Lord of the Rings - The TV Series!

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.

"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

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by Psychotic

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Originally Posted by 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.

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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.

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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...

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Originally Posted by 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

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

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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True.

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

Didn't bother to watch the others.

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.