LOTR prequel TV series 2.0

[Krishtotter]

53 minutes ago, DMC said:

Right?  It's like they did things ass-backwards.  Which..is a bit concerning, but in a glass half full way at least they got those experienced hands now, so whatever I guess.

The way it seems to me is that Payne and McKay are likely vision-oriented and came up with the general idea for setting, plot and so on, but that the writers room they are overseeing is doing much of the heavy lifting in terms of the details, nitty-gritty, dialogue and characterisation etc. That in addition to P&K's overall command of production and every other aspect of showrunning. I could be wrong but it certainly does look that way. 

Cogman and Folsom appear to be the only scriptwriters brought in after scripts were effectively begun (we know from GRRM's accidental admission that Cogman was put "straight to work" by Amazon on LoTR upon signing an overall deal in September 2018.) as evidenced by the discrepancy over their exact 'status/role' in the project. 

From the looks of things, Gennifer Hutchinson (from Breaking Bad) appears to have some kind of seniority among the writing team because on everything she is mentioned first, followed by the Sopranos and Stranger Things guys and then the lady from Hannibal (unless the order is just random or for some other unspecified reason).

She revealed on Twitter that she could now talk about the show (in light of the full creative team announcement) and that she had had to give up her work on Better Call Saul to take LoTR up with Amazon. 

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, Krishtotter said:

She revealed on Twitter that she could now talk about the show (in light of the full creative team announcement) and that she had had to give up her work on Better Call Saul to take LoTR up with Amazon. 

Well that's a bit disappointing if only because I'm pretty excited for the next season of BCS after its kind of meandering for the last couple seasons.

[Krishtotter]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Well that's a bit disappointing if only because I'm pretty excited for the next season of BCS after its kind of meandering for the last couple seasons.

Oh, sorry about that 

Here is a link to her Twitter thread on it:

 

 

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 2/26/2019 at 8:59 AM, The Marquis de Leech said:

Following on from the old thread, there was an update on the leaked map yesterday:

Middle-earth

No Gondor, no Arnor, the old name for Lothlorien... this is Second Age, I think, rather than Eorl. My instinct is that they've ditched Young Aragorn, and gone for the Forging of the Rings/the War of the Elves and Sauron, following through into Numenor.

Also, according to this interview, they really are getting the Tolkien Estate on board, now that Christopher's quit:

Maybe, just maybe, they've bought the rights to Unfinished Tales? (Which would give them more Numenor, Celebrimbor, and Eorl?). Even if they haven't, there's enough of a sketch in the LOTR appendices to come up with something. Certainly more interesting than Young Aragorn anyway, if so.

Why isn’t Eregion on the map?  Shouldn’t that be were many of the Noldor who didn’t return with the Valorian army settled?

[Corvinus85]

6 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Why isn’t Eregion on the map?  Shouldn’t that be were many of the Noldor who didn’t return with the Valorian army settled?

A bit late, Scot. This is the map you want to explore. https://www.amazon.com/adlp/lotronprime

[Krishtotter]

9 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Why isn’t Eregion on the map?  Shouldn’t that be were many of the Noldor who didn’t return with the Valorian army settled?

It most definetely is on the final map that was released, as well as Númenor. See here:

https://www.amazon.com/adlp/lotronprime

The Marquis had been referring back then to the first map put out in increments (there were two).

The first map was roughly dated late Second Age, in the 4th millennium between the foundation of the Dunedain realms in exile and the Last Alliance, whilst the second map shows both Númenor and Eregion (meaning it can be dated much earlier to before the ruination of Eregion in the First War of the Ring circa. S.A. 1700).

[Krishtotter]

 

Emergency Awesome has done a video-breakdown of the creative team 'teaser' and has forwarded a few thoughts of his own as to the likely plot-points for the series. 

There were a few errors in his script so far as Middle-Earth lore is concerned (most Númenóreans are not "half-Elves" but only the royal family and nobility of the Line of Elros have an Elvish strain in their blood; Celebrimbor is pronounced with a K rather than a C, a bit like Welsh; and Aragorn was about 87 in LoTR rather than over a hundred) but overall it's a decent little recap. 

I think he is essentially correct that Sauron's "rise to new Dark Lord" and seduction of the Eregion Elves in the fair guise of Annatar, Lord of Gifts and alleged emissary of the Valar, circa. 1200 - 1500 S.A. will be a mainstay of the plot at least in its initial seasons, with the War in Eregion for the rings of power being a central focus. 

