"The Rings of Power" Vanity Fair article

[Huinesoron]

So what's up with Galadriel? The article talks about her a lot, but I think that might be because she's the only name movie fans will recognise. It's certainly why they start with her.

- She's named under this photo as "commander of the Northern Armies". Of Lindon? Of Eregion? Of Nargothrond? Unclear, but probably not the latter. Honestly, it's not out of character for Artanis Nerwen to run about playing soldier.

- "As the series begins, Galadriel is hunting down the last remnants of [Morgoth and Sauron's] collaborators, who claimed the life of her brother." ... ... ... um, I think they killed all her brothers, actually, but none in a context which would lead to that phrasing. Maybe it's just a clumsy way of saying "she's really angry at the Enemy because of her family's deaths in the War", but if they muck about with Finrod's death (we all know it'll be Finrod), I'm going to be really cross.

- She's implied to be the only one who suspects Sauron is returning. This fits with her portrayal in the Hobbit movie (though hopefully she'll do less teleporting and flirting with wizards here), and also with her status as the one who turned Annatar away at the gates of Lindon in the Legendarium - an act that mirrors her uncle's rejection of Melkor, come to think of it. The first episode seems to be named for this - it's called Shadow of the Past.

- For some reason, "her warnings set her adrift, literally and figuratively". The implication, I guess, is that she probably gets sacked from the army and goes wandering, until:

- In Episode Two, she winds up half-drowned on a raft in the middle of the Great Sea, with a scruffy mortal. His name is Halbrand, which is probably Sindarin, and hilariously could mean "Tall, really tall".

- They describe a scene that I think takes place on the raft: "We’re doing this close-up where Galadriel’s face fills the screen and she cries, and she decides: I have to fight." Not gonna lie, that doesn't sound great, but that could just be shoddy description.

- Eventually she winds up back in Lindon, where she has a "reunion" with Elrond. I think we see three different costumes for her through the article, so at least they're not keeping an identical look everywhere she goes.

~~~

Looking at this through the lens of the time-compression they've talked about, there's nothing too outrageous here. Galadriel in the days of the Trees is an impetuous young woman who will happily ignore everyone's advice to do what she wants/what she thinks is right. Galadriel in the late Third Age is a dignified Elvenqueen of great power who rarely leaves her borders. The story "The Rings of Power" is telling is how she got from one to the other - and, of course, how she wound up as the very first person to be gifted a Ring.

The one big red flag is the implication of exile. It's possible they're actually describing something else - maybe she's trying to sail to Tol Fuin to investigate something to do with Sauron - but if she is kicked out... what are the odds that a Gil-Galad of any possible lineage would drive out the eldest remaining member of the House of Finwe? I don't like that implied plot point, and hope I'm misreading.

And yes, the other big flag is the "her brother" mention. I've seen rumours that Finrod is in the first episode, hence my concern; but set against that we have the teaser image of the Trees, plus rumours about the Helkaraxe. It's possible that the first episode includes a compressed retelling or flashback(s) to the First Age, and that Finrod's death (done correctly) is a part of that.

hS

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

When I saw the article (I have not been keeping tabs on the news at all, but there are people around me who tend to keep up more with the pulse of the time), I knew this might be the time 'Downs might liven up a bit and decided to take part in the anticipated trend.

I will try to be brief (good luck to me...). My reaction to the article can be summed up succintly like this:

Seeing the pictures of Galadriel and other Halbasomethings: knee-jerk reaction that this is going to be terrible. The Dwarf and Pseudo-Aragorn are straightaway unimaginative copies from PJ, while Galadriel & Disa look like generic fantasy women from a D&D handbook illustrations (something like human [!!] paladin/dwarf fighter or maybe cleric, respectively). Elrond may be the only one who seems okay (but also kind of "meh", nothing in particular either way). But seriously Galadriel's armoured look must be the most "why?" to me (to be fair, her "water" look too. My first reaction upon seeing the article's featured photo was "do they have Goldberry?!??"). Like Hui said, Galadriel being young and somewhat more in-action and even brazen and all is very much in character, but the first impression is... not like this, PJ's Haldir of Tarth.

But.

But these are all aesthetics and we all know that aesthetics differ, and *I* know that *nothing* will ever be up to my aesthetics, likely. It could likely be worse. (But it could be more imaginative, if nothing else.)

Upon reading the text, however, my impressions became... better? Mostly because they seem like they are trying hard and there was the reassurance that this won't become "a Game of Thrones", plus various things fans have feared (even here). At the same time, it will, inevitably, be "a Game of Thrones" at least in the "generic fantasy nowadays" (my assumption), "political plotting" (actually stated in the article)-sense.

Still. It can be good, it can be bad. Very little to judge, objectively, and I emphasise once again, considerably LESS threatening than I anticipated. Those who know my absolute aversion to all adaptations may wonder what that means. I am wondering too. Or perhaps I am getting soft.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

- She's named under this photo as "commander of the Northern Armies". Of Lindon? Of Eregion? Of Nargothrond? Unclear, but probably not the latter.

I am very curious about it, and sounds like some sort of haphazard generic name invented for the purpose of providing the show-viewers with some simple blanket term for the "good guys". I also think, given that it aims at the past, it may simply mean "Beleriand" (but also that "commander" may not mean "THE commander", but simply "one of the commanders").

Originally Posted by Hui

"As the series begins, Galadriel is hunting down the last remnants of [Morgoth and Sauron's] collaborators, who claimed the life of her brother."

Not a bad plot, per se, and this is what actually made me do a semi-Legate 180 after first seeing the pictures and then reading the first few paragraphs of the article. Certainly a start on the more original side of things, while not totally off-spirit and all.

Originally Posted by Hui

... ... um, I think they killed all her brothers, actually, but none in a context which would lead to that phrasing. Maybe it's just a clumsy way of saying "she's really angry at the Enemy because of her family's deaths in the War", but if they muck about with Finrod's death (we all know it'll be Finrod), I'm going to be really cross.

I hope it will be okay. I guess we'll have to see. (Wait, since when am I talking like I am actually intending to watch it? This sounds disturbing.) As for the potential reduction of brothers to one... well, of all things I would not be *that* disturbed by it, I mean, the films have always been reductionist. Especially if the brothers in question are dead, and if it is mentioned like once in the show... But I also at the same time think that while it is not a problem, I think "dumbing down for clarity" is not really something one should do - especially if it doesn't really matter. (But maybe also the article-writer just really didn't "get it", and may be exactly the victim of not-dumbing-down.)

Originally Posted by Hui

- She's implied to be the only one who suspects Sauron is returning. This fits with her portrayal in the Hobbit movie (though hopefully she'll do less teleporting and flirting with wizards here), and also with her status as the one who turned Annatar away at the gates of Lindon in the Legendarium - an act that mirrors her uncle's rejection of Melkor, come to think of it. The first episode seems to be named for this - it's called Shadow of the Past.

Absolutely agreed on this - this seems like a decent move and if they were to reduce Galadriel to one archetypal quality or function, this is pretty much fine.

Originally Posted by Hui

- In Episode Two, she winds up half-drowned on a raft in the middle of the Great Sea, with a scruffy mortal. His name is Halbrand, which is probably Sindarin, and hilariously could mean "Tall, really tall".

"Really, why" was my reaction, but... well, of all people, I am okay with that it's Galadriel who might not have problems hanging out with a mortal (but at the same time, young Galadriel, again, I would imagine to be a bit more... well, sticking rather with her own kind than Men?).

