Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Veggie50]

If they are changing the timeline and condensing the story then they are not doing an adaptation because this fundamentally goes against the lore. Not to mention they are doing it because they want to change the characters roles as told in the lore, not because there isn't enough information to go by. There is more than enough information to know the general outline of the 2nd age events and the core issue is that they just want to tell their own story and are using these things as justification. They wanted to show women leading the war against evil and that is pretty much the focus of everything that they wanted to do which has nothing to do with Tolkien or his work. It is just part of the mandates that companies like Amazon have for content they produce so they had to rework the lore in order to make it work. This is no different than what happened in the sequel trilogy of Star Wars. This is why they no longer say this is an adaptation but "based on" Tolkien because it literally is a different story. And this is just what Hollywood does. Most times they buy the rights to something they feel that gives them to do whatever they want to begin with. It is rare that they actually stick to the lore as close as possible even when they have all the lore and access to the author. The second age was not the story of Galadriel being this super warrior that had to drag the males kicking and screaming into a fight along side the Queen of Numenor. That is outright fan fiction. It is no different than saying I am writing a story about Superman and instead of him coming from Krypton I say he came from Whoville and was allergic to green ham. It isn't the same story so not an adaptation.

Changing the timeline means its no longer an adaptation… noted…

Guess we never had a lord of the rings adaptation =\ PJ condensed a 60 year timeline into a year…

All this negativity reminds me that PJ’s movies recieved a lot of hate from some folks while in production. The Arwen at helms deep thing nearly got him crucified, but he changed course on that one…

I’m looking forward to this! I can see the consistency in architecture, music and general story beats of the lotr movies. If you consider this is the story of the rings of power coming into being through the hands of sauron, the lord of the rings the title is pretty apt too.

Sorry for those who dislike or dismiss this due to wokeness or percieved deviations of obscure lore, but I think I have a pretty damn decent shot at an incredibly high quality fantasy series with a plot deeply rooted in incredible lore.

[Nerovar]

I really hope androgynous Eminem here is not supposed to be Sauron.

[rogoth]

Was that something the writers, actors and special effects dudes did?

Also what do you think "political" means?

yes, no, no, the 'super fan' trailers were made with people who were brought in to act like fans of the shit they were shown, not to mention because they picked a gay black guy for the British trailer and they liked so much his stereotypical 'gay enthusiasm' for falling in love with a 'broken yet fixable' sauron character, they had him repeat the scene and filmed it all again to get that into the trailer twice when they did the edited supercut of the whole thing, it's actually embarrassing just how much production value was put into these 'fan discussions' that were supposed to be off the cuff talking about the small teaser they were shown at the all inclusive paid for event venue where they were flown in, hospitality provided along with various gifts that they didn't disclose until it was leaked, so i would say that the whole thing pushing 'the message' was a 'political' move and one that failed for them epically.

- - - Updated - - -

Changing the timeline means its no longer an adaptation… noted…

Guess we never had a lord of the rings adaptation =\ PJ condensed a 60 year timeline into a year…

All this negativity reminds me that PJ’s movies recieved a lot of hate from some folks while in production. The Arwen at helms deep thing nearly got him crucified, but he changed course on that one…

I’m looking forward to this! I can see the consistency in architecture, music and general story beats of the lotr movies. If you consider this is the story of the rings of power coming into being through the hands of sauron, the lord of the rings the title is pretty apt too.

Sorry for those who dislike or dismiss this due to wokeness or percieved deviations of obscure lore, but I think I have a pretty damn decent shot at an incredibly high quality fantasy series with a plot deeply rooted in incredible lore.

there's a magnitude of difference between condensing the events of LOTR and the abomination these completely novice writers are trying to push out, whereby they have come out and admitted they are condensing down millennia of time in order to make things work, in the LOTR movies it's perfectly conceivable that all the characters could have met each other within the scope of the timeline, yet here we have the utterly moronic showrunners making it so characters that are long since dead are suddenly alive and interacting with other characters that weren't even born when they were around originally, but yeah, you keep trying to compare apples to oranges, see how well that works out for ya.

that's great that you're looking forward to it, i hope it's everything you want it to be, but based on past experience it's likely going to the shitstorm we all expect it to be so you're going to be in the extreme minority when it comes to the people who are able to put the entire world Tolkein made to one side and just enjoy this clownfiesta as a standalone fan fiction.

about that, Sauron didn't make ANY of the rings of power save for his master ring, he imparted the knowledge of how to craft said rings onto celembrimbor who forged all 9 rings for men and the 7 for the dwarves, these are the only rings Sauron had any influence over with regards to their crafting as the 3 elven rings were made exclusively by celebrimbor alone using the knowledge that Sauron had shared, that's why the elves were able to still use their power to a degree without Sauron noticing initially, at least pretend like you know what you're talking about.

i can't believe you said that unironically with a straight face, you genuinely believe this fan fiction excuse for a show is actually going to be an 'incredibly high quality fantasy series', and you're deluded enough to think that the scraps and morsels they are working with regarding source material is going to see a 'plot deeply rooted in incredible lore' when they can't even write the established characters properly?, i want whatever drugs you're taking if this is the delusion you're living in, because i too would like to share in some utterly deluded bullshit myself.