My own two cents: I would add that it is likely going to be as much about Sauron's descent or fall from grace (after initial repentence following the defeat of Melkor in the First Age) as it is his rise (the two are simultaneous). As Tolkien himself explained in one of his most important letters concerning his legendarium:

Quote

 

"The three main themes (of the Second Age) are thus The Delaying Elves that lingered in Middle-earth; Sauron's growth to a new Dark Lord, master and god of Men; and Numenor-Atlantis. They are dealt with annalistically, and in two Tales or Accounts, The Rings of Power and the Downfall of Númenor. Both are the essential background to The Hobbit and its sequel...

Sauron's frightful evil arose from a good root, the desire to benefit the world and others – speedily and according to the benefactor’s own plans...He repents in fear when the First Enemy is utterly defeated, but in the end does not do as was commanded, return to the judgement of the gods....

Very slowly, beginning with fair motives: the reorganising and rehabilitation of the ruin of Middle-earth, 'neglected by the gods', he becomes a reincarnation of Evil, and a thing lusting for Complete Power – and so consumed ever more fiercely with hate (especially of gods and Elves).

Though the only real good in, or rational motive for, all this ordering and planning and organization was the good of all the inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron’s right to be their supreme lord), his ‘plans’, the idea coming from his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an end, the End, in itself...

Thus, as the Second Age draws on, we have a great Kingdom and evil theocracy (for Sauron is also the god of his slaves) growing up in Middle-earth"

(JRR Tolkien, Letter to Milton Waldman in 1951)

 

It may take 'getting used to' for some viewers who only remember Jackson's trilogy - in which Sauron is nothing but a metaphysical, amorphous source of evil in the form of a great, disembodied Eye - to realize that in Tolkien's wider conception, he genuinely did start out with fair and justifiable motives but gradually become debased by those 'ideas' becoming the sole object of his will to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. 

Sauron will be an actual character in this show (after all, he is the Lord of the Rings, the eponymous namesake of the entire thing) and thus fleshed out with motives (i.e. like Saruman in the original trilogy, who was also a fallen, incarnate Maia or divine being, albeit of lesser power). 

[Toth]

Silently following this thread and playing Shadows of Mordor somehow just caused me to consider a third attempt to read LotR. I hope next time I'll get further in than Moria before the prose throws me off once again...

[Werthead]

Slightly confused Shippey interview on a German fansite. As far as I can tell, Shippey doesn't know what's going on with the rights, but seems fairly adamant that they don't have the rights to the First Age material from The Silmarillion. He does seem set on a 2021 release date, which I think is pretty much inevitable at this point.

The statement about 20 episodes in the first season is highly unlikely. More likely 10 episodes in the first season and 10 in the second, with the second likely to be greenlit early to minimise downtime between seasons (as Amazon recently did for The Expanse).

[Krishtotter]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Slightly confused Shippey interview on a German fansite. As far as I can tell, Shippey doesn't know what's going on with the rights, but seems fairly adamant that they don't have the rights to the First Age material from The Silmarillion. He does seem set on a 2021 release date, which I think is pretty much inevitable at this point.

The statement about 20 episodes in the first season is highly unlikely. More likely 10 episodes in the first season and 10 in the second, with the second likely to be greenlit early to minimise downtime between seasons (as Amazon recently did for The Expanse).

The interview did comes across as slightly confused, although what is abundantly clear is that Shippey is not heavily 'in' on the goings-on of the inner sanctum over at Amazon Prime.

We learn from his interview that Amazon has a very close working relationship with the Tolkien Estate - such that they have a veto over their scripts if they change the basic outline of the Second Age, although they have a free hand in further exploring areas that Tolkien left sparse or rudimentary. This close relationship may explain why a Tolkien scholar like Shippey is more distant from the project than other name-checked individuals, including Howe as concept designer. 

He was still commissioned by them to produce the map, though, in league with Howe as designer (a map, I should note, that fans noted a few small but perceptible errors in - which Shippey must have unwittingly signed off) and so he would have been told this-is-off-limits rightswise, this is kosher for you to use for your map etc. etc. 

In light of that, his comments are most interesting (he is closer to the inner sanctum than any of us are, after all) and equally perplexing. He evidently was permitted to consult Unfinished Tales by his own admission, as we pretty much intuited already from looking at Númenor on his map. That may mean, for instance, that Amazon could bring us Aldarion and Erendis - potentially, as part of their show.