Sidenote: I wonder how many people are going to "ship it", especially those who don't know about Celeborn.

Originally Posted by Hui

- They describe a scene that I think takes place on the raft: "We’re doing this close-up where Galadriel’s face fills the screen and she cries, and she decides: I have to fight." Not gonna lie, that doesn't sound great.

No, that sounds absolutely terrible. But to be fair, THIS was to be expected. Sadly.
When the era comes that movies won't be full of these terrible "Hollywood pathos"-quotes, I will rejoice.

***

Which incidentally brings me - and this is a more major sidenote - to one realisation, with which I could conclude: the PJ films, for all that I disliked about them, even The Hobbit, had one tremendous advantage. Large part of the script were things quoted straight from Tolkien, written by Tolkien himself. This TV adaptation won't have the same advantage at all. It likely might attempt to emulate the FILM way of speaking, for that matter, at best. Unless of course Mr. Bezos managed to dig up some blessed talent, but somehow I am not holding my hopes high.

[Thinlómien]

I started writing a commentary on the article on the other thread, but I'll post my scrambled rant here instead:

Galadriel’s world is a raging sea. Far from the wise, ethereal elven queen that Cate Blanchett brought to Peter Jackson’s acclaimed films, the Galadriel played by Morfydd Clark in Amazon’s upcoming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is thousands of years younger, as angry and brash as she is clever, and certain that evil is looming closer than anyone realizes. By episode two, her warnings set her adrift, literally and figuratively, until she’s struggling for survival on a raft in the storm-swept Sundering Seas alongside a mortal castaway named Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), who is a new character introduced in the show. Galadriel is fighting for future; Halbrand is running from the past. Their entwined destinies are just two of the stories woven together for a TV series that, if it works, could become a global phenomenon.

It probably shouldn't have started with this particularly brainrot inducing snippet. Is there a lot to Galadriel's story we don't know? Yes. Can I imagine her castaway on the sea with some random human guy with whom she shares an entwined destiny? Yikes... Also a young and angry Galadriel is an interesting concept, but we're already in the Second Age. She's thousands of years old and has been through a vast number of things. I am... skeptical about this take on the character.

Tolkien, like space travel, is a personal obsession for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who’s among the richest people in the world. This is a big-ticket business venture that will allow him to create the most expensive, elaborate TV series ever made.

Yikes #2

Their series will juggle 22 stars and multiple story lines, from deep within the dwarf mines of the Misty Mountains to the high politics of the elven kingdom of Lindon and the humans’ powerful, Atlantis-like island, Númenor. All this will center, eventually, around the incident that gives the trilogy its name. “The forging of the rings,” says [showrunner] McKay. “Rings for the elves, rings for dwarves, rings for men, and then the one ring Sauron used to deceive them all. It’s the story of the creation of all those powers, where they came from, and what they did to each of those races.”

I was intrigued enough by this...

...until I read this:

The driving question behind the production, he adds, was this: “Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?”

No, please no, the obvious answer is NO.

“Everyone was crowding around the monitor as we’re doing this close-up where Galadriel’s face fills the screen and she cries, and she decides: I have to fight,” says McKay. As soon as the scene ended, the soundstage erupted in cheers. “It’s a perfect example of how Tolkien and Middle-earth have a way of finding you, even in the darkest and most uncertain moments,” says Payne.

...does this sound like a Tolkien-y scene? Nope. Yikes #3

McKay says the goal was “to make a show for everyone, for kids who are 11, 12, and 13, even though sometimes they might have to pull the blanket up over their eyes if it’s a little too scary. We talked about the tone in Tolkien’s books. This is material that is sometimes scary—and sometimes very intense, sometimes quite political, sometimes quite sophisticated—but it’s also heartwarming and life-affirming and optimistic. It’s about friendship and it’s about brotherhood and underdogs overcoming great darkness.”

I think this is ultimately going to be IT: whether the show manages to reach a tone that resonates with Tolkien's writing, or whether it falls flat. At least for me personally that's going to be the measure of whether I'm going to enjoy it or not.

We will finally see the full glory of Khazad-dûm

Strangely enough, this tidbit was the most exciting thing in the whole article for me. I am perhaps looking forward the most to see fresh visual depictions of Middle-Earth. I am very conscious they may fall short of my expectations, though...

It will also bring the elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) to life, as his skill with metals and magic lead to the forging of the rings. And a canny young elven architect and politician named Elrond (Robert Aramayo) will rise to prominence in the mystical capital of Lindon. Another story line will follow a sailor named Isildur (Maxim Baldry) years before he becomes a warrior and cuts the soul-corrupting ring off Sauron’s hand, then falls victim to its powers himself.

I have so many questions about this. Are these the interpretations of the article writer, or new show canon? Will Elrond be a wily politician? Will Isildur's background still be royal, or will he be just an ordinary sailor?

In the novels, the aforementioned things take place over thousands of years, but Payne and McKay have compressed events into a single point in time. It is their biggest deviation from the text, and they know it’s a big swing. “We talked with the Tolkien estate,” says Payne. “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.”

And funnily enough, this is the creative choice I'm the least suspicious about. It's very understandable - yet I guess we'll have to wait and see how it works out. Will Sauron be constantly zigzagging between Eregion and Númenór and various kingdoms of men where he is corrupting the future nazgûl?

Furthermore, I'm not sure what to make of the Estate's involvement in this. They seem to have made a full 180. Did they finally get so much money? Has the estate board changed? Or are they adapting to a new era and new ideas? I have to say I haven't been following the Tolkien Estate at all recently, but as a (relatively ) old school fan their enthusiastic seeming involvement in this baffles me.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Huin

Eventually she winds up back in Lindon, where she has a "reunion" with Elrond.

Which incidentally looks like this. Which makes me wonder about the protrayal of their relationship. I always imagined it as cordial but distant in a dignified manner. Which is what one might expect between a guy and his mother-in-law who is a legendary queen thousands of years his senior. (Not to downplay Elrond's achievements, but seriously...) Also wondering if Celeborn and Celebrían will make an apperance, and how old is the latter one going to be.

Originally Posted by Huin

I've seen rumours that Finrod is in the first episode, hence my concern; but set against that we have the teaser image of the Trees, plus rumours about the Helkaraxe. It's possible that the first episode includes a compressed retelling or flashback(s) to the First Age, and that Finrod's death (done correctly) is a part of that.

I'm not thrilled about First Age flashbacks. So many chances to set the whole thing up wrong...

Side note: is all this stuff about Galadriel and drowning going to explain why she got Nenya? If yes, I'm going to facepalm very hard. I'm already visualising her doing some kind of "water magic"...

Originally Posted by Legate

Which incidentally brings me - and this is a more major sidenote - to one realisation, with which I could conclude: the PJ films, for all that I disliked about them, even The Hobbit, had one tremendous advantage. Large part of the script were things quoted straight from Tolkien, written by Tolkien himself. This TV adaptation won't have the same advantage at all. It likely might attempt to emulate the FILM way of speaking, for that matter, at best. Unless of course Mr. Bezos managed to dig up some blessed talent, but somehow I am not holding my hopes high.

Yeah, I think the dialogue will easily be the dealbreaker: if it doesn't sound like Tolkien could have written it, the show won't have a Tolkien-y feel. And I'm somewhat afraid that maintaining Tolkien's complex, often archaic and very English way of writing dialogue has not been the screenwriters' priority.

