling the ending by telling the whole thing in a flashback.  :laugh:

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 21, 2022, 05:13:20 AMI'd like to see an animated version that's 100% faithful to the books.  That would probably be the only way to do a perfect adaptation.

Animation doesn't need a huge budget to depict supernatural abilities, vast armies or mythical creatures.  It can also pull off things that might be too cheesy for live-action, like Tom Bombadil.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 24, 2022, 05:10:05 AMIt did have some pretty striking imagery though, I'll admit.

Spoiler

(https://i.imgur.com/wvRyZp7.jpg)

[close]

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 24, 2022, 05:30:58 AMDidn't make up for the pacing/narrative being such that I had to stop and start it repeatedly to get all the way through.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 24, 2022, 05:30:58 AMI can't believe we're in a timeline where I'm enjoying GoT and Star Wars shows more than LotR.

Quote'The Rings Of Power' Has Inexplicably Terrible Writing

I've come to a sad realization: The creators of Amazon's The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power know how to create spectacle, but they don't know how to tell a good story.

There it is, scrawled in blood on the wall. The writers and showrunners responsible for this show could have won me over with good fan-fiction. They could have tossed Tolkien's lore onto a bonfire and I'd have been perfectly happy if they'd simply crafted an enjoyable story with characters I care about.

Unfortunately, The Rings Of Power is written so poorly it defies even my worst fears. Oh yes, I was awed and impressed by the opening two episodes just like many others. But my how quickly a badly written TV series can wear out its welcome once the shimmer fades.

"All that glitters is not gold" is the old aphorism; it's the one Tolkien flipped on its head for "The Riddle Of Strider"—all that is gold does not glitter.

But The Rings Of Power knows only how to glitter, and it's certainly not gold. It knows how to shoot pretty slow-motion shots of elves on horses or orcs leaping through the trees. It gets the giant statues of ancient elven kings and shining cities just right. It has a sweeping score that's lovely to listen to—but is, like the show's melodrama, perhaps a little too incessant. This is a show of spectacle and it gets the spectacle mostly right.

The problem is everything else.

Galadriel's adventure in Númenor is honestly just embarrassing. She arrived there—after being rescued—and effectively just bullied everyone in her path like the elven version of a steamroller. The queen regent has her hands full from the moment Galadriel barges through the door, and soon she's demanding to see the king, then asking for an army.

Miriel has to lock her up and then pack her off back to the elves just to get her to stop. Then—thanks to petals falling from a tree*—she decides to take her back and commit her people—who moments earlier were all but chanting "death to the elves!"—to a war in a strange land? Everything taking place in Númenor is just a shortcut for the plot. Move the plot forward at all costs no matter how many characters are butchered in the process. (I wrote about the hilariously bad Black Speech spy note recently which is another great example of the shoddy writing in this show)>

Instead of actual character drama, the creators of Rings Of Power simply make everyone bicker and argue with one another all the time. Whether that's Isildur and his father and friends, Elrond and Durin, Nori and the village elders, Bronwyn and the village idiots, or Galadriel and, well, everybody—all anyone seems to do is argue.

The people Galadriel wants to go save are evil and stupid and some of them seem ready to throw in with Sauron at the drop of a pin. But for some reason we're supposed to care about Galadriel's quest to go fight to save them from the Enemy?

I don't mind Elrond and Durin and Durin's wife Disa but their story is spinning its wheels compared to everything else. That would work, and could work great, if the rest of the show was willing to also take its time a bit. I'm not upset with this show for being slow. I'd be perfectly happy with a slow show that did a good job at developing its characters. This show is tedious and rushed all at the same time.

And while I like the Harfoots they, too, have been written into a very strange corner. "No one walks alone!" the little folk chant, while leaving their lame and their elderly, their sick and their maimed, behind to suffer and die.

Then there's the new villain Adar. I was excited about him at first. He seemed like a pretty intriguing bad guy—until he let Arondir go "to deliver a message to the humans" which, if you ask me, may as well be "just because."

Just because the writers couldn't be bothered to come up with a more clever way to get Arondir out of there, I guess? Way to undermine the very tension you were hoping to create.

