To my knowledge, nobody has ever complained about the fact that Daniel Radcliffe's Harry doesn't actually have green eyes or the fact that Emma Watson's Hermione doesn't look like a human beaver for 3 movies, so I would say that it's just generally accepted that fidelity to physical appearance in adaptations isn't a requirement.
I'm actually grateful I know very little of the literary LOTR and nothing outside the main books when it comes to viewing this one.
Nope, other than missing out on a superlative series of books, if the historical era of Alfred the Great and the Danelaw interests you.
Despite being a pretty decent history buff I do not know much of that history. I know the books too and I'm still not fussed by whatever minutia will come from them. I love Tolkien, and if I could have lunch and beer with any person, living or dead, it would be Tolkien. But, he is not the be all end all of when it comes to adaptations of his work. Sorry, that's not why I watch movies. Maybe that's how others approach it. I had to give that up for Lent. In 2014.
I don't care about adherence to the original in Harry Potter or most any other work of literary fiction that I can think of. If I don't like an adaptation, sod it, the books still exist. For some unfathomable reason, I have decided to be precious (sic; as in affectedly protective) about adaptations of Tolkien's work when even he is often inconsistent in his posthumously published works that he never thought would reach publication. I haven't taken my umbrage (no relation of Dolores Umbridge, though) to as ridiculous extremes as some on the Internet, however. I will mostly just feel disappointed if the TV show descends into soap-opera territory and simply bow out of watching it. I think we were spoilt by Peter Jackson's depictions of Elves and especially Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Galadriel. The Elves in what I've seen of the show so far mostly look off somehow. They should have an ethereal, non-human aspect. Of the ones I've seen, it's the controversial, invented character of Arondir who actually seems to have a required quality that I find hard to put into words. The Fall of Númenor, which concerns the Second Age, is due out later this year and it will be interesting to compare its contents with this series. In addition, I've never read Unfinished Tales, so that's another for my list.
If one is looking for Peter Jackson style depiction of Elves I feel disappoint is as sure as being disappointed in the adaptation process making changes that Tolkien would not approve of. For my part, if I wanted approval of dead people I'd be in Catholic Seminary to appease my grandfather, and possible Tolkien as well.
The entire show should be in Sindarin and other Middle-earth languages that were commonly spoken in the Second Age. Not really - but appropriate use of Tolkien's invented languages would help to re-immerse the viewer into his fantasy realm.
Watched the new trailer, and while it looks like very high quality green screen work, it still looks like green screen work... Was hopeful for a look more similar to the LOTR than to the Hobbit...
Well that's fairly irrational. There are plenty of scenes in Jacksons films that are obvious blue or green or even orange screen work. But even with the advances of Technology, and having a huge budget the tv show isn't shot on a film schedule. Nor is the fx work done on film schedule. Even if you had the same people doing the work that alone would show differences in the medium.
Yet while of commanding presence she clearly was never presented at near 6 and a half foot in height, ever in either of the six films Jackson made. Nor did Jackson ever try and make her hair shine with the light from the two trees of Valinor. A significant number of characters in Jacksons films don't match the physical description of the source material, and its a very small number who find it distracting. Now I have to ask are you John Rhys-Davies? As he used the Julie Christie comparison, to the quality of Cate. Now the height issue is interesting because she was only 5 ft 2 inches in height. Now I freely admit I am at very best, just an amateur of the lore of Tolkien, and that's being very generous (I mean his notes by themselves are a fairly large and often conflicting resource) but I honestly don't recall a single line of dialogue from Galadriel in the appendix. Of course the elves in the book and most of the noble born are exceptionally formal with language (hardly surprising with the author). So dialogue should be polished. That for me is far more important factor, then physical comparison and body type. Of course as in all things, each person will have different beliefs on what they feel best connects them with a character in two different mediums.
Quite true, although I think he got pretty close and the Elves in his movies always seem to glow with an inner light - or perhaps that's just my imagination. Julie Christie was 5' 3" tall in her prime and I believe she's still alive. She always seemed like she was taller than that though. She is 1" shorter than Morfydd Clark, but at the same age I think she seemed more elegant and poised. I wasn't aware that JR-D had made a comparison. I definitely had the thought in the early 70s when I wondered how LotR might be adapted. There isn't - that's my point. They've had to invent it. Now whether they've sprinkled in medieval codswallop as in Game of Thrones or attempted to lines that Tolkien might have written, we have yet to hear. From what little I have heard, the dialog sounds somewhat creaky and unpolished. I agree wholeheartedly. We all have our own vision of how things could or should be. It can be hard to dismiss our innate bias in this regard.
On dialogue, because what we (I assume) have heard and seen so far, are small portion of various individual scenes, its hard to fairly judge dialogue. There have been a few that seem jarring to me, but I am less sure its the dialogue in an of itself or because its its cut from a larger portion of dialogue. Now like Jackson I don't expect everything to match Tolkien's style. But Jacksons and the other writers including enough to really help sell the material. With this having almost no real dialogue to work with it will be very interesting to see the final result (be it good, so so or bad).
I never read the books, but I have watched the first 3 or 4 seasons of the shows, and I never noticed any issues with Alexander Dreymon's appearance. He might not look like the character does in the books, but it doesn't really seem to have had to much of an impact on how the story has been presented onscreen. Orange screen? I've never heard of or seen orange screens in special effects.
Nor have I, although I'm no expert. I expect chroma keying can work with colours other than green or blue. It'd only be useful surely with certain foreground objects that do not emit light at orange frequencies. There might be advantages for the amount of lighting required but colour spill through reflection might be as much of a problem as it is for green screen.
The biggest aspect of chroma keying is finding a color that the camera can read as "zero." Green gets used because green is one of the primary channels in cameras. Blue and red could also be used. Orange might be less successful but could depend on the character's clothing. That's my lay person's understanding. No doubt someone can it explain it better.
Green and blue are most common. Although I've noticed that, since the most common use of green screen began years ago, many times the objects being filmed have a sickly-green pall to them. It might be intentional, (like in the original Matrix), but I find it very distracting, like someone forgot to do color correction before laying down the final print. Blue-screened objects also seemed more blue-tinted after post production was completed (which I find more pleasing to the eye). The E-refit in ST3: TSFS really seemed on the blue end of the color spectrum throughout the entire movie, for example. I remember once seeing a red screen, being used while filming a Klingon Bird of Prey. One production still, many years ago. No idea where I can find it now, or when that shot was taken, in any of the movies or during TNG/DS9.
I'll have to look it up when I get home from work, but I think that they used a yellow screen when they were filming "Mary Poppins".