Amazon and WB discussing new LORD OF THE RINGS TV series

[Фейсал]

I literally have no idea what this could be or how they could make it work. Anything that pulls on the Silm will quite simply be a mess and a major pain to adapt - the closest thing to a self contained story they could work with is the Children of Hurin or the Fall of Gondolin and even those draw heavily on other works.

[The Marquis de Leech]

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2017/11/15/104426-in-historic-move-christopher-tolkien-resigns-as-director-of-tolkien-estate/

This clarifies a fair bit. If the TV rights were never sold back when the movie rights were, that explains the involvement of the Estate, rather than Middle-earth Enterprises. Christopher leaving explains the Estate signing off on it.

My initial interpretation was that we were looking at something from the First or Second Age - stuff that the Estate had previously been keeping under lock and key. However, with this new information, it looks much more fanficcy, and much less Silmarillion.

[The Marquis de Leech]

4 minutes ago, Фейсал said:

I literally have no idea what this could be or how they could make it work. Anything that pulls on the Silm will quite simply be a mess and a major pain to adapt - the closest thing to a self contained story they could work with is the Children of Hurin or the Fall of Gondolin and even those draw heavily on other works.

Someone drew up this years ago, before this was even considered possible, much less likely:

https://silmarillionseries.com/

I also wrote something that envisaged The Silmarillion as a five part movie series:

https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2017/07/19/how-to-adapt-the-silmarillion/

[Myshkin]

I like the ideas so far, particularly Law & Mordor (RIP Jerry Orbach, you will never be forgotten), but I was envisioning something more along the lines of Dallas, but you know, with Tolkiens.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

57 minutes ago, Durckad said:

Law & Mordor: Shelob's Victims Unit

A group of Orcs are tasked with identifying the remains of the various interlopers killed and eaten by Shelob. Hilarity and amputations ensue.

I would watch the living fuck out of this show.

[Myshkin]

15 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I would watch the living fuck out of this show.

I’d only watch if they got S. Epatha Merkerson to play the orc commander. Fuck Dann Florek.

ETA: While I’d prefer Sam Waterston as Mordor’s Executive ADA, I’d be fine with Michael Moriarty as well.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, Myshkin said:

I’d only watch if they got S. Epatha Merkerson to play the orc commander. Fuck Dann Florek. 

That would be amazing. Ice T has to be involved as well.

[The Bard of Banefort]

Will I watch this? Most likely. Am I happy that it exists in the first place? Hell no.

Then again, I loved the Hobbit trilogy, so it appears that I'm easier to please than the average LotR fan. 

[Фейсал]

1 hour ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Someone drew up this years ago, before this was even considered possible, much less likely:

https://silmarillionseries.com/

I also wrote something that envisaged The Silmarillion as a five part movie series:

https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2017/07/19/how-to-adapt-the-silmarillion/

It's doable, I guess, but not necessarily optimal. Unless you condense it on a massive scale, in which case it kind of loses it's luster in the first place - The Silm functions more as a sort of Middle Earth documentary/history book than a fluid, structured narrative. So many characters and places and things happening all at once it's ridiculous. That and the sheer magnitude and scale of some the events that happen in the story - along with things like the Silmarils being unadaptable by nature would make for a very complicated, rocky read ahead for the poor sod who theoretically helms this production.

11 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Will I watch this? Most likely. Am I happy that it exists in the first place? Hell no.

Then again, I loved the Hobbit trilogy, so it appears that I'm easier to please than the average LotR fan. 

Hahah glad i'm not alone. I even liked the third one.

[felice]

On 14/11/2017 at 5:19 PM, fionwe1987 said:

I think they'd do far better to mine the fall of Numenor, the making of the Rings, the politics between Celebrimbor, Galadriel, Sauron and Gil Galad, Moria's fall, the establishment of Arnor and Gondor, all leading to the fall of Sauron, and ending with Isildur's death and the loss of the Ring.

Yes, I really like the sound of that. Maybe a new generation of Numenoreans each season, with Sauron and the elves staying constant throughout the series.

[Eggegg]

3 minutes ago, felice said:

Yes, I really like the sound of that. Maybe a new generation of Numenoreans each season, with Sauron and the elves staying constant throughout the series.

Yeah that does sound really interesting. I do wonder about the tone of a show like this however, how you could make something like that work for a general audience.

[Werthead]

15 hours ago, Myshkin said:

New idea: Amazon show about the Tolkien family.

There's actually a movie being made about Tolkien's real life story. Although it's about him, not his kids' legal shenanigans

Quote

 

I do wonder about the tone of a show like this however, how you could make something like that work for a general audience.

