LOTR: Rings of Power (Amazon)

[Count Delinard]

As you probably know Amazon is doing a Lord of the Rings TV series about the second age.

This article came out a few days ago and it has made many LOTR fans worried about the future of the project.

What are your thoughts on the whole thing? Does diversity casting work in Tolkien’s world? How will they successfully condense thousands of years into a coherent TV show? Should we see Galadriel as a warrior princess? Should female Dwarves have beards?

I hope they don’t **** this up but I’m pretty much expecting the worst.

 

[eddiemccandless]

I am still scarred by that Shannara tv show so my expectations are very low.

 

[Count Delinard]

A trailer dropped yesterday btw, I hadn't seen it when I made this thread

 

[Grank]

I'm just gonna leave this here, for the inevitable.

A trailer dropped yesterday btw, I hadn't seen it when I made this thread

Before the fellowship, before the ring, we wuz elves and sheits.

 

[Silen]

A trailer dropped yesterday btw, I hadn't seen it when I made this thread

Amazing how it neither looks nor feels like LOTR. The trailer makes it out to be a typical cookie-cutter fantasy tv series of these days. Reminds me of "the wheel of time" for some reason. I'll reserve further judgement for the actual episodes...

 

[Adorno]

Reminds me of "the wheel of time"

 

[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

as one of the resident tolkien guys^TM

What are your thoughts on the whole thing?

gonna be ****

Does diversity casting work in Tolkien’s world?

yes. it is in fact arguably more accurate to the text than the opposite. it is not one of the many problems with the show, no matter how many snowflakes are crying about it.

How will they successfully condense thousands of years into a coherent TV show?

they won't

Should we see Galadriel as a warrior princess?

her second name literally means "man-maiden" due to her athleticism, she fought against fëanor's goons during the rebellion of the noldor, and she specifically went to middle earth out of a desire to take rulership of her own realm. they will probably overdo it but it's not like it's remotely out of character.

Should female Dwarves have beards?

obviously. (and the one in the promo pic does have some mutton chops going on, it's just lit too poorly to see them well)

 

[Piconi]

Does diversity casting work in Tolkien’s world

Up to a certain measure it can most certainly work.
As far as i remember, characters aren't exactly described in depth, although it was insinuated that Haradrim were dark skinned (i remember imagining them to be Bedouin-like), some other people as well, even that some hobbits ( couple of families or tribes) had dark skin, eyes and hair, even Sam's skin was sometimes described as brown and such.
It all depends on the context and especially who they cast as who exactly - being true to the source material is crucial with audiences like this and not chasing diversity for diversity sake and/or reinvent the wheel (read:The Witcher)

However, any series and films of this sort made after 2009 have failed to even make me go "meh", let alone impress me.

I don't know what it is, but 4th season (if even that) is mark for when series usually go downhill, and up to season 6-9 they die a slow and painfull death.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

Surely I will watch some of the first episodes in international waters but it certainly is not looking good at all...I join the popular clamour of:

Evil is incapable of creating anything new, it is only capable of destroying and ruining what has been created from good
J.R.R. Tolkien

 

[Antoine de Saint-Exupéry]

Evil is incapable of creating anything new, it is only capable of destroying and ruining what has been created from good
J.R.R. Tolkien

i've been waiting for the first person to post that here. the rage brigade has been spamming that everywhere, and it's extremely funny. want to know why?

because all these "concerned fans" are posting a "tolkien quote" that is not in fact a tolkien quote. he didn't write that. it's a false attribution. and you would know this if you were a fan.

definitely nothing ironic about a horde of nerds spamming a quote about poor imitations that is itself a poor imitation to complain about a poor imitation.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

i've been waiting for the first person to post that here. the rage brigade has been spamming that everywhere, and it's extremely funny. want to know why?

because all these "concerned fans" are posting a "tolkien quote" that is not in fact a tolkien quote. he didn't write that. it's a false attribution. and you would know this if you were a fan.

definitely nothing ironic about a horde of nerds spamming a quote about poor imitations that is itself a poor imitation to complain about a poor imitation.

I'm not a trully fan then, thanks for your interest .

 

[Kunshiro]

While surely it's not what the 2 trilogies of Peter Jackson gave us as Elves, this portrayal is not entirely wrong. I have been doing my bit of research and finding clues everywhere, I was able to realise that in the books Tolkien never addresses them as "white" but of "fair skin" which could be interpreted as white or light skin. Curiously, I don’t believe he ever focussed on how white an elf was, but largely on their eyes (the wisdom of the ages gone remained in her deep, bright blue eyes etc), their strength, their skill in craftwork or lore and their fair voices.

Now addressing the elephant in the room: the Black Elf. If the screenwriters and the actor protrays the character well I don't really have any objections. We are talking about a fantasy world, where Dragons and Wizards inhabit the world. Like I stated above, most elves are not acutally described physically, even the most famous one, Legolas, wasn't given the famous blonde hair, but because in The Hobbit Thranduil(his father) had blonde hair. We will see if this casting choice was made with skill in mind or if they had to add some diversity. I can understand your frustration I had it too in a somewhat degree when in Troy they casted David Gyasi for Achilles, but was enraged when I saw he couldn't act.