(Side note: George R.R. Martin is no wordsmith like Tolkien, but you could just tell which episodes of Game of Thrones were written by him by the very recognisable way the characters spoke. Those episodes were much closer in tone to the books. Tolkien didn't write any episodes of The Rings of Power. I don't have high hopes for anyone else getting the tone right. Think of the PJ movies. Some of the added dialogue fits in quite seamlessly - at least in the ears of a fan who is no English language scholar - while some feels like a slap in the face. Tolkien would not have made Aragorn say "Let's hunt some Orc". That particular quote is probably a deliberate stylistic change of register for effect, but the thought of a whole Tolkien series sounding like a Hollywood blockbuster makes me suffer.)

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Which incidentally looks like this. Which makes me wonder about the protrayal of their relationship. I always imagined it as cordial but distant in a dignified manner. Which is what one might expect between a guy and his mother-in-law who is a legendary queen thousands of years his senior. (Not to downplay Elrond's achievements, but seriously...) Also wondering if Celeborn and Celebrían will make an apperance, and how old is the latter one going to be.

Or potentially only hundreds of years older! Late-stage Tolkien - ie, NoME - actually fixes Galadriel's age when crossing the Helkaraxe at well under a century (of the sun), so she would only have about 600 years on Elrond. If this is 3000 years later, they're practically peers.

-- except that Artanis was born under the light of the Trees, which I have always pictured as the biggest generational shift in Elvish history.

They'd better not play a romance angle, though. I am actually weirdly excited to maybe see Celebrian; I'm not sure why!

hS

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

maybe see Celebrian; I'm not sure why!

If they really are going to condense the timeline of the 2nd Age into Isildur's lifespan AND if they're going for "young, impetuous, not yet wise old Galadriel" then, assuming I'm right that they won't want to start with Galadriel already being a mother, is to pull a "Renesmee."

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.

[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.

[Michael Murry]

I didn't come across the Vanity Fair article itself but only indirectly by way of RT.com:

Amazon’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ series unveils new details
‘The Rings of Power’ won’t feature Game of Thrones-level sex and violence, according to showrunners

https://www.rt.com/pop-culture/54896...eries-details/

First-look images and story details about Amazon’s upcoming ‘Lord of the Rings’ series have been debuted via Vanity Fair. The first season of ‘The Rings of Power’, which reportedly cost a staggering $462 million, will be a story about “friendship,” “brotherhood,” and “underdogs overcoming great darkness,” according to the showrunners.

While fans already expected the series to take place during the Second Age of Middle Earth, it has now been confirmed what locations and stories audiences can expect to witness in the series. The show will reportedly explore stories “from deep within the dwarf mines of the Misty Mountains to the high politics of the elven kingdom of Lindon and the humans’ powerful, Atlantis-like island, Númenor,” leading up to the forging of the rings of power.*

Showrunner Patric McKay says the driving question behind the production was this: “Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?”

It has been revealed that original characters from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy such as Galadriel and Elrond will make an appearance. Morfydd Clark will take on the role of young Galadriel, who is described as a warrior who is “angry and brash as she is clever,” while Elrond will be portrayed by Robert Aramayo, best known for playing a young Ned Stark in HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’.

The series will also feature other characters and plotlines, many of which have been created from scratch. One such story is the “forbidden” romantic relationship between a human village healer played by Nazanin Boniadi and the elf Arondi, played by Ismael Cruz Cordova.

Instead of hobbits the show will feature their ancestor species – the harfoots – with Sir Lenny Henry portraying a harfoot elder while Megan Richards and Markella Kavenagh star as two harfoots who “encounter a mysterious lost man.”

Viewers will also get a look at the dwarven city of Khazad-dum inside the Misty Mountains, where a newly-created character – dwarven princess Disa, played by Sophia Nomvete, will “broaden the notion of who lives in Middle-earth” according to Vanity Fair.

The show will also tell the tale of the elven smith Cerebrimbor, portrayed by Charles Edwards, as he hones his skill with metals and magic, eventually forging the rings of power in tandem with Lord Sauron.

The show is being led by Patrick McKay and JD Payne, who describe the series’ narrative as being all about “the forging of the rings” and will delve into the “magic, warfare and mythology” that transpires.*

However, they also added that the story won’t be turning into a ‘Game of Thrones’ type of epic. According to Vanity Fair, McKay said the goal was to “make a show for everyone, for kids who are 11, 12 and 13, even though sometimes they might have to pull the blanket up over their eyes if it’s a little too scary. We talked about the tone in Tolkien’s books. This is material that is sometimes scary – and sometimes very intense, sometimes quite political, sometimes quite sophisticated – but it’s also heartwarming and life-affirming and optimistic. It’s about friendship and it’s about brotherhood and underdogs overcoming great darkness.”

‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ premiers on September 2 on Amazon Prime Video.

Not having a subscription to Amazon Prime Video, I await the erudite deconstruction of this entertainment offering by others far more knowledgeable about Tolkien's unpublished writings than myself. For the present, I can only hope that "young Galadriel, who is described as a warrior who is 'angry and brash as she is clever'," doesn't recapitulate that tedious Itaril/Tauriel killer elf-chick thing in The Hobbit movies debacle.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I understand there was a book, back in the pre-Silmarillion days, which tried to draw out all the details of the Elder Days contained in LotR. If they're smart, the writers should have found themselves a copy and stuffed it full of post-it notes.

Hey, I did that in my pre-Silmarillion days! I had a whole sheet full of scribbled notes and speculations. I didn't know someone published their reference sheet.

Originally Posted by Michael Murry

For the present, I can only hope that "young Galadriel, who is described as a warrior who is 'angry and brash as she is clever'," doesn't recapitulate that tedious Itaril/Tauriel killer elf-chick thing in The Hobbit movies debacle.

I have been so distracted by the fear of their misunderstanding First vs Second vs Third Age Galadriel (if there is an adjective for SA Galadriel, would you not go with "ambitious" over "brash"?), I have completely neglected this possibility.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Elrond is a politician. ^_~ He's the Herald of Gil-Galad, a high-ranking noble. If Tolkien had written a full story about Lindon, Elrond would fit naturally into the Tuor role of "noble advisor arguing against obvious evil dude that nobody recognises is evil" - except he didn't, so there isn't an Evil Dude in Lindon to argue against. (It might be nice if Elrond is a convert to Galadriel's view that Sauron is still out there; would explain why he winds up setting up Imladris.)

I actually really like the idea of him as an architect. I mean... someone had to design the Hall of Fire, right?

I like the idea of Elrond as an architect, councilor (even war councilor / general), squire, herald (let's not forget that), librarian, and bunches of other roles. But I take issue with him as - how did Lommy put it? - wily politician. Numenor is a great setting for wily politics. Lindon? Perhaaaps... but to a much lesser extent. Just too many things that could go wrong with that.

Originally Posted by Hui

So is this what they did with Game of Thrones? I never watched it, but I thought it was. My guess is that the characters go about in twos or threes (so maybe 10 plot threads), with each episode focussing on 3 or so plotlines. That'd be 15-20 minutes per plot, which is enough to get some stuff done.

Episode 1 of GOT was an introduction to the main characters, so it was basically that - a basic "this is who that guy is", switch plots, repeat. But the subsequent episodes would advance each plot in a similar manner a chapter in a book would - though that might be broken over several scenes over the course of the episode. The 2-second plot line was not the reason GOT tanked; it was rather the compression of too much plot into too little time in the final season, cut out too much of it and dropped plotlines, which made the whole thing not make sense.

