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LOTR prequel TV series 2.0


The Marquis de Leech

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1 hour ago, Corvinus said:

That made me think more of dwarves than the Gwaithurim. I suppose it can be either. The call said to pretend they're furious Celts and are fighting 7' enemies, while protecting women and children. So it could be men of small stature vs. Númenoreans, or dwarves vs. orcs; for the latter, the scale can be reduced with camera work and post-production stuff.

Your right, it could easily be Dwarves (longbeards with ginger hair) fighting Orcs. Although, if they follow the Jacksonverse - the trilogy and Hobbit Dwarves generally have a Scottish brogue, rather than Irish (although I think two of the Hobbit Dwarves spoke with Irish accents, if I recall, and one or two had English accents).

Khazad-dum will play an important role in this series - it has an uncommonly close alliance with the nearby Noldor Elves of Eregion at this time in the legendarium.

A number of key plot points from the appendices and Unfinished Tales they will need to tick off - the friendship between Celebrimbor and Narvi, their construction of the Doors of Durin together, the seven dwarf-kings receiving their rings of power from Sauron, hosts from Moria fighting alongside the Elves in the Eriador War and the Doors of Moria being shut to keep Sauron's forces out - involve the Dwarves.

So I would expect to see them featured prominently. 

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I've sent in an enquiry of interest for the ICAN South Island casting call for extras.

Downside is that I'm average height with an average face. Upside is that I have acting experience, am decently fit, and have positively Noldorin hair. If necessary, I'm more than capable of growing a beard too. 

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7 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I've sent in an enquiry of interest for the ICAN South Island casting call for extras.

Downside is that I'm average height with an average face. Upside is that I have acting experience, am decently fit, and have positively Noldorin hair. If necessary, I'm more than capable of growing a beard too. 

I wish you the very best of luck! 

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"Collider" announced in an exclusive that 23 year-old British actor Maxim Baldry “has landed a significant role” in the upcoming Amazon LotR TV series. Baldry is best known so far for his role in the 2019 BBC/HBO joint production series Years and Years, in which he played an asylum seeker. 

Prior to this, he played Caesarion - son of Cleopatra and Mark Antony - in HBO's Rome as a child:

 

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22 minutes ago, Krishtotter said:

"Collider" announced in an exclusive that 23 year-old British actor Maxim Baldry “has landed a significant role” in the upcoming Amazon LotR TV series. Baldry is best known so far for his role in the 2019 BBC/HBO joint production series Years and Years, in which he played an asylum seeker. 

 

I'm going with Sauron, aka Annatar.

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Another BGT casting call by video.....

She's a bit cookie (to say the least) but actually pretty explanatory as to what Amazon are looking for, much more specific than previous ones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGnL_HtBsWo

We have the same details about very short and very tall folks, weathered, earthy looks and character faces.

There were some questions over just what the casting calls meant by "Eurasian" looks.

The video above clarifies with a list of countries: "Southeast Asia - Thai, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Mongolian, Nepalese & Maori looks". She says, moreover, if "you are really short and little" as well as being 'Eurasian', then that would be good (????).

This immediately makes me think of the inland sea of Rhûn (Easterlings, Wainriders, Balchoth) and maybe a sub-plot involving Sauron in the East before he relocates to Mordor, or Khamul the Easterling who becomes one of the Nine Ring-wraiths or even the Blue Wizards.

There was also that Reddit leak a few weeks ago involving Irish actors in an audition, who were encouraged to act like "furious Celts" (really play up and emphasise their Irish accents) in a scenario whereby they had to pretend to be protecting women and children.

This video asks for Irish with red hair and freckles to "get in there quick". She adopts a phoney Irish accent and keeps it up for a while (so I guess the leak was true). But she actually asks for both "short" and "tall" red-heads ("all ages, shapes and sizes").

Also white hair is really emphasised and the request for ethereal, androgynous people - with David Bowie used as an example.

Again, Latinos/Hispanic looks are really sought after - she says "lovely olive skin, mountain people, dark hair, dark eyebrows" and the countries listed as examples are: Argentinian, Mexican, Spanish, Guatemalan. This one - I'm not sure but the new guy Maxim Baldry (even though he's of part Russian/Polish extraction) has that kind of very tanned, olive-looking skin so maybe his particular role has something to do with this side of things?

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1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The Numenoreans sailed to every corner of the earth, I believe, apart from Valinor, so they could have easily brought back "subjects" or even slaves from all over the not-globe.

Indeed, and we have some hints from Tolkien that they did oversee a worldwide slave trade, i.e. Tal-Elmar in HoME:

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And the High Men of the Sea (Númenóreans). These indeed we may dread as Death...But hither they have not come since my father's days, and then only to raid and catch men and depart...

