Annoyingly, that's exactly the sort of thing that tends to happen in other franchises.
Spoilers Lord of the Rings TV series
- Thread starter Cyrus
- Start date
Annoyingly, that's exactly the sort of thing that tends to happen in other franchises.
Yeah, yeah, I know, but I'm trying to be optimistic! Is that so wrong?
Honestly, the non Trilogy or Hobbit stuff is so dense and unfriendly that I just want them to do cool stuff with the show, I could care less whether it matches the silmarillion or anything else. It's like when I was playing that second Mordor game from Ubisoft last year, and I really enjoyed what it did with shelob and stuff around the Rings even though it was all extremely non-canon.
In this very rare instance, I'd say take the cool stuff from the outside material and use what they want regardless of weather in fits tolkien's ideas or timeline. From what I understand, all the outside stuff was just from his papers and writings and was mostly stuff he hadn't really nailed down permanently, so I don't mind tweaks or complete changes if it leads to interesting stuff.
It'd be a pretty boring show if we can't have any of the Wizards in it, I'm already worried they're trying to make diet Game of Thrones, so as many Lord of the Rings elements as they can fit in the show to make it feel like it's in The Lord of the Rings universe is fine with me, regardless of what it goes against in the outside material.
In this very rare instance, I'd say take the cool stuff from the outside material and use what they want regardless of weather in fits tolkien's ideas or timeline. From what I understand, all the outside stuff was just from his papers and writings and was mostly stuff he hadn't really nailed down permanently, so I don't mind tweaks or complete changes if it leads to interesting stuff.
It'd be a pretty boring show if we can't have any of the Wizards in it, I'm already worried they're trying to make diet Game of Thrones, so as many Lord of the Rings elements as they can fit in the show to make it feel like it's in The Lord of the Rings universe is fine with me, regardless of what it goes against in the outside material.
I would say that if you're going to mess that much with the material then just make a new show--but that wouldn't have the same name value, even if it is only Middle Earth IN NAME.
I mean, why make a new show? There's a lot of interesting stuff in Lord of the Rings Universe you could do well ignoring the honestly pretty jumbled and incoherent stuff Tolkien wrote outside of the main for books. This is a situation where cherry picking the good stuff and ignoring the huge amount of boring and or incoherent stuff would really be helpful. One of the reasons the vast majority of people that like the Lord of the Rings don't bother with the extra material is because any potential good stuff in that material is almost impossible to find beneath all the overwritten stuff.
as as far as I'm concerned, if JRR Tolkien himself didn't publish it, it doesn't matter if you change it. He never finalized anything in the material outside of The Hobbit and the trilogy, so nothing should really be treated as gospel. let's be honest here, the silmarillion and related stuff have good ideas but are literally painful to try to read, it's more like interpreting scripture and is just not well written in the context of trying to tell a story well. the Lord of the Rings show should take the cool stuff from the bonus material but it chuck anything that isn't going to work for a show or just would make the show worse, because it's not like the material is very adaptable without changes anyway
they're trying to make a show using materials that were never meant to be read even as books and are fairly impossible to adapt because they're just not written coherently. Changes are inevitable, and I just like to see events mentioned in the movies or books in a interesting and understandable way
Most of the events I mentioned in my previous posts are included in LOTR, specifically in Appendix A (Annals of the Kings and Rulers) and Appendix B (The Tale of Years), not The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion only contains a more detailed explanation of the events surrounding the Downfall of Númenor.
Considering how over-the-top angry you get when movies/shows make changes to properties you like, maybe you should stop advocating that Amazon do the same to Tolkien's work just because it's not digestible enough for you.
Considering how over-the-top angry you get when movies/shows make changes to properties you like, maybe you should stop advocating that Amazon do the same to Tolkien's work just because it's not digestible enough for you.
Personally, I’m super-excited material outside of the LOTRs and The Hobbit is being utilised: there is so much world-building, events, spectacle, and interesting characters contained in much of Tolkien’s additional writings - and even some of the unpublished and unused writings still bear much fruit for readers - and would be great to use in the context of the series.
I can’t wait to see what Amazon do!
I can’t wait to see what Amazon do!
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Some changes are inevitable and needed, especially in something as dense as LoTR and its bonus material. There is a reason that stupid crap like Tom Bombadil was completely removed from the movies, he was a poorly written detour from the plot that added nothing to the story and would have tanked the film. Tolkiewn was a great but also flawed writer, and his LOTR bonus material was pretty universally terribly written.
