The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

[FourWheelDrift]

Starts on Amazon Prime.

[Ivo Shandor]

So, Lord of the Rings is actually in the title, I was wondering what it would be. Bit cheap, but it's the brand people know, looks like it's going to be all about them, which is a shame, but predictable.

I have an inkling this will be as horrible and disrespectful to JRR as The Watch was to Terry Pratchett. Will probably look rather nice though, like a beautifully garnished cack sandwich.

[JagLover]

Interesting

So they seem to be starting at near the beginning of the second age then by the title and some of the description I can find online.

That is a bold decision given the length of time they are going to be covering if they are ending with the last alliance. Big time skips between seasons perhaps?

Personally I would have started much later to give a more coherent story. Isn't there a conflict between Sauron and the Elves? and the Númenorians then intervene as some of their colonies are attacked.

That seems to me a better starting point and you can keep most of the same cast throughout due to how long lived the Elves and the men of Numenor are.

Anyhow hope they are respectful to JRR Tolkein's work and don't ruin another series with woke b*llox.

Edited by JagLover on Wednesday 19th January 17:07

[steveatesh]

Sadly they weren’t that faithful to The Hobbit which I suspect is far more well known that the pre-rings stories are…… I fear the worst in that respect.

[Ivo Shandor]

Tom Shippey, the expert they used for the films left in 2020. A few people have left the production. A quote from the makers is; "a lot of scope for interpretation and free invention."
Great.

[Fabric]

Regardless of how it'll turn out (I'm cautiously optimistic), it's pretty cool they actually shot the teaser by hand rather than with CGI.

[JagLover]

Ivo Shandor said:

Tom Shippey, the expert they used for the films left in 2020. A few people have left the production. A quote from the makers is; "a lot of scope for interpretation and free invention."
Great.

To be fair there is a great deal of scope for "interpretation and free invention" as all they have to go on in terms of the script are the short notes in the appendixes to LOTR and whatever other notes are out there left by Tolkein.

The issue is more whether they have the talent to make the most of their "scope for interpretation and free invention". From what we have seen over the years there is a great gulf in writing talent between some of the greats of the fantasy genre and modern script writers, at least when it comes to Fantasy films/TV shows.

[Ivo Shandor]

JagLover said:

To be fair there is a great deal of scope for "interpretation and free invention" as all they have to go on in terms of the script are the short notes in the appendixes to LOTR and whatever other notes are out there left by Tolkein.

I like to keep on eye on stuff I'm into. Everything that is coming out the the production, makes me think that they are inserting stuff that Tolkien did not make, I definitely know they are changing some things (for their own biases) because JRR was clear on what Middle Earth was.
This is a short video by one of my fave Youtubers, Justsomeguy. He's a massive Tolkien nut (maybe knows more than do ).
Amazon wants to ape Game of Thrones, and throw in their own 'politics.'

Gondor in Transition: A Forced Allegory

https://youtu.be/S0zjdUMTz2Y

[nammynake]

First trailer out now. Loads of people moaning that it’s not true to lore and too much artistic license. All six originals strayed from the book so I don’t see the issue, and given the patchy history pre-Hobbit then surely some artistic license is needed, if not vital.

Hopefully no snowboarding Legolas…

https://youtu.be/OCLoZI-FOYA

[Magikarp]

I’d have liked to have seen something exploring the many misdeeds of the most interesting of the early age characters - Melkor.

[JoshSm]

I really question if the money they've poured into this will be even vaguely worth it. The Hobbit trilogy put me right off the film series (too much hubris from the makers, not enough decent content), and there's too many mediocre fantasy series on TV to think about squeezing another one in, especially if it's basically made up from scratch using morsels from the backstory.

Maybe it'll be surprisingly good but right now it isn't on my watch list.

[Mcphisto]

Female (without a beard) black dwarfs and black elves. hmmmm Not sure JRRT would have wrote that. Still looks good but I wish they wouldn't dick about with things to try and fit and agenda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QJbAbe2yyo&t=...

[Ivo Shandor]

Magikarp said:

I’d have liked to have seen something exploring the many misdeeds of the most interesting of the early age characters - Melkor.

They don't own the rights, bless Eru!!!

[Ivo Shandor]

JoshSm said:

I really question if the money they've poured into this will be even vaguely worth it.

