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Lord of the Rings Television

'Lord of the Rings' Prequel Series Will Explore 'Unseen History' of Middle-Earth (geektyrant.com) 183

Posted by EditorDavid from the back-and-there-again dept.
The site GeekyTyrant is excited about Amazon's upcoming eight-episode series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power — premiering September 2 and set in Middle-earth's "Second Age," thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings.) With the film being set in a completely different age, I was expecting Middle-Earth to be very different than what we've seen in the past. As we've seen in the first trailer that was released, the show does has a similar visual style as Peter Jackson's films, but things are definitely going to be different.

During a recent interview with Empire, Rings Of Power concept artist John Howe, teased some of the surprises that are in store:

"This isn't the Middle-earth you remember. This is a world that's very vibrant. The elves are not hidden away in Mirkwood or lingering in Rivendell. They're busy constructing kingdoms. The dwarven kingdom of Moria is not an abandoned mine and the Grey Havens is not yet an abandoned city. I loved having the opportunity to explore that unseen history."

He went on to share that the series will finally explore the oceans of Middle-Earth and says that there will be a set of seafaring elves.
Or, as Amazon's press release puts it, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power "will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien's pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness...."

The Independent notes the show "has been in the works since 2017" — and that Prime Video bought the rights for $250m (£183m). And now Prime Video has even invited some JRR Tolkien fans to attent a preview screening of the show: [F]ans of Middle Earth were nervous ahead of sitting down to watch footage from the show — but those nerves soon made way for excitement, with fans praising the series as well as the showrunners, JD Payne and Patrick McKay.... Fan Dr Maggie Parke said that the showrunners "kept up with the best of us", stating: "Their passion & knowledge made me feel like they were one of us, they get it. I'm feeling very optimistic...!"
The newspaper quotes another preview attendee's conclusion that ""We, as Tolkien fans, are in good hands! Above and beyond, I was absolutely blown away. I cannot wait to see more — it's just beyond words."
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'Lord of the Rings' Prequel Series Will Explore 'Unseen History' of Middle-Earth More

'Lord of the Rings' Prequel Series Will Explore 'Unseen History' of Middle-Earth

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  • So . . . they're making "The Silmarillion"? (Score:3)

    by mmell ( 832646 ) on Sunday May 15, 2022 @11:56PM (#62537618)
    Well, call me Camlost!

  • *crosses fingers, crosses toes* (Score:5, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @12:05AM (#62537630)

    Oh please, please PLEASE let these shows be filled with plenty of angst-driven, interpersonal-relationship drama! We don't get nearly enough of that in other current TV shows and movies!

    • Re:*crosses fingers, crosses toes* (Score:5, Funny)

      by governorx ( 524152 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @12:23AM (#62537676)

      Don't worry. I hear Sauron became evil because someone didn't call him by his preferred pronoun. Then he went all triggly puff. But it wasn't until after he got a botched gender reassignment surgery the he started to really hate humans. Then he found out that the hormone therapy left him infertile, so he decided to kill everyone.

      • Dear God, where are my my mod points for this treasure?

      • I'm sure they'll also find some way to work how it was actually political polarization which lead to all the wars in LOTR. Bonus points if they invent some sort of middle-earth version of Twitter, probably with actual birds carrying Tweets on tiny little scrolls.
         

        • If its truly supposed to follow the appendices then its going to be a bunch of deities having a pissing match. Tolkien essentially gave Britain a mythology comparable to ancient greece and rome.

          • If its truly supposed to follow the appendices then its going to be a bunch of deities having a pissing match. Tolkien essentially gave Britain a mythology comparable to ancient greece and rome.

            It was Nordic mythology that influenced Tolkien heavily. https://theculturetrip.com/eur... [theculturetrip.com] I think we should retcon some highly successful original woke story to turn it into a 1950's man story.

            Oh wait, there aren't any.

    • Oh please, please PLEASE let these shows be filled with plenty of angst-driven, interpersonal-relationship drama! We don't get nearly enough of that in other current TV shows and movies!

      this is Amazon Prime Video not CW so probably just ends up being slightly disappointing and/or forgettable.

      • Theres going to be some woke culture in there. Its almost a given. Hopefully not nearly as bad as netflix, or CBS/Paramount. CBS cant do a single show without 2/3rd the cast being some variant of wokeness. It doesnt matter if they find themselves 3000yrs in the future, Apparently wokeness is the ONLY fad to survive more than a century.