We have spectacle, though. Lots of big, dramatic moments with . . . literally no build-up to them. Arondir is set free, rescues Theo just in the nick of time, and then they run through the woods (directly to where Bronwyn finds them!) and escape dozens of orcs because they shoot arrows like Stormtroopers shoot blasters and run about as fast as those bounty hunters from Obi-Wan Kenobi. We're supposed to remember Boromir at this point, right? Lots of little callbacks to the Jackson trilogy. Lots of little reminders that those movies were far, far better.

Nothing is earned in The Rings Of Power. Neither the emotional nor the epic. Things just happen because the writers want those things to happen. Something happens and then something else happens. There are no real consequences, no real hard spots to get out of, just a string of events unfolding, frictionless and boring.

Galadriel gets her army—just by being a jerk for a couple days—and what now? We're going to war! The problem is, we don't care. Arondir gets back to Bronwyn and his tidings are very dire! The problem is, we don't care!

This is bad writing, pure and simple. Bad characterization. Choppy dialogue. Characters who don't make sense and clearly dislike one another as much as we dislike them. Everything feels forced and contrived, especially in the Galadriel storyline.

I'm trying to envision the writing process here, how they came up with this story of all the stories they could spin. They had carte blanche to make up whatever Middle-earth fable they wanted and they give us this cobbled together nonsense with a cast of characters we can barely stand, tossed haphazardly into predicaments and events that ooze fake gravitas but have no real stakes.

I don't get it. I really don't. I really wanted to like this show and was completely willing to suspend my disbelief and treat it like expensive fan-fiction. But this feels cheap.

This was a show I was eagerly looking forward to watching with my kids. Now, I doubt I'll bother. That's about as damning a verdict as I can muster.

QuoteIn any case, the problem here is that Galadriel does not have shimmering eyes and her hair doesn't glow with the light of the Two Trees of Valinor. She just comes across as a young and very serious and very angry young woman who ignores advice and has very little wisdom, all of which is both odd and frustrating. I don't think she'd be a very likable character even if she wasn't Galadriel and was some young, non-canon elf made up for the story either, but at least that would make sense.

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 24, 2022, 06:21:33 PMSo the main protagonist is ... unlikable? Is she annoying?

Quote from: Prez on Sep 25, 2022, 07:05:45 AMInteresting views on this (not that I personally agree) but I feel Galadriel will grow into something more as the series goes forward. I can totally respect where a lot of Tolkien purists might be pissed at some of the lore retconning (aware PJ did some too but with a bit more sensitivity and probably not as divisive).

I'm not saying this show isn't without it's flaws but I'm curious to see where it goes. For now I am enjoying it and still intrigued.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 25, 2022, 07:49:06 PMShe makes eye contact with the camera during a slow motion backflip filmed from above.

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Sep 24, 2022, 05:38:06 PMSo we can put this to rest then.

QuoteRings of Power would have Tolkien turning in his grave

The sets are astonishing, the special effects are seamless and the costumes are incredible. But Amazon's Rings of Power has managed to be both pretentious and boring.

The Lord Of The Rings: Rings Of Power is in more trouble than an orc who's told Sauron he thinks they should all go vegan.

I've written before about shows being "review bombed", which is where there is a gulf between what the critics think and where the audience score is. Usually, this is unfair and the result of trolls. That's apt in this case but not the whole story.

Rings Of Power has taken this to the next level with Elon Musk this week tweeting that "Tolkein is turning in his grave" because "every male character is a coward or a jerk or both".

Musk is just adding to the pile-on that has seen ROP's Rotten Tomatoes audience approval score drop to a dismal 39 per cent.

Among the complaints are the coloured characters dropped in, seemingly at random; the way existing characters such as Morfydd Clark's Galadriel and Elrond seem to have changed dramatically from Peter Jackson's acclaimed films; and rewriting those works to show – among other things – female dwarves without beards.

Now let me say that Musk is both right and very wrong.

Tolkien grew up in Queen Victoria's England where, ironically, the idea of powerful female leaders was not popular. They certainly weren't a strong part of his Lord of the Rings, because you could count them on the fingers of a blind butcher.

