The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series

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.

as much as I think the LOTR movies are great, I wouldn't be averse to someone else doing them as a longer tv series, after some consideration. You could potentially have 12 hour long examinations of each book then and really do them justice but break them up in a way that isn't a horrible slog.

Well it won't be this crew, per the original note.

Christopher Tolkien has been mining his dad's notes for flabby bullshit pseudo-scholarly volumes of tedium for decades. Amazon will just be doing a different kind of unnecessary exploitation.

Tsk.

i think it's p ungenerous to characterize a guy who dedicated decades of his life to preserving his dad's work (and i doubt any of those books, bar maybe the silmarillion, made much money) as engaging in any kind of "exploitation."

obviously i want a full-length douglas gordon version of PJ's hobbit slowed down to two frames a second

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a31q2ZQcETw

xp loving suffocation is the correct term iirc

would be amusing if they did unfinished tales and didn't resolve anything, or did a whole year of beren and luthien but restarted it every episode, kept changing the names, and never completing the story

I saw 24 Hour Psycho! well, like, 15 minutes of it. That was cool

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