Lord of the Rings - The TV Series!

[charliepanayi]

Well, it sounds more like Middle Earth stories preceding The Hobbit/LOTR but anyway:

http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/lord-of-the-rings-tv-series-amazon-1202613609/

[Psychotic]

Set in Middle Earth, the television adaptation will explore new storylines preceding “The Fellowship of the Ring.”

JUST DO THE BLOODY SILMARILLION YOU MONSTERS

Seriously, Silmarillion is perfect for a TV show format and it's soul crushingly great.

[Del Murder]

Sounds promising. And yes, just do Silmarillion, particularly Beren's storyline. I hope it does not turn into GoT and end up being a political drama with a bunch of grey morality factions and sex. I love GoT but Westeros is not the same as Middle Earth. There is a majesty and wholesomeness to it that I hope they capture.

[Jinx]

Sounds promising. And yes, just do Silmarillion, particularly Beren's storyline. I hope it does not turn into GoT and end up being a political drama with a bunch of grey morality factions and sex. I love GoT but Westeros is not the same as Middle Earth. There is a majesty and wholesomeness to it that I hope they capture.


Saaame. LotR is so pure. It’s honestly kind of a refreshing world to retreat to at times: good is good, bad is bad. Sometimes the innocence and hopefulness of it all just. Man.

I’m all on board with this, though.

[Freya]

Yeah i'm okay with this. I'm on a LotR kick lately so i'm like YAY more LotR!

[Example]

Honestly I'd just wish they'd leave well enough alone already. Why not adapt one of Tolkien's other works i.e The Silmarillion or Farmer Giles of Ham? Though I actually wouldn't mind a more faithful adaptation of The Hobbit than Jackson's bastardized attempts.

[Jinx]

Honestly I'd just wish they'd leave well enough alone already. Why not adapt one of Tolkien's other works i.e The Silmarillion or Farmer Giles of Ham? Though I actually wouldn't mind a more faithful adaptation of The Hobbit than Jackson's bastardized attempts.

That's pretty much exactly what they're doing, though.

[Example]

Honestly I'd just wish they'd leave well enough alone already. Why not adapt one of Tolkien's other works i.e The Silmarillion or Farmer Giles of Ham? Though I actually wouldn't mind a more faithful adaptation of The Hobbit than Jackson's bastardized attempts.

That's pretty much exactly what they're doing, though.

It's confirmed to be set in Middle Earth but not be based on anything written by Tolkien.

[Jinx]

Honestly I'd just wish they'd leave well enough alone already. Why not adapt one of Tolkien's other works i.e The Silmarillion or Farmer Giles of Ham? Though I actually wouldn't mind a more faithful adaptation of The Hobbit than Jackson's bastardized attempts.

That's pretty much exactly what they're doing, though.

Ah, I thought YOU thought they were remaking Lord of the Rings.

In any case, we'll probably never see The Silmarillion because Tolkien's kids have that shit on lockdown.

It's confirmed to be set in Middle Earth but not be based on anything written by Tolkien.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

74944

[Jinx]

Amazon is actually pretty good. Way better than Hulu.

[Example]

Honestly I'd just wish they'd leave well enough alone already. Why not adapt one of Tolkien's other works i.e The Silmarillion or Farmer Giles of Ham? Though I actually wouldn't mind a more faithful adaptation of The Hobbit than Jackson's bastardized attempts.

That's pretty much exactly what they're doing, though.

Ah, I thought YOU thought they were remaking Lord of the Rings.

In any case, we'll probably never see The Silmarillion because Tolkien's kids have that trout on lockdown.

It's confirmed to be set in Middle Earth but not be based on anything written by Tolkien.

I honestly don't blame them after the extremely disappointing, convoluted mess that was Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy.

They could always try their hand at one of Tolkien's non-Middle Earth works. The problem is they won't draw the same kind of attention the LOTR movies did.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

Nothing wrong with Amazon. I just made the graph because it's one of the video subscriptions I don't have lol

[Spuuky]

Tolkein is a complicated guy to discuss. There are certain core elements of his works that would be really sad to lose, and others that would be really sad to keep. GoT set in Middle Earth is just about the worst thing they could do, that much I agree with. There is no (or rather, very little, and none on a large scale) moral ambiguity in LotR - there is a right thing to do, and a wrong thing to do, and everyone has a pretty god damn good idea which side they are on as a result; the only "ambiguity" is that sometimes magic is powerful enough to sway people to the wrong side as they become corrupt, but it's still clear that they're becoming corrupt/evil.

