Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[rhorle]

Okay mr tolkien expert. Point me to the passage that has a perfect trebuchet bombing of a mountain that perfectly lops off a perfect size of stone to create a perfect dam over a river to allow them to immediately move heavy siege weaponry across. I'm sure you being the tolkien expert and defender of this amazingly written show should be able to quickly point this out for us mere plebs.

Did they say everything from the show was directly from Tolkien? You are proving their point about how many of you cry over anything to do with the show.

[DarkAmbient]

It's a shame it won't be out til next year. The world could do with a laugh right now.

[rogoth]

I'm not aware of the show runners ever claiming what there adding was in the books them self's, something I don't know like this?

direct quote from a LIVE PANEL interview:

'if we don't know something, we go back to the books, always to the books, so we can get it right'

meaning that by association everything they have produced they are claiming to be from the books, when it is in fact not, but keep gobbling down their phallus juice because that's what they want, dim-witted idiots to keep consuming without questioning anything, a perfect little slave for their polished turd product.

as to your second point, I was making a facetious argument with someone who is well known for their faux moral white knighting on a level unmeasurable, therefore I needed something to 'poke the bear', all you're doing is misrepresenting things, comparing apples to oranges, and trying to do the whole 'ha gotcha' thing, and failing miserably, but nice try though.

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It's a shame it won't be out til next year. The world could do with a laugh right now.

with the way the mango Mussolini is going, he could be enough to tide us over with the comedy gold until the next instalment of this military-grade shitshow.

[rhorle]

meaning that by association everything they have produced they are claiming to be from the books

No, it means that when they don't know something they look at the source material. In no way does it mean that everything they have done they think is from the source material.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

direct quote from a LIVE PANEL interview:

'if we don't know something, we go back to the books, always to the books, so we can get it right'

So that’s a no they didn’t say what they were making was in the books like you did, they said they check the books for info when missing it.

Would you like to try again?

[Doomchicken]

Did they say everything from the show was directly from Tolkien? You are proving their point about how many of you cry over anything to do with the show.

If the show wasn't written by actual morons maybe there would be less to "cry" over.

It would also probably do better ratings too, instead of losing over 50 percent of its audience two seasons in a row.

[rhorle]

If the show wasn't written by actual morons maybe there would be less to "cry" over. It would also probably do better ratings too, instead of losing over 50 percent of its audience two seasons in a row.

Some people in this thread are still crying about it 2.5 years after the show released. It would just be something else and not less.

[ringpriest]

Some people in this thread are still crying about it 2.5 years after the show released. It would just be something else and not less.

And no matter what insult to prospective viewers intelligence is peddled as entertainment, some people will try to defend it.

They had to remake their Ost-in-Edhil model because when they were doing season one they were too stupid to think that they'd want walls for a WWI sequence "siege" in season two. As Doomchicken said, "actual morons".

[rhorle]

And no matter what insult to prospective viewers intelligence is peddled as entertainment, some people will try to defend it.

It is hilarious how much the goal posts keep getting moved. Someone talks about being a Tolkien expert and liking the show. They get accused of saying X random scene is word for word from the books. Now a choice to show the city being fortified is used. It is an endless stream of "but this scene" because you lit a fire of hate and stoke it with anything you can.

[Kreuger]

Started s2 today, 3eps in and I like it quite abit more then s1, hopefully it can keep it up, good stuff so far

[ringpriest]

Honestly, selling your fanfiction with an established intellectual property should be against the law.

(I'm looking at you, Rings of Power)

I mean, Rings of Power is at least definitely a Middle Earth story, whether you agree with its choice or not. I, Robot was quite literally an unrelated story that the studio renamed to an existing IP for brand recognition (the original title was Hardwired). It'd be like if instead of calling their dragonrider movie How to Train Your Dragon, Dreamworks had made the exact same film but called it Dragonriders of Pern because they happened to own the rights.

It really, really isn't. That's like saying Sword of Shannara is a Middle-Earth story if you replace the character names with Tolkien's. It both cases it's the story equivalent of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Rings of Power has more in common with generic extruded fantasy product than Middle-Earth, they just got to (technically legally, as Flarelaine mentions) slap the Professor's name all over their fanfiction. They shot Season 1 in New Zealand, and took some graphical cues from Peter Jackson's work - that's their connection to 'Middle-Earth' (besides slapping Tolkien's character names over their own inventions). It's like saying a random Jason Statham action movie is a Bond film if you go through and re-dub the main character's name as "James Bond".

