The "Why" and the "What?"
 

Originally Posted by Kuruharan:

This seems like a rather inescapable -- if not implacable and inexorable -- observation. Consider, from Wikipedia:

More from Wikipedia:

We can clearly see the "why" of it all. I just shudder to think of the "what?"

I wonder how much of the “financial success” of The Hobbit is attributable to inflation of ticket prices...

I believe this deal has its roots in the rights that were sold in the late 60's to UA, so it will be limited to the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings published book material. The CT published material (Sil, UT, CoH, HoME) is CT copyrighted and came after the 1969 deal was made. That said, the appendices at the end of Return of the King is a goldmine of summarized historical Middle Earth outlines that could lend itself easily to a multi episode TV mini-series. Of course, a major story in there is Appendix B which covers Aragorn and Arwen, so I suspect this will be at least part of this venture. That said, I am cautiously optomistic, or reluctantly hopeful, that this works out to the good. As long as there is an all new cast, and all new episode writers and directors, and PJ Boyens WETA and gang are kept as far away from it as possible, it may have a chance.

For my part, I'm optimistic that it will work out to be spectacularly horrible. Down with mediocrity, I say!:smokin:

I can't say I have much faith in an adaptation, save for that morbid type of interest that makes one slow down on the freeway to view a car crash.

Oh, I'm sure they'll trot out a slew of hired-gun "Tolkien experts" to give the proceedings the facade of authenticity, and they're sure to borrow some of the look of the films. They may even break from convention and have a multi-ethnic cast to assuage the appearance of political-incorrectness purportedly pervading Tolkien's Northwestern European mythos. There may even be the titillation of elves and men bumping uglies for the sake of the prurient modern and utterly bored viewer. After all, they must keep people engaged as they bounce from Facebook to Instagram between violent beheadings, incinerations and disembowlments.

Exactly. I fear the end product will have nothing Tolkien remaining, save the name. That begs the question of why one uses the Tolkien association, then. Only one answer: money.

Hey, I wonj't be disappointed at all, since I fully expect Young Aragorn: Lord of the Game of Ring Thrones to be utter crap.

Well, white wolves did cross the Brandywine during the Fell Winter. Could zombies be far behind?

And before The Wall there was the High Hay.

Which has magic that stops the Children of the Old Forest!

"Gimli" on the prospective LOTR TV series
 

I just caught this from Den of Geek:

I don't do Internet links very well in this forum, so would someone please fix this if I get it wrong?

[URL="http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/john-rhys-davies/53281/john-rhys-davies-interview-aux-orcs-lord-of-the-rings-indiana-jones-and-more"[/URL]

The Interested reader will have to scroll down a bit in the interview to get to Mr Rhys-Davies' comments on LOTR, the Hobbit, and prospective TV series. He basically sees little but greed for more $$$$$$$ in the whole idea, something like on-line gambling.

Good for JRD. He's always told it like he sees it.

Given that in the past the Estate has threatened legal action against a non-profit children's camp due to copyright https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...nge-name.shtml this whole money grab seems sordid to say the least. There are lots of good reasons for attacking Amazon (as I said, I avoid them because of their 'creative' approach to tax and their treatment of staff) but the anger should be directed at the Estate, who decided to cash in on Tolkien's creation. Any harm done to Tolkien's creation should be laid at the door of the Estate. What was born in the mud and blood of the Somme, has become a cash cow for a bunch of greedy business people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. If the rights had been placed in the public domain we would have no doubt seen some appalling and offensive trash produced, but also some beautiful and creative productions. As it is, this deal will almost certainly only produce the former.

To add to my last post, the bar has been set admittedly low with the LotR movies, and especially The Hobbit movies. Being the rights were sold 48 years ago before there was a 'Tolkien Estate', the estate likely put a high price on this especially after the hassles they had with the films. Cash grab?maybe, but may as well get the $ beforehand instead of hassling over the 'profits'.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Actions like that are an unfortunate necessity under current IP law: if the owner of a trademark doesn't act to protect it in cases like this, then the courts can find that the TM has been "abandoned" and is now public domain.

Except that the TV rights were not sold 48 years ago: they were sold in 2017.

The rub about this is I remember when Jackson said he was a "fan" of Tolkien because he read Lord of the Rings once on a train and thought "this will be a kewl movie."