The worst thing about Tolkein is how deeply ingrained (and critical to his themes in many ways) his concepts of racial essentialism are... a hobbit has these traits, at its core, and is fundamentally Good; an orc has these, and is fundamentally Evil. There can never be a "good orc." There can never really be a "bad elf," or a "bad hobbit," not unless they are twisted away from their essential nature by a much greater evil. The men of the "east" and "south" (aka Asia and Africa, because it's extremely apparent that Middle Earth is a layout of Earth and the Shire is his home in the UK) are dark-skinned, and aligned with Mordor, and evil. Anything "black" and "dark" is evil, anything "white" and "light" is good, the fairer-skinned and more pure-blooded you are, the better; when your pure white blood becomes intermingled with that of "lesser men" you lose things and become weak and begin to fail. Anyway I have rambled on too long, there's plenty you can look up on this subject if you really care - but stuff like this makes it hard to just view Tolkein's philosophy clearly, and it's a hard subject to work around while maintaining the essence of a capital-letter Good vs Evil conflict. Not impossible, but ... well, I don't have much faith. It'll probably just be GoT in ME anyway.

[Psychotic]

I agree with a lot of that. His clear use of Asian and African cultures as being those belonging to inherently evil men is abominable. The Dwarves are also obviously based on Jewish people which Tolkien himself noted, and their avarice is clearly inspired by stereotypes. I thought the movies handled the evil men with some sensitivity. They initially portrayed the Haradrim as being black and covered in leopard fur, but soon realised how offensive that would be and instead used wicker armour and had actors of different race in their ranks.

Although these examples are awful, I also think we are in danger of cherry picking. It's only fair to point out that all of the major named antagonists in LotR are white - The Sackville-Bagginses, Gollum, Saruman, Grima Wormtongue, Denethor and Sauron's true form. Something else worth considering is the storyline with the Druedain. They don't feature in the movies, but for those who don't know they are a culture clearly inspired by Amazonian tribes. The Anglo-Saxon Rohirrim are shown as disliking them for being ugly and hunting them for sport, and the book strongly condemns that behaviour. Aragorn later decrees that nobody else has any right to claim the Druedain's land as theirs but them, all of which I took as a reference to and criticism of colonialism but ymmv.

I disagree that Hobbits are never portrayed as bad. While the Shire itself is portrayed as an idyllic land, the Hobbits themselves are shown to be a judgmental and snobbish people and the reader is made to dislike them for their treatment of our two protagonists. Their naivety and refusal to become involved in foreign affairs is also portrayed as a negative and leads to the Scouring. There are also some troutty Elves - moreso in The Silmarillion but you could also make a case for the Elven King in the Hobbit, maybe - but I won't bore anyone by going into the minutiae of them. Orcs are definitely a lost cause though.

I also disagree with the intermingling of blood being portrayed as a negative and I've always seen Tolkien pushing it as a positive thing. The biggest victories for the forces of Good were shaped by unions between Elves and Men - Beren/Luthien as previously mentioned, Arwen/Aragorn that I am sure we all know, but (in my very nerdy opinion) most critically Elwing/Earendil, who some of you may know as Elrond's parents.

I suppose it's always difficult to judge figures of the past by today's standards given the progress that has been made over the past few decades. If you look at Tolkien's thoughts on matters of race in his correspondence he does denounce both Nazi Germany's anti-semitism and more notably for a white British man who was born there, Apartheid in South Africa. I'm therefore inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and put it down to ignorance rather than maliciousness, but I also don't think some of the ideas he put forward have a place in the 21st Century. It would be no great loss to see some changes in this upcoming TV series, because I think the overall spirit of his work can still be retained even so.

[Jinx]

Paul's post is great, but fwiw, I think it'd be so easy to make the races of Middle Earth better reflect the races of Earth with very little clapback from audiences or from Tolkien's family and estate. His writing definitely reflects the time, but probably Tolkien of today would be a "better" man than the Tolkien of the past.

