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I wonder if that agreement just means Amazon has 5 years to do something with this, then it's either over or renegotiated for more cash, not that they will be releasing 5 years worth of actual content? Come to think of it, one of those years has already come and gone.
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I know I'm being extremely pedantic but I really wish they could do a better job of being more informed on the subject matter when they give these interviews.

Three millennia before the Lord of the Rings (presumably the events told in the book of the same name)? I hope they recall that time length is the extent of the entire Third Age, meaning that if they are to be taken literally, the series would take place in the final years of the Second Age, yet Numenor was already gone for over 300 years.

Given that this series appears to be very Sauron-centric from the comments thus far, I'm not sure how they're going to get five 20-episode seasons out of that story. I was hoping to see more of the Golden Age of Numenor, or even its founding, not just the events that lead up to its destruction.

Also, Sauron did not "return" to Numenor after his defeat in Eriador: he was dragged there in chains 1500 years later after Ar-Pharazon landed at Umbar. Also, he had never been there before so there is no "return."

I know this is being overseen by Mr. Shippey but it fills me with misgiving when they can't get simple things right. This reminds of the time when someone (I forget the name) was writing articles at the time of the trilogy's movie release and kept referring to the inhabitants of Rohan as "the Rohans."

Major :rolleye:
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I don’t like long seasons. I tried to watch Netflix’s Designated Survivor and lost interest after what felt like the 10,000,000th episode. I felt exactly the same with the walking dead. When seasons go beyond 8 or 10 episodes it feels like they’re stretched too thin.

I’m still really on the fence about this and honestly expect it to fail. It’s very rare for me to be such a pessimist. I’m not even sure it’s based on anything logical, but my gut instinct is telling me it will fail. Happy to be proven wrong and would more than love for it to be great. Netflix seems to have done really well with the Witcher so hopefully Amazon can do really well with Middle Earth.
"All those moments will be lost, in time... like tears, in the rain..."

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I also cringe when I read foolish misstatements born of misunderstandings of the material. We just have to remember that Tom Shippey is not writing the article. As someone who in my job has occasionally been quoted in the media, I can tell you that what seems simple to you can easily get fowled up when filtered through another person.

Regarding length of seasons, I find it somewhat difficult to imagine a 20 episode season any more. 10 seems to be about the right length. You can do a story arc without filler episodes. Conversely, if you have to have 20, that means some are going to be crap because it's awfully hard to come up with that many for one season without some being crap. And depending on the exact story they want to tell, they're going to have to do an awful lot of inventing, as much of the Second Age is only a cipher. But the real take-home for me from that article was that the Tolkien Estate put some very specific limits on how they could tell stories.

And a note about the title. Since this has been announced, it has rubbed me the wrong way that it's being referred to as The Lord of the Rings. That's a title that I reserve for the story that Tolkien published in the 1950s, and that Peter Jackson made movies of at the dawn of this century. I'd much prefer they call this show Tales from Middle-earth or something like that. However upon further reflection, I'll grudgingly grant some latitude. Sauron is the Lord of the Rings, and if the show is to be principally about him, then in that light it's not inaccurate to call it that (though still misleading).
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Here's another article about the Tom Shippey interview. It mostly covers the same ground but gives some extra tidbits, such as the First Age and Third Age being off-limits to the show (except for whatever aspects of the First Age are necessary to set up the story. It also pretty much says that as far as the source material, if does not appear within LOTR and its appendices, it can't be used. That in turn suggests they never obtained the rights to Unfinished Tales or anything else not contained in the original movie deal Tolkien cut 50+ years ago.

I find that unfortunate and sad. If they are indeed going to do at least five years and possibly 20 episodes per season, the much broader canvas afforded by the "expanded universe" works would enable a richer story with much less invention by the screen writers. If they are indeed going to have a focus on Numenor, the tale of Aldarion and Erendis is the only truly fleshed-out story from that era, the tale of the downfall being little more than an outline if they are prohibited from the Akallabeth. Also, most of what little we know of Galadriel and Celeborn stems from Unfinished Tales. But again, it can be dangerous to read too much into an interview, as things can be misquoted and misconstrued. I just find it odd that the Estate under its new leadership cuts a deal with Amazon scarcely after CJRT's butt print in the Executor's chair has cooled, and it does not allow access to works beyond those already included. It's as if CJRT is still in control.