This wouldn't be some unneeded changes done because someone is using a brand to make their own show, this is taking the seeds of good ideas from unreadable Tolkien gibberish and translating them for the vast majority of people who would like to see more LoTR stuff adapted but aren't literary professors. I don't care what they were in, the appendices weren't in the films and even as someone who has probably read the trilogy half a dozen or more times I don't remember a single thing from the appendices, they aren't exactly essential to the plot. They're just notes, good to use as a basis but there is no reason to follow them religiously.
Some things should stay close to the source material, comic book stuff being the biggest example in my opinion. But we're talking about unreadable and/or unmemorable bonus material for books that came out before my parents were born. Obviously we don't want a Hobbit film situation, but good writers can take good ideas and make them fit in different contexts. The people that care about deep Tolkien lore are a niche group in a niche group to begin with, so they should probably prepare for the TV show not giving a shit about what they want. Better material then the LOTR bonus stuff has gotten huge changes for much less of a reason, but in the LOTR TV show's case it could easily be for the better.
It could also be complete crap, after The Hobbit films its obvious that adapting LOTR stuff can be completely bungled even by people who did it well before. But the show will not work if they have to precisely follow what are basically just random notes/brief stories done by Tolkien that weren't even in the main text of any of the books. The stuff not directly in The Hobbit or Trilogy tends to be badly written and have all of Tolkien's worst habits as a writer at the forefront, there are going to be drastic changes if not just doing an almost completely original story with some recycled plot points.
Wow, so when a show or movie doesn't follow source material you like, you'll write a fucking 20 paragraph post about how horrible it is, and how stupid everybody involved was because they went off book, but then when you don't like the source material, they have to diverge from it.
What about all of the people who like that stuff, and want to see it onscreen? Are they just supposed to suck it up, just so you can get what you want?
What about all of the people who like that stuff, and want to see it onscreen? Are they just supposed to suck it up, just so you can get what you want?
No, I wouldn't. Let them have their secrets.
I'm pretty surprised to read this coming from you--you are the guy who drops F-bombs over changes to comic book stories that don't mesh with the version you want.
Apparently the stunt work on the show has been very unsafe:
Specifically, the report notes that three stunt workers on the show have been “seriously” injured during its shoot, including one performer, Elissa Cadwell, who reportedly received a $500,000 payment from Amazon after suffering an on-set injury. (The Herald report takes pains to make it clear that this payment was “reportedly in part to help Cadwell get back home and settled in Australia and was not an admission of guilt by Amazon.”) Additionally, Dayna Grant—a veteran performer whose career stretches back to her days doubling for Lucy Lawless on the set of Xena—suffered, per Deadline, a concussion while filming the show. (Grant is reportedly about to undergo brain surgery to address an aneurysm, although it’s important to note that she worked on multiple projects after Rings, and that there’s no clear link between her current condition and the injury on the show.)
The only stunt performer who went on the record with the Herald about safety concerns, though, was Thomas Kiwi, who previously filmed on several of Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit movies. Kiwi called out the show’s handling of stunts as “so unsafe,” noting that he left the series in March after suffering a rotator cuff injury in the aftermath of a backflip stunt. Kiwi says that his concerns about his rigging for the stunt were glossed over by the show’s staff, and that industry-standard practices, include a meeting with the people who’d be rigging him up for wire work to talk over the stunt, were skipped. “They should be more on to it,” Kiwi said, “Because there’s a lot of shit that’s happening in the stunt department and a lot of unsafe stuff that’s happened. I just left.”
The only stunt performer who went on the record with the Herald about safety concerns, though, was Thomas Kiwi, who previously filmed on several of Peter Jackson’s Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit movies. Kiwi called out the show’s handling of stunts as “so unsafe,” noting that he left the series in March after suffering a rotator cuff injury in the aftermath of a backflip stunt. Kiwi says that his concerns about his rigging for the stunt were glossed over by the show’s staff, and that industry-standard practices, include a meeting with the people who’d be rigging him up for wire work to talk over the stunt, were skipped. “They should be more on to it,” Kiwi said, “Because there’s a lot of shit that’s happening in the stunt department and a lot of unsafe stuff that’s happened. I just left.”
We have our first look of the show.
Looks like it's probably during a flashback to the First Age.
We also have a premiere date: September 2, 2022.
Looks like it's probably during a flashback to the First Age.
We also have a premiere date: September 2, 2022.
SQUEE! 
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