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But a film - or a series - has the problem that it offers a "whole package" and does not leave anything to imagination. Even if it somehow managed to be 100% faithful to Tolkien in spirit (to be fair, I would be happy with, say, 60%; or more than 50%, which is something that gets close to what PJ managed - but already that does not qualify as Tolkien, in my book. And yes, I know I am very strict about this), so, even if it succeeded, it would be visually and in terms of atmosphere probably completely different from what I perceive to be "Tolkien". And if by some miracle myself and the director have the same vision, then fifty other people won't. I am always reminded of this quote from On Fairy-Stories: Quote:
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What we are pointing out here is that Amazon is engaging in what might be referred to as terminologial inexactitude motivated by greed for gain. |
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But, at the same time, I assume that an average, not-as-geeky-as-us person will understand Amazon's advertising as "something like PJ's LotR" (very broadly speaking), and that is, while it will not make *me* consider it "Tolkien" any more, acceptable in terms of what it is doing - as much as PJ's films were acceptable. (And, to be fair, they were.) So, it will likely be a matter of how acceptable it is. If it is roughly similar to PJ, maybe worse in some ways, but also maybe better in some ways, then it still fits the generic category of "commercial adaptations of LotR for wide public". Would I wish that they were done more faithfully? Sure. But like I said, even that has a limit (you are never going to make Bree or Boromir look 100% the way I imagine them to look). Is it motivated by greed? I sadly assume that it is, because what in this rotten world of commerce, that Amazon is a prime example of, is not? But then one hopes that there are at least some individuals present who do it out of love for Tolkien (and note that I am intentionally saying love and not enthusiasm; enthusiasm can spawn a ton of fanfictions that can however be as far from Tolkien as Batman versus Predator). |
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I go back and forth all the time about the Amazon series, currently I'm at a "maybe I'll watch the series a few years later if people I know and respect say it's great and worth it. And if they say it's a flop then maybe I'll watch it 10 years later." :rolleyes:
My problem with the trend in Hollywood and Amazon, Disney...etc is it's just laziness and uninspired. There's nothing wrong with trying to create stories that are relatable to different audiences, or has a positive message you want to get out...but Melkor have mercy, CREATE YOUR OWN. Changing races, genders, adding in love interests to a story when there isn't one will inevitably be a cheaper, lazier product. In my opinion it just tells me right off the start "Hey, I can't write an inspiring, good asian/latino/gay/female character, so I'm going to use a large brand like Tolkien to sell it." |
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This whole thing will be about inventing new characters besides some five known Isildurs and co. But Isildur's second-in-command, Isildur's best childhood friend, the person who bullied Isildur at school, Isildur's kind teacher who secretly let him study Elvish... all these are open to create. And yes, the only question is whether the creators will make these INTERESTING, and not just random and un-Tolkien-y straw figurines. That's their only job. |
Which means it's goin to be fan-fic, and can never be anything but. Or worse than fan-fic, just standard TV hack-work, written not by fans but by people who don't give a rodent's rump about Tolkien.
----------------------- And actually we know this much: this is (supposed to be) Tolkien's universe. JRRT would never in a million years have peopled it with non-hetero people. I doubt he would even have ascribed it to Umbar; his mode of expressing corruptioon never went in the Sodom-and-Gomorrah direction. Pretty much nobody can write Tolkien but Tolkien. PJ tried and failed, and at least he tried, and had a novel to work from. Amazon, I firmly believe, merely wants to hang the Tolkien brand name on an overwrought sword-sorcery-and-sex epic. (Note how they paid Tom Shippey for his name, only; certainly not his expertise or advice). |
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It occurs to me quite belatedly that if this series is indeed the Forging of the Rings through to the Last Alliance, then it's not just a Middle-earth story: it's a villain origin story. "How did Sauron become Lord of the Rings and a giant burning eyeball?" is in the same vein as "How did Cruella become an evil fashionista?" or "How did Insert Name Here become a crazy clown?".