His remarks have been widely read to imply that Amazon have rights only to Second Age material, perhaps generally - although this might be an error, either on the part of commentators or Shippey himself, I don't know.

His statement that even the Third Age (and not just the First Age in the Silmarillion) was "off-limits" is somewhat startling but I must presume that he was actually told this, or else I can't quite figure why he would have said it (the idea goes against everything we have all taken as conventional wisdom about the rights i.e. that they were for LoTR itself, although this naturally changed after the maps came out with Númenor material evidently lifted from Unfinished Tales). 

The upshot of his interview appeared to be that Amazon had rights to an "age" within Tolkien's legendarium (I can't conceive how that might even be done technically speaking with copyright), as opposed to say, LoTR or another published book. 

If Shippey is right about this (and I understand that you believe him not to be on a strictly contractual basis), I wouldn't necessarily say that we can regard the Akallabeth as being off-limits yet - Shippey didn't mention it at all (only that the First Age wasn't within the remit of their deal) and that may simply be because there is nothing substantive in it that adds to Second Age cartography - Númenor and Lorinand and Eregion etc. are all described in UT, not the Silmarillion which only refers to them without further elaboration or not at all in the case of the name Lorinand. 

[Werthead]

Note that Shippey said the Third Age was off-limits just after saying that Amazon were using material from LotR and the appendices, so I think he misspoke there. Or he might have meant that the Third Age was off-limits in the sense that it takes place after the Second Age, so Third Age-only races (like Hobbits) and characters (like Gandalf) were off-limits.

[Krishtotter]

3 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Note that Shippey said the Third Age was off-limits just after saying that Amazon were using material from LotR and the appendices, so I think he misspoke there.

Agreed, it was very hard to read between the lines of what he was saying at that part, admittedly, so I think interpretations can legitimately vary.

[Krishtotter]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The statement about 20 episodes in the first season is highly unlikely. More likely 10 episodes in the first season and 10 in the second,

Yeah, I interpreted him as implying that they might be shooting two seasons back-to-back or even in tandem - again, he was a little imprecise in his articulation. 

I really don't expect them to have a 20-episode first season. That would be insane!

[Werthead]

47 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Here's some more on this. (or maybe it's just more of what you'd already seen)

Yeah, it's just the same misreading of the interview. Sigh, journalism.

[red snow]

10 hours ago, Werthead said:

Yeah, it's just the same misreading of the interview. Sigh, journalism.

That article (or the headline at least, which the journalist rarely gets to choose) is bizarre. The show can't use material that the show isn't even going to be adapting. Like making a big deal saying the fantastic beasts series can't adapt any of the harry potter series. I actually read it as good news as the worst thing about the tv announcement was that it may televise the LOTR trilogy.

That aside, it is interesting how tight a leash they are intending on keeping. "In the spirit of/tolkenien" is such a nebulous term and could cause headaches especially if they are trying to make this GOT-esque.

[Krishtotter]

3 hours ago, red snow said:

That article (or the headline at least, which the journalist rarely gets to choose) is bizarre. The show can't use material that the show isn't even going to be adapting. Like making a big deal saying the fantastic beasts series can't adapt any of the harry potter series. I actually read it as good news as the worst thing about the tv announcement was that it may televise the LOTR trilogy.

That aside, it is interesting how tight a leash they are intending on keeping. "In the spirit of/tolkenien" is such a nebulous term and could cause headaches especially if they are trying to make this GOT-esque.

Yeah, I think it just betrays the journalist's lack of research into the setting of the show. 

They are likely unaware that 'Second Age' means that the late Third Age narrative in LoTR itself is redundant for the purposes of this new series' plot - which will be set somewhere between 3,500 - 6,000 years before the events of the trilogy.

There are only a handful of relevant monologues pertaining to the Second Age in LoTR itself (i.e. Gandalf's relaying of the history of the forging of the rings in Eregion to Frodo, the House of Elrond chapter in FotR which goes into some detail about the forging and the War of the Last Alliance etc.) outside the appendices & the extraneous material in Unfinished Tales, Akallabeth etc. 

As to your second point, precisely what the Estate understands by "Tolkienian" is going to be absolutely critical here, I agree - in terms of the writers' remit. 

I think it's good, in the sense that we don't need to fear so much a Hobbit trilogy situation. 

Two questions when it comes to the 'tone' of this up-coming series:

A) Is the narrative decision in question 'Tolkienesque', in the sense of being congruent with the tone and spirit of the Second Age as Tolkien envisioned it?

