Lord of the Rings TV series gets multi-season order at Amazon

[Inziladun]

I have been doing my absolute best to ignore all of this, but I'm finding it more and more difficult: it's everywhere.

When I first heard of Peter Jackson's planned films these many years ago, I was not in approval. For one thing, I simply wasn't interested in someone else's interpretation of Tolkien's work. Didn't need it.
For another, I thought that financial success would bring the Tolkien name to the attention of some who would be highly interested in the monetary possibilities of further excursions into Middle-earth, but lacked Jackson's basic respect for the source material.

Now, I see added to the mix a rabid desire to slash, burn, and remake whatever isn't considered "progressive" enough, be it too old, too traditional, or simply out of step with "modern" thinking. Some of the show personnel have said things that definitely support their thinking that way.

Tolkien's work is more important to me personally that any other printed work, save one Book that predates him considerably. I wanted him to be exempt from the trend befalling so many other loved and respected books and movies. But the last guardian of his legacy, Christopher, left us at last.

Do the Amazon writers and cast know that Tolkien conceived of his tales during some of the darkest days of the 20th Century? Do they know that Christopher read LOTR chapter by chapter while serving during WWII? I doubt they do, and even if so they certainly don't care.

I say all that to say this: all I can do about the thing myself is not to watch it. But perhaps, if enough people do likewise, and the thing is not a commercial success, the flood may be stemmed somewhat. Maybe they would think twice about committing huge sums of cash toward a bastardization of Tolkien's ideas that the man himself has no say over.

Please consider: if they do get their money out of this, there is no end of what might be done in Tolkien's name, until people have largely forgotten (if they ever even knew) the old books we all cherish.
Don't watch this. Don't enable more of the same. Teach them that Tolkien is different.

[Snowdog]

I'm watching Rings of Power, and likely going to enjoy it. It is in no way going to "destroy" Tolkien's works any more than Ralph Bakshi's or Peter Jackson's treatment of Lord of the Rings "destroyed" Tolkien's works. My books have been, are, and will be the same no matter what, and I will enjoy every reading I have of them.

All this rabid ranting and raving about it in some attempt to try and "destroy" Rings of Power is amusing to a point, and tiresome to be sure. It is nice that there are places on the internet that gets over the whole 'woke bs' mentality and gets on to discussing the show and the depth of the Second Age timeline of events.

If you hate it so bad, then boycott Amazon. Put your money where your mouth is. Good luck in your campaign to get others to do so. Me, I'm not out a cent because I watch other content on Prime and my wife uses the free shipping for a lot of stuff.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Snowdog

I'm watching Rings of Power, and likely going to enjoy it. It is in no way going to "destroy" Tolkien's works any more than Ralph Bakshi's or Peter Jackson's treatment of Lord of the Rings "destroyed" Tolkien's works. My books have been, are, and will be the same no matter what, and I will enjoy every reading I have of them.

All this rabid ranting and raving about it in some attempt to try and "destroy" Rings of Power is amusing to a point, and tiresome to be sure. It is nice that there are places on the internet that gets over the whole 'woke bs' mentality and gets on to discussing the show and the depth of the Second Age timeline of events.

If you hate it so bad, then boycott Amazon. Put your money where your mouth is. Good luck in your campaign to get others to do so. Me, I'm not out a cent because I watch other content on Prime and my wife uses the free shipping for a lot of stuff.

More than anything, what I resent about this "book that Tolkien never wrote" is its tired and tiresome genericism, its utter and complete lack of anything even resembling creativity or personality. We've all seen it all before, seen these characters, heard these lines:* it's Screen Factory Fantasy Product Sludge #9. If Tolkien is gorau glas, this is Cheez Whiz. The Tolkien branding fits it about as well as a Rolls-Royce grill on a VW Beetle (without the ironic humor). So before we ever even get to questions of weapons or costumes or skin color or actors-who-need-to-shut-up, we have already violated the First Commandment of Tolkien Adaptation: Thou shalt not suck.

