Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[8bithamster]

Yawn. Yeah you can hate on a classic from the 2000's all you want. No one will give a shit though.

I dont think viggo mortensen or elijah wood regret their time spent on the films. And the tourism industry of New Zealand certainly doesnt regret the films because they missed a scene from the books, nerd.

agreed, and nobody gives a shit about you liking the movie either.. your point? Opinions are exactly that, opinions. Yours is worth about.. jack shit, as is mine in the grand scheme of things.

[Bodonius]

Since I like fantasy, even if they F it up it might be ok to watch. I dont expect it to be great, I will watch until I start to get annoyed.

[Viikkis]

Tolkien was a strict christian who viewed sex as sinful. It would be kind of disrespectful to the author to include nude scenes just to please horny teens and sell the show with sex the way GoT did.

Edit: At least with GoT the sex made sense. Anybody who's read the books knows what I mean.

[Uthan]

They obviously exist but they're not what LOTR is about. Also just because sexuality isn't on display doesn't mean a relationship is platonic. You can perfectly display relationships without sex scenes. If anything, sex scenes generally don't really add anything to characterization and are just there to attract the coomers.

Iirc the series will take place in the Second Age. There'll be plenty events to cover that will keep viewers entertained without requiring shoe-horned Game of Thrones style relationships, casual sex and the depiction thereof.

Exactly this. There's plenty of relationship drama in the second age for the show to expand on, from the note that Celebrimbor (maker of the 3 elven rings) was in unrequited love with Galadriel, to the story of the Mariner's Wife (being on of the more complete stories of the age), where Aldarion who is the king's heir has quite a back and forth relationship with Erendis who not being of the royal line had a shorter lifespan which further complicated things (since his passion for exploring and seafaring led him to be away more often than not). As they become estranged she imparts her bitterness on their daughter Ancalimë who ends up swearing off men entirely, despite and partly because of the numerous suitors pursuing her (one even pretending to be a shepherd to get close to her).

Despite her ending up marrying anyway just to procure an heir (either to spite or stop a cousin who was vying for the throne), her hatred for men stayed, even so far as preventing her maidservants from marrying (but being tricked to a mass wedding for them by her husband to be), and later preventing her granddaughters from marrying. And Erendis ended up drowning as she in old age had a change of heart, and hearing that Aldarion was returning to shore travelled to the port but was lost before reuniting (sadly there's only the footnote by Tolkien so no details on how).

Then of course there's the final rulers, where the rightful queen Tar-Míriel is forcibly taken as wife and usurped by her cousin, who (being decieved by Sauron) leads the land to its downfall. Biggest issue is that the earlier more detailed stories are a few hundred years before things really kick off with Sauron and the rings, but hopefully Amazon manages to weave stuff together in a way that isn't too jarring.

[Volatilis]

agreed, and nobody gives a shit about you liking the movie either.. your point? Opinions are exactly that, opinions. Yours is worth about.. jack shit, as is mine in the grand scheme of things.

except in all practical sense the films were a success. You having a hate boner on a forums doesnt mean much at all.

[8bithamster]

except in all practical sense the films were a success. You having a hate boner on a forums doesnt mean much at all.

aaw, did I attack your favourite movie? Do you need Peter Jackson to kiss your booboo?

I liked the movies to be exact, I just didn't care for the insane hype they created.. they are mediocre fantasy movies to me. Nice assumptions though!

[Syegfryed]

aaw, did I attack your favourite movie? Do you need Peter Jackson to kiss your booboo?

I liked the movies to be exact, I just didn't care for the insane hype they created.. they are mediocre fantasy movies to me. Nice assumptions though!

what are good fanasy movies then.

you can have an opinion but that don't shield you from being wrong. Cause you are, wrong about it.

[Wilian]

How can people complain about “being true to the source”? Afaik, for the second age, there is next to nothing wrote about it.

Plenty is written about Second Age and the rise & downfall of Numenor which this serie appear to be focusing at least according to the maps Amazon posted to hype up the show.

