Ser Drewy

Interview with the writers of the Rohirrim anime: https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2024/02/26/117601-meet-the-new-fresh-faced-writers-of-the-war-of-the-rohirrim/

Fellowship of Fans apparently claim insider intel has told them Meteor Man will be trained by a new magical character who will increase his powers Show may have gotten access to use material from Unfinished Tales, including on the 5 Wizards (they may be able to use all of them) They may have access to material on Rhun and the Blue Wizards going East Mumakil may be incoming

Pre-Production for Rings of Power's third season reportedly begins:

Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw thinks Amazon are making a S2 to 'save face': https://www.kcrw.com/culture/shows/the-business/hollywood-2023-year-in-review

Truthfully, you're not missing anything good. There's probably about 2 or 3 decent scenes in it and the rest is... yikes. Genuinely one of the dumbest films I think I've ever seen. And it's especially weird when Jackson tries to give this absolute slapstick cartoon some kind of emotional 'weight' beneath it. Especially during really really goofy cartoon imagery level parts.

The attempts I've seem to rehabilitate the Hobbit trilogy in light of ROP is very odd to me. I rewatched them not long after seeing ROP and honestly, yeah, there's some awful choices in ROP (the Mithril stuff especially) and it has some glaring problems with writing/pacing/characterisation, but it's hardly enough to make The Hobbits seem like fond mostly good efforts. There's some insanely indulgently stupid stuff in the Hobbit films that just go on for endless amounts of minutes. Legolas hanging upside down on a bat cutting off dozens of Orcs heads then dismounting on a troll that he stabs in the skull and mind-controls. Bard using his son as a crossbow to kill Smaug. The barrels sequence. Whatever in the name of God this scene is supposed to be:

I'm not really defending the Hobbit trilogy, just that I think there was more attempt to build Thorin & Balin as actual characters than there was with Gimli. I mean part of that is weirdly because PJ really wanted Thorin the Dwarf to be the main character in a film called The Hobbit...

I'm honestly not sure. Thorin, Balin and Bofur at least come across as actual characters with some depth. Sure the rest of them are pretty bad, or non-entities, but those three, at least, are mostly okayish (until the action scenes start and they turn into silliness). Rings of Power probably is the best the dwarves have been treated in ME media overall, to be honest.

To be honest, he's pretty silly in Fellowship too. Tries to destroy the One ring with an axe and gets thrown on his arse, apparently is the only person in Middle-Earth who doesn't know Balin's expedition failed, "not the beeeeard", snoring when Sam is trying to pay tribute to Gandalf... I always found Rhys Davis giving it the big one about 'respecting Tolkien's work' whilst playing one of the worst and most caricatured characters in the films baffling. Like, dude, what part of you huffing-and-puffing like Yosmite Sam, falling over in slapstick comedy multiple times, getting boobies in your byrnie and getting lines like “WE DWARVES LIKE TO GO SWIMMIN' WITH WEE HAIRY WIMMIN” did you find retained the dignity and depth of your character?

Never let Denethor go @Ser Scot A Ellison Never! I honestly really dislike almost everything in the script with Rohan in TTT. Gandalf impressing for the first half that 'freeing' Theoden from Saruman's 'spell' is essential. So he does so, only for Theoden to basically make the same choices. The incoherent military advice Theoden is given, the timeline incoherency with the wargs/Wormtongue/arriving at the deep, Aragorn falling off a cliff, Aragorn snipping at Theoden to ask for aid from somebody (Gondor) who cannot possibly help, the teleporting elves. Suffice to say, TTT did not survive my rewatch the other year. I think it's actually a pretty poor adaptation.

They also make the Nazgul dead and have tombs. But then the New Line films never seemed sure how the Rings worked anyway.

When I rewatched those films the other year one of the funniest aspects of them is how bad the villain dialogue is. Every one of them is like "The time of the Orc is here! We shall bring death to men!" "Kill the dwarf scum! Bring them darkness!" "The darkness is rising! War is here!" It's like a bunch of cliché "bad guy" dialogue strung together.

That's the weird thing about the show to me. Despite the scale of the canvas, and especially with Tolkien envisioning the Second Age as its own 'thing' from the Third and First Ages both tonally and thematically, Amazon did everything they could to make S.A feel as much like the PJ 'T.A' as possible.

Fellowship of Fans supposedly know 'original form' Sauron will be played by

https://deadline.com/2023/12/otherland-tv-adaptation-tad-williams-books-series-1235666537/ I thought the two seasons I saw of The Witcher were pretty bad and I've not exactly heard promising things about the WOT show, so... erm. I remember liking Otherland, though it's been awhile since I read them.

Sansa leading the Vale to reclaim the North seems potentially on the cards. I'm guessing the 'Hound' Brienne fights is an imposter Hound not the actual Sandor. Is the Prince of Sorrows the Shrouded lord? Interesting regardless. End with Hardhome written big is interesting to me. Does he mean the Pyke letter arriving, or Jon choosing to go to HH, or was Jon originally going to go to Hardhome and get wrecked by the Others? Very cool finding.

The clip: https://streamable.com/vgir65

Allegedly some friction between producers & editors over whether S2 should prioritise Numenor or the Elven storylines https://fellowshipoffans.com/news/the-faithful-vs-the-kingsmen-underway-behind-the-scenes-for-the-rings-of-power-season-2-exclusive/

Narvi, dwarf-friend of Celebrimbor, has been cast apparently: https://fellowshipoffans.com/news/huge-book-event-reveal-for-the-rings-of-power-season-2/

An in-depth look at 'War of the Rohirrim' https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2023/06/13/116656-the-first-in-depth-with-spoilers-look-at-lotr-the-war-of-the-rohirrim/

Discussion on the debris that's been found:

Expanded Letters of J.R.R Tolkien is coming https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/harpercollins-to-publish-revised-and-expanded-edition-of-tolkiens-letters-as-originally-intended

New actor cast to play 'original form Sauron' in season 2 apparently: Is this trying to give us Annatar (or something like him) since they... didn't before? That seems odd.

Tolkien Estate sues over 'Unauthorized' LOTR sequel:

https://www.polygon.com/23723747/lord-of-the-rings-amazon-mmo-announcement A new LOTR MMO is coming from Amazon studios. Although I believe this is a new new LOTR MMO because they cancelled their last one.