The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power series

I was wondering about that too. Sounds pretty expensive.

Then again, Amazon, money to burn, etc.

sexless-nudity-halflings

I'm so conflicted.

Please don't fuck up The Fall of Gondolin.

Rather. But we're still getting Second Age stuff in essence, unless concrete flashbacks happen.

am i a bad person because i sort of want this to be terrible?

Yes and now I curse you like Morgoth did to Hurin

oh dear.

forks i'm sorry but you have been cursed by Ned, you may have made a big mistake here

brb going on a quest

Well well

Here’s your first look at Amazon’s #TheLordOfTheRings series which finally has a premiere date. https://t.co/2zma3Sv0qX pic.twitter.com/wUzGtjaZgm

— Variety (@Variety) August 2, 2021

Spoiler alert.

Why dmac they'll be closer to you now. Your duty calls.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/lord-of-the-rings-amazon-series-season-2-new-zealand-uk-1235040645/

Hm!

https://deadline.com/2021/09/the-lord-of-the-rings-composer-howard-shore-score-amazon-tv-series-middle-earth-jrr-tolkien-1234839274/

I hope it happens! I wonder if he’d need to do it ‘shop’ style? It’s bound to be a pretty furious pace. I mean obviously he is renowned for composing on a vast scale but he’s always had the luxury of time.

News to delight dmac's heart! Or not.

https://tvline.com/2022/01/19/lord-of-the-rings-series-title-the-rings-of-power-amazon-teaser-video/

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

The key info as such, which is in line with everything else we've heard:

“This is a title that we imagine could live on the spine of a book next to J.R.R. Tolkien’s other classics,” showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay said in a statement. “Up until now, audiences have only seen on-screen the story of the One Ring — but before there was one, there were many… and we’re excited to share the epic story of them all.”

Per Payne and McKay, the series “unites all major stories of Middle-earth’s Second Age,” including the forging of the Rings of Power, the rise of the Dark Lord Sauron, the epic tale of Númenor (the island of men from which Aragorn is descended) and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men (chronicled in the prologue of Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring)....

Rings of Power, which premieres Friday, Sept. 2 with new episodes released weekly, takes place in the Second Age — thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings — and follows an ensemble of familiar and new characters as they “confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth,” aka Sauron.

And we're into character poster time -- sort of. Just closeups like these but no actors' faces shown nor identity given. But read through the thread.

pic.twitter.com/K4CWKXospb

— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime) February 3, 2022

Or rather the feed, looks like it's a bunch of mini-threads.

What’s the latest on a composer? Anything to the Shore rumors?

No further word on that yet.

Cue the Annie L. photo spreads. Maybe.

We hear Middle-earth is quite nice this time of year. Big news tomorrow, 8 AM ET. ⚔️

— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) February 10, 2022

Also related (and provides some further clarity on how this deal hashed out in the first place)

An array of movie, merchandising, gaming and live event rights to #LordOfTheRings, #TheHobbit and other titles from author J.R.R. Tolkien are coming up for auction now that the Saul Zaentz Co. has decided to sell its Tolkien holdings. https://t.co/1HYaAQ2a4U

— Variety (@Variety) February 9, 2022

Said VF piece up and running!

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/02/amazon-the-rings-of-power-series-first-look

(Among other things the fact that Ismael Cruz Córdova and Nazanin Boniadi will be playing a hot-as-fuck couple onscreen is a good idea, really.)

*cautious excitement intensifies*

ppl on reddit are complaining about Blond Elrond and the elf ears being too pointy, because of course they are. I think everything looks fantastic, especially those nomad guys carrying antlers? dragon spines? on their backs. My main fear is that this is going to be overstuffed with incidental plots and characters a la GoT. I mean, I know that's typical of the genre, but I can see it easily going awry.

