Rings of Power Amazon buys up Middle-earth, it searches the One Ring! (Rings of Power news thread)

[Faleel 5,359]

6 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Howard Shore's Main Titles got nominated for an Emmy.

 

McCreary's score snubbed.

Perfectly balanced as all things should be.

[JNHFan2000 2,967]

18 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Geez... This is so sad. I don't think McCreary has ever been even nominated for a "Best Original Score" Emmy, despite his decades of brilliant work in television.

 

It's indeed so weird that he's been working in television for over 20 years but only has 4 nominations in total.

 

Nothing for Battlestar Galactica, only one for both Da Vinci's Demons & Outlander. 

 

Nominations for:

Main Title Music for Human Target

Main Title Music for Da Vinci's Demons

Main Title Music for Black Sails

Outstanding Music Composition for tge first episode of Outlander

 

His last nomination was in 2015.

 

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

So Fellowship of the Fans revelead today that the actor Calam Lynch is going to play Celeborn in season two( there were rumours since January 2023 around this dude I wasn't surprised)

This young actor looks just like a younger version of  Marton Csokas the guy who played Celeborn in PJ's movies

I'm not excited at all and here is why:

While I can be slightly happier to see more Tolkien canonical characters(canonical at least on paper), they have at last thrown away their masks with this casting(without questioning Calam Lynch skills as an actor)

They are deliberately trying to parrot and to live on PJ's patterns, dynamics and even the looks of the actors serves the same purpose. But this can't and won't be enough as season 1 has already proven.

Maybe they thought that giving nods, going for the full M.E. experience with hobbits, wizards and so on will be enough at least to win the affection of the so called PJ's movie fans

For me they have failed since the so called PJ's movies liked ROP season one even less than the book purists and they were maybe those who have most blatantly criticesed the show. 

Let's me know your opinion and thoughts guys.. 

 

[Chen G. 3,950]

7 hours ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

They are deliberately trying to parrot and to live on PJ's patterns, dynamics and even the looks of the actors serves the same purpose. But this can't and won't be enough as season 1 has already proven.

Maybe they thought that giving nods, going for the full M.E. experience with hobbits, wizards and so on will be enough at least to win the affection of the so called PJ's movie fans

 

 

Its something you see more and more of in recent years, its called doing a "spiritual" prequel rather than a literal one. I actually listed a couple of examples in another discussion by now, but:

 

1. Robert the Bruce is not really, trully a sequel to Braveheart. But thanks to Angus McFayden playing the titular role again, it works as a "spiritual" sequel.
2. The Bates Motel series, in spite of obviously changing the time period, is clearly positing itself as a prequel to the Hitchcock film.
3. Superman Returns was a kind of spiritual sequel to the Donner Superman.
4. Perhaps the example that most reminds me of The Rings of Power is how The Great and Powerful Oz couldn't use anything from the  The Wizard of Oz - even down to having to shift the shade of green used on the witch's face - but still tried to approximate it as much as possible, presenting itself as a sort-of prequel. In a different way, even in making Return to Oz they wanted the young girl to look vaguely like Judy Garland and even paid MGM for the rights to use the Ruby Slippers, which they subtly redesigned: a little bit like what The Rings of Power did with Aeglos, Narsil and Durin's Bane.

 

Beside the show, the Tolkien biopic, in the fantasy sequences, also clearly wanted to not be too far off from the look of the Jackson films, so it too could be presented as a sort of "spiritual" spinoff. And, of course, beginning in the early 2000s, Warners pacakaged the three animated films together as the "Animated trilogy."

 

I personally find it a very weird approach. Not anything in life is a sliding scale: something things are more of a binary. Either you're a bona-fide prequel/sequel to the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (e.g. The War of the Rohirrim) or you're not (e.g. the Bakshi film). Anything in between is bound to be neither fish nor fowl, reminding you just enough of the Jackson films that you'd be wishing you were watching those, but never being quite close enough that you feel like you watch a proper extension of those films.

 

Its especially weird now that the show has not only established itself (and so could be more confident to pursue its own path) but also moved out of New Zealand. Its not so much the locations: I'm sure the wideshots for Eregion (not to be in the show much longer) and Khazad Dum will still look the same, and those are based on the Kiwi countryside, but its more the fact that all the New Zealand contractors have seemingly stopped working on Season Two: so no Weta Workshop (who did weapons and Orc prosthetics for Season One), no Simon Lowe (the Greens Department supervisor). All the bit-part Kiwi actors from the films (Jed Brophy, Peter Tait) have had their characters killed-off. So it will still look like a spiritual prequel, but any connective tissue in terms of cast and crew will have been gone. I guess WetaFX are working on it still, but that hardly counts: every project with such a scope of VFX would have called upon their services anyway, and they still have the (now Emmy-nominated!) Shore track (which may or may not find its way into the underscore) and some Brit movie veterans like dialect coach Leith McPherson.