[rhorle]

It really, really isn't. That's like saying Sword of Shannara is a Middle-Earth story if you replace the character names with Tolkien's.

The hilarious part of this is the Shannara Chronicles tv series was not a faithful adaptation either yet it is still considered to be an adaptation of that work. Some of you just can't cope with Rings of Power existing, lol.

[Flarelaine]

The hilarious part of this is the Shannara Chronicles tv series was not a faithful adaptation either yet it is still considered to be an adaptation of that work. Some of you just can't cope with Rings of Power existing, lol.

Oh, it's not existing I have a problem with. It's pretending to have anything to do with the life's work of JRR Tolkien.

It's a form of fraud: suckering those who do not know better into watching it by association with something proven.

[rhorle]

Oh, it's not existing I have a problem with. It's pretending to have anything to do with the life's work of JRR Tolkien. It's a form of fraud: suckering those who do not know better into watching it by association with something proven.

Which is having a problem with it existing. It isn't fraud. It is an adaptation. Peter Jackson's films were an adaptation that the son of Tolkien did not like. Do you consider the Jackson films fraud as well? Or do those get a pass since they were well received?

[Flarelaine]

Which is having a problem with it existing. It isn't fraud. It is an adaptation. Peter Jackson's films were an adaptation that the son of Tolkien did not like. Do you consider the Jackson films fraud as well? Or do those get a pass since they were well received?

I don't like those films, either, but they still mostly followed the story.

[ringpriest]

Which is having a problem with it existing. It isn't fraud. It is an adaptation. Peter Jackson's films were an adaptation that the son of Tolkien did not like. Do you consider the Jackson films fraud as well? Or do those get a pass since they were well received?

Jackson's first trilogy made an honest and often successful attempt to adapt the Lord of the Rings trilogy to the screen, remaining faithful to many of the themes and characters of Tolkien's work and retain much of its spirit. His second (Hobbit) trilogy was more studio-driven and, due to circumstance made with less care and effort to be true to the first, and, while entertaining, suffered for it. I've seen parts of it edited into an acceptable and not unpleasant version of Tolkien's The Hobbit.

If I take a Bugs Bunny cartoon and call it The Ainulindale, I'm just lying. Nor does changing Bugs' name to Eru, Elmer Fudd's to Melkor, and Daffy's to Mairon and setting it against a Brothers Hildebrandt background change that.

Similarly, if someone write a story about three feuding siblings who break up their father's kingdom after his death, if it gets made into a film and the siblings' names are changes to Odin, Vili, and Ve, and their father's kingdom is renamed Asgarth, it is not an "adaptation of Norse mythology", it's the original story with the names changed. That remains true even if the studio hires a bunch of Norse linguists and historical craftspeople to make the sets and carve authentic runes on everything.

Amazon's "Lord of the Rings show" could have tried to do its own thing, while keeping faith with the storytelling elements, style and spirit of Tolkien (somewhat similar to how Rogue One expanded on existing Star Wars material), taking just a few elements and making them into their own story while simultaneously honoring the underlying vision. Instead, Amazon tried to have their cake and eat it too - to adapt the entirety of a well-known, but less detailed part of the legendarium, while simultaneously doing whatever they pleased and paying lip service to the original material. It's a bait and switch, even if the final result is well done (which is a different argument about which people can differ in good faith). Trying to pretend Amazon's Rings of Power is an attempt at a faithful adaption is delusion or deceit.

[rhorle]

Jackson's first trilogy made an honest and often successful attempt to adapt the Lord of the Rings trilogy to the screen, remaining faithful to many of the themes and characters of Tolkien's work and retain much of its spirit.

This just shows that it isn't about faithfulness, changes, or anything else. It is hilarious you say Jackson retained the spirit when Tolkien's own son was angry that it did not. Jackson made many changes but they are dismissed because the film was popular and well liked at the time of release. If it was released today many people would be calling it woke for giving Arwen and Eowyn greater roles and changing the story to fit those new roles. Heck they even tried to make it seem like a love triangle with Aragorn

You even state that Amazon could have done their own thing while lambasting them for doing their own thing. The degree of faithfulness you accept is entirely subjective. If you don't like it is is lip service and a bait and switch. If you do like it then it is faithful and retaining spirit.

[ringpriest]

This just shows that it isn't about faithfulness, changes, or anything else.