In any event, the link:

http://collider.com/lord-of-the-rings-a ... gs-tv-show
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Lindir wrote: Thu Aug 08, 2019 6:15 pm I don’t like long seasons. I tried to watch Netflix’s Designated Survivor and lost interest after what felt like the 10,000,000th episode. I felt exactly the same with the walking dead. When seasons go beyond 8 or 10 episodes it feels like they’re stretched too thin.

I’m still really on the fence about this and honestly expect it to fail. It’s very rare for me to be such a pessimist. I’m not even sure it’s based on anything logical, but my gut instinct is telling me it will fail. Happy to be proven wrong and would more than love for it to be great. Netflix seems to have done really well with the Witcher so hopefully Amazon can do really well with Middle Earth.
I with you, Lindir..... I predict a big flaming fail, yet I desperately want it to succeed. And I am a pessimistic (if not downright cynical) by temperament.
I'm not sure I know how to be optimistic. :laugh:

"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

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Deimos wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 5:55 pm I with you, Lindir..... I predict a big flaming fail, yet I desperately want it to succeed. And I am a pessimistic (if not downright cynical) by temperament.
I'm not sure I know how to be optimistic. :laugh:
Wow, it's as if I typed this reply myself. You must be a sister from another mister :thumbs_up

With the amount of money Amazon has paid for this there going to be playing is very safe and try to appeal to as many people as possible. If PJ can screw up the Hobbit that bad,I don't have high hopes at all.

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N2darkness wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 5:00 am
Deimos wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 5:55 pm I with you, Lindir..... I predict a big flaming fail, yet I desperately want it to succeed. And I am a pessimistic (if not downright cynical) by temperament.
I'm not sure I know how to be optimistic. :laugh:
Wow, it's as if I typed this reply myself. You must be a sister from another mister :thumbs_up

With the amount of money Amazon has paid for this there going to be playing is very safe and try to appeal to as many people as possible. If PJ can screw up the Hobbit that bad,I don't have high hopes at all.
I have never heard that expression!...Too funny!

Just sorry that not a few of us are pessimistic about this.
And to really drive home the reason for it (like preaching to the choir) I've excerpted my previous post about Ursula Le Guin's comments on the TV adaptation of her Earthsea: http://redirect.viglink.com/?format=go& ... thsea.html
From the linked article:

"I said that although I knew that a film must differ greatly from a book, I hoped they were making no unnecessary changes in the plot or to the characters—a dangerous thing to do, since the books have been known to millions of people for decades. They replied that the TV audience is much larger, and entirely different, and would be unlikely to care about changes to the books' story and characters. " (emphasis added) -- Ursula K. Le Guin ( "How the Sci-Fi channel wrecked my books.")

And since Bezos is first and foremost a profit driven businessman and his [professed] love of Tolkien/Middle Earth not even being on the radar when money is involved, well, it is difficult not to be pessimistic.

"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

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I just continue to find it incredibly dumbfounding that they've cut themselves off from a wealth of written material on the era this show supposedly will take place in, which will inevitably necessitate a crap-ton of invented filler that is all but guaranteed to be 90% eye-rolling, forehead-slapping, gag-me-with-a-spoon, made for today's ADD audience filler.

They'll shoot to copy the GoT formula, while being unable to tap into any of the risk-taking elements that made that series great... well, mostly great. Fill up the cast with some hot, 20 year-old nobodies that can't act their way out of a wet paper bag, sprinkle a dash of SJW topics to make an old story more needlessly modern, relevant, and woke, and you've got the perfect recipe for a smelly pile of failure.

Throw in the oven for 30 minutes at 400, remove and serve to your long-suffering fans... they'll eat it up and love it!

:rolleye: :horse: :barf:
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Valkrist wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 4:25 pm I just continue to find it incredibly dumbfounding that they've cut themselves off from a wealth of written material on the era this show supposedly will take place in, which will inevitably necessitate a crap-ton of invented filler that is all but guaranteed to be 90% eye-rolling, forehead-slapping, gag-me-with-a-spoon, made for today's ADD audience filler.

