Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[RobertoCarlos]

More lord of the rings material doesnt have to be a bad thing.

Would be nice if someone came along and took Harry Potter out of JK Rowlings hands as her creative juices have clearly run dry.

And like Lord of the rings and Harry Potter, the strength is in the worlds they have created and the characters.

Someone with fresh ideas can do a lot with strong universes/characters. And it can be interesting seeing different takes

[Frontenac]

What I can find in a quick search is Amazon has the rights to:
The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers
The Return of the King
The appendices
The Hobbit

Thats not Scraps.

It is scraps when you want to make a show about the Second Age: From The Lord of the Rings, you get some accounts from Aragorn, Elrond or Gandalf and a few short lines in the appendices covering hundreds of years, and from The Hobbit, nothing at all.

But lets face it: all we know about the Second Age is sketchy at best. Even if we look at Akkalabêth, in The Silmarillion, it is not much. Especially if the show's story begins after the Downfall of Númenor. You could find more information in the Book of Lost Tales or Unfinished Tales, but even then it is rather sketchy and even contradictory (especially concerning Galadriel, where she was, when and where she met Celeborn and who the heck was even Celeborn?). But the Tolkien Estate didn't give them the rights to use these sources. Which means that it gives much leeway to the creators of the show. So of course it will be different from what we know (or think we know) about that time period and what the characters were doing. We should not consider this an adaptation, but treat the show as its own thing, on its own merits. Maybe it will be good, maybe it will suck. But whatever it is, contrary to what some have said, it won't destroy Tolkien's work. The books will remain there, unsullied, for everyone to enjoy.

[Xath]

Oh, it will be an asset. Don't listen to these self-appointed gatekeepers and make your own mind.

Couldn't one say the same thing about those people who push the series without any knowledge of it beyond what those who aren't in favor of it have?

[s_bushido]

Couldn't one say the same thing about those people who push the series without any knowledge of it beyond what those who aren't in favor of it have?

Ah, the most compelling of arguments: "No u."

[Theangryone]

Its like someone cant do some basic research or math, in its first week it had 1.6 billion minutes viewed over 3 episode thats well over 10 million average, by now that number is far higher that has watched the show, not many shows even reach that high in viewer numbers over thier whole lifespan, wheel of time has been out decades it has a niche fanbase and is very likely far smaller than 6 million, also book sales does not make everyone a fan.

Every LOTR sales are a small number compared to what would can get watching a film or tv series, books are not that popular, not even tv series or movie has to be the next big thing and the fantasy genre as a whole is difficult to get a large audience, only a handful of shows gets fairly large numbers.

Not everything is written in a book so adaptations have to happen so you are the one with no logic here, every single film/tv series is an adaptation to something as its never 100% to its source material.

Its guaranteed everyone here claiming its shit will still watch it all because you have nothing better to do and just want to moan about it more because you feel it doesnt fit the tolkien vision which can never happen in the first place, if you expect something you will always be dissapointed.

Lol 90 million books sold worldwide is a “niche” fan base. You seemed to have left out the fact the show shed viewers big time every week.

[Xath]

Ah, the most compelling of arguments: "No u."

Explain how it wouldn't apply? Both groups are making up their mind on limited material.

[ClassicPeon]

My only hope is that if LOTR turns out to be a the woke fiasco that its looking like it might, that Blizzard takes a good long look at what it does to a popular franchise. Pandering to a misguided extremist minority is honestly completely insane.

[Hansworst]

Explain how it wouldn't apply? Both groups are making up their mind on limited material.

Nope, one group already made their mind up. The other group still waits for actual release.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

My only hope is that if LOTR turns out to be a the woke fiasco that its looking like it might, that Blizzard takes a good long look at what it does to a popular franchise. Pandering to a misguided extremist minority is honestly completely insane.

Your hoping that blizzard will remove black people and fighting women from wow then? Or is there some other “woke fiasco” on display in the little material we’ve seen so far?

[s_bushido]

My only hope is that if LOTR turns out to be a the woke fiasco that its looking like it might, that Blizzard takes a good long look at what it does to a popular franchise. Pandering to a misguided extremist minority is honestly completely insane.

lol... Sorry buddy, I don't think studios are going to stop casting brown people in their productions any time soon. You may have to get over it.

[Dhrizzle]

It is scraps when you want to make a show about the Second Age: From The Lord of the Rings, you get some accounts from Aragorn, Elrond or Gandalf and a few short lines in the appendices covering hundreds of years, and from The Hobbit, nothing at all.

But lets face it: all we know about the Second Age is sketchy at best. Even if we look at Akkalabêth, in The Silmarillion, it is not much. Especially if the show's story begins after the Downfall of Númenor. You could find more information in the Book of Lost Tales or Unfinished Tales, but even then it is rather sketchy and even contradictory (especially concerning Galadriel, where she was, when and where she met Celeborn and who the heck was even Celeborn?). But the Tolkien Estate didn't give them the rights to use these sources. Which means that it gives much leeway to the creators of the show. So of course it will be different from what we know (or think we know) about that time period and what the characters were doing. We should not consider this an adaptation, but treat the show as its own thing, on its own merits. Maybe it will be good, maybe it will suck. But whatever it is, contrary to what some have said, it won't destroy Tolkien's work. The books will remain there, unsullied, for everyone to enjoy.

I don't think that is entirely true, the licensing seems to allow them to delve into other volumes if it supports the stuff they are explicitly licensed to use. On top of that, judging by the trailer, they can also allow additional materials to be used on a case-by-case basis. Hence we get the Two Trees and what looks to be the Oath of Feanor.

[Shadowferal]

Your hoping that blizzard will remove black people and fighting women from wow then? Or is there some other “woke fiasco” on display in the little material we’ve seen so far?

Forsaken...those fuckers need to burn.
REMEMBER TELDRASSIL!!!1

[kenn9530]

Lol 90 million books sold worldwide is a “niche” fan base. You seemed to have left out the fact the show shed viewers big time every week.

90 million books is not 90 million fans so yes its niche and books are already niche fanbases to begin with

[Theangryone]

Books are niche fan bases lol, congrats on the dumbest shit I’ve read all day.

[Rennadrel]

Adaptations dont need to be faithful they can do whatever they want so in the end it doesnt matter in the slightest if the story is changed or not. LOTRs universe is subject to changes it doesnt need to follow everything written in the book, as long as its entertaining thats all that really matters.

By your dumb logic then there's no reason to brand a show or film after an IP that already exists if an adaptation "can do whatever they want". You know they did that right? And it actually worked out well once upon a time. The original West Side Story is an Americanized version of Romeo and Juliet, it's an adaptation using American cultural norms, and doesn't at all attempt to present itself as Romeo and Juliet. They do it because the name has recognition and is popular. Whether it be WoT, LOTR, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Conan the Barbarian and many more. Peter Jackson at least tried to be faithful to the books with the LOTR films, and Warner Bros did an alright job adapting the Harry Potter books even though they could have easily added in some more subplot stuff to make the movies flow a little better with some of the side characters. The Percy Jackson films took a lot of creative liberties and paid the price for it at the box office, despite the books being relatively popular.

WoT should have been a slam dunk had the writers just stuck to the plot and not try to hamfist in subplots that were never in the books and not ruined Rand's coming out moment as the Dragon Reborn at the end of the first fucking season with their strong woman moment of Egwene and Nynaeve killing a horde of Trollocs when they can barely even so much as touch the True Source instead of Rand obliterating two of the Forsaken at the Eye of the World. Not to mention completely omitting Elayne meeting Rand for the first time in Camelyn and gutting out Mat's story arc involving the Shadar Logoth dagger and how it ties him to Padan Fain for pretty much the entire series. WoT has plenty of moments where the female characters are interesting and badass, it just doesn't happen until much later in the story. Rafe Judkins is a talentless hack who should be fired into the sun for that piss ass excuse for a show.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Feels like if they just released the latest trailer instead of those few utterly disastrously bad teaser trailers things probably would have gone a bit better.

[s_bushido]

Feels like if they just released the latest trailer instead of those few utterly disastrously bad teaser trailers things probably would have gone a bit better.

And what makes you think that? I have no idea what was "disastrously bad" about any teasers they've released up to this point, but it's been clear for a while now that no one responding to this is interested in giving it a chance. It was basically doomed ever since the outrage merchants found out that they might be looking to hire someone whose job description involved dealing with nudity.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Explain how it wouldn't apply? Both groups are making up their mind on limited material.

Actually, one group has made up their minds. The other group is "hey, saying it sucks before you've even seen a single episode is a little premature"

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Books are niche fan bases lol, congrats on the dumbest shit I’ve read all day.

I'll bet you that for every person you know that's read the Lord of the Rings I can find at least 50 that haven't but have seen the movies.

[rogoth]

Actually, one group has made up their minds. The other group is "hey, saying it sucks before you've even seen a single episode is a little premature"

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I'll bet you that for every person you know that's read the Lord of the Rings I can find at least 50 that haven't but have seen the movies.

i'm genuinely curious, are there ever times in your life when you look at a product or service in your day to day, and think back to experiences you have had with similar things and judged the new thing as a result of past experiences?, because if not then you're literally the first person in human history to ever do this.

Based on past experience, and with the MANY examples of wokeness causing the downfall of franchises over the last 8-10 years now, it's not exactly hard to call out how badly this mess will perform regardless of how pretty and sparkly they try to dress it up as, a turd is a turd even if it's wrapped in gold, and blindly arguing with people to 'hey just wait and see, it might be good' is futile because based on past experience, the conclusion being made here is more likely than not the outcome that will come to pass, and yet you're still trying to peddle some hopium/copium levels of 'it won't be that bad surely'.

as to your second point, everybody i know who has seen the peter jackson trilogy has read the books in their entirety, so that's hundreds of people straight off the bat, if you expand that based on age you get an even bigger base of people who read the books before seeing the films, so sure, if you limit your search to people born in the last 15 years sure you're more likely to find people who have seen the films first then if interested enough have then gone on to read the books, but come on, now you're just skewing the results to favour your stance, not a great look honestly and the perfect politician style response.

[s_bushido]

MANY examples of wokeness causing the downfall of franchises over the last 8-10 years

lol
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