[Galadriel55]

After I started writing and had to step away 3 times in a row, with my attempt at a post disappearing, I will quit trying to do anything lengthy. Besides, I feel like most things have already been said and reacted to, and, well, here's one more voice in the chorus.

I wish they had less canon in there - or, rather, didn't try to put in so mucb canon. They could have had a great show with mostly new characters and a couple Tolkien ones to keep the ties to the fandom. It wouldn't be Tolkien, but it would have the potential to be a decent story in its own right, using the legendarium as a fanfic landscape. But they had to have ALL the characters, and ALL AT ONCE, and doing ALL THE THINGS that are thought to pizzazz a show, and that just doesn't work. Instead of being cool, it ruins existing Tolkien. Don't force a square peg into a round hole, whittle yourself a round one.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I've got to say, I'm sort of relishing just how divergent things are already appearing (the time crunch is THE thing that has my goat here) and I'm kind of rooting for it to be a completely unTolkienian travesty. Which is not exactly *charitable* of me, but it's easy to root against Amazon and is a lot easier to mentally prepare for than hoping against hope it'll somehow accord with the Spirit of Tolkien.

I was holding out hope that it will remain obliquely Tolkienian. But this ridiculous time crunch (where Galadriel seems to be the worst affected), and the unnecessary pizzazzing (evil politician Elrond? Questionable romances?) - ugh, why.


I will not repeat what's been said, but something I noticed:

*the government of New Zealand has placed production expenditures at $462 million for the first season alone. That figure includes building infrastructure that will be used in later seasons

Does that imply they intend to have more seasons? And how strong is the intention? (Like, "if it works out, we will come up with more", vs "this story literally cannot be told in 1 season")?

Even the cast members were hired without being told which parts they would play.

Does anyone else think this is pushing the line?


Moosepeople. Moosepeople. Moople. Meople. What???

After news broke that Amazon had hired an intimacy coordinator for its New Zealand set, some fans feared that the production might have lost sight of what makes Tolkien Tolkien.

I think there has been enough proof posted on other threads for why sex in itself is not un-Tolkien, but 1) is there so much of it, or is it so unconventional, that it requires an expert advisor, and 2) how is "intimacy coordinator" even a job? Imagine having that as an answer for the age-old "what do you wanna be when you grow up?"

When Amazon released photos of its multicultural cast, even without character names or plot details, the studio endured a reflexive attack from trolls—the anonymous online kind. “Obviously there was going to be push and backlash,” says Tolkien scholar Mariana Rios Maldonado, “but the question is from whom? Who are these people that feel so threatened or disgusted by the idea that an elf is Black or Latino or Asian?”

You can make an Elf any race or colour you want, but at one point it's not gonna be a Tolkien Elf anymore. To reference GOT (should we call it the *true* source material?), a blonde Baratheon ain't a Baratheon. The article recites actors names and backgrounds like it's proving a point that this show satisfies the latest fashion criteria for diversity. We'll see what comes of it, but if it's diversity for diversity's sake, that often turns out even worse.

...Got to the picture of Halbarad... Halbard... Hal... with the T-shirt. Indeed, what's up with the T-shirt? And, speaking of costumes, I wasn't a fan of the faces on the Sylvan Elves's armour either.

“If you are true to the exact letter of the law, you are going to be telling a story in which your human characters are dying off every season because you’re jumping 200 years in time, and then you’re not meeting really big, important canon characters until season four. Look, there might be some fans who want us to do a documentary of Middle-earth, but we’re going to tell one story that unites all these things.”

Or you can do flashes of various points in that time, or carry two separate timelines, or have flashbacks. There are sooo many ways to avoid having a barely-out-of-her-teens Galadriel jump straight to Ringbearer just because you wanna showcase a mortal.

“We think the work will eventually speak for itself,”

It certainly will. The only question is - what will it say.