Originally Posted by Hui

Wait, there was canon in there? ^_^ No, but seriously - other than the Harfeet, the only canon elements they've actually talked about are the ones tied directly to the creation of the Rings. I don't think the article names a single canon character who isn't a Ringbearer at one time or another.

They're attempting to describe canonical characters and events. So yes, they are attempting canon - though I have every doubt that they will succeed at it. In fact, I have the full conviction that they won't - which is exactly why I wish they didn't do it.

Originally Posted by Hui

Does Tolkien ever describe a Silvan elf's skin or hair colour? The movie wanted Haldir to be blond, but I don't know that that's from the books.

You know? That's a good question. I'm not sure. I wonder if Legolas is the only one with a sort of detailed description - and he is rumoured to have a special lineage, so he is not a proper candidate. But Silvan Elves still fall under the broader umbrella of "Teleri", and I expect physical traits would be similar too. Of course, by virtue of sampling, it's possible that "all purple-haired Teleri happened to remain in the East", thus depriving the western gene pool of that trait while allowing it to persist in the eastern population in, perhaps, larger percentages that it appeared in the original population... So yes, I suppose Silvan Teleri are not limited to the traits described for other Teleri tribes.

But the blonde Baratheon example was just an arbitrary reference and joke about why appearances matter, not that Silvan Elves need to have blonde hair. And I think you would agree that there still is a limit to how much you can mess with the outlines we do have before it becomes ridiculous. Like purple hair. Technically, nowhere in Tolkien does it say that it's impossible, but why.

(If you haven't seen/read GOT, here is the explanation, spoiler warning: a characters uncovers that every time a dark-haired Baratheon marries a blond spouse, their children are always dark-haired, which proves that the blond children of a current marriage are not legitimate children and heirs of the current Baratheon..

Originally Posted by Hui

Eitherhow, I don't think it's "diversity for diversity's sake" - I would say it's more "diversity because it gives you more options". It lets you tell different stories, with different resonances with the modern world - and it also lets you hire different actors! If all lead characters had to be white, male, and American, we really would have Benderbatch Cumbleface playing everyone again. (And in a show like this, hordes of white men with brown hair would make it impossible for me to know who anyone was; I'm rubbish at faces.)

Lol, so am I. And you're probably right - I think I am just paranoid about it after a number of stories which did the opposite of benefit from diversity (*coughDoctorWhocough*). You are absolutely right that based on what we have so far, I don't have any great issues. But it's the tone of the thing that galls me, "we do diversity, you have to watch us now", it just rubs me the wrong way. Having a diverse cast does not make it a good movie/show, and rubbing in diversity simply to highlight it doesn't make it a good story (again, *coughDoctorWhocough*).

Originally Posted by Hui

(With all these quotes, I feel like I should be voting for a wolf around now!)

++Halberband?
++Meeple?
...or...
++Bumblebee Cabbagepatch? ^.^

Originally Posted by Rhun charioteer

I’m honestly surprised at this thread. I would have expected people to be far more hostile and negative than they are. I have to say I’m disappointed. This show will be an absolute garbage fire(and honestly I’d probably rather watch a garbage fire) and you are acting as though it deserves any consideration at all?

Some people are disappointed that we are too negative, some are disappointed that we are too positive. *shrug* You can't suit everyone. And if it doesn't deserve any consideration at all, the response would not be to throw rotten eggs at it, but rather to ignore its existence. Personally, I prefer not to be overly negative over something so trivial as a TV show which I can quit watching the moment the cons outweigh the potential pros, so I don't let it spoil my appetite.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

It probably shouldn't have started with this particularly brainrot inducing snippet. Is there a lot to Galadriel's story we don't know? Yes. Can I imagine her castaway on the sea with some random human guy with whom she shares an entwined destiny? Yikes... Also a young and angry Galadriel is an interesting concept, but we're already in the Second Age. She's thousands of years old and has been through a vast number of things. I am... skeptical about this take on the character.

You know what, this. They should not have started with that piece. I know they wanted to emphasize the familiar characters, but this was probably the worst thing to choose for a "first impression". I think that by the time I've walked around with the image of Life of Pi Galadriel spitting out cliches in my head for half a day before I could read the rest of the article, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the whole thing. I feel somewhat less pessimistic about a bunch of stuff in there now, after sleeping on it, but Galadriel's piece still sticks out as brainrot which I cannot be reconciled with. Besides, she is a character in whom I have a certain personal investment.


P.S.: as an expected but unlooked for benefit of the whole thing, I am very happy that it brought a number of Downers out of slumber even for a little while. So let it not be said that no good may come of evil. ;-)

[Boromir88]

I will perhaps have time to comment with some more thoughts later this weekend, but just popping in to...

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Ah, hello everyone - nice to see you. And well met, Huinesoron! I can tell I will enjoy your posts. It seems there has been some activity over the last few years which I should catch up on.

More than anything I am inspired to re-read the Sil this year, just to ensure I'm completely prepared to make cranky posts about what the Amazon people did wrong. Because lord knows I'm not gonna do that on reddit...

*waves to Eomer* What an unexpected surprise! That's been the thing for me that I appreciate (and probably will appreciate) the most about the series being made. It sparked my interest to read The Sil again (and currently reading UT) because I wanted to be more familiar with the source material than I was when the LOTR movies came out. I got part way through Fellowship before I saw the first movie, and I think that's why I still am biased towards Boromir. Sean Bean is not Tolkien's Boromir, but he played the character just a touch different, where I can well imagine that somber scene between him and Aragorn in Lothlorien might have happened.

Anyway the buzz around the series, sparked an interest to read the source material again, because I was so unfamiliar with the 2nd Age characters. I think Isildur, Celebrimbor and Galadriel are fascinating and well-written characters. My hope is the series portrays them well. That would be fantastic. My suspicions are it's not much more than a Fool's hope, but I'm not Denethoring around about it. If it's poorly done, and not-Tolkien, then I'll stick with reading Tolkien when I have the interest. But I credit the series buzz for re-igniting my interest to read Tolkien's "earlier" tales.

Also, seconding your comment about Huey's posts. (Not to make him feel like this is a game of WW any more than he might already feel )

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

It's a fine line to walk - I imagine you'd want legal advice on what's in-scope - but it would be better than just throwing it all out and saying "Feanor came to Middle-earth in a yellow submarine, and nothing we have says different!"

This is literally my biggest fear about this. Especially if it is done out of spite, "you didn't give us rights to the Silmarillion? Okay! The world was created by Radagast's rabbit hatching an egg, ha! Now deal with it!"

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Ah, hello everyone - nice to see you. And well met, Huinesoron! I can tell I will enjoy your posts. It seems there has been some activity over the last few years which I should catch up on.

I am verrry happy this thread seems to be bringing back more and more people! Welcome back after a long absence - and Form, too!

Originally Posted by Michael Murry

For the present, I can only hope that "young Galadriel, who is described as a warrior who is 'angry and brash as she is clever'," doesn't recapitulate that tedious Itaril/Tauriel killer elf-chick thing in The Hobbit movies debacle.

To be fair, Tauriel would be better (as long as she and some Dwarves weren't making whats-in-your-pants-joke *shudders*). She was at least a clearly made-up character. Galadriel is an existing character and she is no Tauriel.