[InfiniteCharger]

Changing the timeline means its no longer an adaptation… noted…

Guess we never had a lord of the rings adaptation =\ PJ condensed a 60 year timeline into a year…

All this negativity reminds me that PJ’s movies recieved a lot of hate from some folks while in production. The Arwen at helms deep thing nearly got him crucified, but he changed course on that one…

Of course nobody can expect a live action adaptation to be 100% the same as the source material. However, this change to the timeline here is thousands of years not simply 60. And they aren't doing it because they needed to do so to fit the entire story into a movie, they are doing it because they had their own story that they wanted to tell that has nothing to do with Tolkien, which was the priority of this production from day one. They always intended to tell their own story in the Tolkien universe not really to tell Tolkien's story. That is why I am saying it is not an adaptation. it is an Amazon story that is loosely based on Tolkien.

I’m looking forward to this! I can see the consistency in architecture, music and general story beats of the lotr movies. If you consider this is the story of the rings of power coming into being through the hands of sauron, the lord of the rings the title is pretty apt too.

Sorry for those who dislike or dismiss this due to wokeness or percieved deviations of obscure lore, but I think I have a pretty damn decent shot at an incredibly high quality fantasy series with a plot deeply rooted in incredible lore.

I think it is perfectly fair for the work to be judged based on its respect of the lore and characters and if they go way off on their own new lore and story and it sucks then that is what it is. Some people will like it and some people won't like with any other entertainment product.

But at the end of the day part of the reason for these changes is due to mandates and policies at Amazon Prime Studios:


https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/ama...ke-1234998058/

[bledgor]

Tell me you haven't read Tolkien's writing on Galadriel without telling me you haven't read Tolkien's writing on Galadriel.


Tolkien's vision of Galadriel (and Celeborn) changed over time, both before and after he wrote Lord of the Rings (where she says, "together through ages of the world we have fought the long defeat"). The Second Age has less in the Legendarium than the First or Second. None of us are in any position to fairly judge what we have not yet seen, be it good or ill. But what we have seen so far matches with what Tolkien actually wrote just fine.

From just Unfinished Tales and confined to events of the Second Age,










And, finally,

There is a MASSIVE different between being a warrior and being willing to fight. Galadriel was willing to fight, but she wasn't a warrior. That doesn't mean she wasn't powerful, or respected, she just wasn't the type to be on a battle field swinging a sword(yes she MIGHT have fought once or twice, but fighting once or twice every few thousands years does not a warrior make), that would be her husband, or Elrond, both leaders of armies. If anything Galadriel was closer to a wizard than a warrior, especially after she was given her ring Nenya.

Also it REALLY bugs me that she looks like she is the same age or younger than Elrond, when she is IIRC older (or at least the same age as) Celeborn, Gil-Galdad, and Celebrimbor. First of all Galadriel is several thousands years old by the 2nd age, she should look way closer to LotR Galadriel than this early 20s Galadriel. Gil-Galad looks right to me, Celebrimbor looks way to old as well as badly dressed (wonder if they will forgot his love for Galadriel), and Celeborn is either non-existent or if the rumors are right dead, which REALLY fucks lore as he and Galadriel should be having a daughter in the early parts of the 2nd age whom would marry Elrond, and give birth to Arwen.

[Adamas102]

If they are changing the timeline and condensing the story then they are not doing an adaptation because this fundamentally goes against the lore. Not to mention they are doing it because they want to change the characters roles as told in the lore, not because there isn't enough information to go by. There is more than enough information to know the general outline of the 2nd age events and the core issue is that they just want to tell their own story and are using these things as justification. They wanted to show women leading the war against evil and that is pretty much the focus of everything that they wanted to do which has nothing to do with Tolkien or his work. It is just part of the mandates that companies like Amazon have for content they produce so they had to rework the lore in order to make it work. This is no different than what happened in the sequel trilogy of Star Wars. This is why they no longer say this is an adaptation but "based on" Tolkien because it literally is a different story. And this is just what Hollywood does. Most times they buy the rights to something they feel that gives them to do whatever they want to begin with. It is rare that they actually stick to the lore as close as possible even when they have all the lore and access to the author. The second age was not the story of Galadriel being this super warrior that had to drag the males kicking and screaming into a fight along side the Queen of Numenor. That is outright fan fiction. It is no different than saying I am writing a story about Superman and instead of him coming from Krypton I say he came from Whoville and was allergic to green ham. It isn't the same story so not an adaptation.