 

I do think Amazon have a problem here in that Middle-earth is, with the exception of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings storylines, profoundly noncommercial. That's why they're mining the LotR period rather than going back to the Second and First Ages. My experience of trying to get people who like the films to read The Silmarillion or the bits of Unfinished Tales that aren't about the Bilbo Era is that the Hobbits are a key part of the appeal of the stories, not Sauron, the elves or brutal Warhammer-esque total war (which is really what The Silmarillion is deep diving into).

[Eggegg]

3 minutes ago, Werthead said:

There's actually a movie being made about Tolkien's real life story. Although it's about him, not his kids' legal shenanigans

I do think Amazon have a problem here in that Middle-earth is, with the exception of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings storylines, profoundly noncommercial. That's why they're mining the LotR period rather than going back to the Second and First Ages. My experience of trying to get people who like the films to read The Silmarillion or the bits of Unfinished Tales that aren't about the Bilbo Era is that the Hobbits are a key part of the appeal of the stories, not Sauron, the elves or brutal Warhammer-esque total war (which is really what The Silmarillion is deep diving into).

I'll admit I've tried a number of times to read Silmarillion but its an incredibly difficult book to get into or enjoy and I had to simply give up each time. There are surely a number of great stories in there, but it would be an enormous task to flesh them out making them palatable to your average viewer, without ruining what was so liked about them in the first place. LOTR and Hobbit were much easier jobs.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

What about NCIS: Armenelos...

[The Marquis de Leech]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

There's actually a movie being made about Tolkien's real life story. Although it's about him, not his kids' legal shenanigans

I do think Amazon have a problem here in that Middle-earth is, with the exception of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings storylines, profoundly noncommercial. That's why they're mining the LotR period rather than going back to the Second and First Ages. My experience of trying to get people who like the films to read The Silmarillion or the bits of Unfinished Tales that aren't about the Bilbo Era is that the Hobbits are a key part of the appeal of the stories, not Sauron, the elves or brutal Warhammer-esque total war (which is really what The Silmarillion is deep diving into).

I disagree. I think the difficulty with The Silmarillion is a combination of the early parts putting people off (the Ainulindale is beautiful, but not light reading), and the archaic prose style. If you look past that, the thing has commercial possibilities - Beren and Luthien being the obvious one.

[The Bard of Banefort]

15 hours ago, Фейсал said:

Hahah glad i'm not alone. I even liked the third one.

Most people that I know who haven't read the books liked those movies. It only seems to be the Tolkien purists that have such a strong loathing for them. I never read LotR, but I did read The Hobbit after seeing the first movie, and tonally, it wasn't that different to me. They didn't really cut anything, they just added subplots. 

[Werthead]

The Hobbit trilogy certainly isn't Star Wars prequel levels of awfulness, and the four-hour supercut of the movies is pretty robust. A lot of the new additions work well, like Tauriel, and the Dol Guldur stuff is okay but a bit overblown. Expanding Bard as a character and doing more stuff in Laketown is also fine (but Alfrid is a meh character who eats up far too much screentime). The major problems I'd say are the elimination of almost all location shooting in favour of plasticky, blatant and weak CGI, way too much "Legolas doing awesome shit", the insane run to Mount Gundabad and back in the last film (which is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my entire life) and the dwarves-vs.-Smaug fight which is completely pointless and implausible and goes on for far too long.

[The Bard of Banefort]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

The Hobbit trilogy certainly isn't Star Wars prequel levels of awfulness, and the four-hour supercut of the movies is pretty robust. A lot of the new additions work well, like Tauriel, and the Dol Guldur stuff is okay but a bit overblown. Expanding Bard as a character and doing more stuff in Laketown is also fine (but Alfrid is a meh character who eats up far too much screentime). The major problems I'd say are the elimination of almost all location shooting in favour of plasticky, blatant and weak CGI, way too much "Legolas doing awesome shit", the insane run to Mount Gundabad and back in the last film (which is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my entire life) and the dwarves-vs.-Smaug fight which is completely pointless and implausible and goes on for far too long.

I definitely agree that there was way too much CGI. One of the great things about the original trilogy was that so much of it was on-location. I'm not sure what inspired the change. 

[Eggegg]

4 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I definitely agree that there was way too much CGI. One of the great things about the original trilogy was that so much of it was on-location. I'm not sure what inspired the change. 

Think budget was probably an issue, the making of the Hobbit movies was incredibly troubled and chaotic. I suspect that Del Toro also imagined a slightly more overblown fantastical version of the movies to make it appeal to children that Jackson put his own spin on. 

[Calibandar]

It doesn't seem like Amazon intend to use Jackson and his group so far, with the emphasis in the press release on it being an in house Amazon thing. I certainly wouldn't mind if they hired Weta and the costuming department, but writing and directing wise it should be a new take, especially after Jackson just looks he was already well past his best and burned out with the Hobbit trilogy.

There was certainly some enjoyable stuff in there for a Middle Earth fan, but man, so many questionable decisions.