They'll shoot to copy the GoT formula, while being unable to tap into any of the risk-taking elements that made that series great... well, mostly great. Fill up the cast with some hot, 20 year-old nobodies that can't act their way out of a wet paper bag, sprinkle a dash of SJW topics to make an old story more needlessly modern, relevant, and woke, and you've got the perfect recipe for a smelly pile of failure.

Throw in the oven for 30 minutes at 400, remove and serve to your long-suffering fans... they'll eat it up and love it!

:rolleye: :horse: :barf:
Reminds me exactly of what's happened to a certain galaxy that's far, far away :roll:

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A YouTuber put together this "what do we know so far" video. The only thing that was news to me was that they've actually filmed about two episodes' worth and were taking a planned pause to assess their footage when the pandemic shutdown hit. But it's kind of a nice summary for anyone who's been unaware of proceedings. Note: I don't think any of the artwork used in the video is from the show, but some of it is pretty cool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At_s3_zq-ho
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Interesting......
Did you read any of the comments?
'Way 'way down in the comments ---where most of the comments are very pessimistic about the series NOT turning into a SJW platform---someone said that Tom Shippey had left the project.
So I checked that out. Fact is, he did. And maybe you [Olorin] already knew that.
But without Shippey, well, let's just say my fears about the project being hijacked by the woke crowd were just ratcheted up.
We shall know in a year or so.....

"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

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Yeah, I'd heard he left quite some time ago. I'll still give the first couple of episodes a watch but I too suspect this entire venture is quickly going down the toilet of having modern-day sensibilities and agendas shoved forcefully down our throats for the sake of scoring points.
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http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3ug9ay

I very rarely read comments on public forums. Out there beyond our little walled garden, well, why try to improve upon Yoda?

And I'm not so much concerned about SJWs (I had to look that up) as their opposite number, like the people who trashed Kelly Tran for the outrage of appearing in Star Wars while being female and Asian. It just doesn't do a person's blood pressre good to go into the public comment section.

I do have some misgivings about the Amazon production; how could any sapient lifeform not? I was originally quite mollified by the presence of Tom Shippey and was bothered when I read the rumor some months back that he was no longer with the project. I refer to it as a rumor, because to my knowledge neither he nor the production have officially confirmed it. Even if it's true (and I don't seriously doubt it is), I try to hope for a reason other than his disgust with what they were doing. He's 76 years old; maybe he doesn't want to stick around for a 5-year commitment. Maybe his involvement was only ever to help them get the project off the ground. Maybe his health isn't great. Who knows?

But honestly a bigger concern is what source material they have rights to. If it is only to what lies between the covers of LOTR and The Hobbit, then there's a problem. They contain so little about the Second Age, at least compared to Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion. The original map the production showed prominently included Numenor. That story is told almost exclusively through Akallabeth in The Silmarillion, and the story of Numenor before its fall is also dealt with in the tale of Aldarion and Erendis in Unfinished Tales. And Numenor is but one example. If the production has rights to materials outside the original 1960s-era rights, then they have a lot of material to draw from in crafting a show. If not, they have almost nothing and whole-cloth fabrication will abound. But even without Shippey, supposedly the Estate is going to ride herd on them pretty tightly. At the end of the day, we're not really going to know whether this thing is good, bad, or ugly until we start watching it.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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To address one of your points, and in a way that I know still outrages some - because no matter what you say nowadays, someone gets pissed off - but: the whole Kelly Tran thing was abhorrent human nature at its worst. My feelings about the character and what it brought to the story notwithstanding, they had zero to do with the gender, ethnicity, or any other variable possible that can be applied to Kelly/Rose.

Having said that, if Kelly Tran were to be cast as the new Galadriel, or Sauron, then I can't say I would be happy or accepting of the choice. I know there's a million arguments out there against this kind of opinion, but I don't believe in altering established characters with racial/gender reversal tricks because you have some quota to fill. If you are adapting an old book like this that isn't as inclusive as you'd like it to be, then tough. Faithfulness to the material trumps social justice any day for me. Want more roles that are more representative? Then write the stories for them and create the original characters that will populate them. It's long overdue. This is why no one should have so much as said a single word about Kelly: she was playing an original character, not being recast as Luke Skywalker.
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Yeah, agreed.

Perhaps I'm naive, but I find it hard to imagine Amazon doing much re-imagining of characters as different sexes or ethnicities. I think they know they can't cast, say, Sonequa Martin-Green as Galadriel. Or Danny Trejo as Galadriel, LOL.

