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LOTR series: a view of the Two Trees


Ser Scot A Ellison

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3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Celebrimbor, Elrond, Altharion, Gil-Galad, Galadriel, Celeborn, the Lords of Moria, Sauron, the Nazgul?

These folks did nothing during the Second age?

Unless you think seriously they are just going to do a tale of years covering 3440 years for the entire series and not you know have a concentrated plotline that a TV show requires then yeah I guess most of those would also work.  Sauron is obviously the antagonist so he doesn't need to be mentioned.  I'd guess Gil-galad will be a strong supporting character but lets go through the rest:

The Nazgul did literally nothing mentioned in the SA other than get their rings.  Depending on which Galadriel and Celeborn history you use they do a little bit at the start of the SA in having their.... fiefdom near Evendim and then creating Eregion after they are forced out they do nothing (and aren't even rulers of a land).  Moria shuts its doors and does nothing. By Altharion I assume you mean Aldarian and he gets Numenor sailing and gets divorced and nothing else. Elrond gets beat by Sauron and then hides in Imladris until the War of the Last Alliance.  

My guess is they will be doing a 3-4 season story of the Fall of Numenor and the War of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.  They will have some background eps setting up stuff but if they do that Celebrimbor will be minor because as I mentioned the rings other than the one(and even that not much until the absolute end) are irrelevant to the plots at the end of the SA. 

Making Isildur the main character would make sense because he is actually mentioned to do specific things.  Like saving the white tree in Numenor, escaping from Ithil with his family then going north to get Elendil and Gil-Galad to fight, to putting the curse on the tribes in the white mountains, to cutting the ring from Saurons hand, to losing the rings in the gladden fields.  He is an obvious point where we can follow a focused story.  There's not really anyone else that has that in the SA unless you want them to do a minor story like say Aldarian (minor although interesting) and ignore the bigger stories.

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17 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

My guess is they will be doing a 3-4 season story of the Fall of Numenor and the War of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.  They will have some background eps setting up stuff but if they do that Celebrimbor will be minor because as I mentioned the rings other than the one(and even that not much until the absolute end) are irrelevant to the plots at the end of the SA. 

This doesn't seem correct, to me.

It's all in vague hints, but the first coming of Annatar creates a schism among the Eldar, and we know Gil Galad was suspicious, and Galadriel even more so. There's also a lot of good stuff to mine about why the Elves want to make the Rings in the first place.

I'd be very surprised if we don't get any of this. There's good drama to be had, there.

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19 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

The Nazgul did literally nothing mentioned in the SA other than get their rings.  Depending on which Galadriel and Celeborn history you use they do a little bit at the start of the SA in having their.... fiefdom near Evendim and then creating Eregion after they are forced out they do nothing (and aren't even rulers of a land).  Moria shuts its doors and does nothing. By Altharion I assume you mean Aldarian and he gets Numenor sailing and gets divorced and nothing else. Elrond gets beat by Sauron and then hides in Imladris until the War of the Last Alliance.  

They could always have them do something. After all, the Nazgul are nine men of importance, some of them Numenorean lords. They could explore Sauron's deeds here, and see how Numenorean colonies and Easterlings or Haradrim fall under Sauron's shadow thanks to the corruption of their leaders. If they wanted to, they could setup the guy who eventually becomes the Witch-king as a secondary character of some importance.

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Just now, Corvinus85 said:

They could always have them do something. After all, the Nazgul are nine men of importance, some of them Numenorean lords. They could explore Sauron's deeds here, and see how Numenorean colonies and Easterlings or Haradrim fall under Sauron's shadow thanks to the corruption of their leaders. If they wanted to, they could setup the guy who eventually becomes the Witch-king as a secondary character of some importance.

This is a TV show in which they are spending hundred of millions of dollars to make money/be a prestige show for them.  They are not going to film stuff that isn't necessary as that is.  Afterall in terms of the second age what does it matter if Sauron holds sway over some Numenorian outposts.  When push comes to shove nothing Sauron does matters(and certainly nothing the Nazgul do) in the SA other than winning the trust of Ar-Pharazon.  Having the "all powerful ring" under his control and being at his utmost in power in terms of lands controlled etc did nothing for Sauron when the Numenoreans came. He was forced to surrender or lose everything/get killed.