&

Does the narrative decision serve a real purpose to the plot such that, if it were absent this would impact the overall story and its themes? Or, is it just a case of being included to invoke shock or titillation in the audience?

The Second Age material which we have from Tolkien has a distinct tonal quality from the style in which LoTR was written, even while sharing many of the same themes. 

Discussing the 'older legends', Tolkien said:

Quote

 

"Nearly all are grim and tragic: a long account of the disasters that destroyed the beauty of the Ancient World, from the darkening of Valinor to the Downfall of Númenor and the flight of Elendil. And there are no hobbits. Nor does Gandalf appear."

(The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien p. 333)

 

There's a chance they might surprise (pleasantly or unpleasantly) both fans of the original books/trilogy and GoT, because the 'tone', as I understand it, is neither 'fish nor fowl' in that respect.

Not as 'gritty' as ASoIAF but darker and grimmer than LoTR. To be perfectly 'Tolkienian' for a Second Age show, a balance would need to be struck. 

Unlike with LoTR, in which the Shire is 'saved', Rohan is 'saved', Gondor is 'saved' - Eregion is not 'saved' but sacked, ruined and utterly depopulated; Númenor is not 'saved' but becomes an isle of human-sacrificing Morgoth-worshippers and is sunken beneath a tidal wave....and whereas most of the characters in the Fellowship (save 'Boromir') survive the War of the Ring - Celebrimbor (dies, badly after torture and impalement), Elendil, Gil-galad, Isildur, Anarion and more all perish in their attempt to defeat Sauron, whether during the fact or immediately afterwards in tragedies like the Disaster of the Gladden Fields. Only Elrond, Galadriel and Celeborn survive (really) of the presumably "main" cast. 

Thus, we have a bleaker picture here. As Elrond himself explains as he reminisces about the Second Age in FotR:

Quote

Of Númenor [Elrond] spoke, its glory and its fall, and the return of the Kings of Men to Middle-earth out of the deeps of the Sea, borne upon the wings of storm.

Then Elendil the Tall and his mighty sons, Isildur and Anárion, became great lords; and the North-realm they made in Arnor, and the South-realm in Gondor above the mouths of Anduin. But Sauron of Mordor assailed them, and they made the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and the hosts of Gil-galad and Elendil were mustered in Arnor.

Thereupon Elrond paused a while and sighed. 'I remember well the splendour of their banners,' he said. 'It recalled to me the glory of the Elder Days and the hosts of Beleriand, so many great princes and captains were assembled. And yet not so many, nor so fair, as when Thangorodrim was broken, and the Elves deemed that evil was ended for ever, and it was not so.'

'I was the herald of Gil-galad and marched with his host. I was at the Battle of Dagorlad before the Black Gate of Mordor, where we had the mastery: for the Spear of Gil-galad and the Sword of Elendil, Aeglos and Narsil, none could withstand. I beheld the last combat on the slopes of Orodruin, where Gil-galad died, and Elendil fell, and Narsil broke beneath him; but Sauron himself was overthrown, and Isildur cut the Ring from his hand with the hilt-shard of his father's sword, and took it for his own.'

'Fruitless did I call the victory of the Last Alliance? Not wholly so, yet it did not achieve its end. Sauron was diminished, but not destroyed. His Ring was lost but not unmade. The Dark Tower was broken, but its foundations were not removed; for they were made with the power of the Ring, and while it remains they will endure.

Many Elves and many mighty Men, and many of their friends, had perished in the war. Anárion was slain, and Isildur was slain; and Gil-galad and Elendil were no more. Never again shall there be any such league of Elves and Men; for Men multiply and the Firstborn decrease, and the two kindreds are estranged. And ever since that day the race of Númenor has decayed, and the span of their years has lessened.'

The Fellowship of the Ring, LoTR Book 2, Ch 2, The Council of Elrond

 

 

Númenor was literally the product of Tolkien's lifelong, recurring childhood nightmare ,which was so psychologically embedded in him that he actually named it his, "Atlantis-complex":

 

Quote

 

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography:

Occasionally a strange dream came to trouble him [Tolkien]; a great wave towering up and advancing ineluctably over the trees and green fields, poised to engulf him and all around him. The dream was to recur for many years. Later he came to think of it as ‘my Atlantis complex’. But usually his sleep was undisturbed …

It [Tolkien’s legend of Númenor] had one of its origins in the nightmare that had disturbed him since childhood, his ‘Atlantis-haunting’ in which he ‘had the dreadful dream of the ineluctable Wave, either coming up out of a quiet sea, or coming in towering over the green inlands’

 

 

The Downfall of Númenor is, quite literally, a 'nightmare' in its conception by the author - I mean, it leads up to the drowning of an entire island-continent under a colossal deluge at the behest of a human-sacrificing high priest (actually a fallen-divine-being in a fair guise) who convinces the population to become, effectively, devil-worshippers and subjugate the entire world, including the abode of the Valar themselves in a vain attempt to gain earthly immortality.

