Lord of the Rings TV Series Purchased by Amazon

[Lorgar Aurelian]

it stands to reason that just looking at book sales alone isn't the best indicator of how popular or how well known the franchise is, hence my statement that LOTR and 'middle earth' is the most widely known and widely loved franchise of the last 75 years and counting, but by all means tell me how it's not.

looking at book sales defiantly isn't the best indicator for how popular a franchise is, Harry potter is just one example of a series in the same fantasy novel genre that rival's if not surpasses LoTR's in reach and success.

as to over all media it's not even close to most widely known/loved and you can see that easily but looking at the highest grossing franchises can comparing them, LoTR is fairly big in the west but has a rather small reach outside of it which is why you will see so many franchise all over eastern country's or poorer country's and rarely see any thing from Lotr.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...dia_franchises

[Dhrizzle]

i hope you realise how oxymoronic this statement is when talking about the universe Tolkein built, the books have been translated into every major language in the world today, they have been enjoyed by generations of people, i don't think you could get any wider of an audience than this, and yet here you are advocating to allowing it be made available to a 'wider audience' when the franchise has i would argue THE widest audience of any franchise of the last 75 years, so just who exactly are you hoping to bring in with this likely shitshow?, outside of very young kids born in the last 10 years or so there's not really too many people left to bring into the universe.

People who are interested in seeing a 5 season series on streaming platforms but not 3 (or 6) long-ass movies or reading a very large book (or over a dozen fragmentary and contradictory books.)

- - - Updated - - -

Well, there's just the small matter of Sauron never assuming a female form, always assigning male titles and names to himself like Tar Mairon (tar = king/lord) and Annatar (lord of gifts), and Tolkien never referring to him as female at any point in any of his writings. There's also, you know, the name of the book: The Lord Of The Rings.

But yeah, WhY dOeS hE hAvE tO bE a MaN? For fucks sake.

There is nothing to stop Sauron from assuming a female form. The way I'm viewing the trailer anyone who seems antagonistic could be Sauron. Maybe he is the Dark Lord being shown fealty by the orcs, the priest/missionary with the shaven head, the meteor man, the old dude who asks "have you heard of Sauron?" and the black smoke around the blade, as well as Annatar.

[Khaza-R]

Why does Sauron even have to be actually evil? Maybe he's just preparing them for some greater threat than even Morgoth and after the ring is destroyed they find a way to redeem him?

I know this is just a joke but yeesh that was still painful to read. If there was ever missing the concept to series in its entirety.

[Alanar]

Wait till we find out the one ring is actually a cock ring.

Dont be sure.. we dont even know for sure if sauron is male in this series. He could be like ken.. just flat.

[ringpriest]

Why does Sauron even have to be actually evil? Maybe he's just preparing them for some greater threat than even Morgoth and after the ring is destroyed they find a way to redeem him?

In theory if they were going to make more alternate timeline media like shadow of Mordor they could very well make him not evil given that some one posted a whole back that he had a chance to redeem him self after Morgoth fell but choose not to take it.

They're probably thinking of this bit from the essay, "Of The Rings of Power and the Third Age" in The Silmarillion:

When Thangorodrim was broken and Morgoth overthrown, Sauron put on his fair hue again and did obeisance to Eönwë the herald of Manwë, and abjured all his evil deeds. And some hold that this was not at first falsely done, but that Sauron in truth repented, if only out of fear, being dismayed by the fall of Morgoth and the great wrath of the Lords of the West. But it was not within the power of Eönwë to pardon those of his own order, and he commanded Sauron to return to Aman and there receive the judgement of Manwë. Then Sauron was ashamed, and he was unwilling to return in humiliation and to receive from the Valar a sentence, it might be, of long servitude in proof of his good faith; for under Morgoth his power had been great. Therefore when Eönwë departed he hid himself in Middle-earth; and he fell back into evil, for the bonds that Morgoth had laid upon him were very strong.

[Frontenac]

But he didn't, and he was very much concerned with being faithful, I believe it is letter 210. I love how many "fans" like to toss the bullshit gate keeper line while letting a trillion dollar company completely change characters, time, locations, and story beats so they can make money off a shit tier adaptation (which may or may not be a good show, for WoT it was shit all around).

Also fuck that I think people need to gatekeep harder, stop letting Hollywood get away with fuck awful adaptations just because people want to see something on screen, we as consumers shouldn't be happy we get terrible products, we should demand good products, made with love and care. What we are getting currently is directors who are talking about ruining lore/changing characters simply because some dumb fucks on twitter say some idiotic shit (Rafe and Watiti both said this).