The strong women in ROP would probably have Tolkien spluttering in his pipe, while coloured characters would also have raised his bushy eyebrows, given his propensity for describing people as "fair".

But – this is the crucial bit – those are not the problems with ROP.

Not every male character is a coward or a jerk. Having some characters as coloured doesn't ruin things – Ismael Cordova's elf Arondir is the most interesting of the show so far. It's the quality of the character that counts, not what their skin looks like.

And that's the issue.

You can see at a glance why ROP is reportedly costing Amazon $US1bn to make.

The sets are astonishing, the special effects are seamless and the costumes are incredible.

Sadly, the story is not. And more and more are noticing.

It's like being served rancid cat food on a beautiful antique plate.

In years to come, I believe budding fantasy writers will be invited to watch the show because it is a case study in how to use every lazy fantasy trope imaginable, from the ever-burning torches to leaving at "first light" to ramshackle rafts that can survive impossible storms.

It managed to be both pretentious and boring.

And don't get me started on using two-handed swords in close combat. They would be more likely to kill the elf next to them than the orc in front.

Quote from: Ingwar on Sep 25, 2022, 08:04:42 PMhttps://c.tenor.com/RHLXIAHnu1MAAAAd/lotr-gimli.gif
This is probably one of the cringest fighting scene I've ever seen. What a choreography! ;D 
How much mithril did they waste on this show?

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-D6RbqvE0w

[close]

Quote from: SiL on Sep 27, 2022, 09:38:41 AMNot like that.

Quote from: BlueMarsalis79 on Sep 28, 2022, 02:49:29 PMhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3AZYQh2e0k
@[cancerblack]

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 30, 2022, 11:40:27 PMStuff finally happens in the sixth episode.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Oct 01, 2022, 01:28:46 AMUnless the last two are as eventful as 6 was, I feel like people will be left feeling like "was that it?" for the next two years or however long it's supposed to be taking to make more.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 01, 2022, 05:57:27 AMI thought it benefited from the complete omission of any cutaways to the harfoot or dwarven subplots, thus it was way more focused than before.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Oct 01, 2022, 01:28:46 AMUnless the last two are as eventful as 6 was, I feel like people will be left feeling like "was that it?" for the next two years or however long it's supposed to be taking to make more.

Unfortunately, I think the last two are going to focus on the aforementioned harfoot and dwarven subplots.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the season is over for Galadriel's subplot (which is probably closer to the main plot, IMO) and we'll see nothing more of it until season two.

I realize they're all going to wind up converging into one at some point, but I think it's pretty obvious that Galadriel is intended to be the main protagonist of the show.

Quote from: dave1978 on Oct 04, 2022, 12:11:16 PMI turned off when the Orks attacked by surprise at night in the pitch dark with every single one of them holding a big flaming torch to announce their arrival.  What a total joke this series has been.

These are the same Orks who cant go out in sunlight and spend all their time in the dark,  so why would they need flaming torches to move around at night? 

Total senseless junk

Quote from: KiramidHead on Oct 07, 2022, 05:59:18 PMI liked it aside from the dumb title card gag at the end.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Oct 07, 2022, 08:50:38 PM

Spoiler

I'm still not entirely sure how the water was supposed to set off the volcano. I may have to watch that part again.

[close]

Quote from: Crazy Rich on Oct 07, 2022, 10:55:17 PMSo I take it Rings of Power is one of those things that punishes you the more you use your brain?

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Oct 08, 2022, 02:37:56 AM

Quote from: Crazy Rich on Oct 07, 2022, 10:55:17 PMSo I take it Rings of Power is one of those things that punishes you the more you use your brain?

A lot of stuff just kinda happens with no real rhyme or reason, or without ever being explained.

Quote from: Prez on Oct 08, 2022, 03:47:06 AM

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Oct 08, 2022, 02:37:56 AM

Quote from: Crazy Rich on Oct 07, 2022, 10:55:17 PMSo I take it Rings of Power is one of those things that punishes you the more you use your brain?

A lot of stuff just kinda happens with no real rhyme or reason, or without ever being explained.

