The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

[James Arryn]

Playing devil’s advocate re: fellowship idea, while I get that it might be really gimmicky, until we see how it plays out I’ll chalk it up to trying to find the middle ground between the esoteric and the accessible. D&D and PJ got a lot of criticism for how they handled material that wasn’t on the page, and though of course the ‘tone’ of the second age reads differently than the LOTR, it still addresses a lot of the same themes. Knowing that when he did get explicit, Tolkien twice decided on a group of adventurers setting off on a quest, I can see the thinking that using that as a foundation would be an effort to stay within Tolkein’s lines.
 

Provided they go about it very differently, I don’t think we can assume this means they lack imagination. It’s hard enough to please both casual viewers and faithful readers when you’re working off actual text, so starting off with a premise that a) Tolkien has himself repeatedly used when getting explicit and b) worked for audiences, when dealing with ~ ‘new’ material (which the condensing more or less requires) I can see it not being indicative of anything dire. 
 

It might be terrible, they might try the same chord progressions, but until we see it, why assume?

[Mentat]

Was the Eye even Sauron's symbol before he was disembodied as a result of the destruction of Numenor?

[Rhom]

1 hour ago, Mentat said:

Was the Eye even Sauron's symbol before he was disembodied as a result of the destruction of Numenor?

I have wondered the same.

[SpaceChampion]

Peter Jackson is saying Amazon asked him to be involved and then ghosted him:  https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/peter-jackson-amazon-lord-of-the-rings-tv-series-1235193692/

Quote

“They asked me if I wanted to be involved — [writer-producer Fran Walsh] and I — and I said, ‘That’s an impossible question to answer without seeing a script,'” Jackson recalled to Scott Feinberg on The Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter podcast. “So they said, ‘As soon as we get the first couple scripts, we’ll send them to you.’ And the scripts never showed up. That’s the last thing I heard, which is fine. No complaints at all.”

 

Quote

There have been executive changes during the time period in question, as well, with former head of genre programming Sharon Tal Yguado — whom one source described as an advocate of luring Jackson to the project — departing the company in 2019.

Perhaps even more crucially, sources say author J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate was against having Jackson on board. This shouldn’t be surprising, as the estate had no involvement with his films and Christopher Tolkien has previously slammed the trilogy in the press as “eviscerating” his father’s books, claiming they turned his novels into action movies for young people that lack “beauty and seriousness.”

 

[Scott_N]

Them ghosting Peter Jackson is the first positive I've come across on this thread. So yay.

[Scott_N]

Hopefully this will be better in the series proper but based on the trailers, the actress that plays Galadriel lacks gravitas. And G would have that regardless of age. If the show is built around her I don't see it working out well.

[Farerb]

On 7/20/2022 at 6:00 PM, Werthead said:

 

Meet 13 key characters from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
https://ew.com/tv/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-character-guide/

 

*Can't remove the quote box.

[Darryk]

Is it true the show originally had a great team of writers including people who worked on Breaking Bad, but replaced all of them?

[Corvinus85]

Celembrimbor's face being full of wrinkles just doesn't look good.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Darryk said:

Is it true the show originally had a great team of writers including people who worked on Breaking Bad, but replaced all of them?

No, they're all still there in the writers' room.

That's a lot of utter bollocks being spread about the show, especially in the last few weeks, which could have been shut down with a brief Google search. Quite strange.

[Clueless Northman]

19 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Perhaps even more crucially, sources say author J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate was against having Jackson on board. This shouldn’t be surprising, as the estate had no involvement with his films and Christopher Tolkien has previously slammed the trilogy in the press as “eviscerating” his father’s books, claiming they turned his novels into action movies for young people that lack “beauty and seriousness.”

Really, if the Tolkien Estate expects the series to be better, more accurate, more faithful to JRRT, with more beauty and serious than LOTR, then they're completely deluded. That the Hobbit trilogy lacked seriousness, sure, but so did the book, though of course in a very different way - and of course the Hobbit trilogy was mediocre and wasn't close to the book by a wide margin.

[ASOIAFrelatedusername]

2 hours ago, farerb said:

Meet 13 key characters from The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
https://ew.com/tv/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-character-guide/

From the article:

Quote

Unlike his brother, Elrond picked immortality, and he's now searching for his purpose in the regal elven realm of Lindon.

"There's still a lot he has to learn," Aramayo says. "He's sort of battling with the past, or at least that's how I felt, anyway. His father saved the world, which is a lot to live up to."

[...]

But one of the main heroes of The Rings of Power is a far more unassuming figure, a silvan elf named Arondir. As a soldier stationed in the Southlands, Arondir helps keep watch over the humans who live there — humans who, centuries ago, aligned themselves with the evil Sauron.

[...]

Boniadi says she could also identify with Bronwyn's love for her homeland and how she fights to keep her people safe, even as a group of elves maintain an oppressive watch. "As a people, they're trying to redeem themselves from the shackles of their past," Boniadi explains. "She wants to liberate her people from that.

The timeline confusion continues. Was this "centuries ago" supposed to take place in the 1st Age or the 2nd? Are we to assume that, after the 1st Age ended, Sauron did a bit of evil for a while and then buggered off again?