So I'm not worried about Tolkien's books being "damaged" - except to the extent that a future generation might go "The Lord of the Rings?" You mean what that turgid, tawdry Amazon tripe was based on? No, thank you." But I'm certainly not going to waste my time watching it -- unless it's someday featured on MST3000...
__________________________________________________ ________
*The ones in the latest trailer are practically examples from the manual, 101 Portentous and Weighty-Sounding Declarations for Talentless Hack Screenwriters

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

More than anything, what I resent about this "book that Tolkien never wrote" is its tired and tiresome genericism, its utter and complete lack of anything even resembling creativity or personality. We've all seen it all before, seen these characters, heard these lines:* it's Screen Factory Fantasy Product Sludge #9. If Tolkien is gorau glas, this is Cheez Whiz. The Tolkien branding fits it about as well as a Rolls-Royce grill on a VW Beetle (without the ironic humor). So before we ever even get to questions of weapons or costumes or skin color or actors-who-need-to-shut-up, we have already violated the First Commandment of Tolkien Adaptation: Thou shalt not suck.

So I'm not worried about Tolkien's books being "damaged" - except to the extent that a future generation might go "The Lord of the Rings?" You mean what that turgid, tawdry Amazon tripe was based on? No, thank you." But I'm certainly not going to waste my time watching it -- unless it's someday featured on MST3000...
__________________________________________________ ________
*The ones in the latest trailer are practically examples from the manual, 101 Portentous and Weighty-Sounding Declarations for Talentless Hack Screenwriters

That was humorous. Typical, but humorous. Unlike you, I think Rings of Power will introduce a lot of people to Tolkien's written works, much like what the PJ stuff did, and Bakshi did, and Bass-Rankin did, etc. etc. So what if they sucked, and this sucks. Seeing all the panties getting into a wad over a show that hasn't aired yet is rather telling of the people doing it more than what they are all in a twit about.

[Huinesoron]

As we're about a week out from the first episode airing (or maybe multiple? I've not heard how they're planning to release the series), a few procedural-type questions:

- What are the key sources for the non-Numenorean parts of the Second Age? There's "Galadriel & Celeborn" in UT, and the start of "Of the Rings of Power" in Silm; are there any other major sources?

- I feel like it would be sensible/reasonable to have a thread in Movies for each episode, similar to the Chapter-by-Chapter threads in that subforum of Books. Does that sound okay, or are there enough objections that we should either keep it to this thread or make a single "Rings of Power episodes" thread?

- Given that there are a lot of people who have said they won't be watching the show but are still engaging with the discussion, would it be helpful for the episode thread (whatever that may be) to include a brief synopsis rather than just reactions? Not a scene-by-scene or anything, just a summary of "Galadriel did this, the Harfeet did this, Tom Bombadil did this". (Wait, has anybody speculated that the Stranger in the Meteor might be Tom Bombadil??? I think I'm onto something!)

- Does the Downs have a consensus on how to handle spoilers? For anyone who doesn't know, you can make text invisible <spoiler>like this</spoiler> by replacing pointy brackets with square ones. I can imagine any combination of "do that to big spoilers", "mark the whole post as spoilers", "mark the entire thread as spoilers", "have a spoiler and non-spoiler thread", and "who cares".

hS

[Mithadan]

As I understand it, and I may be wrong about this, Amazon acquired the rights to use information in the LoTR appendices only, not anything in the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales or HoME. I wonder how Amazon dealt with rights conveyed to Saul Zaentz, which would have included characters, names, etc. from the text of LoTR.

Feel free to open threads to discuss events in the series or episodes within this forum. I expect that it is not necessary to remind everyone to be respectful to other members regardless of your individual views.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

As I understand it, and I may be wrong about this, Amazon acquired the rights to use information in the LoTR appendices only, not anything in the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales or HoME. I wonder how Amazon dealt with rights conveyed to Saul Zaentz, which would have included characters, names, etc. from the text of LoTR.

This is a good point, though there has been a little uncertainty on whether they can request the use of other pieces of the Legendarium.

What I'm really thinking is when discussing the plot, being able to distinguish between things Tolkien wrote, things Tolkien made clear didn't happen, and things Tolkien never said anything about - regardless of whether the showrunners were allowed to use it. For Numenor, that will come from Akallabeth and the Description (plus Lost Road if I'm feeling saucy); but I want to be sure I'm not missing anything obvious in the non-Numenor sections.

hS

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

As I understand it, and I may be wrong about this, Amazon acquired the rights to use information in the LoTR appendices only, not anything in the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales or HoME. I wonder how Amazon dealt with rights conveyed to Saul Zaentz, which would have included characters, names, etc. from the text of LoTR.

