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LOTR prequel TV series 2.0


The Marquis de Leech

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42 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Hmm, no big names at all there. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything as far as quality goes, but i did think/expect at least one big name to help draw in viewers and carry the new talent (in the GoT model where you have your Sean Beans paving the way for your newer faces like Richard Madden, Kit, Maisie etc)

Agreed, I did as well. It's a bit underwhelming, although I agree that that doesn't count for anything so far as quality is concerned.

I mean WoT (Amazon's sister fantasy show) has Oscar nominated actor Rosamund Pike and the GoT actor Michael McElhatton. Joseph Mawle and young Ned Stark actor aren't exactly the same (McElhatton was a more prominent actor in the show than them).

I would note, though, that this isn't actually the full cast yet.

One important point from the Deadline article:

We still have a few key roles to cast,” said Amazon Co-head of TV Vernon Sanders at TCA this afternoon. Together with Amazon Studios boss Jennifer Salke and co-head of TV and COO Albert Cheng, they weren’t ready to give up who exactly these actors would be playing in the new series.

This is just the first, initial batch of main cast/regulars.

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Yeah and also GoT was a big-budget gamble on a franchise that, while successful as a book, was at that point nowhere near that well known to draw a big crowd entirely on its own name and in a genre that hadn't really brken ground on TV before. It needed the instant traction a few big names could give it.

Whereas LotR is one of the most popular franchises in history. There's no star who'd be likely to do it who'd draw more eyes than just it being LotR on its own would do.

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On 1/15/2020 at 10:59 AM, BigFatCoward said:

The wire is the greatest show ever made and I didn't know any of the cast from anything beforehand. 

I knew Idris Elba from Ultraviolet, probably still the greatest vampire TV show ever made.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

 

https://redanianintelligence.com/2020/01/25/amazons-lord-of-the-rings-casts-spartacus-actor/
 

Quote

 

Following this month’s announcement we were able to uncover another actor who will be joining the likes of Robert Aramayo, Owain Arthur and Nazanin Boniadi on their journey through Middle-earth.

According to our sources, Simon Merrells has been cast in a recurring role in the show, his exact role is still unknown. 

Merrells is best known for his portrayal of Crassus in Spartacus. His most recent roles include Tancrede in Knightfall and International Express Man in Good Omens.

Stay tuned with Redanian Intelligence for casting and production news for The Witcher, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time and more.

 

 

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I can understand the concern about the sex and nudity to be fair though I seriously doubt that's on the cards anyway but Tolkien was a dude who himself suggested that Helm's Deep be cut from any adaptation of his work for pacing reasons so all those people refusing to accept anything but word-by-word adaptations of his work aren't being true to Tolkien at all.

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7 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I can understand the concern about the sex and nudity to be fair though I seriously doubt that's on the cards anyway but Tolkien was a dude who himself suggested that Helm's Deep be cut from any adaptation of his work for pacing reasons so all those people refusing to accept anything but word-by-word adaptations of his work aren't being true to Tolkien at all.

A bit overstating. He said that the rendition in a script he was reviewing was no good and should either be made better and more coherent or just cut to make more room for the Ent material... and then yes, points out an advantage of dropping Helm's Deep would be that it would make Pelennor Fields more spectacular, but this was responding to a script that was trying to do LotR as one film (and which apparently had a horrific compression of the finale that he hated so much that he just generally disapproved it rather than giving more detailed notes).

Earlier, he did refer to the fact that obviously an adaptation has to make choices of what scenes to depict and how to depict them. He was, OTOH, quite opposed to any kind of fiddling about with the story to have it take place in a shorter time frame than he had carefully worked out.

That said, the petition is silly. 

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Tolkien's position on adaptations was very firmly that they should be:

  1. Artistically satisfying, adhere to the integrity of his world and presenting his vision with respect. OR
  2. Could do what the hell they wanted as long as they gave him an absolute ton of money.

I believe this was as healthy an attitude as could be wished for at the time.

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10 hours ago, Werthead said:

Tolkien's position on adaptations was very firmly that they should be:

  1. Artistically satisfying, adhere to the integrity of his world and presenting his vision with respect. OR
  2. Could do what the hell they wanted as long as they gave him an absolute ton of money.

I believe this was as healthy an attitude as could be wished for at the time.

Yep. Tolkien Senior's position was actually significantly more open than Christopher's.

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1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Yep. Tolkien Senior's position was actually significantly more open than Christopher's.

Tolkien also effectively authorised fanfic and seemed to say he might even approve of official Middle-earth material written by other writers (even telling one correspondent angrily demanding a LotR sequel to write one and send it to his publishers, and if it was good enough they'd publish it), which definitely was not followed through by Christopher.

That said, I suspect Tolkien would only have looked at such works that respected the aesthetics and moods he'd laid down (so no Frodo/Sam slash fic), and I also suspect if this had happened, it would have only applied to works that met his own exacting standards. Given that much of his own work did not, that would have been a tall order.

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4 hours ago, Werthead said:

Tolkien also effectively authorised fanfic and seemed to say he might even approve of official Middle-earth material written by other writers (even telling one correspondent angrily demanding a LotR sequel to write one and send it to his publishers, and if it was good enough they'd publish it), which definitely was not followed through by Christopher.

I take that as Tolkien being sarcastic, and not understanding copyright. I'm thinking of his letter to the publisher where he expresses annoyance at a "young ass" who has written a sequel, and Tolkien thinking that names can't be copyrighted. Which, amongst other things, also shows that Tolkien (of course) was thinking in terms of names. 

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28 minutes ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I take that as Tolkien being sarcastic, and not understanding copyright. I'm thinking of his letter to the publisher where he expresses annoyance at a "young ass" who has written a sequel, and Tolkien thinking that names can't be copyrighted. Which, amongst other things, also shows that Tolkien (of course) was thinking in terms of names. 

I think the reply to the annoyed woman was probably sarcastic, but his long musings on wanting people to write songs and music and come up with new legends and so on seemed much more serious.

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27 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I think the reply to the annoyed woman was probably sarcastic, but his long musings on wanting people to write songs and music and come up with new legends and so on seemed much more serious.

Quote

The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. Absurd.

Emphasis mine. He considered it arrogant and a folly to have thought along those lines when he was younger. By the time LotR was published, he certainly approved things like a young composer seeking permission to do an overture inspired by the Hobbit, or Donald Swann setting the songs to music and performing them, but the two people who tried to get his permission/approval for what was essentially fan fiction were of no interest to him.

Tolkien ultimately seemed happy with art and music inspired by his work, but the writing was his bailiwick.

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3 hours ago, Krishtotter said:

This was anticipated a while ago. In fact, there's some signs they actually sent out some filming crews back in November to do some shooting (probably background plates) so technically the series started production before the 30 November cut-off date, at which point the rights would have reverted to the Tolkien Estate.

Still quite bonkers that the earliest air date for this looks like late and possibly very late 2021.

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  • 1 month later...

Unsurprisingly, filming has been suspended.

However, there seems to be more optimism that filming can be remounted. New Zealand has a tiny number of cases (10, 2 of which have fully recovered and no deaths) and has imposed strict controls on people entering the country. Presuming that the actors and crew don't leave, they can reassess in two weeks time and resume filming if things look good.

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8 hours ago, Werthead said:

However, there seems to be more optimism that filming can be remounted. New Zealand has a tiny number of cases (10, 2 of which have fully recovered and no deaths) and has imposed strict controls on people entering the country. Presuming that the actors and crew don't leave, they can reassess in two weeks time and resume filming if things look good.

I think if I was in New Zealand I wouldn't be in any hurry to leave at the moment.

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