Stay tuned for the tragic tale of Mairon, who only turned to evil because short people in waistcoats pelted him with gold rings and hit him in the eye. "Ouch! That's a Sore One! Hmmm..." (Also I think they released some more cast members recently, but didn't attach any names to them or anything.) hS |
Courtesy of the official Twitter account, we finally have a release date - 2 September 2022 - and the first image from the series!
https://i.imgur.com/BB5RLUih.jpg The city design is very much "Peter Jackson's Minas Tirith in the style of Peter Jackson's Rivendell". There's lots of details to be seen if you zoom in on the full-size version - I spotted birds flying over the city, and people walking the path down by the ?lake - but the biggest is right there in the centre: this ain't Numenor, and that ain't the sun. https://i.imgur.com/93fnkR5l.jpg (From the prologue, I guess, but also AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) hS |
I have a bit of a bizarre reaction, but seeing this image actually (and irrationally) makes me angrier about this whole thing than I was before.
I guess I had made peace (sort of) with the Debauchery of Numenor but seeing this makes me afraid that we will have to endure the salacious tale of Indis the Whore of Tirion-upon-Túna. Although, this bothering me more makes no sense because I had no hopes for this thing from the get-go. |
Can someone please remind me what material they do and don't have rights to? Like, how much of The Sil could we reasonably see here? I really hope that this is not going to be about the Fall of the Noldor. I felt quite mildly about the thing when I assumed it would be a totally made up from scratch thing with only some names to link it to Tolkien, but I am not watching them butcher The Sil.
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I have seen a claim that the Tolkien estate is "very happy" with how things are going. That comes from the same source that claims the only nudity being filmed is specifically non-sexualised... which led to the adorable claim by various fans that there is "No Nudity In Any Of The LotR Books". Bless... I can name three instances without even thinking about it, and that's not going near the Silm. Honestly, I'm looking forward to it just so I can cackle with glee every time ill-informed people elsewhere on the internet claim that Tolkien would never have written nudity, or women doing anything other than sewing (no, actually it's pretty much only Arwen who sticks to that), or skin that wasn't ivory-white ("The Harfoots were browner of skin..."). At least on the Downs I know the criticisms I read will be grounded in actual facts, not people's made-up memories of misreading the books! hS, practicing the cackle already, mwehehehe |
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And if we go to the Sil, I wonder if there is a mad fanfic somewhere out there about nude Saeros meeting nude Nienor. You know, he was not entirely wrong about the women of Dor-lomin. :p |
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Even with just those examples, we can see Tolkien using nudity as both a positive and negative thing. So yeah, it can certainly have a place in Middle-earth. hS |
"Tolkien"-brand Game of Thrones?
In a link that I posted to another thread about "LOTR"-brand television production shifting from New Zealand to the British Isles, I came upon the following quote that I thought also applies to this thread, as well:
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The Ultimate Ranking of 'Game of Thrones' Sex Scenes Rated on a scale of dracarys. 🔥 https://www.marieclaire.com/culture/...es-sex-scenes/ Quote:
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J.R.R. Tolkien interviewed by Denys Gueroult for BBC in 1964 (released 1971). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzDtmMXJ1B4] Now, does anyone who has read The Silmarillion and seen Game of Thrones have any idea if the richest man on earth will get what he wants out of this television series and whether the "discriminating" television audience will swallow it as J. R. R. Tolkien's work without gagging? |
The Silmarillion has rape, attempted rape, incest, lust, nudity: it doesn't pull any punches and gives the lie to notions of Tolkien as some kind of puritan prude.
The old complaint that the Amazon series was going to go down the route of GoT style gratuitous titillation seems largely founded on the hiring (or at least advertising for) some kind of "nudity consultant" over a year ago. That's old news and seems disproven by the nudity actually being captured and tortured elves in a concentration camp type scene, possibly in the process of being twisted into orcs. There's seriously no other reason for it, other than unfounded Internet worries. |
I think the issue around sex/nude scenes is not so mich in their presence as in their use. GOT early seasons are known to have sex scenes just for the purpose of sex scenes - the story does not necessarily benefit from the expliciteness, nor even from the existence of the scene at all. Tolkien can write about nudity and sex and rape, but he'd never spend half a page describing someone's private parts in exquisite detail. He is more the type to let you know exactly what haplened, but to keep the details of the bedroom behind the curtain. It's not the presence of the scenes so much as the way they are done and the purpose they contribute to the story.