We have also: Celebrimbor's torture and impalement on a pole for use as a battle-standard by Sauron; people being burned alive en masse as human sacrifices to Morgoth; Ar-Pharazôn taking a woman to wife by force so that he can usurp her throne (marital rape); that same abused woman drowning to death as she tries to flee from a tidal wave sent (ostensibly) by the deity she worshipped; Númenóreans who "hunted the men of Middle-earth and took their goods and enslaved them, and slew many cruelly upon their altars" which bears eerie similarities to the Mayans imho (think Mel Gibson's Apocalypto) and to more recent genocidal policies in 20th century history (with the 'ubermensch' mentality of the Númenóreans)....

That is some disturbing stuff right there, to say the least. So I for one am not expecting to see exactly the same tone as LoTR, although there should be more than sufficient commonality to satisfy fans that we are back to a new, epic adventure in Middle-earth, albeit with a fresh approach that is 'Tolkienian' so far as he envisaged the Second Age - with none of D&D's "bad pussy" language or shock/titillation just for shock/titillation value. 

Consider this passage from The Akallabêth about the latter-days of Númenor after Sauron's corrupting influence has become endemic on the island:

Quote

And men took weapons in those days and slew one another for little cause; for they were become quick to anger, and Sauron, or those whom he had bound to himself, went about the land setting man against man, so that the people murmured against the King and the lords, or against any that had aught that they had not; and the men of power took cruel revenge

 

[Safiya]

On 8/1/2019 at 10:05 PM, Werthead said:

Note that Shippey said the Third Age was off-limits just after saying that Amazon were using material from LotR and the appendices, so I think he misspoke there. Or he might have meant that the Third Age was off-limits in the sense that it takes place after the Second Age, so Third Age-only races (like Hobbits) and characters (like Gandalf) were off-limits.

I hope we have something from the Second Age, that was initial hope and it might come true.

[Krishtotter]

22 minutes ago, Safiya said:

I hope we have something from the Second Age, that was initial hope and it might come true.

Oh not 'might', it is definitely set during the Second Age and this has been confirmed on multiple occasions by Amazon (including by the director of the first two episodes). 

What we don't know with certainty is what material (other than the Second Age lore in the appendices and LoTR itself) they have the rights to adapt but the SA setting is 100% confirmed (multiply). 

[Safiya]

2 hours ago, Krishtotter said:

Oh not 'might', it is definitely set during the Second Age and this has been confirmed on multiple occasions by Amazon (including by the director of the first two episodes). 

What we don't know with certainty is what material (other than the Second Age lore in the appendices and LoTR itself) they have the rights to adapt but the SA setting is 100% confirmed (multiply). 

I must admit when I first heard about the new series I tuned out when they started talking about a young Aragorn lol.  As much as I like Aragorn, no thanks, no more 3rd Age thank you.

[Krishtotter]

42 minutes ago, Safiya said:

I must admit when I first heard about the new series I tuned out when they started talking about a young Aragorn lol.  As much as I like Aragorn, no thanks, no more 3rd Age thank you.

Yeah, no one I spoke to at the time was enthused by the prospect either, myself included!

I remember thinking, "no way has Amazon paid $250 million up front for the rights and committed to a $1 billion five-season run and a possible spin-off show, which Bezos hopes will be the next GoT, for a story about Young Aragorn's travels before the exciting, epic action of the War of the Ring actually takes place".

It has since turned out that the early "young Aragorn" rumours were nothing but spurious gossip emanating from fansite TORN (The One Ring.Net), a website that has since been woefully inacurate and misleading on every bit of rumour about this show (how the mighty have fallen, back in it's heyday it had been a reliable source of insider Intel on New Line).

Shippey's recent interview seems to imply that the deal the Tolkien Estate shopped around in 2017 to different networks including Amazon, HBO, Netflix and others had always been for a specifically "Second Age" TV adaption.

By that logic, it never could have been "Young Aragorn", even fleetingly, to start out with.