Well actually there is genuine science behind it (though a little stretched).

Spoiler

A geologist breaks down that whole water = volcano thing https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/rings-of-power-mt-doom-volcano-water-real-1235230089/

[close]

Quote from: KiramidHead on Oct 08, 2022, 06:55:46 AM

Spoiler

The water hitting the magma actually made sense to me, I just kind of thought it was silly that the magic sword essentially just opened an Uncharted puzzle to do it. I half expected Waldreg to go "Oh, crap!" like Nathan Drake.  :laugh:

[close]

Quote from: Prez on Oct 08, 2022, 03:47:06 AM

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Oct 08, 2022, 02:37:56 AM

Quote from: Crazy Rich on Oct 07, 2022, 10:55:17 PMSo I take it Rings of Power is one of those things that punishes you the more you use your brain?

A lot of stuff just kinda happens with no real rhyme or reason, or without ever being explained.

Well actually there is genuine science behind it (though a little stretched).

Spoiler

A geologist breaks down that whole water = volcano thing https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/rings-of-power-mt-doom-volcano-water-real-1235230089/

[close]

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 08, 2022, 03:49:20 AMI figured a Kiwi would know all about volcanoes.

Quote from: Prez on Oct 08, 2022, 11:32:48 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 08, 2022, 03:49:20 AMI figured a Kiwi would know all about volcanoes.

Hahaha. That said us Aussies usually adopt Kiwi's as our own (quite a few famous ones too).

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 09, 2022, 07:19:55 AM

Spoiler

If the JJ Abrams-disciples running this show seriously thought it would be a good idea to kill off Celeborn, then I hereby declare this show irredeemable.  I'm not even a huge Tolkien fan, but even I can recognize a major departure from the established lore when I see it.  Did anyone else catch that little revelation by Galadriel?

[close]

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Oct 09, 2022, 08:18:02 PMhttps://i.gyazo.com/e7e28d58a9c29e76c380e7450696479c.png

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Oct 09, 2022, 08:18:02 PMhttps://i.gyazo.com/e7e28d58a9c29e76c380e7450696479c.png

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 08, 2022, 11:34:10 PM

Quote from: Prez on Oct 08, 2022, 11:32:48 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 08, 2022, 03:49:20 AMI figured a Kiwi would know all about volcanoes.

Hahaha. That said us Aussies usually adopt Kiwi's as our own (quite a few famous ones too).

I heard that you appropriated Russell Crowe from the New Zealish.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 09, 2022, 08:31:04 PMThe way you've described your neighborhood indicates you're also surrounded by Orcs.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Oct 10, 2022, 07:31:26 PMA certain dessert...

QuoteAmazon Studios Boss Jennifer Salke Admits To Censoring 'The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power' Reviews Over "Points Of View That We Wouldn't Support"

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 14, 2022, 07:05:37 AMSo, I'm assuming that...

Spoiler

...they changed Annatar to Halbrand just to keep us all guessing to the very end of the season.  They knew that those of us with even a middling knowledge of Tolkien lore would know exactly who Annatar was from the get-go and didn't want us to spoil the surprise for everyone else.

This is what happens when you hire JJ Abrams disciples to write a show.  They can't resist giving us mystery boxes.

[close]

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 15, 2022, 05:14:15 AMI hope someone edits this show with deepfakes and AI-voices galore some day.

Quote'The Rings of Power' Showrunners: Sauron Will Be Like Walter White in Season 2

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 26, 2022, 06:08:29 AMhttps://twitter.com/guardian/status/1582055780097789952

Quote from: KiramidHead on Oct 26, 2022, 05:36:54 AMI love the Harfoot travel song that Poppy sings.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 27, 2022, 03:52:59 AMBetter than this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMhY59n7X-Y

Quote from: Prez on Oct 27, 2022, 04:57:03 AM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Oct 27, 2022, 03:52:59 AMBetter than this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMhY59n7X-Y

Wow. That's a blast from the past indeed!

---

I really loved this song from The Two Towers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkXbzffVl44
And of course Enya's song for the FOTR and Annie Lennox's Into the West for ROTK were both haunting and great.

