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Amazon and WB discussing new LORD OF THE RINGS TV series


Werthead

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

According to PJ. Gondor consisted of a flat plain and exactly one city. It was a bit lame.



Jackson in general made Middle Earth feel really empty, although to be fair to him this came partly from Tolkien, since in LotR at least there wasn't much (if any- it's a long time since I actually read LotR, but I don't remember any) mention of any towns and villages and similar features surrounding the main cities (and none are featured on the map) beyond the Shire itself, and even in the backing material, if it's mentioned it's glanced over. For all his dedication to a deep linguistic history and to myth and legend and long personal histories, Tolkien wasn't all that interested in the nitty-gritty, or even casual depiction, of things like trade routes and farming and satellite towns and all that. It's one area of worldbuilding where people like Mieville and GRRM outsrip the old master considerably.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Ran said:

You can see the outlines of a show around this -- set in Gondor, motley crew of adventurers and warriors from lands near and far -- a shield maiden from Rohan? Some heroic freedom fighters from Harad? Could you work in a couple of dwarves and an elf (a stretch, I know)? And of course folk like a knight from Dol Amroth, etc. -- and intertwine flashes to Thorongil/Aragorn's past that are relevant to the present story (for example, his time in Rohan and the fact that Thengel's household speaks the Common Tongue and "not all thought this was good", suggesting you can have some turmoil among the Horse. Flesh out the dangers -- maybe there's a sorceress in Umbar, maybe you see the machinations of the Black Numenoreans, of course you've got the heir to the Steward, and so on and so forth... 

I mean, there's lots of possibilities in that short material.

"In 2972, a crack unit was sent to prison by a royal court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Osgiliath underground. Today, still wanted by the Steward of Gondor, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them....maybe you can hire The Dunedain Team."

 
 
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8 hours ago, Werthead said:

At the height of its power its borders extended far beyond Umbar into Harad and there were certainly many black people living under Gondor's not-entirely-gentle rule at that point.

Did its borders reach all the way to Far Harad? According to Tolkien, the men of Near Harad were "brown-skinned" (not black).

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

"In 2972, a crack unit was sent to prison by a royal court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Osgiliath underground. Today, still wanted by the Steward of Gondor, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them....maybe you can hire The Dunedain Team."

 
 

Didn't Game of Thrones already do this?

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3 hours ago, Jussi said:

Did its borders reach all the way to Far Harad? According to Tolkien, the men of Near Harad were "brown-skinned" (not black).

Yes. The borders of Near and Far Harad are basically Umbar, and Gondor secured Umbar and its hinterland some distance to the south.

In the LotR appendices it is said that Far Harad is enormous, since its borders extend from Umbar into the southern hemisphere (or at least equatorial regions where southern hemisphere stars become visible). I don't think Gondor ever went that far, although Aragorn in his youth did.

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Thanks! I didn't remember that Far Harad was so huge.

We will probably never know what kind of complexion the people living some distance to the south of Umbar had. I don't think Tolkien ever mentioned it. It is possible that black Haradrim were living much further south.

I remember that there were black-skinned half-trolls from Far Harad in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

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  • 3 months later...
7 hours ago, Werthead said:

The first two seasons of Lord of the Rings will cost more than the entire Peter Jackson movie trilogy.

Bearing in mind the project still doesn't have a producer, showrunner, director or any actors lined up, this is pretty insane.

It's Ok. Amazon probably just sold that Silmaril they had. It should more than cover the cost. 

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10 hours ago, Werthead said:

The first two seasons of Lord of the Rings will cost more than the entire Peter Jackson movie trilogy.

Bearing in mind the project still doesn't have a producer, showrunner, director or any actors lined up, this is pretty insane.

If they had to pay that much for the rights, it doesn't make sense to produce a cheap show nobody wants to watch.

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2 hours ago, Loge said:

If they had to pay that much for the rights, it doesn't make sense to produce a cheap show nobody wants to watch.

Yup. Doubling down on the insanity. It may pay off. But probably won't.