Oh, if you want to fight windmills, then good luck, Don Quixote!

[Xath]

Why does Sauron even have to be actually evil? Maybe he's just preparing them for some greater threat than even Morgoth and after the ring is destroyed they find a way to redeem him?

please don't give them ideas

[Corvus]

Oof, sounds like they are totally rewriting the fall of Numenor.

TV version has Numenor being ruled by the Queen-Regent Tar-Miriel and her chief advisor is someone called Ar-Pharazon who slowly usurps power from her and takes over. This is rather different from the canon lore version.

Back story is that in the first age, two brothers of mixed heritage (human, elven and maia) were born, one called Elrond and one called Elros. At the end of the first age they were given the choice they were given the choice of wether to be counted among the elves or humans. Elrond chose the elves and Elros the humans. An island was raised from the sea, Numenor, and given to Elros and the other good humans as a reward for their aid, but they were also given very long life as well.

At first all goes well, but as time passes the kings of Numenor slowly start to go bad, wishing for eternal life and not just long life. They no longer take elven names but start using another language, Adunaic. Towards the end, a last good king rises, Tar-Palantir, who returns to the old ways, but by this stage the Faithful are in a minority, and the faction known a the King's Men, which has been around for hundreds of years and hates the elves and the Valar, is in the majority. In this case it is led by the king's younger brother, Gimilkhad. When he dies unnaturally young, it is taken over by his son Pharazon.

When Tar-Palantir dies, his only child, Miriel, should have been the rightful queen, but Pharazon takes over instead, marries Miriel, his first cousin, against her will and usurps the throne.

Miriel never ruled, and wasn't regent for anyone. She was a tragic figure, her throne usurped by her cousin who raped her, and dying when Numenor was sunk beneath the waves.

[Jastall]

Oof, sounds like they are totally rewriting the fall of Numenor.

TV version has Numenor being ruled by the Queen-Regent Tar-Miriel and her chief advisor is someone called Ar-Pharazon who slowly usurps power from her and takes over. This is rather different from the canon lore version.

Back story is that in the first age, two brothers of mixed heritage (human, elven and maia) were born, one called Elrond and one called Elros. At the end of the first age they were given the choice they were given the choice of wether to be counted among the elves or humans. Elrond chose the elves and Elros the humans. An island was raised from the sea, Numenor, and given to Elros and the other good humans as a reward for their aid, but they were also given very long life as well.

At first all goes well, but as time passes the kings of Numenor slowly start to go bad, wishing for eternal life and not just long life. They no longer take elven names but start using another language, Adunaic. Towards the end, a last good king rises, Tar-Palantir, who returns to the old ways, but by this stage the Faithful are in a minority, and the faction known a the King's Men, which has been around for hundreds of years and hates the elves and the Valar, is in the majority. In this case it is led by the king's younger brother, Gimilkhad. When he dies unnaturally young, it is taken over by his son Pharazon.

When Tar-Palantir dies, his only child, Miriel, should have been the rightful queen, but Pharazon takes over instead, marries Miriel, his first cousin, against her will and usurps the throne.

Miriel never ruled, and wasn't regent for anyone. She was a tragic figure, her throne usurped by her cousin who raped her, and dying when Numenor was sunk beneath the waves.

They'll likely change a couple things and speedrun through Numenor's complex backstory much like Jackson spedrun through Gondor's history RE fighting Mordor, Osgiliath, why it's ruled by Stewards, etc. Doubtless the fall of Numenor will happen in a similar way, having the villainous king and his domain destroyed by his hubris will work on screen and finishing the series on a hopeful note by showing the Faithful found Gondor and possibly Arnor could be a decent finale to tie the whole thing into LOTR.

At least this time they can't ruin an existing character to the extent Jackson mishandled Denethor. Still one of the trilogy's great sins, that was.

[Nerovar]

So a while ago there were rumours that the Númenórean army would be split 50/50 into men and women which seems to be basically confirmed by the more recent promotional images.

Now, I know that they have already stated that they are going to introduce changes to make the show more reflective of our modern world (as opposed to, you know, Tolkien's world) but now we're moving into territory that doesn't even reflect our modern world but some "idealized" version of it. This is all very intriguing.

[s_bushido]

I wonder which part of Tolkien's world involved people living to be hundreds of years old.

[jonnysensible]

but now we're moving into territory that doesn't even reflect our modern world .

what would you prefer 60/40?

[Nerovar]

what would you prefer 60/40?

Take a look at whatever war is currently being waged and take a census of the dead soldiers there. Use that gender ratio to truly "reflect what our modern world looks like".