In fact, Halbenstein and Brontosaurella et al. are more or less whom I imagine to be basically some sort of semi-tauriels. In the sense that they will be wannabe-cool and hip made-up characters who might fit better into a D&D campaign. Well, I hope I am wrong and for instance the healer really remains a healer and not an "I am occasionally jumping on walls and throwing knives because that's what film characters do" or somesuch.

Originally Posted by Rhun charioteer

I’m honestly surprised at this thread. I would have expected people to be far more hostile and negative than they are. I have to say I’m disappointed. This show will be an absolute garbage fire(and honestly I’d probably rather watch a garbage fire) and you are acting as though it deserves any consideration at all?

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Even the Ents are fair to Saruman.

Plenty of time AFTER the show comes out to rip on the basis of known facts--there's no reason to do it on the basis of supposition.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

And if it doesn't deserve any consideration at all, the response would not be to throw rotten eggs at it, but rather to ignore its existence. Personally, I prefer not to be overly negative over something so trivial as a TV show which I can quit watching the moment the cons outweigh the potential pros, so I don't let it spoil my appetite.

Basically what Form and G55 said. I am known to be the most anti-adaptation person, but, I won't judge anything before I know more of it. That is, hum hmm, not a mark of the wise. What do we have so far? Five photos and ten sentences. What do they look like? Not particularly good, but who knows. Show me half of an actual episode and I can tell you something more concrete.

But yeah. Everyone gets riled up about something, these days it has become almost a hobby, but in my opinion, life is too short to spend it on just hating something. It doesn't leave anything behind.

Originally Posted by G55

I have been so distracted by the fear of their misunderstanding First vs Second vs Third Age Galadriel (if there is an adjective for SA Galadriel, would you not go with "ambitious" over "brash"?), I have completely neglected this possibility.

Ambitious, indeed!

On the same note: I have been thinking about Galadriel, and here is the thing - I realised why it was that the first image of the "Joan of Arc"-Galadriel caused such instant intuitive revulsion in me. Ought she be a warrior at all? Nerwen*, sure. But this elf-paladin-level-7? That answer is obviously negative.

*(Sidenote: I just realised that if there is any "contemporarily socially debated" topic they could tackle and throw half of the audience out of balance, it could be toying with Galadriel's gender identity. I mean, they would have absolutely genuine canon basis for it, and here they would have the creative space to explore it. I'm thinking stuff like her having this early-Second-Age phase where she would want people to address her as "him", generally dress up very "manlily" and such. Obviously eventually she would in the end settle on the LotR-era, more feminine side of herself. But it would be an interesting character trait. It might cause mixed feelings and not just among those who would have some knee-jerk reaction, but if done right, it could be even a good way to explore Galadriel's personality - and importantly, it would be based on canon.

But that is only in the Sil, is it...)

And more specifically about "young and brash". I would actually be happy if they took Galadriel's entire personality development arc and somehow stuffed it in here - it would be condensed, and therefore uncanonical, but ultimately faithful to the character. I mean the - what I consider to be the super-amazing thing about Galadriel - the development from her young self to the Galadriel we meet in LotR. Show us how she got there. From the young, "adventurous" voluntary exile to (and this already IS early Second Age) the "I am too proud to accept your forgiveness, I'm staying and founding my own elven kingdom, finally, when finally this Dark Lord is dead!" to eventually the Galadriel who will refuse the Ring.

I REALLY hope they keep that dynamic. And they can do it unsubtly and hammer it in our face for all I care, but it has to be there, else I don't see the purpose of making this series at all. But - and that is important at the same time - they should make THAT the focus, this internal dynamic (plus possibly some sort of back-and-forth pining "well perhaps I miss the Undying Lands, 'and by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree'-style") and not push it aside for the sake of some "I will fight!!!" That's not Galadriel.

Originally Posted by G55

You know? That's a good question. I'm not sure. I wonder if Legolas is the only one with a sort of detailed description - and he is rumoured to have a special lineage, so he is not a proper candidate. But Silvan Elves still fall under the broader umbrella of "Teleri", and I expect physical traits would be similar too. Of course, by virtue of sampling, it's possible that "all purple-haired Teleri happened to remain in the East", thus depriving the western gene pool of that trait while allowing it to persist in the eastern population in, perhaps, larger percentages that it appeared in the original population... So yes, I suppose Silvan Teleri are not limited to the traits described for other Teleri tribes.

Sidenote, I recall one of the "Balrog Wings-type" threads here where people have been bashing each other with arguments about what colour Legolas's hair was supposed to be. I recall things like arguments about dark hair and others countering that it was described when his head was in the shadow etc. Overall, I think the hair of those we-do-not-belong-to-any-of-the-colour-coded-major-groups Elves is pretty much an open question.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

(With all these quotes, I feel like I should be voting for a wolf around now!)

I propose having the right, once the series comes out and if there is need for it, to call a deadline.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I like the idea of Elrond as an architect, councilor (even war councilor / general), squire, herald (let's not forget that), librarian, and bunches of other roles. But I take issue with him as - how did Lommy put it? - wily politician. Numenor is a great setting for wily politics. Lindon? Perhaaaps... but to a much lesser extent. Just too many things that could go wrong with that.

Even beyond Lindon, I would say that "politician" just isn't really a dominant Elvish mode. The only things that you'd really call politicking among Elves happen during the exigencies of the Elder Days: Fëanor vs. Fingolfin under Melkor's influence, Celegorm & Curufin in Nargothrond, Maeglin once Tuor arrives, etc. It's always an explicitly bad thing, and while Elrond in his youth might not have been as much of a paragon of Elvish virtue as he was in 3018 T.A., there's also no textual evidence that he wasn't.

And, sure, politicking could happen in the Second Age (and I agree that Lindon is the LEAST likely realm for it, thus tacitly agreeing that it might be more likely in Eregion or Lórien or Mirkwood), but the nature of the Elves, i.e. that they are undying within time, combined with their preferred form of government, kingship, leads to a lot of political stability. The Elvish mode of government is that the King as Father of the Clan, and once an Elvish realm gets going and has peace, there aren't really examples of jockeying and conniving for the sake of power.

That might have been a bit different at the start of the Second Age, when Lindon was sorting itself out--Celeborn and Galadriel started there with some of the Sindar before moving on, but Elrond never does, and he should have had at least as much a chance, as the Heir of Turgon and Thingol to have done a similar thing if he were interested with a subsection of Elvish society, but Elrond explicitly DOESN'T: he remains with Gil-galad until the founding of Imladris and the his establishment there quite definitively never becomes a Kingdom or lordship, though given his lineage, you'd almost expect the establishment of a separate territory at a far remove to merit at least a "lordship," but that doesn't happen.

What does happen? Elrond is clearly still a deputy of Gil-galad, serving as his Herald even in the War of the Last Alliance. Admittedly, after Gil-galad's death, he does make what I call a very shrewd political decision, though it is one that is humble and peace-making: he decides the time of High Kings is over and does not take the title. This could be compromise, because he's not the eldest or most powerful of the remaining Finwëans--that's clearly Galadriel on both fronts--or because he's not a male-line Finwëan, being descended through Idril, or because he's Half-Elven (though that consideration doesn't seem to have mattered with Dior, who was actually mortal, or anywhere else in Elrond's life--and The Nature of Middle-Earth backs up this assertion, generally, in how it talks about his ageiing). I also think it could be a consideration of the fact that Elrond had no interest in going to Lindon and read the tea-leaves that Elvish power would wane, but it's also a political decision: staying in the colony rather than returning to the main homeland.

So... I think politician is a bad word to describe an Elf. It's a modern word and in the context of fantasy makes you think of the endless machinations of things like Game of Thrones, and is the kind of neo-Greco-Latinate word that Tolkien would avoid. But, despite that, I think Elrond is something of the ideal politician: a servant, consensus-builder, peace-maker.

But tell me that you think that THAT is what Amazon means.

X-ed with Legate, as we said in the Elder Days.

[Boromir88]

Actually what has me thinking could be one of the more interesting things the show-runners say they are attempting to is about the 2 hobbit characters.

I noted the show runners mentioned the two Harfoots are going to be similar to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern roles, from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. If this is true, and they aren't just fooling us, this is an interesting and creative thing to do in my opinion. It's not something that I would call original, because it has been done before and can be fairly common in the fantasy genre, but I think it would be creative to have this in a Tolkien adaptation. What I mean is think about the roles C-3PO and R2-D2 play in Star Wars or the ghost brothers in Stardust. Their roles aren't directly involved in solving problems the protagonists come across. They stand off in the distance and act as commentators to the audience, through their own robot-colored (or ghost-colored) glasses. R2-D2 (at least in the original trilogy) serves as a useful mechanic who does some minor things to help the protagonists out of sticky situations, but particularly C-3PO's role is to simply be a translator. He sits off as an observer and translates information to the audience ("Well, Master Ani has been under a lot of stress lately" or tells us the odds of surviving an asteroid field). As the article mentions, hobbits are noted for being able to avoid the eyes of "big folk" blundering through. So if their roles in the series are indeed to be something like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, or R2-D2 and C-3P0 than that could be rather fitting to use hobbits to fill that role. Think of just how much interest gets sparked by wanting to know what happened to the random fox passing by sleeping hobbits in the Shire.

[Huinesoron]

So what is the scope of this series? Weirdly, Vanity Fair repeat a claim that I think can't possibly be true:

[In 2017, the Tolkien Estate] were selling the rights to the Appendices that outlined what the author had referred to as the Second Age of Middle-earth, along with any references to that time period in The Lord of the Rings itself.

Ummm... I think we can probably admit that they're also drawing on UT and the Silm, don't you?

Whatever the source material, this series is going to have a broad scope. They have 22 "stars"; even allowing for many of them to appear in pairs, that's a lot of storylines to play with. (It's also a weird number, because there are 23 character posters; is one of them a duplicate character? Did they really like a minor character's design?) The list of locations spans most of Middle-earth: Numenor, Lindon, presumably Eregion, Khazad-dum, and various undefined places that are probably further east.

And then there's the plot. I've already noted that they're condensing everything down to one mortal lifetime. That... yeah, that sounds bad, but what does it actually mean?

- Celebrimbor lives at the same time as Isildur. It's wrong, but I don't think it impacts either of their stories. Numenor was happy to go about its business basically ignoring Lindon; I doubt they'll care that Eregion is suddenly there too.

- Sauron isn't on the world stage until after Numenor is already overshadowed, OR the shadow grows over Numenor very rapidly. The former would be absolutely fine - the whole point of the Numenor tale is that the darkening has nothing to do with the Dark Lord (at least until they bring him there). The latter would be very annoying - it smacks of the darkening of Mirkwood in The Hobbit movies, which happened so suddenly that a hedgehog got injured by it.

- Galadriel's quest against "the last remnants" of the evil armies looks quite daft, OR the Second Age is only a century or two long. Again, the latter would be really irritating, but the former might work quite well. If Galadriel's activities as described in the article aren't against the participants in a war that just finished, but consist of her scouring the countryside for Orcs and going on about shadows three thousand years after the War of Wrath... then I can understand a little better why nobody listened to her.

- And... that's... it? The various stories of the Second Age (forging of the Rings, Numenorean settlements in Middle-earth, Akallabeth) don't actually interact with each other much, so I don't think things will break too much by running them all concurrently. Though it does annoy me, not gonna lie.

So... in that context, what are they doing with the plot? They say that it's all about building up to the forging and gifting of the Rings, with the goal being to establish who the various cultures who received them actually were. So I imagine we'll see a lot of disparate plotlines at first, in different corners of Middle-earth, all of them eventually converging on Celebrimbor's forge.

And yes, that means some of the mortal characters will almost certainly become Nazgul. Halbrand and Bronwyn are the two mortals named in the article (and Isildur, but please, no); I bet at least one of them gets a Ring.*

(*"But the Nazgul are all male!" Yes, and Galadriel is an elven-king under the sky.)

And then there's the weirdly disconnected bits of plot. There's a photo of two nomad hunters wearing giant antlers on their back in a landscape filmed a lot cooler than the other images. There's talk of two Harfoots finding a mysterious stranger "whose origin promises to be one of the show’s most enticing enigmas". How does this fit into the larger plot? Presumably it will, but it's hard to guess how.

Actually, the Harfoots ("HarFEET!") sound like fun; they're described as "play[ing] out a kind of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead story in the margins of the bigger quests". So they're there, but have no actual plot relevance - they're just witnessing larger events and not really knowing what's going on.

And just for fun, the pull-quote that's going to have us all pulling our hair out:

The driving question behind the production, he adds, was this: “Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?”

No. No you can't. Nobody can write a Tolkien novel except Tolkien, and he's busy being dead.

hS

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

No, please no, the obvious answer is NO.

Originally Posted by Hui

No. No you can't. Nobody can write a Tolkien novel except Tolkien, and he's busy being dead.

I completely glossed over that particular quote in the article, or took it as another basic cliché exclamation by filmmakers that one cannot take seriously, ever. But I am amused how strong reaction it caused

Originally Posted by Lommy

Strangely enough, this tidbit was the most exciting thing in the whole article for me. I am perhaps looking forward the most to see fresh visual depictions of Middle-Earth. I am very conscious they may fall short of my expectations, though...

I know that they will fall short of MY expectations, so... (Perhaps I oughta finally again change my signature. To that quote of Tolkien's from On Fairy-Stories about depicting bread.)

But seeing epically fully-crewed Khazad-Dûm, for sure! If it's done well...

Originally Posted by Lommy

I have so many questions about this. Are these the interpretations of the article writer, or new show canon? Will Elrond be a wily politician? Will Isildur's background still be royal, or will he be just an ordinary sailor?

I hope not!!! To be fair, the writer seems not-so-clearly-reading about some stuff (and even calls Khazad-Dûm a necropolis or whatever).

Originally Posted by Hui

And then there's the plot. I've already noted that they're condensing everything down to one mortal lifetime. That... yeah, that sounds bad, but what does it actually mean?

Originally Posted by Lommy

And funnily enough, this is the creative choice I'm the least suspicious about. It's very understandable - yet I guess we'll have to wait and see how it works out. Will Sauron be constantly zigzagging between Eregion and Númenór and various kingdoms of men where he is corrupting the future nazgûls?

I am with Lommy on this, and it is also what I wanted to say - condensing the plot is the smallest thing I am worried about. It's literally what they say, either you'd have to switch human characters in every episode, or you have to cut the darkening of Númenor into a few decades (or less). For narrative purposes, I'm absolutely fine with this. It isn't the Tale of Years. For crying out loud, in the first promotional pictures they are depicting a Halsmowhatever and Brontosaurella sitting together in some Thurthobundlesville which doesn't exist, even though they have an entire Middle-Earth full of places they could have picked, even if they were sitting in Eryn Vorn!