Also why do the Elves bother to keep watch on some random humans and where is this "homeland" supposed to be?

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"You see Isildur as a young man at a crossroads, wanting to pursue his father's shoes and become a ship's captain, but there's also something that's pulling him away from that and pulling him into this romantic view of life outside of the city," Baldry teases.

Also wrong.

Honestly at this point, I have to watch just to see how much they mess up.

[Werthead]

5 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

Really, if the Tolkien Estate expects the series to be better, more accurate, more faithful to JRRT, with more beauty and serious than LOTR, then they're completely deluded. That the Hobbit trilogy lacked seriousness, sure, but so did the book, though of course in a very different way - and of course the Hobbit trilogy was mediocre and wasn't close to the book by a wide margin.

The Tolkien Estate started the whole project in the first place, when Christopher was alive and when he was still head of the Estate.

The Estate put together a package of rights and put it out to tender with HBO, Netflix and Amazon. HBO and Netflix only bid $100 million, saying they wouldn't bid more because they have their own fantasy franchises already underway (the GoTverse and The Witcher), whilst Amazon bid twice as much, so it went with them.

[Ran]

42 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The Tolkien Estate started the whole project in the first place, when Christopher was alive and when he was still head of the Estate.

Source? The rights were sold in November, and Christopher had resigned at the end of August, a process that was probably begun months earlier and may have had him essentially say he was wiping his hands of Estate matters while waiting for the technicalities and paperwork to be finalized. The first leak of any negotiations was in November as well, and the deal was closed within like two weeks of the rumors. 

I vaguely recall an article suggesting that CT was still around when other members of the Estate board mooted the idea, or possibly even that he had been overruled (either in fact, or de facto if, at 93 years of age, he was feeling unwilling to argue over it). The fact that he quit the board when he did -- while remaining the literary executor -- strongly suggests he was not really in favor of this, IMO.

ETA: Ahh, Vanity Fair was the one that reports -- without giving precise timing -- that the "surprising auction" was announced while Tolkien was "preparing to retire". Suffice it to say, the retirement and the rights auction are pretty clearly linked together. I would not assume that when the package was put together and the auction was announced that CT was the "head of the Estate" in anything but a technical sense.

 

[Werthead]

Hither.

Quote

Amazon, Netflix and HBO had been approached by the Tolkien estate, who had been shopping the project. It came with an upfront rights payment said to be in the $200 million-$250 million range, and I hear Amazon landed the rights by paying close to $250 million. That is just for the rights, before any costs for development, talent and production, in proposition whose finances industry observers called “insane.” It is a payment that is made sight unseen as there is no concept, and there are no creative auspices attached to the possible series. On top of that, the budget for a fantasy series of that magnitude is likely to be $100 million-$150 million a season.

The impetus for the TV show was apparently the Tolkien Estate and Warner Brothers settling their long-running legal disputes in July 2017.

So negotiations began when CT was still head of the Estate. Whether he was somehow overruled by the rest of the Estate and he stepped down, or he'd already decided to step down and basically let the Estate do what they wanted, is purely speculative. The timing is suggestive, though.

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The timing is suggestive, though.

To put it mildly.

[Slurktan]

23 hours ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

The timeline confusion continues. Was this "centuries ago" supposed to take place in the 1st Age or the 2nd? Are we to assume that, after the 1st Age ended, Sauron did a bit of evil for a while and then buggered off again?

Also why do the Elves bother to keep watch on some random humans and where is this "homeland" supposed to be?

What timeline confusion?  As far as I know there is not different timelines they are merely condensing.  Presumably the elves are watching everywhere and they note southlands which I presume will be Harad and the future Mordor.

[Ser Drewy]

New Brazil teaser

[Ser Drewy]

On 8/6/2022 at 10:38 PM, Ran said:

Source? The rights were sold in November, and Christopher had resigned at the end of August, a process that was probably begun months earlier and may have had him essentially say he was wiping his hands of Estate matters while waiting for the technicalities and paperwork to be finalized. The first leak of any negotiations was in November as well, and the deal was closed within like two weeks of the rumors. 

I vaguely recall an article suggesting that CT was still around when other members of the Estate board mooted the idea, or possibly even that he had been overruled (either in fact, or de facto if, at 93 years of age, he was feeling unwilling to argue over it). The fact that he quit the board when he did -- while remaining the literary executor -- strongly suggests he was not really in favor of this, IMO.

ETA: Ahh, Vanity Fair was the one that reports -- without giving precise timing -- that the "surprising auction" was announced while Tolkien was "preparing to retire". Suffice it to say, the retirement and the rights auction are pretty clearly linked together. I would not assume that when the package was put together and the auction was announced that CT was the "head of the Estate" in anything but a technical sense.

 

Honestly, Christopher was in his 90s and starting to look it when the Amazon deals were going on. I find it unlikely he had a particular change of heart, and more than likely he just didn't have the energy left to put up much objection to the will of the younger Tolkiens. 

[Ran]

Agreed, which is why I questioned the emphasis on his being the "head" of the estate when by all indications he was by this point the head of the Estate in name only and was halfway out the door.