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26 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

This is a TV show in which they are spending hundred of millions of dollars to make money/be a prestige show for them.  They are not going to film stuff that isn't necessary as that is.  Afterall in terms of the second age what does it matter if Sauron holds sway over some Numenorian outposts.  When push comes to shove nothing Sauron does matters(and certainly nothing the Nazgul do) in the SA other than winning the trust of Ar-Pharazon.  Having the "all powerful ring" under his control and being at his utmost in power in terms of lands controlled etc did nothing for Sauron when the Numenoreans came. He was forced to surrender or lose everything/get killed.

And yet they apparently found the time to include Hobbits.

EDIT: Does the destruction of Eregion also not count? Not to mention that Tolkien believed Sauron's surrender to be a feint and (iirc) that the Ring might have helped him in corrupting the Numenorians.

 

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Just now, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

And yet they apparently found the time to include Hobbits.

Supposedly.

 

And if they are in, who is to say they aren't just a framing device to help non Tolkien lovers?

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15 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

This is a TV show in which they are spending hundred of millions of dollars to make money/be a prestige show for them.  They are not going to film stuff that isn't necessary as that is.  Afterall in terms of the second age what does it matter if Sauron holds sway over some Numenorian outposts.  When push comes to shove nothing Sauron does matters(and certainly nothing the Nazgul do) in the SA other than winning the trust of Ar-Pharazon.  Having the "all powerful ring" under his control and being at his utmost in power in terms of lands controlled etc did nothing for Sauron when the Numenoreans came. He was forced to surrender or lose everything/get killed.

By this logic why bother with Isildur at all? Ultimately he fails to destroy Sauron. His victories are temporary. 

A compelling story can be told of all these events which should include things leading up to the main stuff. I think exploring how a man who was gifted a ring of power turns into a wraith might make for some interesting TV.

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14 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Supposedly.

 

And if they are in, who is to say they aren't just a framing device to help non Tolkien lovers?

From what I could gather, it is a bit more elaborate then a simple framing device:

And then there is the rumor that we are also going to get some First Age material with Finrod, something that is (almost certainly)  unnecessary for the portrayal of the Downfall.

5 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

A compelling story can be told of all these events which should include things leading up to the main stuff. I think exploring how a man who was gifted a ring of power turns into a wraith might make for some interesting TV.

Well as long as it is not Helm Hammerhand

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I think they are leaning on "Middle-earth stuff normies will get," so Isildur because he shows up at the start of the Jackson movies and is namechecked frequently and Hobbits because, well, it's Middle-earth so it needs Hobbits (my guess is that any future Silmarillion series they are setting up will not have Hobbits at all, so the Hobbit presence in the show will be somewhat muted and will decrease as other plot elements start spooling up). That would also tie in with the reports that Galadriel and Elrond will be key, regular characters.

However, the story arc does seem confused. If you're doing the Second Age, the logical thing to do is to have the story of Sauron and the Ring (other familiar elements to casual fans), starting with its forging and the War of Sauron and the Elves and then do a timeskip to the Last Alliance timeframe. With some judicious editing you can fit both stories into a distinct 2-3 season timeline apiece (so lowball the fact that each period is around 100-200 years and do a single narrative for each sequence of events), with Elrond, Sauron, Galadriel, Celeborn and possibly Gil-galad and Cirdan as connective tissue (maybe the Nazgul as well).

It is interesting because one supposed leaker months ago sword blind that we were going to get 5-6 seasons alone on Annatar, the forging of the Rings, the proto-Hobbits and the War of Sauron and Elves, and then the Downfall would be its own 5-6 season show afterwards. That always seemed fanciful and now mercifully seems to be out of the question.

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On 10/25/2021 at 12:22 PM, Corvinus85 said:

By this logic why bother with Isildur at all? Ultimately he fails to destroy Sauron. His victories are temporary. 

A compelling story can be told of all these events which should include things leading up to the main stuff. I think exploring how a man who was gifted a ring of power turns into a wraith might make for some interesting TV.

Because his story is actually you know .... a through line story?  Tragic yes but by your logic why bother seeing/reading Hamlet or Antigone because the good people don't get the ultimate win in the end. And as I already mentioned nothing in the SA gets a happy end to the story.