In greater numbers they come then: two ships or more together, stuffed with men and not goods, and ever one of the accursed ships hath black wings. For that is the Ship of the Dark, and in it they bear away evil booty, captives packed like beasts, the fairest women and children, or young men unblemished, and that is their end.

We also learn in the Akallabeth that the Númenóreans "hunted" the other Men of Middle-earth - Mel Gibson Apocalypto-style - and shipped them back to Armenelos for use as human sacrifices in the Temple of Sauron, as well as in regional temples i.e. 

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Nonetheless for long it seemed to the Númenóreans that they prospered, and if they were not increased in happiness, yet they grew more strong, and their rich men ever richer....And they hunted the men of Middle-earth and took their goods and enslaved them, and many they slew cruelly upon their altars. For they built in their fortresses temples and great tombs in those days; and men feared them, and the memory of the kindly kings of the ancient days faded from the world and was darkened by many a tale of dread.

Also, it tells us that “there was little wind, but they had many oars and many strong slaves to row beneath the lash” when the fleets of the Númenóreans went to war against the Valar.

As I noted earlier on, there was an audition scenario leaked on reddit, involving red-headed Irish actors told to act like "furious Celts" with very thick accents while defending women and children from "basket-ball player-sized" folk - which, I think, may be hinting at a colonial situation like the above. 

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So do we think they're fabricating entire storylines, i.e plots that are not connected to Tolkien other than they take place in this alternate middle earth? Certainly those character names are new? Oren, Beldor and Tyra? 

I was looking for aldarion at least or Gil Galad, Elrond etc.

 

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Just now, Valandil said:

So do we think they're fabricating entire storylines, i.e plots that are not connected to Tolkien other than they take place in this alternate middle earth? Certainly those character names are new? Oren, Beldor and Tyra? 

I was looking for aldarion at least or Gil Galad, Elrond etc.

 

No, they're just using code names to hide what roles have been cast.

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5 hours ago, Valandil said:

So do we think they're fabricating entire storylines, i.e plots that are not connected to Tolkien other than they take place in this alternate middle earth? Certainly those character names are new? Oren, Beldor and Tyra? 

I was looking for aldarion at least or Gil Galad, Elrond etc.

 

I dont think the agreement with the Tolkien estate even allows them to do this if i’ve followed the news announcements correctly

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8 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I dont think the agreement with the Tolkien estate even allows them to do this if i’ve followed the news announcements correctly

There's about 8 named characters from any given period of the Second Age, so for the show to work they'll have to invent numerous characters up out of nothing. That's just inevitable, and their deal with the Tolkien Estate certainly allows for that (otherwise the show would not be possible).

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4 minutes ago, Werthead said:

There's about 8 named characters from any given period of the Second Age, so for the show to work they'll have to invent numerous characters up out of nothing. That's just inevitable, and their deal with the Tolkien Estate certainly allows for that (otherwise the show would not be possible).

I meant the alternate storylines part, not characters. I’m expecting any number of new characters. For some reason i thought the deal required them to stick largely to Tolkien’s writings rather than newly created stuff. Do you know if that is the case?

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7 hours ago, Valandil said:

So do we think they're fabricating entire storylines, i.e plots that are not connected to Tolkien other than they take place in this alternate middle earth? Certainly those character names are new? Oren, Beldor and Tyra? 

I was looking for aldarion at least or Gil Galad, Elrond etc.

 

These are very unlikely to be anything other than mockup, audition 'placeholder' names. 

At the same time as the Lotronprime auditions were being held about 5 months ago, the WoT auditions were ongoing and Amazon used 'fake' or corrupted names for the characters:

https://www.wotseries.com/2019/10/19/audition-tape-gives-glimpse-into-changes-to-wheel-of-time/?fbclid=IwAR2WxzjnXKa2P82_xx1LkfknAfPK9uAD9k4_xXRkzJqwMVjFTD_k28VPyXs
 

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Audition Tape Gives Glimpse into Changes to Wheel of Time

In an April 2019 audition tape on popular creator video site, Vimeo, the dialog read by Irish actress, Seána Kerslake, and an off-camera voice sheds light on possible changes to how things will play out in the TV series adaptation of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.

In the clip names, concepts and places are altered to obscure the series:

“Nadie” is Nynaeve
“Mayela” or “Maryela” (couldn’t make it out exactly) is Moiraine
“The Dark” is the Dark One
“Shaman” is Wisdom
“Your City” is Tar Valon
“Your Sisters” is Aes Sedai
“Read the Signs” is most likely wielding the power or channeling

It is also important to note that the dialog herein does not necessarily reflect the final script for the show and could’ve been created in this form to help highlight certain attributes in the character to help with the cast selection process.