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Whatever the source material, this series is going to have a broad scope. They have 22 "stars"; even allowing for many of them to appear in pairs, that's a lot of storylines to play with. (It's also a weird number, because there are 23 character posters; is one of them a duplicate character? Did they really like a minor character's design?) The list of locations spans most of Middle-earth: Numenor, Lindon, presumably Eregion, Khazad-dum, and various undefined places that are probably further east.

Faithfulness to Tolkien etc aside for now... Purely as a series with a plot that one would want to enjoy watching: I wonder how well they can manage this task. It feels like a logical idea in terms of what they intend to portray, but is it too much? Can they? Will it end up being too disjointed? Every episode, one scene with Disa asking Durin about weather, one scene with Galadriel doing the same with Hallsbaldwagon, then wait until next episode to see what they replied?

Sidenote: I see that they are not yet showing Sauron/Annatar. Probably an intentional move and a good one, makes me only more curious. THAT may be one of the things that will determine whether it's good or not. (At least I hope he isn't going to be portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch. But I think that time when you opened a cupboard and he was there has passed. It would be supercool if actually Sauron was played by multiple people, "outfitting" himself to seem more pleasant to the respective peoples he talked with. That would be - with a bit of an artistic license - canon, and pretty cool.)

Originally Posted by Hui

So... in that context, what are they doing with the plot? They say that it's all about building up to the forging and gifting of the Rings, with the goal being to establish who the various cultures who received them actually were. So I imagine we'll see a lot of disparate plotlines at first, in different corners of Middle-earth, all of them eventually converging on Celebrimbor's forge.

Which is good. To be fair I'd be up for that plot being a series, with one season - not sure how much it will start to feel dragged-out if we have five...

Originally Posted by Hui

And yes, that means some of the mortal characters will almost certainly become Nazgul. Halbrand and Bronwyn are the two mortals named in the article (and Isildur, but please, no); I bet at least one of them gets a Ring.*

(*"But the Nazgul are all male!" Yes, and Galadriel is an elven-king under the sky.)

That crossed my mind too, and I was wondering if Mr. Hallstadtsborn might. If we are already dealing with that, Bronwyn would be a cool idea (and I can sort of mentally spin a story based on the little we know about her).

And indeed as for female Ringwraith, the good ol' I.C.E. back in the 80s used to have a certain Adûnaphel as one of them, and I was fine with that pseudocanon.

But Isildur - please never!

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Ummm... I think we can probably admit that they're also drawing on UT and the Silm, don't you?

So it seems I might be wrong about this! A seemingly independent confirmation that the rights Amazon have are just... LotR+Hobbit. Which means the big deal that we were all convinced was over Christopher's objections was simply the same properties which were already out there. Amazon has nothing that Peter Jackson didn't also have.

If this is true (I'm still not entirely convinced), it's going to punch gaping holes through the plot.

- Amandil, Elendil, Isildur and Anarion are all named, and Elendil and his sons are "the last leaders of the Faithful" by the time of the Downfall. So it's clear something happened to Amandil - but there's no indication what.

- Isildur's story starts on a ship, borne on the wings of a storm. He is the son of Elendil, founder of Minas Ithil, overthrower of Sauron; he brings various things out of Numenor - the White Tree and the Stone of Erech, and a claim to at least one Palantir - and bickers with the men of the White Mountains. But there is no mention in any of those texts of his life in Numenor - or his rescue of the fruit of the White Tree.

- Ar-Pharazon's story is much as we know it, with one gaping exception: he isn't said to marry Tar-Miriel. In fact, Miriel gets exactly one mention in the Appendices, as the daughter of Tar-Palantir (he's basically there in full) from whom Pharazon usurps the sceptre. Her final attempt to appeal to Eru doesn't exist. Meneltarma is just a mountain from which you can see Tol Eressea.

- The last years of Numenor lack detail. There is no black temple; the Eagles of the Lords of the West do not fly overhead. Numenorean atrocities in Middle-earth are also downplayed - they just "[held] wide coast-tends in subjection. Atanamir and his successors levied heavy tribute, and the ships of the Númenoreans returned laden with spoil."

- The Two Trees make it in (they're at the beginning of the Annals of Numenor in Appendix A; and interestingly RotK claims that the ultimate ancestor of the White Tree was "a fruit of Telperion of many names, Eldest of Trees"), as do the Silmarils; but the First Age largely consists simply of "the
hopeless war of the Eldar and the Edain against Thangorodrim, in which they were
at last utterly defeated". Elrond at least makes it clear that Thangorodrim was also destroyed! The voyage of Earendil makes it in, but exactly what he accomplished is unclear - the Appendices speak vaguely of "help".

- Beren, Luthien, and Finrod get a decent treatment, so I wouldn't be surprised if we saw them. Obviously Aragorn sings and tells of the lovers' meeting, and gives a summary of the tale after that (including Luthien rescuing Beren from Sauron, by name), but he never mentions Finrod. Finrod is attested in the Appendices, as Galadriel's brother and king of Nargothrond, who gave his life to save Beren - but the circumstances of that saving are unmentioned. No Duel of Song, no desperate fight with a werewolf.

- Feanor doesn't die. XD He makes the Silmarils and the Palantiri while the Trees are lit, and goes into exile to try and retrieve the Silmarils from Morgoth. Celebrimbor is his descendent, and he wears a star. That's it. That's all you get. He has no named sons.

- Gondolin is a hidden city, ruled by Turgon; his daughter Idril marries Tuor, and their son Earendil is born in the city. It has walls - but also, per The Hobbit, its people hunted goblins in the hills. It fights the Goblin Wars, and falls, destroyed by goblins and dragons.

- I don't... think the world is flat? The entire description of the downfall of Numenor is: "But when Ar-Pharazôn set foot upon the shores of Aman the Blessed, the Valar laid down their Guardianship and called upon the One, and the world was changed. Númenor was thrown down and swallowed in the Sea, and the Undying Lands were removed for ever from the circles of the world. So ended the glory of Númenor." There may be some oblique reference in LotR itself, but I don't know what.

It's going to be interesting to see how they deal with the gaps. The Hobbit was obnoxious in its "sly" nod to the fact that it didn't have access to everything - "You know, I've quite forgotten their names" or whatever; I hope we don't get much of that, or at least that it's done better. (It might be funny to just interrupt anyone who tries to name Celebrimbor's father. ^_^) But I also hope they don't treat "we don't have the rights" to "we don't know" - for instance, by making up a different death for Finrod, or by keeping Feanor alive into the Second Age.

Ideally, they would carefully work around the gaps, drawing out every hint they possibly can from the books to fill them. For example, Bilbo's song of Earendil mentions the "Narrow Ice", and implies it's in the north; if you're wary with the dialogue, that lets you show the Exiles in transit, without actually saying what it is (they could just be crossing it for unrelated reasons!). It's a fine line to walk - I imagine you'd want legal advice on what's in-scope - but it would be better than just throwing it all out and saying "Feanor came to Middle-earth in a yellow submarine, and nothing we have says different!"

I understand there was a book, back in the pre-Silmarillion days, which tried to draw out all the details of the Elder Days contained in LotR. If they're smart, the writers should have found themselves a copy and stuffed it full of post-it notes.

hS

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Ah, hello everyone - nice to see you. And well met, Huinesoron! I can tell I will enjoy your posts. It seems there has been some activity over the last few years which I should catch up on.