I believe it has been clear for some time that with the Tolkien Estate onboard with the Rings of Power production and with Simon Tolkien actively involved with the production that the producers can use various references as approved on a case-by-case basis, and have done so.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

For anyone who doesn't know, you can make text invisible <spoiler>like this</spoiler> by replacing pointy brackets with square ones.

Weird enough, on my phone the text shows up in grey but very visible letters. I mean, I know this code trick thingy works, I've used it before. Maybe the browser got an update or summink and now it's too fancy for its own good? Is it just me or does everyone's spoiler cover not actually cover anything anyore?

As one of those people who might watch some of the show to start at least, but probably not right as it comes out, I think it makes sense for each episode thread to be one giant spoiler - in the sense that don't open the thread if you don't want it spoiled, and talk freely once you're in it. But elsewhere on the Downs it might be courteous to hide the bigger spoiler elements. I am also a fan of the brief synopsis in the first post for all the reasons you said. Whether one giant thread or many small ones... uhh, hard to say. But it wouldn't be wrong to do many threads, I think, even if each one individually might only get so many responses.

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

- I feel like it would be sensible/reasonable to have a thread in Movies for each episode, similar to the Chapter-by-Chapter threads in that subforum of Books. Does that sound okay, or are there enough objections that we should either keep it to this thread or make a single "Rings of Power episodes" thread?

- Given that there are a lot of people who have said they won't be watching the show but are still engaging with the discussion, would it be helpful for the episode thread (whatever that may be) to include a brief synopsis rather than just reactions? Not a scene-by-scene or anything, just a summary of "Galadriel did this, the Harfeet did this, Tom Bombadil did this". (Wait, has anybody speculated that the Stranger in the Meteor might be Tom Bombadil??? I think I'm onto something!)

- Does the Downs have a consensus on how to handle spoilers? For anyone who doesn't know, you can make text invisible <spoiler>like this</spoiler> by replacing pointy brackets with square ones. I can imagine any combination of "do that to big spoilers", "mark the whole post as spoilers", "mark the entire thread as spoilers", "have a spoiler and non-spoiler thread", and "who cares".

I've had a Prime account since before this was happening and regardless if I continue watching the series or not, I'm keeping my account. Anyway, I think a separate thread to discuss the episodes would be necessary. This thread is already quite bulky and has probably run its course once Episode 1 airs.

I don't recall any strict policies on spoilers. When threads opened discussing The Hobbit movies when they hit theaters, the thread opener always started with a spoiler warning and the posters followed suit if their posts contained spoilers. Having a **Spoiler Warning** in the thread title I would guess would be sufficient to let us know this thread will contain spoilers. I prefer simplicity to out right forbidding spoilers, or blocking the text out. But, I won't be the one starting the episode discussions, I'll just be reading and hopefully interested in the series enough to share my opinions.

[Michael Murry]

I don't know if I can get this image link thing working correctly, but:



When my Taiwanese wife saw this picture she immediately pointed to the long blond braid dangling down in front of all that armor nearly to the waist and noted how easy it would be to grab the white chick by the hair, wrap it around [their]* throat, and strangle [them]* with it.

* transgender, non-binary pronoun corrections for the now unacceptable "her."

[Mithadan]

Michael, on the other hand, sailors in the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars and earlier were proud of their long braided hair regardless of the possibility that their locks might be used against them. Fashion was and is a passion...

Galadriel, my strong preference for threads regarding the series is individual and separate by subject or episode or both as appropriate. Sprawling threads with a general subject matter are neither reader nor poster-friendly. I would much rather hear peoples' thoughts than have members' eyes glaze over at the volume of what must be read in a single thread.

[Michael Murry]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

Michael, on the other hand, sailors in the British navy during the Napoleonic Wars and earlier were proud of their long braided hair regardless of the possibility that their locks might be used against them. Fashion was and is a passion...

As a veteran of Uncle Sam's Canoe Club (a.k.a., the U.S. Navy) I recall lectures in Basic Training (in 1966) about how our navy differed from that of the British which -- according to Lord of the Admiralty Sir Winston Churchill -- ran on "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash." I wonder how General/Admiral Guardrail the Terrifying will handle those LGBTQ+ [not to mention pronoun] issues as [their] [Rainbow] Ships pass out of and back into The West.