LOTR series: a view of the Two Trees

[Ghjhero]

This is the most disheartening news I could have possible heard. My worst fears come true. If this pans out as poorly as it looks, the Hobbit movies will be fabulous by comparison. 

[Corvinus85]

11 minutes ago, Darryk said:

It's hilarious that the Tolkien Estate would complain about the Peter Jackson trilogy, which made a lot of people into Tolkien fanatics, then allow this potential mess to happen.

Christopher Tolkien was by far the biggest critic of the Jackson movies. And he is gone. 

Anyway, we will learn a little more this Sunday. I guess I will have to watch the Super Bowl for the first trailer.

[The hairy bear]

Everything in the article is just horrible. Every new paragraph descended to even more awful levels. It's just sad.

15 hours ago, Ser Drewy said:

People who listened to a podcast with Vanity Fair are saying the showrunners told them they only have the rights to LOTR + Appendices and The Hobbit. They were searching every page of the LOTR book for stuff to use. No Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales...

This explains many of their choices. So basically, they just can use a ton of throwaway names, a general sequence of events and a few details here and there, without being allowed to use any of the additional information that actually flesh out the story. I honestly can't see how one can hope to depict the downfall of Númenor while avoiding to include anything from Akallabêth that's not in the appendixes. This will turn out bland at best, horrendous at worst.

I'm starting to think that young Aragorn was actually the good pitch.

I'm afraid this show has the potential to sink the prestige of everyone involved: Amazon, the writers, and the Tolkien Estate.

[Ran]

26 minutes ago, Darryk said:

It's hilarious that the Tolkien Estate would complain about the Peter Jackson trilogy, which made a lot of people into Tolkien fanatics, then allow this potential mess to happen.

It's interesting that the article is at pains to point out that CT was still on the board when the auction was first announced. But my understanding is that he basically was worn down by other members of the family, held the line at a relatively limited set of rights (no Silmarillion must have been a major point for CT), and left before things concluded to wash his hands of it. 

As the professor in the article notes, had things been otherwise -- had Tolkien never sold the rights to begin with -- it's probable that the rights simply never would have been sold by the Tolkien Estate so long as Christopher Tolkien lived.

[SpaceChampion]

I just finished bingeing a bunch of First Age videos from the Tolkien Untangled channel on youtube and got the history of that straight, and it does seem the actual stories are much cooler than whatever this thing is.  I'll wait for that channel to do the 2nd Age properly.  The guy is a great storyteller.

Amazon seems like it's making more of a Drunk History of Middle Earth.

 

 

[SpaceChampion]

By the way, did anyone see the latest South Park?  LOTR content there.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

The people objecting to dark skinned elves and dwarves on OneRing.net… really?

[sifth]

12 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The people objecting to dark skinned elves and dwarves on OneRing.net… really?

Stuff like that just makes me sick. The comment section for places like IGN are filled with people posting that sort of trash.

[Ran]

15 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

The people objecting to dark skinned elves and dwarves on OneRing.net… really?

At least the producers acknowledge that it's a change from Tolkien's intentions, rather than pretending that it's what he intended.

Those objecting should consider it to be like Hamilton, since it's unclear that they're actually going to make a point in the actual narrative of an elf or a dwarf being played by an actor of a different ethnicity than those around them. Or like The Great, which has done a fine job of color-blind casting.

[fionwe1987]

However you see it, it's a bit much to ask audiences to buy that the Creator made his firstborn children to be all white, and the "best" of the second born are also all white. It's frankly weakens the story, and this is one change which I have zero issues with. 

[Ran]

28 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

However you see it, it's a bit much to ask audiences to buy that the Creator made his firstborn children to be all white

As opposed to making them all black, which appears to be the actual anthropological history? I'm sure people would also find it odd if they did that, because "multi-ethnic" is how things are today, but that's not how it always was.

The sense that it "weakens the story" is purely an artefact of reception rather than intention. Creation myths tend to assume that the first people looked like the creators of the myths. 

[fionwe1987]

1 minute ago, Ran said:

As opposed to making them all black, which appears to be the actual anthropological history? I'm sure people would also find it odd if they did that, because "multi-ethnic" is how things are today, but that's not how it always was.

The sense that it "weakens the story" is purely an artefact of reception rather than intention.

Firstly, of course, no creator actually made humanity. Secondly, that Homo Sapiens was predominantly dark skinned till about 70,000 years ago is linked to where the species evolved.

You can reasonably say that the Elves having being born in a world without the sun didn't need darker pigmentation to survive (though since they can't die this makes no sense), but approaching Valinor and living there should have changed that, as should living under the Sun later.

For the humans in Tolkien's world, born when the first sun rises, it makes no sense at all for only the fair skinned ones to make it West, which is how the story portrays it. The few thousand years between humanities arrival in Beleriand and the Third Age certainly isn't enough for any kind of evolutionary process, which it isn't clear exists in Tolkien's world anyway. 

[Ran]

13 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Firstly, of course, no creator actually made humanity.

There's a lot of people who would dispute this, not least of all J.R.R. Tolkien, but leave that be. (I myself am agnostic on the matter.)