        • Theres going to be some woke culture in there. Its almost a given. Hopefully not nearly as bad as netflix, or CBS/Paramount. CBS cant do a single show without 2/3rd the cast being some variant of wokeness. It doesnt matter if they find themselves 3000yrs in the future, Apparently wokeness is the ONLY fad to survive more than a century.

          Have you seen the amazon commercial where Medusa doesn''t want to kill people, so she buys a pair of sunglasses and people can't see her eyes. Then she goes into a bar, enjoying some time with the gurls. A guy across the bar smiles at the ladies, so Medusa takes off her sunglasses and kills him.

          You can bet with misandry like that being used to appeal to the woke, where a smile by a man (plus apparently the forbidden "male gaze") is a valid reason for killing a guy, this LOTR prequel by the same company w

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by skam240 ( 789197 )

            Wow, that commercial really traumatized you didnt it? You do realize that much like in video games or movies that guy was not actually killed, don't you?

    • "plenty of angst-driven, interpersonal-relationship drama"

      This is a world where Galadriel's cousin invented war because someone stole his jewelry, in the process cursing the whole family. The things you imagine Amazon to be corrupting the story with are already in the source material.

  • God make it stop.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by beheaderaswp ( 549877 ) * on Monday May 16, 2022 @12:10AM (#62537638)

    Can we please, for the love of the uncertainty principle, stop extending great pieces of entertainment into never ending mediocrity?

    It's really too much. Why do we feel the need to destroy our own folklore?

    • Re:God make it stop.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lister king of smeg ( 2481612 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @12:58AM (#62537756)

      Can we please, for the love of the uncertainty principle, stop extending great pieces of entertainment into never ending mediocrity?

      It's really too much. Why do we feel the need to destroy our own folklore?

      because that's what humans always do. Virgil wrote the aeneid crappy fanfic level sequal to the Iliad and the Odyssey, Ovid did shitty Latin rewrites of the Greek myths, medieval monks rewrote the Norse and Celtic mythologies to make gods into weirdly immortal human kings or fairies.

    • Re:God make it stop.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Notabadguy ( 961343 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @01:45AM (#62537834)

      To counterpoint ....

      Some of us like it. LOTRO - the online MMO - had a fantastic exploration of middle earth, and I have amazingly fond memories of years of exploring middle earth and learning more about the lore surrounding the universe that Tolkien created. I'm looking forward to seeing the universe expanded more.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by quall ( 1441799 )

        Expanded or changed? You likely enjoyed the game because it followed the lore of the books and the world created within them. The reason people are complaining with this new series is because Amazon is being too liberal with it. It's like taking a Black Panther movie and then making 60% the tribesman into white/asian/latino people, and then making most male characters weak or pathetic even. That wouldn't fit into that world or even a tribalism society portrayed in the comics. They wouldn't be expanding Blac

    • Re:God make it stop.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @04:59AM (#62538080) Homepage Journal

      It hasn't even broadcast yet... And Amazon does have a decent track record. Bosch is one of the best TV shows in the last couple of decades.

      I think I'll at least wait to see it before writing it off.

    • Can we please, for the love of the uncertainty principle, stop extending great pieces of entertainment into never ending mediocrity?

      It's really too much. Why do we feel the need to destroy our own folklore?

      Well, clearly Tolkien himself drew upon a great deal of folklore, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      At the end of the day, it's fiction - and over centuries, existing fiction is embellished and modified - e.g. The Bible.
      It just happens a little faster now and often the quality leaves little to be desired, but I'm sure the same could be said of much written fiction throughout the ages, that expands upon and/or demolishes existing "folklore".

      • Can we please, for the love of the uncertainty principle, stop extending great pieces of entertainment into never ending mediocrity?

        It's really too much. Why do we feel the need to destroy our own folklore?

        Well, clearly Tolkien himself drew upon a great deal of folklore, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        At the end of the day, it's fiction - and over centuries, existing fiction is embellished and modified - e.g. The Bible. It just happens a little faster now and often the quality leaves little to be desired, but I'm sure the same could be said of much written fiction throughout the ages, that expands upon and/or demolishes existing "folklore".

        It is a pity that today's people are not capable of making their own folklore. Tolkien's folklore was distinctly nordic in origin. https://theculturetrip.com/eur... [theculturetrip.com]

        But he took influence, not say, make Odin a dark skinned transgender woman.

        And that's the difference. If the woke wish to make an incredibly diverse and inclusive mythology, would it not make more sense to create one of their own? If you want to borrow from non fair-skinned people mythologies there are a lot of African mythologies to choose

    • Can we please, for the love of the uncertainty principle, stop extending great pieces of entertainment into never ending mediocrity?