Quote'The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power' Completely Falls Off Nielsen Charts Just Two Weeks After Season Finale

Quote from: Ingwar on Apr 06, 2023, 07:43:06 AM(Almost) nobody cares anymore.

QuoteTOM BOMBADIL & GOLDBERRY
This is where stuff gets potentially ugly. I don't like using such words. As previously mentioned, there will be separate standalone episodes presented throughout Season 2; including Sauron's backstory uniquely told from his first-person point-of-view. All of this is likely to change before the final edit is broadcast. But if this holds true, Tom Bombadil and his love affair with the River-Daughter will be front-and-center in their own episode (there's even an episode on Felaróf and the origin of Shadowfax)!

Ringers have often opined that bringing Tom Bombadil into TROP would be super cool — and I have personally championed the notion. But at the heart of this matter is how Tolkien utilized the character in "The Fellowship of the Ring," an approach for others to heed carefully. Tom should have a cameo or a brief encounter with some of our traveling heroes. Admittedly Tom's presence is superfluous to the real story of the Great Rings of Power. Now imagine this character's narrative purpose going a big step further and just wildly breaking from the Lore. In the words of our Spy Report:

"Tom Bombadil and Goldberry are in an episode. They are played by the same actor and actress as Melkor/Morgoth and Ungoliant. The show will confirm the long-held fan theory that Tom and Goldberry are Melkor and Ungoliant serving out their punishment bestowed on them by Mandos."

Excuse me? There has never been such a "Fan Theory," not one that I have seen–and if I had heard of this cockamamie idea I would have laughed at the absurdity. To quote the pique and anger of a well-known Tolkien historian who heard this: "This is not a fan theory, this is just Fan Fiction; and it's really GARBAGE Fan Fiction at that!"

Personally, I would love to see Tom Bombadil show up — if only in the blink of an eye he would be on his merry way. I mean, come on, there is no need to ignore The Professor's explanation in his "Letters" about Bombadil's context in his Legendarium. No need to make up stuff about Morgoth and Ungoliant seeking atonement within the Circles of the World.

Pragmatically speaking, adaptations can and will change things from the Lore. This is mostly fine, and expected, within reason. It becomes unreasonable when you play that fast and loose with Tolkien's original concerns regarding raw story elements. This kind of stuff will, predictably, divide the Fan audience.

QuoteIn a letter to Stanley Unwin, Tolkien called Tom Bombadil the spirit of the vanishing landscapes of Oxfordshire and Berkshire. However, this 1937 letter was in reference to works which pre-dated the writing of The Lord of the Rings.

Quote from: The Eighth Passenger on Feb 01, 2024, 05:29:30 PMTo this day, I still haven't forgiven PJ for chopping out 'ol Tom Bombadil.

But yeah, these blokes are going to f*ck him and Goldberry up big time.

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 01, 2024, 11:28:44 AMRumors :o

QuoteTOM BOMBADIL & GOLDBERRY
This is where stuff gets potentially ugly. I don't like using such words. As previously mentioned, there will be separate standalone episodes presented throughout Season 2; including Sauron's backstory uniquely told from his first-person point-of-view. All of this is likely to change before the final edit is broadcast. But if this holds true, Tom Bombadil and his love affair with the River-Daughter will be front-and-center in their own episode (there's even an episode on Felaróf and the origin of Shadowfax)!

Ringers have often opined that bringing Tom Bombadil into TROP would be super cool — and I have personally championed the notion. But at the heart of this matter is how Tolkien utilized the character in "The Fellowship of the Ring," an approach for others to heed carefully. Tom should have a cameo or a brief encounter with some of our traveling heroes. Admittedly Tom's presence is superfluous to the real story of the Great Rings of Power. Now imagine this character's narrative purpose going a big step further and just wildly breaking from the Lore. In the words of our Spy Report:

"Tom Bombadil and Goldberry are in an episode. They are played by the same actor and actress as Melkor/Morgoth and Ungoliant. The show will confirm the long-held fan theory that Tom and Goldberry are Melkor and Ungoliant serving out their punishment bestowed on them by Mandos."