IIRC, one time Tolkien responded to criticism of the whiteness of Middle-earth. His response was that it was a tale of the northwest part of Middle-earth, which essentially meant Western Europe in a past age, and lack of racial diversity was reflective of that.

So far, none of the announced cast are playing known roles. Of course it's always possible, as the video speculated, the character names given are camouflage.

I don't suppose we have talked about one certain bit of gender-and-race-swapping in an upcoming high-profile sci fi movie. Liet-Kynes in the new Dune movie will be played by a black actress. It's been a long time since I've read Dune, so I don't recall whether the character's race was addressed (but I think nobody's really was). However, Kynes was definitely a man. Since the character is more important to the background of the story, in terms of his importance to the Fremen, rather than a major player in the tale proper or any of its multitudinous continuations, I don't think it really matters that they made him black and female. And since they've cast Zendaya as Chani, a black actor as her parent makes sense. Oh this is interesting. I just discovered the character was played by a woman in the Syfy miniseries. Oh, scratch that. The actor was in drag in the picture I saw. I'm not making that up; it's in the Wikipedia article on Dune characters.

Do we have a Dune thread? Hard to imagine we don't but a quick search didn't turn one up.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Can't say I'm surprised. If current Star Wars, Star Trek, DC, and to a growing extent Marvel hasn't taught us already, the film industry has no respect nor understanding of source material or its creators. Yes, PJ diverted from the books but there's a difference between taking creative liberties and outright inserting content that is a direct contradiction to the spirit of Middle-Earth. You think Bezos or anyone else at Amazon has any reverence for Tolkien's religious sensibilities? Of course not!!! They care about the bottom line and in their short-sided thinking they believe that if they're as provocative as that "other show", that means viewers. I mean that's why everyone watched right? Medieval hedonism. Nothing to do with writing and character development. It's all about the spectacle. Cause people love "edgy" and we gotta be "edgy" otherwise we won't be taken seriously. What a joke.

And don't think even if they don't go through with nudity that all is well with this show. It will still be rife with generic writing and pandering politics. Nothing is good anymore.

I'm so glad I canceled my prime membership earlier this year and stopped giving that company my money. I'll gladly pay double anywhere else.

Sorry for the rant but I'm so tired of these big conglomerates ruining everything we enjoy. If it's movies, music, sports, TV, video games,... everything sucks now.

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@ Olorin. thanks for posting the "disturbing" TOR link. It was well written..
Yes, the most disturbing thing related was Bezos demanding "Bring me GOT" .
I pray that fan outcry can head off that disaster, but I am not at all hopeful.
As Ronin says, (and recall Ursula K . Leguin saying something similar) the writers don't give a fig for fidelity to source material; it's all about the money.
So....my second hope is... (the first being that Bezos listens to the fans and rethinks his blasphemous format)....that, if he plows ahead with his abomination, it fails spectacularly, that Tolkien fans everywhere vehemently and utterly reject it with unconcealed contempt.

"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

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This news will mark the day when the Tolkien heirs that sold the rights to his work to Amazon will stop, look at each other, and say "Oh, crap... what have we done?"

Yeah, I know it won't happen, but one can dream, right? :rolleye:

I'm now firmly in the camp that believes this will be little more than sensationalistic crap, designed and written to titillate the viewer with edgy and risqué situations, whereupon ads for the show will claim "Tolkien was Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones was Game of Thrones - Now with more dragons *and* boobs! Also, dragons *with* boobs!"

:barf:
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Is there a chance that intimacy coordinator could simply be just someone who helps with romantic kissing scenes? Maybe I’m grasping.

Sex scenes are great when you’re a horny teenager but I’m not one anymore and so I see no appeal in them. The more and more I read about this show the less and less interested in it I am. I don’t even think I want to give it a chance tbh.
"All those moments will be lost, in time... like tears, in the rain..."

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Lindir wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 7:43 am Is there a chance that intimacy coordinator could simply be just someone who helps with romantic kissing scenes? Maybe I’m grasping.

Sex scenes are great when you’re a horny teenager but I’m not one anymore and so I see no appeal in them. The more and more I read about this show the less and less interested in it I am. I don’t even think I want to give it a chance tbh.
Given that the casting call is asking for actors to be nude, I think you are indeed grasping. There's no other way I see these two things going together other than onscreen sexual situations.