      This is not quite the same as what they normally do though. Tolkien did provide a history and storylines for a LoTR prequel in the second age so it's not like they had to make everything up which is what usually ends in disaster as everything gets warped to fit timing and cost budgets and to deliver modern political messages. That does not mean it is going to be a success but it is, perhaps, a reason to hope that it might be.

      • This is not quite the same as what they normally do though. Tolkien did provide a history and storylines for a LoTR prequel in the second age so it's not like they had to make everything up which is what usually ends in disaster as everything gets warped to fit timing and cost budgets and to deliver modern political messages.

        "The backstory is already written? We ain't got time for that! We have to be modern and relevant!"

    • Did you actually enjoy any written work outside of The Hobbit and LOTR? Anthologies and Appendices is mostly all I found. Nothing really cohesive.

    • I'll turn off the moment Gollem (Smeagol)/Bilbo/Sauron or any of the other characters appear, or even their ancestors appear. If it's thousands of years before, then there should be absolutely no obvious link between characters, otherwise it's just Star Wars prequels all over again.

      I guess on the supposed timeline, there should be no men (or else very few), Rivendell should probably just be a shack by a lake, the Elves should just be starting to get organised and the dwarves should probably just be surface-

    • People can't LET GO! What was that showbiz line.... leave them wanting more?
      You don't give them more until it becomes too much. We do now.

      As long as you are willing to consume the stuff they'll exploit everything you like as something to draw your interest -- it's also your fault for picking something familiar despite the long history of failures and how it's simply more difficult to recreate what it was that made the original successful; often the people hired do not know.

    • Can we please, for the love of the uncertainty principle, stop extending great pieces of entertainment into never ending mediocrity?

      It's really too much. Why do we feel the need to destroy our own folklore?

      Deconstructionism. I get crap because I dare utter the word, but taking beloved things and shitting all over them to produce dreck is exactly deconstruction.

      If it wasn't, they'd write their own stuff rather than destroying successful stuff.

    • Exactly! Shit, it's like nobody has an imagination anymore! Next, it'll be: "Let's make Gandalf a woman! and the ring will be an NFT!"

    • It's really too much. Why do we feel the need to destroy our own folklore?

      Because they have power in the minds of people which can be leveraged as psychological weapons in culture wars, and some people are willing to do that.

  • Really dry material (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DrMrLordX ( 559371 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @12:22AM (#62537668)

    If it's based on some of the stuff from Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, then it's pretty dry stuff. Also a lot of the Second Age stuff is hard to explain without going through the First Age, which they've never really done on film.

    There are some "history of Middle Earth" youtubers that try their best to go through all this material, and it's hit-or-miss despite their best efforts to pad Tolkien's writings. Presenting the forging of the 9, the 7, the One Ring, and the 3 Elven rings in any kind of entertaining way is going to be shitshow. Though the debauchery of Numenor could be entertaining.

    • If it's based on some of the stuff from Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, then it's pretty dry stuff.

      You could say the same thing about big parts of the Bible. Yet presumably people were still loving and fighting and fucking and dying in the background even while nothing interesting was going on in the text.

      • If it's based on some of the stuff from Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales, then it's pretty dry stuff.

        You could say the same thing about big parts of the Bible. Yet presumably people were still loving and fighting and fucking and dying in the background even while nothing interesting was going on in the text.

        You mean you don't enjoy the book of numbers?

    • The Children of Hurin is the kind of tale that would do well since Turin live an entire lifetime of angst

  • Ow, crap, wrong tv show

  • Some risk, some opportunity for the material. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @01:11AM (#62537782)
    On the one hand, it's good the Tolkien estate has taken a hard line on the usual studio bullshit, and Amazon has to avoid contradicting anything in the literature. But since they're being allowed to set the series in a time with minimal canon to draw on, I expect it to be not much more than fan-fic.

    Visual effects in a trailer are a shockingly reliable predictor of writing values, and the ones I saw in the trailer for the series look like run-of-the-mill game graphics. So I expect the stories to be written for a PG-13 / "Marvel" demographic with little or no exposure to Tolkien's deeper mythology. There will likely be references thrown in here and there to the background, but it'll be token callbacks rather than the core animating spirit.

    The way such things usually go, excellence is not only missed, but willfully avoided as an obstacle to franchise-building.

    • Re:Some risk, some opportunity for the material. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Zarhan ( 415465 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @03:14AM (#62537934)

      So I expect the stories to be written for a PG-13 / "Marvel" demographic with little or no exposure to Tolkien's deeper mythology.