This just seems to be standard Amazon policy for the auditions in all their shows.

Here, incidentally, is a surviving example online (Amazon has since eliminated all the rest) of a failed 'Eldien' (one of the five names - Tyra, Beldor, Eldien, Aric & Oren) audition/self-tape filmed around five months ago: 

The mockup audition scripts for the others (which are now gone from the internet, as of two days ago) are still available online at this website - excepting 'Oren' for whom we know nothing apart from the fact that Mawle (aka Uncle Benjen) is playing him:

https://redanianintelligence.com/2019/10/20/four-audition-tapes-for-amazons-lord-of-the-rings-revealed-markella-kavenagh-likely-to-play-an-elf/

For what it's worth, my own 'theory' (based off of details in these scripts, which might be total fluff but could have some relation to the real scripts that aren't publicly available) is that Beldor is Elrond, Eldien is Galadriel, Tyra is Celebrían - although for 'Aric' and 'Oren' I have no idea. 

Beldor, Eldien & Tyra are 'Elves' (we can deduce this much from the scripts): Eldien is old enough, seemingly, to have fought in the War of Wrath at the end of the First Age, whereas Beldor was apparently alive at the time but for some reason (perhaps too young/an Elf-child?) did not fight in it (even though he 'watched' Eldien fight) and Eldien implies that he is a much younger Elf than her, for whom 'evil' is just pictures in glass adorning windows (i.e. murals of the great events of the First Age, now almost legendary, as opposed to the reality that she fought against and witnessed first hand) which is why Beldor takes the peace for granted, whereas Eldien cannot rest & still feels marred by her experiences and the loss of her family/friends. Eldien is also a mother.

Tyra, on the other hand, is a very young Elf - she seems naive and not very mature, which indicates that she might be under the Elven age of puberty (50 years old) or at the least the age of full maturity (100 years). In one of the two excerpted scenes involving her, Tyra and her friend have strayed away from their home and got lost in a place with snow, berries and cliffs, where they find a man who has been severely wounded (by 'bears' in the script, which I take to be audition-code for 'Orcs'). Tyra is tender-hearted and wants to take the man back to their Elvish kingdom to be healed, whereas her friend Hennah says that they can't because he is a "human" and would be a burden. Hennah warns that anything "bad that happens as a result of [taking him back home] will be our fault", which Tyra dismisses as 'superstition' but then ominously says, "He is important. Somehow, I just know it." 

Some have suggested that this might be Annatar in one of his disguises to fool the naive young Elf-maid into letting him into the fortress kingdom of the Noldor (Ost-in-edhil literally means "fortress of the Elves") after he has been refused entry to Lindon by Gil-galad. At least, that's what I think might be going on - if the script is not entirely fake. 

Aric - who is the most mysterious character and may be a new creation -  is a guy with questionable morals trying to save his neck and on the run (for some reason) from the "farlanders" (Númenóreans). He is evidently intended to come across as some kind of human/Man, although clearly not of Númenor. 

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On 10/22/2019 at 9:31 PM, HelenaExMachina said:

I meant the alternate storylines part, not characters. I’m expecting any number of new characters. For some reason i thought the deal required them to stick largely to Tolkien’s writings rather than newly created stuff. Do you know if that is the case?

No, that appears to be confusion on Tom Shippey's part. The situation is that they will have access to everything they have the rights to, which will be LotR and its appendices (the rights they inherited from New Line/Warners) and whatever new rights that have secured from the Tolkien Estate, which at this time time appears to be at least parts of Unfinished Tales, but they will also have the ability to invent anything they want beyond that.

They don't have the rights to The Hobbit, as MGM part-owns those rights and Amazon did not want to repeat New Line's nightmare experience of dealing with them (which was at least partly to blame for how the movies turned out).

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5 hours ago, Werthead said:

No, that appears to be confusion on Tom Shippey's part. The situation is that they will have access to everything they have the rights to, which will be LotR and its appendices (the rights they inherited from New Line/Warners) and whatever new rights that have secured from the Tolkien Estate, which at this time time appears to be at least parts of Unfinished Tales, but they will also have the ability to invent anything they want beyond that.

They don't have the rights to The Hobbit, as MGM part-owns those rights and Amazon did not want to repeat New Line's nightmare experience of dealing with them (which was at least partly to blame for how the movies turned out).

Thanks, really helpful breakdown and cleared up my confusion

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