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Jeff Bezos is no fool. He doesn't spend that amount of money without thinking it through. We don't even know what he wants to accomplish with this show. If he was planning to make money by selling ads on broadcast TV there'd obviously be no way to recoup the cost. But that's not what Amazon does. My guess is that he expects to attract a lot of new subscribers to Amazon Prime. And that those subscribers buy a lot of stuff at his online store once they have free shipping.

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17 hours ago, Corvinus said:

So who owns it now? hmm...

Like HelenaExMachina said, Disney has is now.

From what I've been able to gather they're keeping it locked away in their deepest dungeon, with the entrance guarded by MechaNaziZombie Walter Disney who is dual wielding some recently acquired light sabers.

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7 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Like HelenaExMachina said, Disney has is now.

From what I've been able to gather they're keeping it locked away in their deepest dungeon, with the entrance guarded by MechaNaziZombie Walter Disney who is dual wielding some recently acquired light sabers.

Maybe Disney is gathering franchises as if they are Horcruxes so they can ‘master death’ and resurrect old Walter himself :) 

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On 3/17/2018 at 11:57 AM, HelenaExMachina said:

Disney. Disney owns everything

I wanted to say that it does not own me. 

And then I realized that the only movies I have watched in cinemas in the last three years were solely produced by Disney. 

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On 17/03/2018 at 1:58 PM, Loge said:

Jeff Bezos is no fool. He doesn't spend that amount of money without thinking it through. We don't even know what he wants to accomplish with this show. If he was planning to make money by selling ads on broadcast TV there'd obviously be no way to recoup the cost. But that's not what Amazon does. My guess is that he expects to attract a lot of new subscribers to Amazon Prime. And that those subscribers buy a lot of stuff at his online store once they have free shipping.

I'm not convinced by this. I think Bezos knows that LotR has serious name value - more than WoT and Conan (but it sounds like he's said fuck it and bought all three) - and people will subscribe just to check it out. I also he think he saw that other people might want to muscle in and wanted to close off that possibility, especially either Apple entering the marketplace with a killer app or, much more dangerously, the new Disney/Fox service snapping it up.

I do think there is a serious problem in that a very good, creative team with a fresh and exciting angle - like Boyens, Jackson and Walsh in 1995 or D&D (arguably) in 2006 - is needed to bring the passion, commitment and energy to make this work. It could get assigned to a jobbing team of competents instead and we'll end up with something that's mediocre or terrible.

If they're smart, they'd get at least Philippa Boyens involved and maybe Walsh (I'll assume Jackson is going to be too busy with movies). If we accept that The Hobbit turned out the way it did because of studio directives the writers had no choice but to try to appease, then there's no reason on their other form they couldn't make this work. But my feeling is that Amazon want a complete break, a new paradigm and maybe set up this new series with the idea of segueing into a full-on LotR remake five or six years down the road (I'd say once we're 20 years past RotK coming out, the arguments of "It's too soon!" become a bit less convincing).

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On 11/20/2017 at 2:33 PM, polishgenius said:



Jackson in general made Middle Earth feel really empty, although to be fair to him this came partly from Tolkien, since in LotR at least there wasn't much (if any- it's a long time since I actually read LotR, but I don't remember any) mention of any towns and villages and similar features surrounding the main cities (and none are featured on the map) beyond the Shire itself, and even in the backing material, if it's mentioned it's glanced over. For all his dedication to a deep linguistic history and to myth and legend and long personal histories, Tolkien wasn't all that interested in the nitty-gritty, or even casual depiction, of things like trade routes and farming and satellite towns and all that. It's one area of worldbuilding where people like Mieville and GRRM outsrip the old master considerably.

 

 

Partly?

 

Tolkein repeatedly describes how's there's basically no-one living between Bree and Rohan other than a few wildings. That's why Aragorn is so surprised to find pipe leaf at Orthanc when they meet back up with Merry + Pippin. Same for where Beorn lives in the hobbit, etc... The whole work is shot through with the idea that civilization is in massive decline compared to the past extent - the entire kingdom of Arnor gone, the bad realms like Angmar also gone, Eregion gone, etc... The whole story takes place in a world probably similar to what Europe was like after the Black Death killed off 50% of the population. Ruins and abandoned realms all over the place. 

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