Technically it isn’t adapting a story because there is no story. Lore isn’t narrative, and alone it doesn’t make for a good story. If not for the fleshed out narratives that are The Hobbit and LotR, no one would really care about Tolkien’s legendarium.

The loosely connected set of events they had to work with doesn’t make for a good story. The show is still based on those events, but it NEEDS to be tied together by dialogue and character arcs/interaction which Tolkien didn’t leave behind in the appendices to LotR. That’s also why condensing the timeline is a good thing; it allows more characters to interact across the events which forms the narrative glue of the story.

As for Galadriel, her depiction is perfectly in line with how Tolkien was rewriting her before he died. It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not.

[Khaza-R]

I thought the new trailer looked really good. Definitely more willing to give it a try at this point.

To me overall, the most important aspect is that they get the essence of Tolkien's work right. Especially his messages on evil, mortality and fear.

[Ausr]

All I saw was the still of the kid playing Sauron in his fair form and all I have to say they couldn't cast a more retarded looking Draco Malfoy if they tried. Holy fuck.

[Rennadrel]

If you are being totally honest the only thing you really need to see to know what the creators intention are with the show(and how faithful they aim to be) is the "super fan" thing they made.

Those people where carefully picked out and quite obviously none of them where actual fans of lotr. It was literally antirely politically motivated :/

That whole "influencer" fiasco was stupid because literally all those vapid idiots talked about for 15 minutes was diversity and not about anything of substance like whether the story is interesting enough to be engaging. I swear that people who only give a damn about the most inconsequential aspect of a characters existence (aka skin colour) are some of the most boring and sad individuals ever because literally there's nothing tangible about whether a character is white, black or brown that makes them interesting. We've gone decades where characters that were predominantly white were appreciated equally by people of colour and then all of a sudden you get these idiot zoomers and some millennials who think it's wrong to like them because they can't associate with them due to their skin colour.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Catwoman is not more cared about than FF lol. Also there is a year 1 incarnation who was black as well as Eartha Kitt. Selina has had a lot more different looks than most mainline characters.

Catwoman isn't the only major Batman character that was race swapped.

[Khaza-R]

The only thing I cannot stand are the buzzcuts on some of the male actors. It doesn't even make sense for the time period and is just a careless decision.

[InfiniteCharger]

Technically it isn’t adapting a story because there is no story. Lore isn’t narrative, and alone it doesn’t make for a good story. If not for the fleshed out narratives that are The Hobbit and LotR, no one would really care about Tolkien’s legendarium.

You aren't really addressing the issue and in fact contradicting yourself. The lore is world of Arda, Middle Earth, its history, the cultures and populations in it and within that there are various key events that took place which shaped that world. Tolkien was not satisfied with simply writing the Lord of the Rings, he wanted to flesh out the history of the cultures, languages, creatures and other key historic events of the world of LOTR. And in so doing there is more then enough to create new fictional narratives within that world that adhere to the overarching lore that was established. Meaning if certain characters did certain things at certain times, regardless if he wrote a comprehensive story about it, that should be respected.

The loosely connected set of events they had to work with doesn’t make for a good story. The show is still based on those events, but it NEEDS to be tied together by dialogue and character arcs/interaction which Tolkien didn’t leave behind in the appendices to LotR. That’s also why condensing the timeline is a good thing; it allows more characters to interact across the events which forms the narrative glue of the story.

As for Galadriel, her depiction is perfectly in line with how Tolkien was rewriting her before he died. It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not.

Those events are the LORE and building blocks of everything that happens in Middle Earth and no matter what new story being told, if you are adapting the world of Arda, then that lore should be respected. And these people are deliberately going against those events that have been described because they want to make their own lore set in Arda which means it is no longer Tolkien's world that he spent his life crafting. That is the distinction. And there is more than enough room for these people to tell a story about the crafting of the Rings of Power without needing to change the lore.

[Corvus]

The only elf older than Galadriel at this stage was Cirdan the Shipwright, but he was a Sindar who had never been to Valinor.

She was the oldest remaining of the named Noldor that had returned from Valinor, the rest having died or returned to Valinor.

Gil-galad, the High King, and Elrond had both been born during the first age after the exile. Celeborn's age is uncertain as he wasn't Noldor either, but was a relative of Thingol and it was in his court that he and Galadriel met in the first age.