I'd be surprised if the writers of a tv series had even done that. At most they might have watched the movies, and that's where their ideas about Tolkien will originate.

Not optimistic
 

Thanks for starting this thread, Victariongreyjoy!

With what people have said, and the news of Christopher Tolkien's resignation as Director of the Tolkien Estate, I'm not optimistic about this planned TV series.

If, as you said Snowdog, this happened, things might be different:

As long as there is an all new cast, and all new episode writers and directors, and PJ Boyens WETA and gang are kept as far away from it as possible, it may have a chance.

The best that can be done, I think, is to wait and see... :(

This commentator agrees with us:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...stamina-amazon

"Realistically, the best the series can do is not disappoint people. The worst it can do is junk the franchise for ever. That seems like too big a gamble, especially for a service that makes most of its money delivering cat food."

Interesting article
 

I had not consulted any other sites to gauge reaction to the news, so this information both intrigues and pleases me.

That comment irritated me.

It is not that the events between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are dull. Not at all.

I just don't think the greedy pack of cynics who are producing this show will come close to doing it justice.

coughcoughexamplebassrankincoughcough.
The reading of the original 1969 contract says differently, and the material to be covered in this latest deal is part of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Love the Rankin Bass Hobbit. Jackson's farrago shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath.

The Beautiful and the Appalling
 

Speaking of treasured literary works in the public domain and what inspiration -- both/either appalling and/or beautiful -- others have drawn from them, you might find the following of interest:

Celebrating 200 Years of FRANKENSTEIN and DRACULA
Posted by Eric Diaz, the Nerdist.com (June 30, 2016)
https://nerdist.com/celebrating-200-...n-and-dracula/

And, in the appalling (but truthful) trash department we now have YouTube and unsolicited volunteers reading us the scatological Mad Magazine movie reviews, just in case crap movies have rendered us incapable of reading cartoon pictures for ourselves; like, for instance:

The Slobbit Mad Magazine Part One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJcNOe4Br1s

The Slobbit Mad Magazine Part Two
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3kDHXeMP7w

And these two videos only cover one-third of the bloated three-thirds of a one-movie story whose gross ticket receipts have convinced greedy investors to underwrite not one but several television seasons of ... just what I shudder to think.

There and Back and There and Back
 

In my above comment about public-domain literary masterpieces and how later writers and movie directors feed off of them, I mentioned Bram Stoker's Dracula because -- in relation to Tolkien's epic triology, the scene featuring Smeagol-Gollum climbing face down a cliff in LOTR: The Two Towers comes straight from Dracula, where Jonathan Harker relates in his journal what he saw one night when looking out over the empty courtyard of the Count's delapidated castle.

As Tolkien reworked the scene into his own tale:

So J. R. R. Tolkien had no qualms about incorporating Bram Stoker's imagery into his own work and Peter Jackson followed Tolkien in the second film of his movie trilogy. Good thing for Tolkien, Jackson, and New Line Cinema that no one from the Bram Stoker Estate sued them for "intellectual property" infringement since Dracula does not just belong in the public domain, but has become a part of the literary and entertainment culture itself. It seems to me that if the producers, writers, and directors of the upcoming "LOTR" television series want to reuse Tolkien and Jackson in their own stories, then they only need find what Tolkien and Jackson reused from the extant literature and film archives and claim that they based their stories on those common foundations and not on anything that Tolkien had written or Jackson had filmed. After all, "There and Back Again" simply rips off Homer's Iliad (from Greece to Troy) and Odyssey (back to Greece agan). Practically all of Western Literature has done that. Tolkien did it twice: short version and longer version.

Allow me to present to you a little project called the Silmarillion, that had no purpose beyond the intellectual and emotional pleasure it gave its creator...

Lalaith, I believe ArcusCalion is from that cynical lot who believe every artistic endeavor primarily revolves around the making of money, no matter what altruistic intent mentioned by the artist.

In fact, I am sure his opinion coincides with the 18th century poet Matthew Greene, who once famously wrote, "Novels are receipts to make a whore."