My point is that if you wanted to translate the "real history" into a "mythic history", that everyone would be black to begin with and then through mythic process become the variety we have today. Ergo, a fictional mythic history can just as well everyone started white, red, yellow, brown, black, or even purple ("Green!"), and there's nothing wrong with that, as such. Because it's a mythic history, and most mythic histories assume the first people were all of one race, whether they're myths from Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, or the Americas. This particular fictional mythology was created by an Oxford don who once wanted to create a mythology for England.

Quote

For the humans in Tolkien's world, born when the first sun rises,

It is a world with a Creator. It makes the sense that the Creator wanted it to make. 

Quote

which it isn't clear exists in Tolkien's world anyway. 

Right. Just as it doesn't exist in the myths of the Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese, etc.

Again, it's a reception issue, a reader issue rather than a narrative issue. Depicting the first people as being all of one race may well be fraught to audiences today, but that's because of modern expectations rather than any failing in the myths, fictional or otherwise.

 

[Corvinus85]

21 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

For the humans in Tolkien's world, born when the first sun rises, it makes no sense at all for only the fair skinned ones to make it West, which is how the story portrays it. The few thousand years between humanities arrival in Beleriand and the Third Age certainly isn't enough for any kind of evolutionary process, which it isn't clear exists in Tolkien's world anyway. 

They didn't. Easterlings made it to Beleriand, too, but the majority ended up joining Morgoth and were likely destroyed in the War of Wrath. So that's one thing that a show like this should be free to change.

I would very much like to see some good Haradrim in the show, which would echo Faramir's pondering (was it Sam in the book?) about that one dead Haradrim after the rangers' ambush.

The Elves that lived under the light of the Trees should look more mystical, imo. I liked the glow Jackson gave Galadriel. The Noldor should be the most powerful Elves in Middle-earth and that could be shown on their bodies, too.

[fionwe1987]

17 minutes ago, Ran said:

There's a lot of people who would dispute this, not least of all J.R.R. Tolkien, but leave that be. (I myself am agnostic on the matter.)

Right, but all those myths fail to account for other races, for the most part, or conveniently downgrade them as lesser. So either they're all wrong, or all fictional. 

17 minutes ago, Ran said:

My point is that if you wanted to translate the "real history" into a "mythic history", that everyone would be black to begin with and then through mythic process become the variety we have today. Ergo, a fictional mythic history can just as well everyone started white, red, yellow, brown, black, or even purple ("Green!"), and there's nothing wrong with that, as such. Because it's a mythic history, and most mythic histories assume the first people were all of one race, whether they're myths from Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, or the Americas. This particular fictional mythology was created by an Oxford don who once wanted to create a mythology for England.

Sure, but unlike those mythic histories, this one is getting a few billion dollars poured into making a profitable TV show that draws eyes across the world.

17 minutes ago, Ran said:

It is a world with a Creator. It makes the sense that the Creator wanted it to make. 

Right. Just as it doesn't exist in the myths of the Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese, etc.

Again, it's a reception issue, a reader issue rather than a narrative issue. Depicting the first people as being all of one race may well be fraught to audiences today, but that's because of modern expectations rather than any failing in the myths, fictional or otherwise.

 

No, I'd argue it is a narrative issue, one that ancient myths share, except unlike those ancient myths, this one was written in a much more modern time. Tolkien made a choice to center his mythos on a particularly race of humans, and other beings who look like that race. Nothing about a constructed mythology requires that choice to be made. 

[HoodedCrow]

Nonsense, the world floats the back of a giant turtle:) Yes, in the real world history we started off as as one celled organisms in the ocean, so I’ve been taught.  There was a lot of branching:) 

[Corvinus85]

Welp, as it happens the rights for movies and video games are now up for sale, too. https://variety.com/2022/film/news/lord-of-the-rings-hobbit-tolkien-zaentz-rights-sale-1235176036/

[Myrddin]

3 hours ago, Ghjhero said:

This is the most disheartening news I could have possible heard. My worst fears come true. If this pans out as poorly as it looks, the Hobbit movies will be fabulous by comparison. 

It'll be like the Star Wars fans who now sing the praises of the Prequels and demand the Sequels be removed from canon and replaced.

I mean, isn't this the same group that nearly drove two actors to suicide and railed against GL for raping their childhood? 

I fully expect the same here. The Hobbit films will suddenly be stellar cinema.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

What did Amazon buy if not the rights to “Unfinished Tales”?

[Ran]

26 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

Welp, as it happens the rights for movies and video games are now up for sale, too. https://variety.com/2022/film/news/lord-of-the-rings-hobbit-tolkien-zaentz-rights-sale-1235176036/

Yes, we were discussing that in the other Tolkien thread. Open question as to what happens to Lord of the Rings Online after the sale is done.

I also think there's a case to be made that WB should put a fly in the ointment and go for these rights, which Amazon will almost certainly be after. It'd give them another IP, and they've had a lot more success at actually getting games made out of the LotR IP anyways than Amazon seems able to do with its own IPs.  And they could do things like limited series, special event films, animated stuff, etc.

@Ser Scot A Ellison

Second Age material in the Appendix and references to the SA in LotR, and then other things "on a case by case basis", seemingly. As others noted, that map that showed Númenor is from Unfinished Tales, so they seem to have negotiated that. Presumably they have also negotiated other bits of Númenórean lore from Unfinished Tales as well, but haven't said so explicitliy. The guess that they're copping some of "Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife" seems likely.