[s_bushido]

Take a look at whatever war is currently being waged and take a census of the dead soldiers there. Use that gender ratio to truly "reflect what our modern world looks like".

What our modern world looks like for most people, is a world where you can boot up pretty much any game with combat elements and male/female characters perform exactly the same, so the choice is purely aesthetic. Bigots probably vastly overestimate how twisted everyone else's panties will become when they see female soldiers in some work of fiction.

[jonnysensible]

Take a look at whatever war is currently being waged and take a census of the dead soldiers there. Use that gender ratio to truly "reflect what our modern world looks like".

well its 90-80/10-20 men to women in most modern armed forces. Bet the balance was alot closer to 50/50 in the ancient world out of necessity. Britons, Gaul, Scythian etc.

[Veggie50]

Oof, sounds like they are totally rewriting the fall of Numenor.

TV version has Numenor being ruled by the Queen-Regent Tar-Miriel and her chief advisor is someone called Ar-Pharazon who slowly usurps power from her and takes over. This is rather different from the canon lore version.

Back story is that in the first age, two brothers of mixed heritage (human, elven and maia) were born, one called Elrond and one called Elros. At the end of the first age they were given the choice they were given the choice of wether to be counted among the elves or humans. Elrond chose the elves and Elros the humans. An island was raised from the sea, Numenor, and given to Elros and the other good humans as a reward for their aid, but they were also given very long life as well.

At first all goes well, but as time passes the kings of Numenor slowly start to go bad, wishing for eternal life and not just long life. They no longer take elven names but start using another language, Adunaic. Towards the end, a last good king rises, Tar-Palantir, who returns to the old ways, but by this stage the Faithful are in a minority, and the faction known a the King's Men, which has been around for hundreds of years and hates the elves and the Valar, is in the majority. In this case it is led by the king's younger brother, Gimilkhad. When he dies unnaturally young, it is taken over by his son Pharazon.

When Tar-Palantir dies, his only child, Miriel, should have been the rightful queen, but Pharazon takes over instead, marries Miriel, his first cousin, against her will and usurps the throne.

Miriel never ruled, and wasn't regent for anyone. She was a tragic figure, her throne usurped by her cousin who raped her, and dying when Numenor was sunk beneath the waves.

A change indeed, but a rather understandable one... If they want to explain the entire plot of numenors rise and fall they'd have to go further back in time than they seem to want. So they need to condense things. They clearly do want to mark the rize of Pharazon, so they need to have another leader in power before him, who he can usurp. If you go through the "marrying my niece" route you have to give way more backstory.

[Shadowferal]

Bet the balance was alot closer to 50/50 in the ancient world out of necessity. Britons, Gaul, Scythian etc.

50/50? You'd lose that bet.
Sure, women warriors existed, but their numbers were never that great to begin with. A better representation is in west Africa, the 19th century Dahomey Amazons

[jonnysensible]

snip

though the old romans were like 'holy fuck whats with all these chicks with swords' whenever they headed north

[Nerovar]

What our modern world looks like for most people, is a world where you can boot up pretty much any game with combat elements and male/female characters perform exactly the same, so the choice is purely aesthetic. Bigots probably vastly overestimate how twisted everyone else's panties will become when they see female soldiers in some work of fiction.

I don't understand what you're trying to say here and I'm not even sure I want to.

well its 90-80/10-20 men to women in most modern armed forces. Bet the balance was alot closer to 50/50 in the ancient world out of necessity. Britons, Gaul, Scythian etc.

Assuming this is a serious response I can only strongly advise you to pick up a history book.

[ringpriest]

I wonder which part of Tolkien's world involved people living to be hundreds of years old.

All of it? The elves (both the Noldor from the Blessed Realm and those of Middle-Earth) are effectively immortal, the dwarves live for about two and a half centuries on average, and the people of Numenor had extremely long lifespans as well.

they [Númenóreans] remained unwearied for thrice the span of mortal Men in Middle-earth; but to Eärendil's son the longest life of any Man was given, and to his descendants a lesser span and yet one greater than to others even of the Númenóreans.

And that was out of the gate, at the start of Numenor. Later (both chronologically on Numenor itself and in Tolkien's later writings) the average Numenorean lifespan was five times that of mortal Men, due to living more like the Eldar (the Elves), with the Line of Elros still living longer than others.

It appears that the show may be trying to compress over a thousand years of history, but Numenoreans (and Elves, of course) did have very long lifespans. Even in the Third Age, the Dunedain lived longer than other men - Aragorn in 87 during the events of Lord of the Rings, and lives to over 200.