Between a Literary Rock and a Motion Picture hard place
 

Yes, the various LOTR appendices do contain calendars of dates and summary plot outlines which could form the basis for additional "Middle Earth" stories. Unfortunately, Peter Jackson and Company made a hash of this information when they selectively plundered the Appendices and rearranged and expanded much of Tolkien's material -- most notably the Aragorn and Arwen "love" stuff -- into their own scripts for The Lord of the Rings -- the film. Ditto for the three Hobbit films. So now we have six films that constitute what I have heard termed, "the Jackson Legendarium," which the new television series will have to keep in mind so as to avoid "intellectual" property-rights litigation from the motion-picture studio quarter. Caught between a literary rock and a movie hard place, so to speak, something tells me that corporate lawyers will have as much to say about these television stories as anyone else.

I think the main takeaway from this is that Amazon is downright desperate to keep up with Netlfix and HBO for streaming customers in terms of big buck critical and commercial successes. It's apparently a cut throat new sphere in the entertainment industry.

Amazon and Bezos I think see LOTR as a way to buy themselves out of the fact they can't compete with HBO-their trying to replicate Game of Throne's success despite GOT and LOTR being manicheanly different in terms of style, themes, emphasis, and worldview.

Is there any word on why Christopher Tolkien has resigned?

I'm not sure that the powers that be at Amazon are attuned enough to the two franchises to realize the differences.

Maybe they were bamboozled by everyone saying that Martin is the American Tolkien and they thought they could one up HBO by getting the "original."

Sadly, I suspect it is the obvious reason of his advancing age. :(

The After and the Before
 

If I understand the legal situation surrounding the proposed television series and possible spin-offs, the TV programs may cover anything and everything in Middle Earth from after The Hobbit (book and films?) but before LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (book and film?). To begin figuring out what this means as a practical, story-telling matter, I consulted the relevant Middle Earth chronology (for the Third Age) from Appendix B of Lord of the Rings (the book) which reads as follows:

I take it, then, that these prospective television programs and spin-offs can cover anything and everything in Middle Earth from 2943 to 3000 of the Third Age, a period of 58 years (inclusive). Still, I can't see how the characters and their story arcs can make any sense without reference to what came before and what comes after. In other words, we seem to have sequel and prequel combined into one: with the former coming after what no one can legally tell us about (but which we know anyway) and the latter coming before something else that no one can legally tell us about (but which we know anyway), either. How does anything like that work outside of a "secret" American grand jury proceeding leaked to the media by anonymous accusers on an hourly basis? Game of Thrones, or House of Cards? Inquiring minds want to know.

You don't have to be cynical to recognize that artists need to pay rents and grocery bills like the rest of us. Tolkien was free to build his languages and legendarium for love and his own enjoyment because his day job fed the family (on top of providing him with linguistic and literary inspiration).

Screenwriters, directors and actors, however, live by their craft and generally don't own the means of production (again, like the rest of us). Small, cheap indy projects may be realized without compromising your artistic vision, but if your vision calls for a large cast and lots of special fx you depend on the goodwill of those who do own the means of production, and for whom the maximization of profit is indeed often the sole concern--and there goes:

With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that delight might cover their face,

with usura

hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luthes
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,

with usura

seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly

For a small budget, minimalist TV version of LotR that trusts the story to do its job without any need for spectacular CGI, artificial character arcs and silly romance subplots, see Hobitit (which I love, it captures the spirit and 'feel' of the story very well IMO, some ham acting and questionable design decisions notwithstanding). But if a big, flashy Tolkien-based series must needs be made, I wish somebody would pick up Helge Fauskanger's ideas for Westernesse (even if Gary Oldman is already a little old to play Ar-Pharazon).

Fictitious and Entirely Coincidental television
 

I really have to wonder about how much of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" (books and films) can remain in certain private hands, for their commercial exploitation only. So many millions of people, over such a long period of time, have read and/or seen this material, that it already seems part of the general world culture. For example: in the bestselling book, The Martian, by Andy Weir -- and in its subsequent film adaptation -- a hero astronaut finds himself marooned on the planet Mars, while a group of NASA employees has a meeting to discuss a controversial plan to rescue him. The book depicts the scene as follows:

The movie scene has a bit more unspoken resonance because Sean Bean, the actor who portrayed the “Mitch” character (a NASA flight director) also played Boromir, an attendee at the film version of the Council of Elrond, from Book II of LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring. Additionally, in the movie but not the book, the character Teddy (Director of NASA) adds: “If we're going to call something 'Project Elrond,' I'd like my code name to be 'Glorfindel',” which would indicate that the character had read the books since the elf character Glorfindel never appeared in Peter Jackson's film version of The Fellowship. Of course, the movie version had to clean up the language somewhat, with the first and last lines of dialogue changed to "What the hell is 'Project Elrond'?" and "I hate every one of you," respectively.