Would I watch a GOT style sexed up thing with Tolkien names? I would for Second Age material, to give it a fair chance as a very loose adaptation. I wouldn't if it attempts to adapt any more solid material. However, Hui said before that some sources say the sexualized angle is not what they are going for. Still, the nudity is not the reason I wouldn't watch it - I purposefully haven't watched movie adaptations of books that I really liked because I know they won't do it justice for me. Hence, if it's a very loose adaptation, I don't really care what they do with it, I will treat it basically as a work of its own, or a fanfiction. But if it sticks to the text enough to sort of follow the stoey but also warp everything, nah. |
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Whether the discriminating audience will swallow it depends on how the source material is treated, but the philosophical perspectives of Tolkien's work and Game of Thrones (even as a separate thing from A Song of Ice and Fire) are miles and miles apart. I have a hard time imagining that they will mesh well. Quote:
To the point I made above, based on their own words I think the Amazon production is more sympathetic to the philosophical point of view of GoT and will have every motivation to titillate the audience because that was the secret to success of GoT; and that is just one problem (although admittedly a major one) I have with this production. |
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Lord of the Rights
The richest man on Earth has spent some money:
two-hundred-fifty million, so we hear, for rights to make what some will not think funny: a TV-series "based on" "writings" "near" to what an Oxford don had not completed but "might have" had he lived another year or ten. His death left fandom feeling cheated who wanted more of Tolkien's Middle-earth. Escapist fantasies: Morgoth defeated! In fact, where joined by Amazon's net worth, the HBO and Netflix "streaming" plan distracts from sights of "good guys" doomed from birth, defeated by the common peasant man in Vietnam and now Afghanistan. Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2021 |
Game of Thongs
I kid you not, fellow Crimestoppers. Just as I started thinking about another way to lampoon in verse the forthcoming Amazon "steaming" [spelling intentional] television series and it's Amazon-ordered mission to mix Tolkien's Middle-earth mythology with HBO's Game of Thrones sexploitation, I catch this little item from Sputnik News:
Monica Lewinsky Pushed 'Thong-Flashing' Scene to Be in Upcoming 'Impeachment' TV Show https://sputniknews.com/society/2021...hment-tv-show/ Quote:
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Demiurge Dementia
Again, from what I understand: Amazon plans to start televising the first episodes of their "Lord of the Rings" series next year (2022) which I look forward to lampooning given the sort of material that I assume will disgrace the entertainment industry -- a difficult task, I admit. Others more knowledgeable than myself in Tolkien Lore have said that The Silmarillion will constitute the literary basis for the intended rip-off. I don't have a copy of The Silmarillion, but I do have a copy of Unfinished Tales, where the Editor, Christopher Tolkien, writes in the Introduction:
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Demiurge Dementia Valium, Land of the Vulgar, it seems, features some real-estate made up of dreams parceled-out absent competitive schemes, "built" by The Owner for "his" chosen teams: “Angels” who mouth metaphysical memes; “Demons” who thump theological themes. Boron and Lithium, man and elf female, teamed up to perpetrate – down to the detail – theft of a mineral stone (cheap at retail): Morbid’s crown missing a rock, now for resale. Lithium’s dad asked his girl why should she wail? Boron knew that he’d get shafted should he fail. Where do the Halfwits come into this story? Trying to separate Labor from Tory, What should we call them? A “truck” or a “lorry”? Do they not serve as an apt allegory: Rustic and “Middle” and “common” and hoary? Who, if not them, will suffice as pure quarry? Somehow this story sounds already told, Like a stale meal having long since grown cold; Fetid like swamp water covered with mold; Reeking of avarice; done; over sold; Amateur alchemy: tin made from gold; Narrative nonsense: escape from the fold. Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2021 |
The Undying Dirt
Moving right along after consulting Wikipedia for the low-down on the tree-dwelling Elf Queen and her "consort."
The Undying Dirt Gladrail and Celebrate, Elf Queen and toy-boy mate, she splits and he stays late minding the forest. She wears a ring: her fate. He has to mind the gate. He gets to clean her plate and pay the florist. She sails away to wait, Dimly the Dwarf her date. Present tense adequate: Elf-speak’s aorist. Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2021 |
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Now, I can say with almost complete certainty that CRT would never, ever have agreed to this, not if Amazon, or anyone else, had offered him the entire US national debt in payment. Which leads me to conclude that either (a) Christopher retired due to advanced old age, and as soon as he was out of the way other family members jumped; or (b) Bezos came offering a quarter-gigabuck of cash, and the obstreperous old man was forced out because he stood between them and Smaug's horde. And since the deal was made without Christopher it's almost certainly for the whole damn legendarium. |
What comes to those who wait . . .