I doubt it, it looks cheap considering how much they're blathering about the cash they've spent.
With the soft conservative movement in US programming, I wonder if this is where then current paradigm changes.

[kalexan273]

JoshSm said:

I really question if the money they've poured into this will be even vaguely worth it. The Hobbit trilogy put me right off the film series (too much hubris from the makers, not enough decent content), and there's too many mediocre fantasy series on TV to think about squeezing another one in, especially if it's basically made up from scratch using morsels from the backstory.

Maybe it'll be surprisingly good but right now it isn't on my watch list.

Looking at Youtube stats;

Dr Strange trailer - 21m views, 1.3m likes 5k dislikes

The Rings of Power - 7.3m views, 61k likes 23k dislikes, that's quite poor in terms of likes

The shows 'creators' Mckay and Payne? only ever involved one film before this show, writing Star trek Beyond. Basically it's a car crash waiting to happen, sure it will look pretty, but it's 5 seasons of a TV show based on 200 pages of original material which will be scripted by people with little knowledge or probably respect of Tolkiens work. Without depth to the source work they are making things up as they go along, a bit like the final few season of Game of Thrones, though this will be with a strict rule of identity politics first and common sense second.

$1B budget, guess the only other way to burn as much money is to enter the space race.

[Ivo Shandor]

kalexan273 said:

$1B budget, guess the only other way to burn as much money is to enter the space race.

First man on Mars!

Surprised it's got only 20k dislikes actually, I wouldn't be surprised if there's bots to prop up the likes.

[tangerine_sedge]

Mcphisto said:

Female (without a beard) black dwarfs and black elves. hmmmm Not sure JRRT would have wrote that. Still looks good but I wish they wouldn't dick about with things to try and fit and agenda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QJbAbe2yyo&t=...

I think if he was writing today, he probably would have black characters, and I don't think there's anything in Tolkien which states all dwarves have beards regardless of gender.

The bigger worry for me is that almost every frame of the trailer seemed to be CGI, so I think it'll just look a little too uncanny valley for me.

[Ivo Shandor]

tangerine_sedge said:

I think if he was writing today, he probably would have black characters, and I don't think there's anything in Tolkien which states all dwarves have beards regardless of gender.

The bigger worry for me is that almost every frame of the trailer seemed to be CGI, so I think it'll just look a little too uncanny valley for me.

Possibly, JRR had certain aims when he started his enterprise. There are other races in Middle Earth, mentioned in LotR and some actually seen at the end; the people of Khand, the Variags, the Easterlings, Near and Far Harad, and in The Return of the King Sam does see a black soldier, which is strange for him as it's so outside his experience.
In the other works from the First Age some different races of men do turn up, people sort of connected to Asia I would say from memory, I can't recall the Second Age, it's been many years since I last read the SA stories.

Edited by Ivo Shandor on Monday 14th February 18:33

[Rumblestripe]

Just watched the Teaser Trailer on You Tube and the comments section is flooded with comments in Russian and (guess) Serbian. All quoting Tolkien but plainly not happy about the black dwarves and elves, because fantasy characters can only be white. It's all rather depressing especially given the current political situation in Eastern Europe. The last thing that Professor Tolkien would have wanted was to cause conflict.

I have no opinion on the series from watching that, other than they have obviously spent a lot of money on it. If it is poop it won't be because of the skin colour of some characters it will be because they have strayed from the heart of the story. The bearded female dwarf thing is a Terry Pratchett invention not Tolkien. The problem with "The Watch" was not that they had altered the gender of the Patrician (they had) but that they had changed everything including the setting moving it to some "Steam Punk" universe and (the worst heresy) altered the character of Sam Vimes.

[Ivo Shandor]

Rumblestripe said:

I have no opinion on the series from watching that, other than they have obviously spent a lot of money on it. If it is poop it won't be because of the skin colour of some characters it will be because they have strayed from the heart of the story. The bearded female dwarf thing is a Terry Pratchett invention not Tolkien. The problem with "The Watch" was not that they had altered the gender of the Patrician (they had) but that they had changed everything including the setting moving it to some "Steam Punk" universe and (the worst heresy) altered the character of Sam Vimes.

Tolkien's dwarves did have beards, the worse crime is that they are not seen by anyone outside Dwarf society. Terry made fun of it by saying even the Dwarfs themselves can't tell each other apart, it requires some delicacy on wedding nights.