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Amazon's Lord of the Rings Production |OT|
- Thread starter Spectromixer
- Start date
- Entertainment OT
Yes indeed. If Amazon are confirming this, then they've already been given the go-ahead by the Estate.
If not live action, then an animated series with a focus on two of the three Great Tales; Beren and Luthien and The Children of Hurin.
Creation of Arda with arrival of Melkor & co. for me please! :)
Indeed, but not even Bezos would pay for that i think lol
You never know. He's going all in with this show, plus Iain M Banks' science fiction novels, The Culture, which are full of amazing spectacles too.
So, we are supposed to get at least 5 seasons in the Second Age on Prime, if i remember well?
Correct and they also talked about potential spin-off shows, if the main show is successful.
So the Silmarillion is fair game at this point? I assume as long as the Estate approves?
It depends on the the success of this show and whether or not the Estate are happy with the final result. The working relationship between Amazon and the Estate is key too. If all goes well, the Estate may well licence the rights to the First Age material in the future.
Damn. I bet Bezos is crazy enough to do it if this is at all successful.
I've just noticed that Maxim Baldry isn't mentioned in the cast. He was rumoured to have been cast in the show a few weeks ago. Hmmm.
Could be the case, but I'm not sure who the big names would be and the characters they'd portray. Also, I wonder if we'll see a big name actor cast solely for the opening episodes only to be killed early on, a la Robert Patrick in Stargate: Atlantis.
Same. Hopefully this can help wash away the filth of The Hobbit trilogy.
It's actually a little more complicated than that. Tolkien describes one of the Hobbit clans as "brown-skinned" and some Gondorians as "swarthy", the same word he uses to describe the Haradrim. In one of his late writings he also says one of the three great houses of men had "fair to swarthy skin." Exactly what Tolkien meant by these words is open to interpretation of course.
Tolkien made some mistakes on race, but on real-world issues he was generally ahead of his time for someone born at the height of the British Empire.
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Wait, this is going to be the same story as the LotR book/movies?
For some reason, I thought this was supposed to be either a sequel/prequel based on the books.
I'm kinda not interested now, as the movies we have are more than fine, and with the extended versions all together, it's like a season of a TV show.
For some reason, I thought this was supposed to be either a sequel/prequel based on the books.
I'm kinda not interested now, as the movies we have are more than fine, and with the extended versions all together, it's like a season of a TV show.
It is a prequel, where are you getting the idea that it's a retelling?
I have no idea who any of this people are, I guess they didn't want recognizable people distracting the audience
Is there a reason to think this would be good? Or is this just a bunch of studio executives going, "Well Game of Thrones sure was popular, what IP do we own that's kinda-sorta similar?"
I dunno that much about LotR outside the main trilogy and Hobbit, is there significant material there to base a show off of?
I dunno that much about LotR outside the main trilogy and Hobbit, is there significant material there to base a show off of?
Fall and rise of Sauron, forging of the rings of power, world goes from flat to round... etc.
Huge amount of storytelling potential imo.
Yeah, the storytelling potential of the Second Age is huge. It includes:
- The forging of the great rings.
- Sauron as a very good-looking and cunning villain who tricks a lot of people, even the elves.
- The fall of the kingdom of Numenor, a great civilization that slowly slides over generations from restlessness with their mortality into corruption and oppressive colonialism finally culminating in devil worship. (A lot of people would be surprised how anti-imperial this story is)
- Aldarion and Erendis, one of Tolkien's most emotionally complex stories about a failed marriage where both parties are at fault.
- A younger, more impetuous Galadriel.
- Some big epic wars.
- Interesting themes of mortality, stagnation and how much to preserve the past, and aging
But I assume those are like footnotes in Tolkien's work, he didn't write entire stories and characters set in those times. To me LotR is the story of Frodo, if you make something that's supposedly set in the same world thousands of years earlier, that's just going to be generic fantasy with some recognisable names.
There's definitely less detail than LotR, but if they have the rights to material from The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and History of Middle-earth there's more than just footnotes.
I doubt The Mariner's Wife will be included in this project. It's a lovely tale, but wouldn't really fit in with the overarching narrative of Sauron's rise after the War of Wrath and downfall leading into the Third Age.
Can I have this week's UK lottery numbers please ;)
I mean, I'm not sure they'll use it, but they should. I actually think it fits in pretty well. Aldarion's travels coincide with the early stages of Sauron's rise, and it's also the very first stage of Numenor's corruption. Aldarion is mostly well-meaning, but he exhibits the Numenorean vices in a smaller form and lays the groundwork for the downfall of his descendants.
Plus Erendis is arguably Tolkien's best female character, at least top 3 or 4. And it's by far the most character- and dialog-driven narrative we have in the Second Age.
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I can see that certainly. It's inclusion would however mean a lot of time jumping between seasons and I'm not sure that's the route they will take. Starting the show during the reign of Ar-Pharazon and detailing the sinking of Numenor in the opening season and then carrying on from that point on, following the survivors in Middle-earth up until the War of the Last Alliance makes the most sense to me at least.
Its got one of the largest budgets in a tv series of all time, and supposedly some really fierce passion. Also theyve got a huge timespan of preproduction. So essentially they are being given every benefit possible, just need the writers and directors to knock it out of the park.
Yep, a billion dollar budget over the course of 5 seasons, and a huge scope of history and stories to work with. This will be Amazon's flagship TV show.
Christopher Tolkien is dead. :(
(i didn't know he was in France)
french article:
(i didn't know he was in France)
french article: