The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series

they paid $250m for this o_O

If New Line Cinema's involved, does that mean that this is an extension of the Jackson movies?

it is perhaps the least horny literature

Don't worry, the fans have filled the gaps.

If New Line Cinema's involved, does that mean that this is an extension of the Jackson movies?

The exact nature of what's happening remains kinda maddeningly unclear. The two key factors:

1) As noted, to what extent is this an extension of the Jackson movie interpretations, with associated backstory (not always Tolkien's).

2) What is the estate's involvement, and what rights in question have been sold to what texts?

The fact that Saul Zaentz's Tolkien Enterprises setup isn't mentioned at all is telling, but I'm not sure of the exact implications.

Boromir often had the horn iirc

this is a very silly idea. the answer to making an LOTR series is certainly not to make it more "adult" in language or sexual content. If they want to make it more like GOT, why not zoom back 1000 years and focus on the wars between the men and Nazgul, focusing on the rise of the Witch King and the Fall of Arnor or something. That could be cool.

What isn't cool: hobbit sex.

they haven't specifically said they're making it more adult tbf

and I'm not sure the Tolkien estate would sign off on something like that

S3, EP2:

Sam has an honest talk with Gollum. Eowyn has a realization about Aragorn. Theoden makes a fateful decision. Merry and Pippin travel south with a new friend.

"The One With the Mathoms"

What isn't cool: hobbit sex.

You say that, but did you know that hobbit women all have thick hair on the top of their breasts? Changes everything.

they haven't specifically said they're making it more adult tbf

― Number None, Monday, November 13, 2017 5:18 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and I'm not sure the Tolkien estate would sign off on something like that

― Number None, Monday, November 13, 2017 5:23 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There was a report a few weeks back that they were going to take a darker, more thrones-like take on the subject matter, but it seems like they are going to go in a different direction.

The goofy happy clown direction.

the elves are immortal so they've all gotten tired of fucking already. they're over it

https://78.media.tumblr.com/2d0ef4d6fd1d28753baa0883b61bb800/tumblr_inline_ngfx0xABE61szmjhd.gif

"When there's a whip there's a way."

"But you're not an orc."

"Context my dear Bilbo."

LotR isn't nearly horny enough source material for prestige tv, they'll have to work on that a bit

― ciderpress, Monday, November 13, 2017 1:55 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it is perhaps the least horny literature

― harbinger of failure (Jon not Jon), Monday, November 13, 2017 1:58 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Don't worry, the fans have filled the gaps.

― Simon H., Monday, November 13, 2017 2:40 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The exact nature of what's happening remains kinda maddeningly unclear. The two key factors:

1) As noted, to what extent is this an extension of the Jackson movie interpretations, with associated backstory (not always Tolkien's).

2) What is the estate's involvement, and what rights in question have been sold to what texts?

― Ned Raggett, Monday, November 13, 2017 2:43 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Found it:

Amazon today announced it has acquired the global television rights to all The Lord of the Rings fan fiction based on the celebrated fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien, with a multi-season commitment. The upcoming Amazon Prime Original will be produced by Amazon Studios in cooperation with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins, FantasyFuckz.biz, and New Line Cinema, a division of Warner Bros. Entertainment....
Set in Middle Earth, the television adaptation will explore new, sizzling-hot elf-sex storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. The deal includes potential additional spin-off series.

The Lays of Beleriand indeed!

Beren & Luthien & Carol & Bob

they paid $250m for this o_O
― Number None, Monday, November 13, 2017 8:58 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Legend of the Seeker" would have gone for a song.

BATTLEFIELD HAM dekalogy or gtfo

oh god no leave him alone he's already dead

>>Beren & Luthien & Carol & Bob<<

I'd wear it.

this is v surprising news, because christopher tolkien despises jackson's films and has been consistent in his refusal to sell the rights to the silmarillion or any of the "history of middle-earth" stuff. my assumption wd be that "in cooperation with the tolkien estate" is just a nicety/PR formality and this series won't actually be an adaptation of JRRT's non-LOTR stuff. but who knows.

I think it's clearly spelling out new stories?

Speaking of "Legend of the Seeker," is Goodkind now pretending he never wrote a 17-book fantasy series? His website only describes him as the writer of two thriller books.

At some unknown time between September of 2016 and April of 2017, Terry Goodkind's official website was scrubbed of all references to the Sword of Truth series, and his Facebook page was made private or removed, potentially signalling that Goodkind may be moving on from his most well-known work.[26]

maybe the new stories are stories by by christopher tolkien, at last his creative light will shine

fuck you dad, hobbits suck, "in a hole in the sea lived a bobbitt"

Oh fp

That goodkind factoid is super weird
Though tbh I️ too have pretended like his fantasies were never published

He may have deleted it, but conservative columnist John Podhoretz‏ had some tweet asking why the Tolkien estate was so greedy to ask so much money

you'd think the conservative ideal of charging whatever price the market would bear would have occurred to him. sheesh.

I think it's clearly spelling out new stories?

― eeshTrip (darraghmac), Tuesday, November 14, 2017 4:20 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hard pass

Goodkind apparently identifies as an Objectivist according to wiki.
Also who is worse: Terry Goodkind or Terry Brooks?

i suspect amazon wd rather come up with new stories set in the same universe than try to adapt a bunch of mostly unfinished myths and narratives from a 12-volume set anyway.

if there are no sexy elves in the first episode i'll be very frustrated.

it would be a bummer cause there are dozens of filmable stories from the Tolkien legendarium, in the appendices and the unfinished tales or wherever, that they would just create their own stories with Hobbits or Elves or whatever and call it Lord of the Rings.

ian otm

The Erotic Confessions of the Witch-King of Angmar

imo the whole Tolkien canon is overrated and the films were well-made if overwrought

having a really pulpy tv drama would be a good reflection on it

it should also invert the racism/sexism/perceptions of same in the original work to really piss off the purists

I guess I mean the Lord of the Rings ones, the whole Hobbit thing I kind of paid half-attention to on television and couldn't figure out why this fun reasonable-sized story was burdened by all this crap that was grafted on to it by all the later books

it's about this short dude and his buddies who go on a quest to defeat a dragon, not sure why it needed more than one movie

^^ hint: it didn't.

the first hobbit was fine, the other two unwatchable

most gripping dishwashing scene since scarface

Goodkind worse than brooks bc at least brooks was one of the first to the ripoff post

Okay, finally, an explanation as to why this is happening -- not too surprising in the end but here we go:

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2017/11/15/104426-in-historic-move-christopher-tolkien-resigns-as-director-of-tolkien-estate/

his successor: azog the defiler

How dare you say that about his sister and his wife. :-D

retiring on those super amazon dollars

bring on the hobbit sex I guess

Christopher Tolkien has been the Dúnadan thanklessly guarding us from gratuitous hobbit sex all these years.

given tolk's newest novel for xmas: THE FALL OF NÚMENOR

not convinced i'll learn that much i didn't already know but nice to have it in one swaggy production (inc.pix etc): already eyerolled at the phrase "magisterial 12-volume series" mind you

"under the masterful editorship of his son, christopher"

this intro needs fewer adjectives in this masterful sub-editor's opinion

Roffle. Just finished reading my copy yesterday; it’s a very handy compilation of the Second Age material for the curious and there were some things I’d forgotten about from their appearances in said series. Did underscore that with no ability to use nearly any of this due to the rights the TV series was always going to be something of a mess.

i know that that even when the ancient greeks knew otherwise the earth was considered flat in some of the viking sagas still (according to adam of bremen harald hardrada no less sailed to the actual edge and looked off into the abyss) but still JRRT arguing that the tragic broken-ness of the post-numenor world boo hoo = "it is now a GLOBE and that's bad" is some goofy shit tbqh

anyway i finished this: it is what it is

(it belongs here bcz published to time with the broadcast of the thread topic)

the section i enjoyed most was the fragment of the time-travelling* story the lost road: elendil and his grumpy teenage son herendil discuss how things are bad (giant big wave on the way) but you can't say anything (they argue abt this) and shouldn't they maybe sneak out the back with an entire mini-navy?

anyway it's a nicely written scene and you don't have to commit to memory tar-this and ar-that**, the rulers of the doomed island with their quirks (likes boats hates trees etc). apparently the other section of the lost road is apparently a modern-day passage abt one oswin and his son alboin but that isn't included. later on herendil evolved into isildur tho he was still given to adolescent snits, hence the whole "not destroying the ring when you could have" thing…

*yes
**tolk in HOMEWORK MODE 🙄

thinking a little more abt elendil and grumpy herendil it strikes me that there's something to be written abt the tricky relationship of fathers and sons in the body of tolkien's work, viz for example (in this book) numenorian ruler aldarion's with his dad meneldur (the son was the "shipwright" who preferred sailors to his wife, which ended up wrecking family relations and somewhat fvcking up his daughter ancalimë)

also of course there's JRRT's relaltionship with christopher T which was perhaps not tricky but did somewhat doom the son to a lifelong project trapped entirely within his dad's imagination (and lol i could also add my relationship as a reader in the 70s with my dad as an early passionate adopter in the 50s: i get lots out of tolkien but i am definitely as oedipally sceptical of many elements as i am filially attracted to others)

No lie there are interesting dynamics at play -- Tolkien's own loss of his father when he was small, his frustrations with his guardian after his mother passed. The Aldarion story was written (more accurately sketched out) in the 60s around when Christopher himself was going through a divorce and I've always wondered if that was the lens JRRT wrote it through; Christopher himself said nothing about that in print, perhaps unsurprisingly.

i feel like the only possible response here is "oh no!"

Truly a smash success:

It’s long been an open secret that Jeff Bezos has yearned for his own Game of Thrones, and that Amazon’s big swing as it reached for its own massive hit was The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, believed to be the most expensive series ever made.

Last September, the show began with a bang, delivering the biggest debut ever on the streamer in what Amazon Studios chief Jennifer Salke called “a very culturally defining moment” for the company. But when season one wrapped, the show was less defining than hoped, falling short of being the breakout hit that Amazon had envisioned.

While Amazon, like other streamers, provides only limited data — and internally, it held information even more closely than usual on the series — sources confirm that The Rings of Power had a 37 percent domestic completion rate (customers who watched the entire series). Overseas, it reached 45 percent. (A 50 percent completion rate would be a solid but not spectacular result, according to insiders). The show has not been a major awards contender, either, overlooked by the major guilds with the exception of one SAG-AFTRA nomination for stunt ensemble.

But according to Salke, the series has worked. “This desire to paint the show as anything less than a success — it’s not reflective of any conversation I’m having internally,” she says. The second season, currently in production, will have more dramatic story turns, she adds. “That’s a huge opportunity for us. The first season required a lot of setting up.”

You keep telling yourself that.

I thought the show was pretty entertaining, but possibly not for any of the reasons they were aiming for

I will accept this judgment.

it's just tragic they spent so much time and money on a Neverwinter Nights expansion pack

cranking that Mount Doom ignition switch until that bad boy turns over

Squid Game had an 87% completion rate. Resident Evil was canceled for having a 45% completion rate. https://t.co/lMn7nyTLh2

— Ed Zitron (@edzitron) April 3, 2023

The whole thread with Zitron and David Ruddock's response there says it all.

“more dramatic story turns”

vacillating between “oh no” and “hell yeah”, the latter being more of morbid interest

Yeah I'm with you there. As I said elsewhere: "more dramatic story turns" = Galadriel and Halbrand are still in love, and are secretly long-lost twins. Meantime, Not Gandalf is arrested for wandering around with a tiny Harfoot. Elsewhere, whatshername and Kevin on Numenor take their relationship to new levels of drama by actually HOLDING EACH OTHER'S HANDS.

Oh dear elven gods do we have to buckle in for another 50 hours of hearing the exaggerated rolled R in Numenorrrrrr and Galadrrrrrriel and Elrrrrrrond?

Like, wouldn't the world be better off if someone had broken into Tolkien's house or hobbit-hole or whatever and simply rrrrremoved the rrr key from his typewrrriterrr?

The Lod of the Ings

let’s not go to MorrrrrRRH’dorrrrrrrrrrRRRHH’ afterrrh all

'Tis a silly place