[Syegfryed]

I would put Gimli and Legolas above them. But that is IMHO obviously.^^

Doesn't have to. But we don't need another big epic like the original as we allready had this. So i hope it will be smaller in scope and because of that more about the characters.
If they are just going to make the LotR movies 3000 years earlier... meh. Why? We have it allready. TWICE

This is not a TV Show about the "Lord of the Rings" book. It is in the same world way earlier. And while i am sure the tone will be the same as the movies (not the book) the story itself has to be more on the characters themselves. It just runs for to long for it not to do this.

i would say this is the red flag for me, you don't try to dumb down stories, you try to make then epic, if they start focusing too much on characters they can neglect the world and the stories around, this is something i can see as a problem like it is in wow now.

Lotr show the characters but they focused on the story per se, in their objectives.

Say it gets a second season. 16 hours. You will have to show more of the characters and their lives. Otherwise you have meaningless action hero husks.

Maybe you don't need to do that, i doubt material will not be enough

And pretending that romantic relationships don't exist in this universe and everyone is only platonicly linked is weird. It was potrait like this in the movie. But Tolkien did have quite a few romances mentioned in his books. Particularily the Silmarillion from which the TV show borrows heavily as far as i know.

its not pretend they don't exist or platonic, its just is totally pointless and not necessary at all to be show as a focus, mention romance and have then is different than heavy focusing on then that you even have to show sex scenes to get the GoT hype.

Like Lotr romance was fine even when they add screen time with Arween, but it was ok, it was not the focus and was bearable.

the nonsensical romance in the hobbit though, that was cringe and not even canon.

[AbalDarkwind]

Plenty is written about Second Age and the rise & downfall of Numenor which this serie appear to be focusing at least according to the maps Amazon posted to hype up the show.

I wouldn't say there's "plenty" written about the Second Age. There's the Annuls of Kings Appendix in LotR, the Akallabeth in The Silmarillion, and the Maps of Numenor section in Unfinished Tales. That's about it, and it adds up to about 70 pages worth of material.

Granted, that may be a good thing for the show, as the writings of the Second Age basically just form an outline of what happened, leaving the show to fill out all of the details.

[Wilian]

I wouldn't say there's "plenty" written about the Second Age. There's the Annuls of Kings Appendix in LotR, the Akallabeth in The Silmarillion, and the Maps of Numenor section in Unfinished Tales. That's about it, and it adds up to about 70 pages worth of material.

Granted, that may be a good thing for the show, as the writings of the Second Age basically just form an outline of what happened, leaving the show to fill out all of the details.

But there is plenty of more written material produced than just in those three books. Those are the most common ones that you may stumble upon but then there's the whole plethora of his letters and the extra material provided in books like History of the Middle-Earth

[Nihilist74]

When I refer to peter Jackson, I am referring to the style of the movie and not the story.

[AbalDarkwind]

But there is plenty of more written material produced than just in those three books. Those are the most common ones that you may stumble upon but then there's the whole plethora of his letters and the extra material provided in books like History of the Middle-Earth

The History of Middle-Earth is not really source material; it's an academic study. It's full of changes and contradictions since it's a study of the entire body of Tolkien's work, including all of his early drafts. I'd argue the material in the Appendices of LotR, the Akallabeth, and the Maps of Numenor are the only canonical works touching on the Second Age.

[Syegfryed]

If what they did for LotR is barley "bearable" for you... i am sorry but there was nothing at all. 5 minutes in 12 hours. There was that short exchange in rivedale in the extended version.

i didn't say it was "barely" i said it was bearable because it was fine, it didn't suck. The problem is if they try to turn this into romance fanfic or try to be the focus of the show, when the story itself don't focus on this

[Frontenac]

I wouldn't say there's "plenty" written about the Second Age. There's the Annuls of Kings Appendix in LotR, the Akallabeth in The Silmarillion, and the Maps of Numenor section in Unfinished Tales. That's about it, and it adds up to about 70 pages worth of material.

Granted, that may be a good thing for the show, as the writings of the Second Age basically just form an outline of what happened, leaving the show to fill out all of the details.

And from what I read, they are not even allowed to use Akallabeth and Unfinished Tales.

[Jastall]

When you look at the history of Númenor, especially in its waning years, you definitely get a GoTs vibe. You have brothers backstabbing eachother, factions fighting eachother and a man that usurps his cousin and marries her against her will to become King. Imagine the wedding night... And there's some scheming involved with Sauron, who could very well be portrayed, at first, like some kind of Littlefinger, manipulating Ar-Pharazôn. Also, what they were doing in Middle Earth was not very charitable either...