      What deeper mythology? Seriously? Tolkien rehashed a bunch of existing stuff, from Beowulf to Finnish folk tales, and in that mythos included some deeply entertaining stuff (Hobbit, Lotr), and some bit more hard to read worldbuilding stuff (Silmarillion), and something in between (published in Unfinished Tales and Lost Tales). There are dozens of different versions of the storylines, and he was basically finetuning the thing until the day he died. I've read all of the older stuff up to Unfinished Tales and enjoyed them very much, but I don't understand what "depths" there are.

      There's lots of stuff in there and the world is very much consistent, since you brought it up, so is Marvel multiverse (and MCU). Or even, heck, World of Warcraft. Or Wheel of Time. Lots of fantasy world have eons-spanning timelines due to Medieval Stasis effect.

      • So I expect the stories to be written for a PG-13 / "Marvel" demographic with little or no exposure to Tolkien's deeper mythology.

        What deeper mythology? Seriously? Tolkien rehashed a bunch of existing stuff, from Beowulf to Finnish folk tales, and in that mythos included some deeply entertaining stuff (Hobbit, Lotr), and some bit more hard to read worldbuilding stuff (Silmarillion), and something in between (published in Unfinished Tales and Lost Tales). There are dozens of different versions of the storylines, and he was basically finetuning the thing until the day he died. I've read all of the older stuff up to Unfinished Tales and enjoyed them very much, but I don't understand what "depths" there are.

        There's lots of stuff in there and the world is very much consistent, since you brought it up, so is Marvel multiverse (and MCU). Or even, heck, World of Warcraft. Or Wheel of Time. Lots of fantasy world have eons-spanning timelines due to Medieval Stasis effect.

        I really enjoyed Unfinished Tales (despite many of them having massive gaps and/or no start or ending). I think a lot of Tolkien's motivation was seeing the rich mythology that many other cultures enjoyed and trying to build the same thing for the English, and to that extent I think he succeeded. As big as LOTR is his greatest contribution was probably how he defined high fantasy as a genre.

      • All myth follows a general formula. It's part of being human.

        Tolkien wanted to create an ancient myth for the English, since English history doesn't go back all that far ( compared to other peoples like Greeks, Iranians, Chinese, Egyptians, and Assyrians ). He borrowed from the various legends of those who inhabited the British Isles ( Saxons, Celts, Vikings, etc...) and being as he was a devout Catholic borrowed much from Christian mysticism ( anyone who is familiar with traditional Catholic or Orthodox

      • There's lots of stuff in there and the world is very much consistent, since you brought it up, so is Marvel multiverse (and MCU). Or even, heck, World of Warcraft. Or Wheel of Time. Lots of fantasy world have eons-spanning timelines due to Medieval Stasis effect.

        I've seen maybe 3 or 4 Marvel movies in the last 20 years and they are not consistent with each other whatsoever. Why would they be? There's no single person writing all the movies or controlling the franchise? The only common thread is the desire for another blockbuster payday. The only time you get consistency in a fictional universe is when it's written / controlled largely by a single person.

      • Re:Some risk, some opportunity for the material. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @04:07PM (#62540060)
        If you can call synthesizing millennia of disjointed poems, songs, oral traditions, and overlapping myths from dozens of cultures across an entire continent into a cohesive linguistic tradition "rehashing," then you must be severely disappointed in literally all fiction ever.

        Tolkien sits at the same table as Shakespeare and Homer.

    • On the one hand, it's good the Tolkien estate has taken a hard line on the usual studio bullshit, and Amazon has to avoid contradicting anything in the literature. But since they're being allowed to set the series in a time with minimal canon to draw on, I expect it to be not much more than fan-fic.

      Visual effects in a trailer are a shockingly reliable predictor of writing values, and the ones I saw in the trailer for the series look like run-of-the-mill game graphics. So I expect the stories to be written for a PG-13 / "Marvel" demographic with little or no exposure to Tolkien's deeper mythology. There will likely be references thrown in here and there to the background, but it'll be token callbacks rather than the core animating spirit.

      The way such things usually go, excellence is not only missed, but willfully avoided as an obstacle to franchise-building.

      I wouldn't say there's "minimal canon" since Tolkien wrote a lot more than the Hobbit and LOTR [wikipedia.org], but within that canon I think there's enough variety that you can do a lot of different stories.

  • A great way to ruin LOTR. They'd better get it right.

    Also of course the PR is going to have glowing reviews from 'fans'. I'll wait until real people see it

  • 1. The story will be overtly similar to Game of Thrones.

    2. There will be sex and nudity.

    3. It will suck,

  • People flown to London for free and wined and dined by the production team write positive posts about the production. Surprising.