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On 10/25/2021 at 12:24 PM, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

From what I could gather, it is a bit more elaborate then a simple framing device:

And then there is the rumor that we are also going to get some First Age material with Finrod, something that is (almost certainly)  unnecessary for the portrayal of the Downfall.

Well as long as it is not Helm Hammerhand

Presumably that shot of "Finrod" is just a brief telling of the Silmarillion which is absolutely 100% necessary for a telling of the Downfall.  You have to know why Numenor exists and why it is so powerful.

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2 hours ago, Slurktan said:

Presumably that shot of "Finrod" is just a brief telling of the Silmarillion which is absolutely 100% necessary for a telling of the Downfall.  You have to know why Numenor exists and why it is so powerful.

Finrod is not necessary for the Downfall. The only thing really "necessary" for the Downfall is some bit about the War of Wrath like what Jackson did with the War of the Last Alliance, which threw out Arnor, Numenor and Gil-galad, and implied that Isildur was the last king of Gondor.

I would definitely prefer a more faithful and fuller adaptation of Tolkien's work, but stating that most of the SA is going to be compressed because of "necessity" is rather nonsensical when Amazon makes the time for a storyline about a multicultural, multicethnic, indigenous tribe of Hobbits.

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14 hours ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

Yet another leak/rumor and I am getting major Hobbit flashbacks:

https://twitter.com/FansFellowship/status/1454888076044550147

I think you just triggered memories of the terrible Dol Guldor scenes in the third film for me, lol. 

I really have no idea what to make of this show, one way or another. We've less than crumbs to go on for now. If the rumours are true, or based on truth, it's sounding... odd. I suppose when you're adapting material that's little more than a timeline and some short drafts, there's a lot of invention to get a 50 hour or something series. But how well that invention will turn out... who can say? I don't think it helps much we know nothing about the showrunners, so we can't even try to guess, from prior efforts, what it might be like. 

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To be fair, they are giving us lots of ups and downs ten months before it even comes out. First there was the "Aragorn prequel" idea, which everyone hated, but then they started teasing the Second Age and hinting at the forging of the Ring and Celebrimbor and Annatar and everyone got very excited, and then they formally announced it was the Second Age and (almost) everyone was very happy, even rising to ecstatic levels when they released the image of the Trees of Light, which nobody was expecting.

Then, the last week or two it's been this drip-feed of leaks which have poured a lot of cold water on the excitement. The idea of making a six-season show just out of the Downfall is fairly baffling (even if it's the Downfall + the Last Alliance) when the logical starting point of the story is Eregion and the forging. Sure, there's a complication there in having to do a time skip, but it's hardly onerous and half the cast would stay the same.

But this sounds half-baked, unless it's just a framing device for some long-range flashbacks back to the forging, but Fellowship of Fans is fairly adamant that their sources are claiming that there is no non-linear storytelling beyond a few brief LotR trilogy-style flashbacks.

Still, you absolutely can make a good show out of the Downfall and the Alliance, but it feels like starting halfway through that story rather than at the start.

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Could they be compressing the timeline between the creation of the Rings and the Downfall? Or maybe have the Numenoreans have a longer lifespan?

Either way, I'm sad current leaks indicate we don't get to see Eregion and Annatar and the whole early Second Age stuff, which is where there's a lot of interesting story to mine, IMO.

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1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

Could they be compressing the timeline between the creation of the Rings and the Downfall? Or maybe have the Numenoreans have a longer lifespan?

Either way, I'm sad current leaks indicate we don't get to see Eregion and Annatar and the whole early Second Age stuff, which is where there's a lot of interesting story to mine, IMO.

It seems improbable that the Tolkien Estate would sign off on that, unless the rest of the Estate post-Christopher (even his younger sister, Priscilla) really don't care and just liked the money.

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Some of these leaks make me think we're getting a sense of why Tom Shippey left as a consultant.

To be fair, Shippey also didn't seem to understand what an NDA was, so it might not have been his choice in the matter.

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16 minutes ago, Werthead said:

It seems improbable that the Tolkien Estate would sign off on that, unless the rest of the Estate post-Christopher (even his younger sister, Priscilla) really don't care and just liked the money.

Yes, it does seem improbable, but honestly, so do a lot of these leaks.

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