This just shows that you're not actually interested in discussing Tolkien's work, Rings of Power, or anything else.

[rhorle]

This just shows that you're not actually interested in discussing Tolkien's work, Rings of Power, or anything else.

Outside of the business world, it is clear Christopher Tolkien's problems with Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy itself ran very deeply indeed. Speaking to Le Monde back in 2012, he launched a stinging criticism of the films. "Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time," he complained. "The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away... They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25."

The only one not interested in facts here is yourself if you can't have a discussion about the flaws of the Jackson adaptations and why they are overlooked just because they were popular and personally liked. Which means it isn't about faithfulness or changes with Rings of Power but about you not liking it.

[ringpriest]

Anyone truly interested in Tolkien's legendarium, and understanding how Rings of Power misses and fails (while Jackson largely succeeded) in capturing Tolkien's intent ought to enjoy, "Why Celebrimbor Fell but Boromir Conquered: the Moral Universe of Tolkien" over at A Collection of Unusual Pedantry.

A few brief excerpts to convey the general tenor of the (long but excellent) essay:

But the larger break comes once Adar’s siege arrives. In order to keep Celebrimbor working on the rings, in the show, Sauron alters Celebrimbor’s sense perception, causing him to see his city at peace and flourishing even when it is under attack and burning and I do not think the writers and showrunners quite realized what giving Sauron direct mind control powers does to the moral arc of Tolkien’s universe. In a later scene (s2e7 at 58:05) Sauron seizes direct and total control over a group of Elf warriors, compelling them to kill each other over their apparent struggles. The show’s excuse is that in allowing Sauron in, the Elves of Eregion put themselves ‘under his power,’ but this makes little moral sense for soldiers who had no idea who ‘Annatar’ was and no say in letting him in regardless. Instead, giving Sauron straight-up mind control – the ability to make Celebrimbor see whatever he wants, to make other Elves do whatever he wants – obliterates Celebrimbor’s moral responsibility for his own actions. Celebrimbor doesn’t respond incorrectly because of his moral failings but because he is prevented by force majeure from seeing the world as it really is. Indeed, the moment he does see the world as it is, he responds correctly – trying to organize the defense – but is prevented because Sauron uses magic to make it seem like Celebrimbor has callously murdered one of his smiths.

In short, Sauron’s ability to control perceptions and minds substantially reduces – if it doesn’t entirely remove – Celebrimbor and his smith’s agency in the story, which in turn reframes them are relatively more innocent victims of Sauron’s power.

Which is very much not how the appear in the legendarium! As noted above, in the Silmarillion, we get a direct report of the arguments Sauron, as Annatar, uses to persuade the Elves and there is nothing of compassion for Men or Dwarves in it, but an open invitation to attempt to build heaven on earth, to achieve “the height of that power and knowledge which those have who are beyond the Sea?” which is accepted because “in that land [Eregion] the Noldor desired ever to increase the skill and subtlety of their works” (Sil. 287). In short, Sauron is from the beginning asking the smiths of Eregion to do something wrong, which they know is wrong (as it defies the order set by Eru), his trickery which they do not know is that he intends to betray them, but that they do wrong, they know at the outset.

We see Boromir, like Celebrimbor, succumb to a moment of temptation – he tries, by his own admission, to take the ring, a grievous failure. In the period that follows, I think we should understand his sullen silence as a wrestling with what that moment means. Boromir recognizes his failure and regrets it, instantly, after all, but then has to sit with the guilt; it would be all too easy for him to rationalize away his failure – to say it wasn’t a failure at all, but that Frodo was the fool – or to fall into despair. But Aragorn bids him to do something and that seems to snap Boromir out of his sullen state.

More to the point, the thing Aragorn bids Boromir to do requires the rejection of his false thinking and the embrace of something selfless. Whereas Celebrimbor, at the last, fell defending the very things that had been his sin and ruin – his pride in his craftsmanship, made manifest and tangible in the Rings – Boromir does not rush to defend his ambition or the glory of Gondor, or his dreams of conquest. He does not seek a grand audience and indeed when the deed is done, requests scorn, not praise, for it. Instead, otherwise alone, unwatched and unnoticed, he fights a battle he must know is hopeless to answer his charge and defend two young hobbits who are entirely superfluous to the quest as he understands it. They don’t matter in the Seen world, which is part of why they matter so much: Boromir isn’t doing this for glory or praise, but merely because it is the right thing to do.