  • They have the rights to do stuff that does not affect the existing story or turn the story universe on its head.

    By default this means moving away from existing characters and perhaps only mentioning them in passing or in brief.

    It can still be hugely cool and I hope they do a good job of it. Moving away from the already told story is likely a very good thing; we don't need more very scary and all-power but incompetent evil lords (Sauron) that use to serve even more powerful yet incompetent evil master (M

  • This is a world that's very vibrant.

    Ah yes, "vibrant", just what every place and every thing needs more of! (I always know the safest neighborhood to park my car in is the "vibrant" one, for example!)

    So much better than that dead, lifeless world, you know, with no life or richness, that Tolkien created. Thanks Amazon!

  • I loved having the opportunity to explore that unseen history.

    What do they mean "unseen"? Did they have their mind's eye spiked with a burnt-ended toothpick when they were reading the material for the last 40 years? Sure, it's incomplete, and inconsistently edited - which part of "work in progress" wasn't clear? - but the outline of the universe is clear, and a lot of canon scenes/ stories.

    They'll be mining that literary estate for decades to come.

    • I loved having the opportunity to explore that unseen history.

      What do they mean "unseen"? Did they have their mind's eye spiked with a burnt-ended toothpick when they were reading the material for the last 40 years?

      0.8% of people have absent imagery aphantasia.

      I for one love reading, but I do not get pictures of things when I read. I literally don't see them when I imagine them.

  • I'm sure (Score:3, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @08:12AM (#62538352) Journal

    ...what we will discover is
    - how a huge chunk of the people of Middle earth will turn out to have been bi, trans, genderfluid, and cross dressers
    - all of the important heroes will be women, however that happens to be defined
    - how the population will look astonishingly like a Benetton ad with just the *right* mix of ethnicities and skin colors
    - there will be a curiously consistent inverse relationship between melanin and evilness

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by amosh ( 109566 )

      If it turns out that you're incorrect about this, will you re-examine what made you say this and think about whether your preconceived notions are correct?

      • Re:I'm sure (Score:5, Insightful)

        by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @10:17AM (#62538744) Homepage Journal

        If it turns out that you're incorrect about this, will you re-examine what made you say this and think about whether your preconceived notions are correct?

        If it doesn't happen, then it is a fluke.

        This is pretty much the trend we're seeing in ALL new content being put out.

        It's getting really old, really fast.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Here's the trailer: https://youtu.be/v7v1hIkYH24 [youtu.be]

      I see one guy who might be black, it's dark and hard to tell. One woman who may be non-white. All other characters are white, and the world looks like Europe.

      Looking at the cast list confirms this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      As for the relationship between skin tone and evilness, in the novels Tolkien often describes evil creatures as having dark skin. The orks are the most well known example, and of course they are corrupted elves and elves have extreme

      • I don't think I need any other rebuttal than that 'other' Amazon series about a widely regarded fantasy work: The Wheel of Time

        https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7... [imdb.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        As for the relationship between skin tone and evilness, in the novels Tolkien often describes evil creatures as having dark skin. The orks are the most well known example, and of course they are corrupted elves and elves have extremely pale white skin. I would be surprised if they changed that, given the trailer seems to have gone for a white blond look for the heroes.

        Don't forget the Easterlings https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/E... [fandom.com] . The only major faction of humans who were with Sauron were also the only major human faction that was non-white (at least as far as I remember)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      Oh good, another idiot bringing their idiot culture war in to bother the rest of us. Thanks for that!

  • When "critics" go absolutely nuts over a preview, it's usually not a good sign.

  • Will they explain the Eagles? (Score:3)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @11:37AM (#62539152) Homepage Journal

    I'd like an episode dedicated to J. R. R. Tolkien's official answer [youtube.com] to why the Eagles didn't fly the Fellowship to Mordor.

  • Amazon is trying way too hard to make this appeal to everyone except existing Tolkien fans, and ensure that the half billion dollars they spent on this doesn't go up in flames upon release. They've managed to make sure all the marketing reeks of astroturf.

    We can tell from the released footage that Elrond and Galadriel have been body-swapped.

    I don't think a black dwarf intrinsically goes against canon, but they need to explain which clan she comes from. There are six possible viable answers, the wrong answ

  • "JRR Tolkien fans" (Score:3)

    by wisnoskij ( 1206448 ) on Monday May 16, 2022 @07:09PM (#62540724) Homepage

    Is this the same super fans preview that a video was made about, that got ratio-ed so hard that Amazon took it down?

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