Ultimately they had to expand it out a bit with such characters because otherwise it's a fairly dry and detailless series of events, cataclysmic as they are. (The more so because, in a further instance of the Tolkien rights being as confusing as hell, it seems that they could draw from the appendices but not the published Akallabeth, though we'll see, I guess. Overstuffed, though...a definite possibility.

they should get the rights to akallabeth

Hope I live long enough for Turin Turambar live action.

Agreed, I wanna see some First Age action...maybe there'll be some flashbacks in this? There was that shot of the two trees a while back.

Well this is all tied up with the murky sense of the rights, again. I suggest reading both the Variety piece I linked a few posts up as well as crosschecking the relevant passages in the VF piece; it's almost impossible to easily summarize. (It's been over fifty years of sheer unclarity, really; the fact that the Rankin-Bass Hobbit exists alone is retrospectively very damned weird.) If, as is entirely possible, Amazon buys the Zaentz-held rights, then the possibilities for First Age adaptations seem to get stronger. Seem, though. Right now, that Two Trees shot strikes me as either concept art or a Galadriel flashback, as she's the only major character in Middle-earth left at that point who was there and remembers them.

Ned, you are harshing my Fingolfin death scene jones.

didn't read the VF piece but the photos give me a better vibe than the WOT ones did

i think i'm interested in this series bc i'm a bit "keep your mitts off!" vis-a-vis screen adaptations of my beloved Hobbit/LOTR (i'd rather have the world of my imagination), but i'm tickled by people playing in the sandbox of the appendices and deep lore that i'm not so personally attached to. hope it's good!

Ned, you are harshing my Fingolfin death scene jones.

Sorry, just being blunt here. Could it happen one day? Perhaps. Will it? We'll have to see. (My cohost Oriana's deepest creative dream is to write a Silmarillion adaptation of some sort.)

Sean's point is equivalent to something I was saying to my podcast cohosts as well -- while I would prefer the long arc of history here, say irregular seasons set across thousands of years (could happen, wish they tried it!), them openly saying they're compacting everything into a short period of time is both understandable and clear enough going in that I don't have to feel like it's a 'true' adaptation, instead a collation that might work in its own right.

as she's the only major character in Middle-earth left at that point who was there and remembers them.

maybe there'll be a subplot about maglor wandering the shores and singing his sorrow

A vision.

Nazanin Boniadi god I love her

say irregular seasons set across thousands of years (could happen, wish they tried it!),

yeah would be so interesting. you would definitely understand more of how elves view the world.

My cohost Jared said as much -- how fascinating would be the perspective of the 'long defeat' from those who are experiencing it that way.

After watching Foundation I think anyone would be scared off thousands of years of time spans. It's just so hard for it not to feel disjointed, to lose emotional investment in characters and struggle with any real arcs.

Yeah Foundation was the easy comparison point for me in terms of what’s happening here. As such, going more linear and not having to rely on genetic clones and suspended animation is a plus.

The three of us on the podcast are currently in 'hmmm' mode

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7v1hIkYH24

Any idea what the creature is at 0:40?

No idea. We're guessing troll. Better not be balrog (and probably isn't, seems too small).

Baby Balrog?

There’s a vision.

ned, is that a good “hmm” or bad “hmm”? i’m a bit nervous about how sheen and plastic everything looked when compared to the lived-in sets and costume designs of the jackson trilogy. i guess the world was younger.

also kinda odd that they didn’t stack the deck with a couple respected character actors. there are no mckellens, lees, or weavings among the cast here…

I partly blame the TV settings, since for once "sports mode" or whatever made sense, but I got serious It's All Too Much (Yet Not Enough) "Hobbit" vibes from the commercial. I'm also tired of giant CGI monsters lunging and roaring. That's the CGI monster equivalent of the heavy cracking his neck before the big fight.

yeah not an impressive trailer
with tolkien i always hope for "vibe" over action

I hate the fast cuts where you have to pause just to make out what's happening.

Feels like it's designed for frame-by-frame Twitter analysis more than anything.

eh. my enthusiasm for everything is at an all time low. I imagine I'll watch the first episode of this and see if I care enough to stick with it.