 

Furthermore, New Line are now setting up their own films and are reportedly "striving to keep Amazon from blurring the lines too much between its LOTR franchises and the TV series" so the kind of things that Amazon could get away with like Narsil and Durin's Bane (which are nevertheless not the actual same designs) they won't be able to get away with going forward, and this will become all the more crucial as we get to events and places depicted elswhere in the films like Rivendell, Mithlond, the founding of Minas Tirith. Unless they conveniently keep all of those auspiciously offscreen (as they done with Mithlond in season one) we will start see diverging designs. People can make excuses of "well, its milennia prior, Rivendell can change offscreen in the interim" but they're bound to feel like just that...excuses. And, with The War of the Rohirrim in all likelihood coming out before Season Two, people will be prone to see that as "the genuine article" and Amazon's show as the knock-off: not strictly in terms of the Tolkien-ness of it all, but just in terms of the audiovisual aspect of it.

 

I have a friend who says its a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation, but I disagree. For instance, if in Episode one, instead of Gil-galad saying "they will be escorted to the Grey Havens" we actually saw the Grey Havens, and they looked different, it would have much more clearly established that "look, this is a different adaptation. We're made little touches in the casting and designs for it to not look too alien to you movie fans out there, and perhaps as a little loving homage to the movies, but its still different." They opted not to do anything of the kind until literally the closing couple of shots of Season One, with the clearly redesigned Elven Rings, when people will have already sat through the whole thing.

[TolkienSS 407]

On 12/07/2023 at 6:55 PM, Chen G. said:

Howard Shore's Main Titles got nominated for an Emmy.

 

McCreary's score snubbed.

 

Maybe they know better than we do that McCreary writing the score "solo" is a bit of a ... lie.

 

McCreary is able to write seemingly a thousand shows per year because of a team.

 

Also, Shore's title theme is outclassing McCreary's ability in theme writing and memorability in every way.

[Chen G. 3,950]

I think there's another possiblity: could it be that any sort of monkey-business Amazon may or may not have had with Shore had gotten out to the movie-music industry, and soured their reception of the McCreary score?

[TolkienSS 407]

2 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

I think there's another possiblity: could it be that any sort of monkey-business Amazon had with Shore had gotten out to the movie-music industry, and soured their reception of the McCreary score?

 

I'd like to know what that monkey business was in the first place.

[Chen G. 3,950]

We don't know, but between all that's happened and the peevishness of the good-humoured Doug, I do think its possible Shore wasn't contracted to do the opening titles: rather, he ended-up doing the opening titles.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

If you listen to some of his interviews he had a team at S&S helping with all the non-compositional work and it took a very high mental and physical toll on him. It almost certainly means that the 'McCreary' label on other projects at the moment leans more heavily on his team for composing, which again he made very clear on an Outlander podcast.

 

So basically there's zero evidence of him not solo composing, besides some here wanting to uncover some huge lie or unethical practice merely because they don't like his score.

 

--- 

 

I still find it hard to believe Shore would have agreed or wanted to compose the entire score, given the toll it takes on a much younger, more seasoned TV composer.

[TolkienSS 407]

14 minutes ago, Richard Penna said:

If you listen to some of his interviews he had a team at S&S helping with all the non-compositional work and it took a very high mental and physical toll on him. It almost certainly means that the 'McCreary' label on other projects at the moment leans more heavily on his team for composing, which again he made very clear on an Outlander podcast.

 

So basically there's zero evidence of him not solo composing, besides some here wanting to uncover some huge lie or unethical practice merely because they don't like his score.

 

--- 

 

I still find it hard to believe Shore would have agreed or wanted to compose the entire score, given the toll it takes on a much younger, more seasoned TV composer.

 

There is evidence: the amount of work in the timeframe.

It would require superhuman abilities even without rewrites.

 

Unless we're supposed to believe McCreary had every composition nailed and greenlit at first try.

 

[Chen G. 3,950]

McCreary said he only used orchestrators on the show, but because his themes aren't particularly prone to develop and metamorphose, he could technically "stripe" the show with "this theme goes here, this theme goes there" and indication as to the mood he wants for each appearance, and let the orchestrators orchestrate away.

 

So, even though they're not nominally helping with the composition, it would still have been a HUGE relief of the workload.