It's not the nudity that worries me with the show. It's that little info I've found on its wiki page.



I mean, how can they make the best TV show about the Second Age without having the rights to use contents from The Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales? If the Tolkien Estate really wants to protect Tolkien's work, shouldn't they give access to all the pertinent material available so that Amazon can make the best possible show? How can they write a good story out of only the scraps we get in LotR and its appendices? I mean, what we get in Akallabeth is already sketchy, but it's still more material than the few events mentionned in the appendices from LotR.

The Second Age is already the most obscure era of the setting (barring the Fourth I guess) so it would indeed be weird to hamstring them even more. Plus the setting won't be that recognizable; there's no Rohan at all, no Gondor or Arnor until the closing days of the Age, nothing happens in the Shire (which is how the Hobbits like it, obviously, but still), the Dwarves and Elves get along fine in Eregion, Moria isn't a shithole yet, the Ents are busy herding trees, so on and so forth. Numenor would be interesting to explore but it's the only part of the Age that actually IS covered fairly extensively by the Appendices so we're SOL there as well I guess.

[Uthan]

And from what I read, they are not even allowed to use Akallabeth and Unfinished Tales.

That bit was proven not to be the case when they teased the second age maps based on stuff from unfinished tales. Seemingly it's more that they're only allowed to portray second age stuff.

[Frontenac]

The Second Age is already the most obscure era of the setting (barring the Fourth I guess) so it would indeed be weird to hamstring them even more. Plus the setting won't be that recognizable; there's no Rohan at all, no Gondor or Arnor until the closing days of the Age, nothing happens in the Shire (which is how the Hobbits like it, obviously, but still), the Dwarves and Elves get along fine in Eregion, Moria isn't a shithole yet, the Ents are busy herding trees, so on and so forth. Numenor would be interesting to explore but it's the only part of the Age that actually IS covered fairly extensively by the Appendices so we're SOL there as well I guess.

There is even no Hobbits in what will be the Shire yet. What you are saying will depend on which period of the Second Age they will cover. I mean Tar-Aldarion was already helping the Elves of Middle Earth against Sauron. The Rings of Power were forged during the second millenium, and there was a first war against Sauron during that period. Eregion, Celebrimbor's country, has been devastated and Khazad-Dûm's western gate was shot for good. The Númenorians arrived just in time to push back Sauron over the Misty Mountains. It is then that Imladris/Rivendell has been made the Last Homely House west of the Misty Mountain and that Elrond received one of the Elven Rings. If the story is set in the third or fourth millenium, then Dwarves and Elves are not getting along fine in Eregion anymore, the Ents probably lost their Ent-wives and the Númenorians are building strongholds in Middle Earth first to help the people there and later to oppress and exploit them. Personally, I would like to see Ar-Pharazôn, Elendil, Isildur and Anarion and the War of the Last Alliance.

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That bit was proven not to be the case when they teased the second age maps based on stuff from unfinished tales. Seemingly it's more that they're only allowed to portray second age stuff.

I hope you're right, but it is kinda the trade mark of the Tolkien Estate. Like in the Hobbit trilogy when Gandalf made an obscure reference to the blue wizards without naming them because the Tolkien Estate did not allow Jackson to reference anything from the Silmarillion.

[Eurhetemec]

While I concede the plausibility of the former, the latter however? Where was this at in the books?

It's a distant prequel to the books, last I heard, like 1000 years before or something.

[Uthan]

I hope you're right, but it is kinda the trade mark of the Tolkien Estate. Like in the Hobbit trilogy when Gandalf made an obscure reference to the blue wizards without naming them because the Tolkien Estate did not allow Jackson to reference anything from the Silmarillion.

Afaik the Tolkien estate weren't super happy of the making of the movies in the first place though? The rights had been sold off decades before, and by the time of the Hobbit there was a legal battle between the Tolkien Estate and the movie makers over a royalty dispute I think it was (?), so makes sense they wouldn't be very keen to allow more than what was strictly required.

Whereas here the rights have been directly negotiated with the estate, and it'd be super silly if they'd refuse such important parts of the second age material to be used (All of the Mariner's Wife story, on Galadriel and Celeborn, loads of extra info on Numenor and its culture, etc).