Even if sex (implied or simulated) is somehow left out, and they just go for full-frontal, back, or topless angles, I'm sure having Galadriel display her breasts or seeing Sauron's butt after sex are not what Tolkien intended when he wrote his stories.

Yeah, I'm pretty much out too. Don't like to prejudge but why is it that every time we hear news about this series it just gets worse and worse?
This Space for Rent

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Be prepared for the recasting of at least half the characters as African American followed by Latinos and Asians, then a few token crackers thrown in (probably as the villains.)
And all of ambiguous /interchangeable/never before imagined genders.

"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

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Valkrist wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 8:23 am
Lindir wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 7:43 am Is there a chance that intimacy coordinator could simply be just someone who helps with romantic kissing scenes? Maybe I’m grasping.

Sex scenes are great when you’re a horny teenager but I’m not one anymore and so I see no appeal in them. The more and more I read about this show the less and less interested in it I am. I don’t even think I want to give it a chance tbh.
Given that the casting call is asking for actors to be nude, I think you are indeed grasping. There's no other way I see these two things going together other than onscreen sexual situations.

Even if sex (implied or simulated) is somehow left out, and they just go for full-frontal, back, or topless angles, I'm sure having Galadriel display her breasts or seeing Sauron's butt after sex are not what Tolkien intended when he wrote his stories.

Yeah, I'm pretty much out too. Don't like to prejudge but why is it that every time we hear news about this series it just gets worse and worse?

Why'd you have to go and bring up Sauron's butt after sex? Now THAT, I GOTTA see! Does he keep the helmet on?? Is he a giant floating eyeball with a butt??
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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All I can say at this point is that all of us who harped continuously at some of Peter Jackson's ideas may be praying from him to take this over, if the concerns expressed above are not overblown. You'd take a fart of belch instead of some of those other things, right?

;)
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Olorin wrote: Thu Oct 08, 2020 11:52 am Kidding aside, get on social media and raise hell about these things. Sometimes productions can be swayed by fan outrage. Jackson was.
HAHA, Olorin....now you are the one grasping [at straws].

Peter Jackson net worth $500 million (USD) ....
J Bezos net worth $178 billion....350 times that of PJ.
Bezos has absolutely no incentive to listen to Tolkien purists about not adhering to the canon.
He knows that there are 100 times , 1000 times, 10000 times the number of purists who are drooling at the thought of T's and A's, full view debauchery, not to mention bloodletting on the Amazon ME story boards.
Am I cynical? Yep....totally.
And besides that, I'm right. ;-)

"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

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I remember people complaining after the casting call went out for digital actors that were OK with being nude in a Hobbit film. The fans complained on social media, that that evil Jackson put it in his film anyway. I, for one, was scarred for life after seeing all those naked Dwarves in Rivendell.

From what I have been told, the Tolkien estate has veto rights over everything in the show. So either the people running the estate are all on board with GOT-like sex scenes, or this is not at all what people think it is.
KRDS

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Nasnandos wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 4:15 am
From what I have been told, the Tolkien estate has veto rights over everything in the show. So either the people running the estate are all on board with GOT-like sex scenes, or this is not at all what people think it is.
With Christopher Tolkien gone, I'm not sure how much the rest of the Estate cares. Sensibilities change with successive generations, and the further into the past J.R.R. Tolkien falls, the less important his viewpoint becomes as filtered through today's lens. Not saying it's any less important to respect the source material and the author's morals, but time (and money) place ever-decreasing importance on that, sadly.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bezos doesn't have a few more millions already set aside to make that pesky veto 'go away' quietly.
This Space for Rent

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I'm going to choose to embrace Kit's post as the glimmer of hope that it is. It's true that Christopher Tolkien is not running the estate anymore and we don't know the mindset of those who are. However, I have to believe that when he decided to retire, it was because he was at peace with who was going to be taking the reins. He defended his father's legacy so fiercely for so long that if he knew his successor was just going to sell out all artistic integrity, CJRT would've held onto those reins until the mortician pried them from his fingers.