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At any rate, I understand that teaser trailers and a pilot episode will debut sometime before the end of this year; and, depending upon the viewing audience's reactions, we will no doubt see "changes of direction" (meaning, recasting of certain roles or deletion of them, etc.) that the "creative" executive producers will choose to make prior to the first season's episodes beginning to "steam" (not a misspelling) in early September of 2022. Not all that long to wait now for at least "something." |
Apotheosis of Existential Odor
To recapitulate my understand things, the forthcoming Amazon television series of steaming [not a misspelling] "Lord of the Rings" episodes -- projected to span several years -- will base itself on a mythology found in The Silmarillion, a book put together by Tolkien's son Christopher, about which I know next to nothing. (I always felt that if Tolkien didn't consider these writings fit to publish, then I needn't waste my time reading them.)
But "the show must go on," as the people paid to stage theatrical entertainments like to say, and so some sort of "adaptation" of Tolkien's "writings" (i.e., extensive notes) will most likely appear on television (or cell-phone) screens beginning with a teaser trailer and pilot episode sometime before the end of this year, with regular weekly episodes to begin in the fall of 2022. In preparation for reading on-line reviews of these productions and their possible relation to mythology in general -- or J. R. R. Tolkien's "legendarium" in particular -- I thought I would access the Interwebs for information, if not enlightenment. Most, if not all, mythologies contain some sort of "origin" or "creation" story -- in this case, probably a narrative voice-over by an "immortal elf" like Cate Blanchet or Hugo Weaving -- and so I thought I would start with asking how Tolkien supposedly began describing his made-up world. I found this: Quote:
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Apotheosis of Existential Odor Ew (ill avatar) cried: "Let stuff be!" So stuff became where stuff wasn’t before. Nothing for stuff means stuff happens for free: Schema, mythology, hand-me-down “lore;” Pure fabrication: fictitious tall tales; Filling up silence which Halfwits abhor. Fantasy triumphs where disbelief fails. Posit The One and name IT “Deity.” Publish and hope that does wonders for sales. Coin the term “being” (which no one can see). Then call it “is” (far more easy to spell). Thus, tautological identity: "A is A," proves syllogism can sell Anything – if you can just stand the smell. Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2021 |
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Amazon is the perfect company to destroy Tolkien's work. Having said that I will watch the first episode while I scream at the television until I refuse to watch anymore. I will then pick it up the next week in defiance of my oath to never watch it again where my actions will predictably repeat. I assume it will take anywhere from 3-5 shows for me to actually keep my word, realize my hope of an accurate portrayal could never happen with Amazon at the helm, and finally discard the show. |
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That said, I don't yet see any reason that I should watch it (which was precisely my view on the PJ film treatments). The books have very deep meaning to me. Tolkien has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Would watching "adaptations" written by other people, using his invented settings and characters, increase my affection for the original material? My experience with the LOTR movies indicates the answer is "not bloody likely". Am I likely to appreciate the direction Tolkien's world takes in the hands of those who, in all likelihood, don't have the love and respect of his creative output that I possess? Highly doubtful. If Tolkien didn't give me some bit of information I am curious over, I much prefer to speculate on it in my own mind, rather than having a big-budget production spoon-feed their own version to me. |
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Now, if they actually make it Tolkien enough that it's recognizably written-ish material, and butcher that, I might just stop watching, because that is something that will ruin my appetite. |
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Looking at the casting, the majority of characters are OCs. I am absolutely convinced this will be nothing close to Tolkien’s work in either theme or story.
My guess is it will be a generic fantasy esque show perhaps with Galadriel as the main heroine. It seems that once Christopher Tolkien died, the estate sold out for a quarter of a billion dollars. |
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Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone Nine for mortal Men, doomed to die One for the Dark Lord, on his dark throne In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie. We have a trailer! Well, sort of. A teaser? A promo spot? I don't know. And we have a title! The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, coming 2nd September 2022. (Letter 115 mentions "Fall of Numenor" and "Rings of Power" as two texts Tolkien viewed as linking the Silmarillion to the Third Age. This is presumably "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age", but the short form means there is Tolkienian backing for this title.) hS |
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Although, as Snowdog says, it's not like there is an abundance of canon characters during the period the series is covering. |
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