I'd love to see the purity and hopefulness of his original works in tact (i.e. not going the route of GoT...which, I also love, but they're very different stories). But it would be so easy to slip in Black and Latino and Asian elves and dwarves, and white people into the baddies. In today's world, there's nothing saying we CAN'T.

Your fears and criticism are definitely founded, Spuuky, but I don't think it's something that necessarily will happen. And it's definitely not something that has to be retained to keep true to the spirit of his works.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

"J.R.R. Tolkien's Son Resigns as Director of Tolkien Estate, Ending Decades of Tightly Controlled Adaptations"

https://io9.gizmodo.com/j-r-r-tolkiens-son-resigns-as-director-of-tolkien-esta-1820476459 (https://io9.gizmodo.com/j-r-r-tolkiens-son-resigns-as-director-of-tolkien-esta-1820476459)

[Psychotic]

I'd love to see the purity and hopefulness of his original works in tact (i.e. not going the route of GoT...which, I also love, but they're very different stories). But it would be so easy to slip in Black and Latino and Asian elves and dwarves, and white people into the baddies. In today's world, there's nothing saying we CAN'T. Absolutely! It's also worth pointing out each of the fantasy races had their own ethnic groups, and the most numerous group of Hobbit had "nut brown skin". I think Sam's hands are even referred to as being brown at one point in the actual text.

[Jinx]

I'd love to see the purity and hopefulness of his original works in tact (i.e. not going the route of GoT...which, I also love, but they're very different stories). But it would be so easy to slip in Black and Latino and Asian elves and dwarves, and white people into the baddies. In today's world, there's nothing saying we CAN'T. Absolutely! It's also worth pointing out each of the fantasy races had their own ethnic groups, and the most numerous group of Hobbit had "nut brown skin". I think Sam's hands are even referred to as being brown at one point in the actual text.

Even if there aren't or they weren't, it really doesn't matter. Just add PoC characters on the goodies side, it's so easy. It shouldn't even be a thing to think about or something that has to be explained away. It's a goddamn world full of magic and monsters, if that's what breaks reality for you...

[Freya]

"J.R.R. Tolkien's Son Resigns as Director of Tolkien Estate, Ending Decades of Tightly Controlled Adaptations"

https://io9.gizmodo.com/j-r-r-tolkiens-son-resigns-as-director-of-tolkien-esta-1820476459 (https://io9.gizmodo.com/j-r-r-tolkiens-son-resigns-as-director-of-tolkien-esta-1820476459)

This makes me nervous. After seeing how WB handled the DC universe over time... yeah i'm a little concerned now.

[Skyblade]

There is also the effort made to address perspective. A lot of what we see of the good and evil of the other races of men are based on the perspective of those fighting a war against them. Part of why Faramir did not make a good soldier is because he could not kill them ruthlessly. Tolkien did not treat this as a fault of the character (quite the opposite), but merely that it rendered the character unsuited for certain roles.

Then too, the twisted races are used in a number of ways to address a number of questions on the nature of good versus evil, and are not all as "black and white" as they may seem at first glance. For example, the Uruk-Hai are regularly portrayed as less evil than the orcs. They have kinship, loyalty, camaraderie, and esprit de corps. This is because Saruman, who shaped them, was not as far gone as Sauron. They weren't as twisted, as fallen.

While we're at it, dragons shifted over time, from beasts Morgoth had to reign in when their lust for destruction caused them to start to spill his hand, to indolent, lazy creatures that rarely poked their heads out of their caves. Thus indicating that a general shift from the depths of evil is possible even for the creatures twisted and shaped specifically to be evil.


I am also rather concerned that Christopher Tolkien is no longer in charge. He may have kept a tight rein, but at least we mostly got quality out. If "the floodgates are open" as the article predicts, we will likely see a substantial drop in the quality of material coming out relating to the license.

[charliepanayi]

Considering we got three ropey Hobbit films in recent years, I'm not sure I'm worried about a possible drop in quality. This TV series can hardly be more disappointing than The Hobbit was.

[Skyblade]

Considering we got three ropey Hobbit films in recent years, I'm not sure I'm worried about a possible drop in quality. This TV series can hardly be more disappointing than The Hobbit was.

True.

But there were at least a couple good scenes to come out of the first one.

Didn't bother to watch the others.

[Spuuky]

This is a very movie-centric thread so far but the recent Middle Earth games are completely tonally and thematically un-Tolkein in virtually every respect.