As for Bezos, if he is going to micromanage the series, then sure, he will get what he wants. But aren't we jumping to conclusions, just a little, that his statement "bring me GOT" can mean only tons of sex? GOT was known for many things, but in the context of someone investing a lot of money in a literary property to develop into a series, I think the #1 thing that "bring me GOT" means is, "bring me something insanely successfully that is going to make me tons of money." Yes, I get that the casting call included nudity and they hired an intimacy coordinator, but those things probably happen with most productions. If it could happen in the story, best to plan up front than to spring it on unwilling actors later, as scripts for a 5-year series are written.

I'm not Pollyanna but I'm not Chicken Little either. I am not planning on losing any sleep over this, and no one else should, either. If the series is awful and pisses on Tolkien's grave, that in no way takes the books away from us. I gather that the SyFy miniseries of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea stories was pretty dreadful, such that she wrote an essay called "Earthsea in Clorox," responding to the wholesale whitewashing of characters that were non-white. I think she had other grievances too, but that was the one the led to a nifty essay title. I never watched the show because I didn't have SyFy, but knowing there's an awful adaptation out there did not keep me from buying a very nice, one-volume, illustrated edition of her Earthsea stories some time back. (I do plan to read it some day, but my backlog is stunning and this thing is a doorstop.) Another example: Queen of the Damned. I'm a big Anne Rice fan (of some of her books, anyway). There was a really good adaptation of Interview with the Vampire and a dreadful adaptation of Queen of the Damned. I did see the QotD movie and walked out of the theater shaking my head, but it did not diminish my appreciation of the book. To me, the movie essentially does not exist. Whenever I think of Anne Rice, I think first and foremost of the books, then of how she takes to the media to do battle with casting choices or real estate developers messing with beloved New Orleans locations, and then somewhere down the line I think of the putative Vampire Chronicles series that has bounced from production company to production company and is currently lodged with AMC. But that dreadful movie, no.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Olorin wrote: Mon Oct 12, 2020 11:43 am Sorry if that sounded harsh; it wasn't meant to. It just wasn't a very good day.
Harsh?

Nah. ;)

I've just had my expectations trampled on so many times like this that I've become overly cynical and bitter in expecting better. Sadly, the world continues to reinforce my viewpoint, and even the very entertainment that we need to escape the crappy world consistently disappoints by dragging more of that real crappy world stuff in. I don't need oversexed teenage elves flirting with Numenorean teenage sailors in my Tolkien. Here's to hoping there's no such nonsense... but yeah, I'm really not hopeful.
This Space for Rent

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Oh, I'm not hopeful either. I've been burned in the past, too. But I try to control how much I'm influenced by hype, either positive or negative, before I see something. If I hear it's great and when I see it and don't feel it measures up to the hype, I'm disappointed. Conversely, if everybody's been dissing it and I see it, the negative impressions color my opinion of it. Ideally, I go into a movie or show totally cold, so my perceptions can be only my own. But that rarely happens any more.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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So last night I chanced to watch TheOneRing.net's weekly YouTube live stream, which staffer Quickbeam and another person unknown to me devoted to rumor mill for the new show. And the rumors they were selling were doozies. First, rumored major A-list cast that they think are going to be in it, and their estimation of how likely they are to be correct: Russell Crowe (90%), Ken Watanabe (65%), and Ghassan Massoud (60%). And upon what do they base these guesses? Who has been seen in New Zealand lately, and who has nothing listed as an upcoming project in IMDB. I think this may be a case of putting two and two together and getting five. The one guy was also very sure that James Horner will be doing the soundtrack...until numerous fans pointed out that Horner has been dead since 2015! Then he revectored and said James Newton Howard. So take it all with a grain of salt.

Of course, they also indulged themselves in guessing the roles these lofty stars would inhabit. They were all over the place with Crowe but they both seemed quite sure that Watanabe and Massoud would be playing the Blue Wizards, basing this on the recent official series plot summary saying the series would take us to the far corners of Middle-earth. They felt Watanabe would be a wizard sent to the far east, and Massoud a wizard sent to the south, and they would take on the appearance of the peoples living there to facilitate their acceptance among the local populace. OK, that would make sense geographically and demographically, but what about the fact that the Istari came in the Third Age, not the Second, and the terms the Estate laid on this production included no contradiction of established Middle-earth lore? Quickbeam pointed out that in CJRT's final volume of the History of Middle-earth, it was mentioned that late in his life, JRRT revisited the notion of the Blue Wizards, feeling they may have come in the Second Age, and gave them new names. All well and good, except...does the production have rights to this book? Well if they're doing this, they must! :rolleye: To me this confirmed two things: 1) my feeling that nowhere since this deal was announced has it been revealed exactly what books the production has rights to, and 2) people can extrapolate off the slimmest of hints to come up with all sorts of grand notions.