I find it hard to believe that the publishers and producers of The Martian - book and film -- would have had to pay royalties or other forms of "compensation" to the Tolkien Estate or various film studios for making reference to "The Council of Elrond" in their own work. I checked inside the front and back covers of the book for CYA disclaimers and found only the standard generic one:

"This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental."

I wonder how far the producers of the projected television series can stretch this "fictitious" and "entirely coincidental" kind of legalistic denial.

The Elf-chick and Some Fatherly Advice
 

Thanks for the verse, Pitchwife. And thanks, again, for that comment (#3) you made many years ago in the "Itaril" thread where you wrote:

I hold you blameless for inspiring my own attempts (often sordid) to follow -- in verse -- the implications inherent in this casting advertisement. Despite the later euphemistic change of product description to "Tauriel," and the change of "love" interest from Elf lord to dwarf miner, the essential "strong female" Mary Sue nature of the elf-chick role remained from first to last. Recently, I went back and gathered all my verse compositions from that thread together -- along with some of the forum commentary, positive and negative, that prompted my poor poetic efforts -- with a view to publishing them someday as a connected cycle. With the promised (i.e., "threatened") television series and spin-offs coming soon, though, I thought it best to wrap up this "Hobbit" elf-chick thing before moving on to whatever awful idea comes next. I think that I tried this once before in another thread, but I've forgotten where I put it. So, with a few changes, I'll try again with:

Unrequited Elf-Dwarf Libido

How did this interspecies film romance
Have anything amounting to a chance
If he, the dwarf, had nothing in his shorts
And she, the elf, knew only glib retorts?

We know that elves and men can mate, it's true,
Because Professor Tolkien said they do.
But how do elves and dwarves refute the rule
That horses crossed with donkeys make a mule?

It seems this kind of, tawdry, tame affair
Appeals to those without a pubic hair:
To boys in bed, both hands beneath the sheets,
And girls who've yet to grow a pair of teats.

And what of that “young Elf Lord” -- You-Know-Him --
Whose face emotes expressions fell and grim
Who left the elf-chick in his dad's employ
To go in search of one ten-year-old boy*

What does a jilted elf-chick have to do?
Abandoned by a dwarf and elf lord, too.
It looks like time for yet another plan.
Who's left to further her career? A man?

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2017

Note * According to Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn, born in 2931 of the Third Age, would have only reached the age of ten or eleven by 2942, the year that The Hobbit ends with Bilbo's return from his great adventure to Bag End, Hobbiton.

I note this because, very near the end of the last Hobbit film, i.e., The Battle of the Five Armies, the "young Elf Lord" Legolas bluntly tells his dad, King Thranduil: "I can't to back." When the Silvan Elf King solemnly asks his son: "Where will you go?" Legolas answers: "I do not know." The Elf King then advises his son: "Go north. Find the Dunedain. There is a young ranger among them. You should meet him. His father, Arathorn, was a good man. His son might grow to be a great one." Legolas then asks the obvious: "What is his name?" To which the King answers, cryptically: "He is known in the wild as 'Strider.' His true name you must discover for yourself."

Unfortunately for Legolas in 2942, Lord Elrond in Imladris (Rivendell) reveals to 'Estel' his true name and ancestry, and delivers to him the shards of Narsil and other heirlooms, only in 2951, when Aragorn turns twenty.

Therefore, in 2942 when Thranduil attempts to advise his son Legolas where to go: (1) No one but Elrond and Aragorn's mother, Gilraen, know Aragorn's true name or his ancestry. Aragorn himself answers to the name of "Estel." (2) Aragorn lives in Imladris under his pseudonym and not with the Dunedian in the north whose existence he probably doesn't even know about. (3) At the age of ten or eleven his legs have not grown long enough for him to "stride" about in the Wild and earn the nickname "Strider." Anyway, Aragorn doesn't even go out into the Wild knowing his true name and ancestry until he turns twenty. And even then and thereafter, he goes about under any number of assumed names for a great many years.