More than anything I am inspired to re-read the Sil this year, just to ensure I'm completely prepared to make cranky posts about what the Amazon people did wrong. Because lord knows I'm not gonna do that on reddit...

[mhagain]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

So it seems I might be wrong about this! A seemingly independent confirmation that the rights Amazon have are just... LotR+Hobbit. Which means the big deal that we were all convinced was over Christopher's objections was simply the same properties which were already out there. Amazon has nothing that Peter Jackson didn't also have.

If this is true (I'm still not entirely convinced), it's going to punch gaping holes through the plot.

I'm not convinced at all.

Amazon did a deal with the Estate, but the Estate don't control the rights to the Hobbit nor to LotR. They're with whatever Saul Zaentz's company is called this week. Plus that map of Numenor is straight out of Unfinished Tales; it doesn't appear anywhere else, so Amazon must have at least that much of UT, and that's indisputable.

No, more likely to be the opposite: Amazon don't have the Hobbit or LotR, but they do have other material, the full extent of which is currently unknown.

[Thinlómien]

Upon reading all your comments and reflecting on previous fandom experiences, I really think we should take the article - and all other written sources about the show at this point - with a pinch of salt. After all, they are the writers' interpretation, and the writers might not be particularly observant, or good writers, or Tolkien-savvy. Much of the stuff that sounds ridiculous might make more sense when you see the actual show - and vice versa...

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Okay, but if they do this for Galadriel they have to do it for every single Ring. Each one gets an element - the elves get classical elements, the dwarves get metals, and the men get... I dunno, noble gases or something.

I know you wrote this tongue-in-cheek, but I'm thinking they might really do it for the Elven Rings at least. I mean they all have an element assigned to them, and from the point of view making flashy cinema, it would really be a wasted opportunity not to use that. Sadly I predict it will be quite tacky.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

So is this what they did with Game of Thrones? I never watched it, but I thought it was. My guess is that the characters go about in twos or threes (so maybe 10 plot threads), with each episode focussing on 3 or so plotlines. That'd be 15-20 minutes per plot, which is enough to get some stuff done.

Game of Thrones and other ensemble shows I've seen seem to fluctuate somewhere between these two options, sometimes depending on the episode. It's not an easy thing to juggle. Looking forward to seeing how it works here...

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Eitherhow, I don't think it's "diversity for diversity's sake" - I would say it's more "diversity because it gives you more options". It lets you tell different stories, with different resonances with the modern world - and it also lets you hire different actors! If all lead characters had to be white, male, and American, we really would have Benderbatch Cumbleface playing everyone again. (And in a show like this, hordes of white men with brown hair would make it impossible for me to know who anyone was; I'm rubbish at faces.)

Agreed. I actually hope they would make different peoples from different parts of Middle-Earth each have cast of a certain ethnicity (with some exceptions of course because people have always been moving). It would make everything feel more real and localised and grounded. Imagine for example all Northmen are white people of Northern European descent, Númenóreans are Caucasian folks from the Mediterranean region, Silvan Elves are say East Africans, the dwarves Southern Asians... But I don't think that would fly, Amazon would be crucifed for racial stereotyping in 0.5 seconds. While I agree that type of casting would open up a myriad problematic cans of worms, it would avoid the "every place looks like contemporary US with ethnic diversity but 90% of the important roles somehow being held by white people" syndrome which pretty much every American tv show and movie these days seems to have.

I don't know where I'm going with this rant but maybe partly: I'm European and I'm tired of seeing just racial diversity, I want to see cultural diversity too. Okay that's a whole different issue, but let's unpack that one. I would love to see all the different cultures of Middle-Earth have not only different architecture and costumes, but different customs and beliefs, ways of greeting each other, different values and arts, different foods... From the looks of the pictures we've seen, though, it all looks like one generic fantasyland ie probably one big US in Middle-Earth. (Yes, I know there is cultural diversity within the US as well, but does that ever get represented on mainstream media either? Nope.)

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Upon reading all your comments and reflecting on previous fandom experiences, I really think we should take the article - and all other written sources about the show at this point - with a pinch of salt. After all, they are the writers' interpretation, and the writers might not be particularly observant, or good writers, or Tolkien-savvy. Much of the stuff that sounds ridiculous might make more sense when you see the actual show - and vice versa...

Indeed and for the most part, those involved in the series are saying the right things, but is impossible to know until seeing the end product.

The main cringe in the Vanity Fair article was Elrond being described as a "wily-politician." But as you say here perhaps it's best to take what is written about the show with a pinch of salt. One thing I can't ever imagine Elrond being described as is a "wily-politician." Unless if if somehow since he was one of the masterminds behind the "Fool's hope," that his character in the show is savvy and skilled in organizing the resistance against Sauron? And since his involvement in forming the Fellowship was more behind the scenes, we actually see Elrond working "behind the scenes" to organize the resistance against Sauron.

I'm not too worried about the picture with the caption of "Elrond and Galadriel's reunion." I think perhaps we all just have The Hobbit movies Galadriel and Gandalf as the first things that come into our heads. I admit those scenes are really clumsy in The Hobbit, but I hardly think kisses on the forehead or "If you need my help, I will come" are overloaded with sexual tension between them.

Which incidentally looks like this. Which makes me wonder about the protrayal of their relationship. I always imagined it as cordial but distant in a dignified manner. Which is what one might expect between a guy and his mother-in-law who is a legendary queen thousands of years his senior. (Not to downplay Elrond's achievements, but seriously...) Also wondering if Celeborn and Celebrían will make an apperance, and how old is the latter one going to be.~Lommy

I've had a much different take on their relationship. Elrond is her son-in-law, and I've always thought the 3 Elven Ring-bearers had a close and strong bond. After the Ring is destroyed on their way back, Elrond, Gandalf and Galadriel sit in the woods, not saying anything but it's implied they're speaking telepathically, or communicating in a way where they all completely understand what's being said. I don't know nearly enough about what Tolkien wrote about Osanwe, but if the Elven rings were now powerless, it would appear they figured out how to exchange thoughts without the power of their rings. This is all pure speculation on my part, so take it with a pinch of salt, but it would make sense there was a strong bond between the 3 of them.

What gets me is the criticisms from so-called "fans," (not on this forum) but honestly they're online Ted Sandymans, who then use Peter Jackson as some sort of paragon of faithfulness to Tolkien. I've disagreed with Morth,Kuru, Inzil and countless others here over the years about Jackson's films. Say what you want about their criticisms and pessimism about the Amazon series, but they are just as sharp and on-point to criticize Jackson if he did something similar.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I don't know where I'm going with this rant but maybe partly: I'm European and I'm tired of seeing just racial diversity, I want to see cultural diversity too. Okay that's a whole different issue, but let's unpack that one. I would love to see all the different cultures of Middle-Earth have not only different architecture and costumes, but different customs and beliefs, ways of greeting each other, different values and arts, different foods... From the looks of the pictures we've seen, though, it all looks like one generic fantasyland ie probably one big US in Middle-Earth. (Yes, I know there is cultural diversity within the US as well, but does that ever get represented on mainstream media either? Nope.)

Yes!!!

And this is what GOT did do well - it picked up on GRRM's worldbuilding and kept the details. Not just the racial descriptions and costumes, but the religions and customs and accents and legends and histories and sayings and mannerisms. If shows could emulate more of that, instead of sex and swords, they would be better for it. Sex and swords might be GOT's staple, but they weren't what made it a good show. So I could not agree more with you here. Please, show us different cultures!