[TolkienSS 407]

27 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

McCreary said he only used orchestrators on the show, but because his themes aren't particularly prone to develop and metamorphose, he could technically "stripe" the show with "this theme goes here, this theme goes there" and indication as to the mood he wants for each appearance, and let the orchestrators orchestrate away.

 

So, even though they're not nominally helping with the composition, it would still have been a HUGE relief of the workload.

 

I'm not saying McCreary went the RCP way, but he clearly didn't do it in the artisan "auteur" fashion he wants people to think he did.

 

Ultimately, that's what rubs me the wrong way about the way he presents his work.

Orchestration is equally important to the impact music has as composition.

You can instantly identify music that has been orchestrated by Howard Shore or any other composer who does the work.

I don't hear anything in RoP that says any particular person wrote it. It's clichée after clichée.

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

5 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

Its something you see more and more of in recent years, its called doing a "spiritual" prequel rather than a literal one. I actually listed a couple of examples in another discussion by now, but:

 

1. Robert the Bruce is not really, trully a sequel to Braveheart. But thanks to Angus McFayden playing the titular role again, it works as a "spiritual" sequel.
2. The Bates Motel series, in spite of obviously changing the time period, is clearly positing itself as a prequel to the Hitchcock film.
3. Superman Returns was a kind of spiritual sequel to the Donner Superman.
4. Perhaps the example that most reminds me of The Rings of Power is how The Great and Powerful Oz couldn't use anything from the  The Wizard of Oz - even down to having to shift the shade of green used on the witch's face - but still tried to approximate it as much as possible, presenting itself as a sort-of prequel. In a different way, even in making Return to Oz they wanted the young girl to look vaguely like Judy Garland and even paid MGM for the rights to use the Ruby Slippers, which they subtly redesigned: a little bit like what The Rings of Power did with Aeglos, Narsil and Durin's Bane.

 

Beside the show, the Tolkien biopic, in the fantasy sequences, also clearly wanted to not be too far off from the look of the Jackson films, so it too could be presented as a sort of "spiritual" spinoff. And, of course, beginning in the early 2000s, Warners pacakaged the three animated films together as the "Animated trilogy."

 

I personally find it a very weird approach. Not anything in life is a sliding scale: something things are more of a binary. Either you're a bona-fide prequel/sequel to the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (e.g. The War of the Rohirrim) or you're not (e.g. the Bakshi film). Anything in between is bound to be neither fish nor fowl, reminding you just enough of the Jackson films that you'd be wishing you were watching those, but never being quite close enough that you feel like you watch a proper extension of those films.

 

Its especially weird now that the show has not only established itself (and so could be more confident to pursue its own path) but also moved out of New Zealand. Its not so much the locations: I'm sure the wideshots for Eregion (not to be in the show much longer) and Khazad Dum will still look the same, and those are based on the Kiwi countryside, but its more the fact that all the New Zealand contractors have seemingly stopped working on Season Two: so no Weta Workshop (who did weapons and Orc prosthetics for Season One), no Simon Lowe (the Greens Department supervisor). All the bit-part Kiwi actors from the films (Jed Brophy, Peter Tait) have had their characters killed-off. So it will still look like a spiritual prequel, but any connective tissue in terms of cast and crew will have been gone. I guess WetaFX are working on it still, but that hardly counts: every project with such a scope of VFX would have called upon their services anyway, and they still have the (now Emmy-nominated!) Shore track (which may or may not find its way into the underscore) and some Brit movie veterans like dialect coach Leith McPherson.

 

Furthermore, New Line are now setting up their own films and are reportedly "striving to keep Amazon from blurring the lines too much between its LOTR franchises and the TV series" so the kind of things that Amazon could get away with like Narsil and Durin's Bane (which are nevertheless not the actual same designs) they won't be able to get away with going forward, and this will become all the more crucial as we get to events and places depicted elswhere in the films like Rivendell, Mithlond, the founding of Minas Tirith. Unless they conveniently keep all of those auspiciously offscreen (as they done with Mithlond in season one) we will start see diverging designs. People can make excuses of "well, its milennia prior, Rivendell can change offscreen in the interim" but they're bound to feel like just that...excuses. And, with The War of the Rohirrim in all likelihood coming out before Season Two, people will be prone to see that as "the genuine article" and Amazon's show as the knock-off: not strictly in terms of the Tolkien-ness of it all, but just in terms of the audiovisual aspect of it.

 

I have a friend who says its a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" situation, but I disagree. For instance, if in Episode one, instead of Gil-galad saying "they will be escorted to the Grey Havens" we actually saw the Grey Havens, and they looked different, it would have much more clearly established that "look, this is a different adaptation. We're made little touches in the casting and designs for it to not look too alien to you movie fans out there, and perhaps as a little loving homage to the movies, but its still different." They opted not to do anything of the kind until literally the closing couple of shots of Season One, with the clearly redesigned Elven Rings, when people will have already sat through the whole thing.