Excuse me? There has never been such a "Fan Theory," not one that I have seen–and if I had heard of this cockamamie idea I would have laughed at the absurdity. To quote the pique and anger of a well-known Tolkien historian who heard this: "This is not a fan theory, this is just Fan Fiction; and it's really GARBAGE Fan Fiction at that!"

Personally, I would love to see Tom Bombadil show up — if only in the blink of an eye he would be on his merry way. I mean, come on, there is no need to ignore The Professor's explanation in his "Letters" about Bombadil's context in his Legendarium. No need to make up stuff about Morgoth and Ungoliant seeking atonement within the Circles of the World.

Pragmatically speaking, adaptations can and will change things from the Lore. This is mostly fine, and expected, within reason. It becomes unreasonable when you play that fast and loose with Tolkien's original concerns regarding raw story elements. This kind of stuff will, predictably, divide the Fan audience.

More here:

https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2024/01/18/117354-spy-report-suggests-an-unhinged-season-2-of-the-rings-of-power/

Quote from: SM on Feb 01, 2024, 10:52:13 PMI don't really give a crap about changes to the LOTR lore - the first season was fun, and I'll watch the second.

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 06, 2022, 09:45:08 PMThat's what happens when SM isn't around to keep me in line.  I'm totally out of control. :'(

Quote from: Local Trouble on Feb 01, 2024, 11:35:15 PM

Quote from: SM on Feb 01, 2024, 10:52:13 PMI don't really give a crap about changes to the LOTR lore - the first season was fun, and I'll watch the second.

But it upset people!

Quote from: kwisatz on Feb 01, 2024, 11:49:20 PM

Quote from: Local Trouble on Feb 01, 2024, 11:35:15 PM

Quote from: SM on Feb 01, 2024, 10:52:13 PMI don't really give a crap about changes to the LOTR lore - the first season was fun, and I'll watch the second.

But it upset people!

I want oliphaunt man.  >:(

Quote from: Local Trouble on Feb 01, 2024, 11:35:15 PM

Quote from: SM on Feb 01, 2024, 10:52:13 PMI don't really give a crap about changes to the LOTR lore - the first season was fun, and I'll watch the second.

But it upset people!

---

Quote from: Local Trouble on Sep 06, 2022, 09:45:08 PMThat's what happens when SM isn't around to keep me in line.  I'm totally out of control. :'(

Quote from: SM on Feb 01, 2024, 10:52:13 PMI don't really give a crap about changes to the LOTR lore - the first season was fun, and I'll watch the second.

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 02, 2024, 09:53:31 PMI must say Rey is not as bad as Galadriel but she's so annoying.

Quote from: [cancerblack] on Sep 27, 2022, 10:03:41 AMThe problem with Galadriel is that she's this

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/613/323/e2e.jpg

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Feb 02, 2024, 10:26:26 PMDoes Middle-earth tobacco have psychedelic properties?😇👉👈😅🙈

https://s13.gifyu.com/images/SClUp.gif

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 02, 2024, 09:43:29 PMSimple comparison: The Fellowship of the Ring (one of my fav movies ever) is an amazing film and very faithful adaptation. Jackson respected the source material. Rings of Power is horrible as a tv series and utterly unfaithful to Tolkien's vision. It's basically Amazon's fanfiction.

Quote from: Highland on Feb 04, 2024, 06:17:27 AMI liked Rings of Power more than the Hobbit Trilogy. I'm not sure what that means  :-[

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Feb 02, 2024, 10:26:26 PMDoes Middle-earth tobacco have psychedelic properties?😇👉👈😅🙈

https://s13.gifyu.com/images/SClUp.gif

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 04, 2024, 10:27:15 PM

Quote from: Immortan Jonesy on Feb 02, 2024, 10:26:26 PMDoes Middle-earth tobacco have psychedelic properties?😇👉👈😅🙈

https://s13.gifyu.com/images/SClUp.gif

No. It was just Tolkien's thing :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWBiO9M7_Eo

Quote from: Ingwar on Feb 29, 2024, 03:59:52 PM1. Dream on :)
2. This clusterf**k is beyond repair.