Quite a bit doesn't add up here, and if Legolas actually follows his dad's advice, he will have about seven decades to wander around lost before Lord Elrond reveals Aragorn's true name and lineage to all those assembed at The Council of Elrond in October of 3018.

Hard to say all that in a few lines of verse, so "one ten-year-old boy" will have to suffice.

You know I wonder if it's good or bad Tolkien's works have the shining omnipresent legacy they do.

A part of me says yes and a part of me says no.

I see it as an inevitable stage in their transmutation from literature to true myth.

Michael, thanks for a little trip down memory lane, back to the days where we could only surmise which of our nightmares would be fulfilled by PJ & company. I'll pass your thanks for the verse on to Uncle Ezra.
Now this could be material for an epic multi-season series! "Legolas: The Search For Strider" would follow ranger and elf-prince on their separate but interwoven adventures through the wild and uncharted realms of Middle-earth, even to Rhûn and Harad, where the stars are strange, with every foreshadowed meeting ending in a near miss. We could watch Aragorn serve incognito under Thengel and Ecthelion, the barbaric tribes of the East and South would add an exotic flair to rival the Essos and Dorne scenes in GoT, complete with scantily clad oriental princesses and conlangs by David Peterson; for the horror element we could have the Black Riders stretching their limbs after awaking from millennial sleep during The Hobbit, and maybe one of those sorcerous cults the Blue Wizards are reported to have started. Every now and then Galadriel would PM Legolas telepathically, telling him in broken Elvish that Strider is in grave danger and Leggy must hasten to save him, but of course Aragorn has saved himself by the time Leggy arrives. We could even have a little L/A slash as long as Leggy doesn't realize that this ruggedly handsome man who awakens unforeseen desire in him is 'Strider'.

(I'm kidding, of course... or am I? Part of me wouldn't mind watching such a cinematic fan fic, minus the Legolas part and other obvious silliness--if only it were perfectly clear that it's nothing but that, fan fic, and we wouldn't have to explain to future Piles of Bones that Aragorn's fling with that Easterling princess who secretly meant to betray him to dark!Pallando never really happened.)

A twice-enraged "purist" die-hard
 

I apologize if others have already covered this article ...

"Why Amazon’s Lord of the Rings Show Won’t Be the New Game of Thrones"
By Joanna Robinson, Vanity Fair (November, 2017)
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...amazon-prequel

... But I wanted to excerpt a few comments relevant to my own, admittedly jaundiced, view of things. For example:

An "enraged Tolkien die-hard"? I resemble that remark!

Or, perhaps, I only half resemble it, since I belong to the enraged Tolkien die-hard cohort that couldn't stomach Jackson's invented love story when it first involved an Elf-chick character by the name of "Itaril" (originally scheduled for portrayal by the teenage actress Saoirse Ronan) who fell secretly in love with a "young Elf Lord," You-Know-Him, while kicking butt and taking names for the Silvan Elf King Thranduil, father of the "young Elf Lord" in question. Apparently, the author of this article completely missed the first iteration of this really lousy Elf-chick "warrior" thing and only picked up on it the second time around. Just change the name from "innocent bystander" to "collateral damage" and the killing can continue. Primitive Word-Magic works every time.

Then, we have this:

Yeah. Still licking my wounds. Not real keen to acquire more of them.

The press really does seem to like pricking at Tolkien fans. They also seem to portray Christopher Tolkien himself as a mean ogre that won't everyone enjoy his father's blessings.

I really hope this thing tanks. I hate to say that about anything associated with Tolkien, but maybe that would at least ensure less outrageous treatment of his world, from the point of view of "enraged die-hards" such as I.

Sex, Violence, Soap Opera Drama and Pretending the Endless Hobbit movies don't exist
 

I just caught a couple of interesting comments regarding the "Lord of the Rings" television stuff soon to come:

Oh, great: "Sex, violence, and soap opera drama." Just what the "Lord of the Rings" brand needs.

And then we have this:

I hadn't thought of this, but upon reflection, it makes perfect sense: We'll just pretend that the endless The Hobbit movies don't exist Therefore, anything before the Fellowship of the Ring looks like fair game. I think I've got it now.