So, take this all with an entire box of salt. In the meantime, though I would welcome some inclusion of material from other than LOTR itself and The Hobbit, I think perhaps that should be limited to Unfinished Tales, as that would require less manipulation...and of course The Silmarillion. As for the great sprawling HOMe series, there are far too many alternative versions of things in it, and I don't necessarily think it should be viewed as canon.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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Grain of salt.jpg
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"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

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OMG.

https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2021/0 ... halflings/

According to TORn, the production has rights to relevant parts of Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion.

Also, the Estate is said to be very happy with the way things are going.

So again, OMG.

Lest I trigger a replay of Deimos' Salt Throne, I'll just say I won't fully believe these things till I see them, but if they are true, then that is very exciting. And TORn has a pretty good track record with separating the wheat from the chaff of the rumor mill.

Let the doubting begin! ;-)
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

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I remain skeptical as usual, and hope that the mention of the concern of nudity and how it fits into the series is actual truth rather than a carefully crafted deflection. That they even allude to elves being turned into orcs makes me wonder just how far these rumours of the Silmarillion go. It must be a flashback because if not, we're talking a major change in scope for this series, and I don't see that happening this late in the game.

I'm also concerned that they felt a need to somehow shoehorn Hobbits into this show. I could be wrong but it seems they couldn't resist trying to cash-in on recognition and familiarity by providing a visual connection with the previous movies by having Hobbits be present. Lore-wise, though we know they must've been around for longer, Hobbits do not come into the tale until early to mid-Third Age, so I'm wary of the amount of mental gymnastics required to make them fit into any Second Age tale. Do the Numenorean explorers run into them and hijinks ensue? Does Sauron chase them around to try and corrupt them to his cause? Are they going to be in there just for comic relief? I'm just not seeing how they fit in, and the kitchen-sink approach to storytelling never ends well.
This Space for Rent

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Fear not, I'm still keeping my hopes in check, too. I was relieved by the rumor that the nudity was that of enslaved Elves, not that I like concentration camp scenes but because that would be more in keeping with the story than having folks frolicking about in the nude (looking at you, PJ, and your nekkid Dwarves frolicking in the fountain!). This would make the most sense as a flashback, though I suppose ongoing corruption of Elves after the first age would not necessarily violate canon. Tolkien never said it happened, but he never said it didn't happen, and one of the ironclad rules for the production is that although they can add what they want, it cannot violate canon.

As for that hobbit rumor, between that and the speculation about the Blue Wizards (from some time back), it sounds like anything that got a mention anywhere, even in the 12-volume History of Middle-earth series, is fair game for inclusion in the eyes of the producers. Now if it is mentioned solely in HOME and they do not have rights to that, it'll be interesting to see if the Estate catches it and complains. In any event, if the hobbits make only an incidental appearance (akin to Frodo and Sam spotting the Wood Elves in the woods of the Shirt in the FOTR movie), I don't have a problem with that. If they concoct an entire story line for them, on the other hand, that will feel gratuitous and shoe-horned in. If they truly have rights to parts of the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, there is so much they can draw on the make this show that there is no need to invent hobbit stories. Since the very first piece of art the production released as a map of Numenor, I've been hoping that Aldarion and Erendis will be included, not necessarily that that is a fabulous story on its own (or even has an end), but because it would signify going deep into the mythology.

One thing that surprised me, especially in light of the Silmarillion rumor, is that Sauron will not appear in the first season. I would've assumed there would be a prologue to introduce Sauron, and it would include his meeting with Eonwe after the fall of Morgoth, and slinking off after being told he'd have to return to Valinor for Manwe's forgiveness. I guess not, sigh....

Speaking of the Tolkien Estate, I wonder who's running it these days? The comment about them being thrilled with the production thus far really underscored for me the fact that CJRT is no longer in charge (or alive).
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."
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