Finally, I am not seeing the same general uproar this casting has caused as in MacBeth where Denzel Washington played the part of a Scottish King

 

[Adorno]

You're not making sense. Fair skin and blue eyes is white/Caucasian.
Personally I think it's fine to play around with 'races' in a fantasy world like this.
The dark elf is fine if they can somehow explain it. I'm more concerned that he's been added as a new love interest or something like that.
I don't trust writers who have been working in Hollywood for more than a decade to know how this should be written.

 

[Kunshiro]

You're not making sense. Fair skin and blue eyes is white/Caucasian.
Personally I think it's fine to play around with 'races' in a fantasy world like this.
The dark elf is fine if they can somehow explain it. I'm more concerned that he's been added as a new love interest or something like that.
I don't trust writers who have been working in Hollywood for more than a decade to know how this should be written.

How? I am using that example to show that Tolkien never really stated that elves can’t be dark skinned.
I am with you with the explanation. Personally I find the love story in the Hobbit between Tauriel and Kifli to be annoying and just a waste of movie time.

I just find it amusing how people just get mad because they added a Black guy without seeing the movie first

 

[Adorno]

Tauriel and Kifli [sic]

I was specifically thinking of that

 

[Kunshiro]

I was specifically thinking of that

Then I believe we are in agreement.

 

[RightQuandary]

You only get one first impression and my reaction to the articles, teaser video, and pictures is far more worried than interested. What they show, how they've shown it, and the song they've put over it just doesn't match what I expect from a Tolkien-derived programme.

And to be quite frank, I haven't been impressed by most of the adaptations of fantasy stories this past decade so I'm not really expecting much, although I always hope.

These other adaptations didn't even have a reasonable preservation of the characters, lore/canon, plotlines, or themes of their source material. And they also did a poor job translating an appropiate aesthetic and ambiance into their new medium. On top of that, a lot of the dialogue was quite abysmal (I'm looking a you Witcher with all your swearing from a character who really shouldn't be). So most of the time I do think they make an adaptation simply for the name.

 

[Lusitani 5th Empire]

“But you can add new characters and ask a lot of questions, like: What has Sauron done in the meantime? Where was he after Morgoth was defeated? Theoretically, Amazon can answer these questions by inventing the answers, since Tolkien did not describe it. But it must not contradict anything which Tolkien did say. That’s what Amazon has to watch out for. It must be canonical, it is impossible to change the boundaries which Tolkien has created. It is necessary to remain ‘Tolkienian’.”

Amazon's new Lord of the Rings 'cannot use much of Tolkien's plot'

Scholar working on the show says the author’s estate has refused permission to depict any of the events shown in Peter Jackson’s films

www.theguardian.com

So what did Amazon buy? “We have the rights solely to The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, the appendices, and The Hobbit,” Payne says. “And that is it. We do not have the rights to The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-earth, or any of those other books.” That takes a huge chunk of lore off the table and has left Tolkien fans wondering how this duo plans to tell a Second Age story without access to those materials. “There’s a version of everything we need for the Second Age in the books we have the rights to,” McKay says. “As long as we’re painting within those lines and not egregiously contradicting something we don’t have the rights to, there’s a lot of leeway and room to dramatize and tell some of the best stories that [Tolkien] ever came up with.”

What Material Does Amazon Have The Rights To For The Rings Of Power Answered!

One burning question fans have had is what material does Amazon have the rights to for The Rings of Power show? Well we know have an answer courtesy of

lrmonline.com

One original story line centers on a silvan elf named Arondir, played by Ismael Cruz Córdova, who will be the first person of color to play an elf onscreen in a Tolkien project. He is involved in a forbidden relationship with Bronwyn, a human village healer played by Nazanin Boniadi, a British actor of Iranian heritage. Elsewhere, a Brit of Jamaican descent, Sir Lenny Henry, plays a harfoot elder, and Sophia Nomvete has a scene-stealing role as a dwarven princess named Disa—the latter being the first Black woman to play a dwarf in a Lord of the Rings movie, as well as the first female dwarf. “It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like,” says Lindsey Weber, executive producer of the series. “Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their best work when they leave the isolation of their own cultures and come together.”

Amazon’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ Series Rises: Inside ‘The Rings of Power’

One show to rule them all—the first look at a billion-dollar saga set thousands of years before J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendary trilogy.

www.vanityfair.com

Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), a healer and a single mom who runs her own apothecary and lives in Tirharad, a human village located south of Gondor and Mordor. Arondir is her forbidden love.

Arondir (Ismael Cruz Córdova), a silvan elf who was also created for the series. He is the first non-white elf portrayed on screen.

Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — Everything We Know So Far

The long-feared reemergence of a great evil will test unlikely Middle-earth heroes in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which will (at long last) arrive on Prime Video

tvline.com

It's finally official: the Lord of the Rings series at Amazon will debut on September 2, 2022

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973)

 

[Count Delinard]

rip

 

[$harz]

rip

ye bro no one wants to see their childhood being destroyed by some <snip> hollywoodian wokes