Oh, and canonically it was Gil-galad who was the first to mistrust Annatar (aka Sauron), not Galadriel.

[Djaye]

latest trailer is epic.
trying to read the trailer is pointless. there is obvious misdirection.
im just hoping they dont overload it with too much side story/pointless drama. its a series, yes, but if they dont keep it focused and clean story telling and maintain a solid pace throughout, it will get panned for it.

interested to see how they explain and show Morgoth, which ive read is part of the prologue (which they showed at comicon apparently). who is key to the rise of sauron.
I think the kid in the trailer was just one of the human characters in flashback getting warnings of Sauron, who was rumored to survive the fall of morgoth.
just over a month away...

[InfiniteCharger]

That whole "influencer" fiasco was stupid because literally all those vapid idiots talked about for 15 minutes was diversity and not about anything of substance like whether the story is interesting enough to be engaging. I swear that people who only give a damn about the most inconsequential aspect of a characters existence (aka skin colour) are some of the most boring and sad individuals ever because literally there's nothing tangible about whether a character is white, black or brown that makes them interesting. We've gone decades where characters that were predominantly white were appreciated equally by people of colour and then all of a sudden you get these idiot zoomers and some millennials who think it's wrong to like them because they can't associate with them due to their skin colour.

They were talking from a script because Amazon has to promote their diversity and inclusion agenda and make it seem relevant to Tolkien. And a bunch of leftist academic weirdos are totally on board with this mess and promote it, including getting consulting gigs at these companies. But it has nothing to do with the average Joe who knows Tolkien and never had a problem with it as is. It is amazing how far some of these folks will go to make that nonsense seem important.

https://ew.com/tv/latasha-gillespie-...ity-inclusion/

[Jastall]

I really hope androgynous Eminem here is not supposed to be Sauron.

His form as the Lord of Gifts was supposed to be fair to elven eyes, so that's not out of the realm of possibility.

[Adamas102]

You aren't really addressing the issue and in fact contradicting yourself. The lore is world of Arda, Middle Earth, its history, the cultures and populations in it and within that there are various key events that took place which shaped that world. Tolkien was not satisfied with simply writing the Lord of the Rings, he wanted to flesh out the history of the cultures, languages, creatures and other key historic events of the world of LOTR. And in so doing there is more then enough to create new fictional narratives within that world that adhere to the overarching lore that was established. Meaning if certain characters did certain things at certain times, regardless if he wrote a comprehensive story about it, that should be respected.


Those events are the LORE and building blocks of everything that happens in Middle Earth and no matter what new story being told, if you are adapting the world of Arda, then that lore should be respected. And these people are deliberately going against those events that have been described because they want to make their own lore set in Arda which means it is no longer Tolkien's world that he spent his life crafting. That is the distinction. And there is more than enough room for these people to tell a story about the crafting of the Rings of Power without needing to change the lore.

This is all predicated on the idea that lore must be adhered to 100% when making an adaptation. Even most of the detractors in this thread have agreed at one point or another that 100% adherence to the source material isn’t necessary, so it basically just comes down to seemingly arbitrary ideas of what is important to tell a story in this fictional world.

I don’t think the length of the timeline is THAT important (note, not “unimportant”). But tell me, which do you think is more important; a lore accurate number of years between events or the events themselves? As long as A is followed by B and then C then what is the major issue with the time between the events changing?

If the events are there, and the characters are there, are either of them ruined by having overlap that wasn’t in the original source material? Is the narrative broken or is it just your desire for the source material to remain completely unchanged?

WHY is it important for these characters to not interact? WHY is it necessary for X number of years to pass between events? If you can’t give a good answer beyond “it’s the lore” then it really isn’t as important to the narrative as you seem to think it is.

Tolkien specifically said that much of his creation was sketched out to leave room for other creators to expand and adapt, so the idea that he wanted to flesh out his entire legendarium the way he did with The Hobbit and LotR is simply false. Even he himself made drastic changes to the lore over the course of his life so the idea that everything noted down is sacred and cannot be changed is kind of silly. There is nothing “disrespectful” about what this show is doing (based on what we have seen thus far).

[PACOX]

I'm not some kind of LOTR purist but I just hope the showrunners read the material. I'm about done with there's adaptions from people who can't even be bothered to read what they are making a show about.

On that same note I don't think showrunners have to stick 1:1 to the original content, just that they respect it and the spirit of the content. I'm looking forward to the series, at least episode 1.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Catwoman isn't the only major Batman character that was race swapped.

https://www.indiewire.com/wp-content...825.jpeg?w=780

Man I can’t believe I forgot about Gordon it was such a great performance.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Man I can’t believe I forgot about Gordon it was such a great performance.

I think the fact that you did proves your point even better.