 

Nobody asked for the spiritual prequel of PJ's movies at least not me. 

They were supposed to adapt the 2nd Age where the characters,the tone, the themes are entirely different from what Jackson has to adapt. 

Not only they are taking unrequired liberties from the source material, not only they have entirely undermine Sauron's character the mastermind behind the fall of Eregion or Numenor and all the despair and sorrow through two whole Ages and replacing him with  just a random guy that in the most obvious cliche falls in love with our warrior princess Galadriel. 

The thing above all that leaves me totally desmayed is that they have already proved that they are not enough good to write compelling and engaging storylines and characters

So if they think to survive and keep afloat for other 4 seasons only parroting Jackson, with mystery boxes, subvert expectations, plot twists and giving occasionally  to the book readers some bribes like Celeborn,  they should for their own sake think again and think better

 

I would have been much more merciful if they have tried to to their own thing, follow differents paths and patterns, have enough courage and even a little reckless to break with the past or even with the schemes that we see in every damn fantasy tv series nowdays(this is why they look and feel so generic like they have been made by the same dressmaker)

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

McCreary said he only used orchestrators on the show, but because his themes aren't particularly prone to develop and metamorphose, he could technically "stripe" the show with "this theme goes here, this theme goes there" and indication as to the mood he wants for each appearance, and let the orchestrators orchestrate away.

 

So, even though they're not nominally helping with the composition, it would still have been a HUGE relief of the workload.

I mean according to IMDb only this year Bear has been involved in at least 4-5 projects(different medium too from movies to videogames to the new seasons of Foundation and Outlander)

So yes as other composers of the rising generation he has a team that works for me 24 hours per day

Unless he doesn't eat or sleep

[Brónach 1,302]

don't worry. it'll be over soon.

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

46 minutes ago, Brónach said:

don't worry. it'll be over soon.

 

I don't think it will over soon enough

I think if they will be able to keep the same number of viewers then they will stick  with the already five seasons template plus a couple of spinoff

 

 

[Chen G. 3,950]

2 hours ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

They were supposed to adapt the 2nd Age where the characters,the tone, the themes are entirely different from what Jackson has to adapt. 

 

 

See, if I were making it, I'd definitely want my Numenorean soldiers to look like this:

 

 

And the Lindon soldiers to look like this:

 

 

That's just me and what I like.

 

But if I knew I couldn't get those because this show is made by Amazon and not by Warner Brothers, then I'd choose to go a completely different route. Anything else would be a "golden mean" fallacy that only serves to remind you of something else that you could have been watching instead. 

 

But JD Payne and Patrick McKay made the Lindon guards look like this: 

 

 

You can see the similarity: the Elves still have a golden palette, blade-like crests over their helmets and a tall, narrow shield. But all that these superficial similarities do is make you think "man, those prologue Elves looked really cool, didn't they?"

 

If it were just a homage here or there, it would be classy and flattering. As it is, its just stuck in this kind no-man's land between being a prequel and not being one.

[TolkienSS 407]

Quote

Nobody asked for the spiritual prequel of PJ's movies at least not me. 

 

That's like making Star Wars TV shows and saying "nobody asked for spiritual successors of George Lucas".

It's inevitable. 

The Jackson movies are too big, too influential, and too good to ever be not thought of.

[Chen G. 3,950]

1 hour ago, TolkienSS said:

The Jackson movies are too big, too influential, and too good to ever be not thought of.

 

I think Amazon could have realistically done a show that's only like the movie enough to not alienate neophytes, but without going the spiritual prequel route.

[TolkienSS 407]

51 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

I think Amazon could have realistically done a show that's only like the movie enough to not alienate neophytes, but without going the spiritual prequel route.

 

How can you alienate someone who didn't watch the movies? They wouldn't even know what was borrowed and what wasn't.

[A. A. Ron 1,742]

He's clearly talking about people who saw the movies, but never read the books.

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

45 minutes ago, A. A. Ron said:

He's clearly talking about people who saw the movies, but never read the books.

Indeed. Also as I said before if we take a quick survery I'm pretty sure the so called PJ's fans would be the most disillusioned regarding ROP even more than the so called book purists. 

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Having seen the movies but not read the books, my main complaint about the show has always been the shitty writing in places. All this 'canon' stuff flies over my head and I like it that way.

[Chen G. 3,950]

1 hour ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

if we take a quick survery I'm pretty sure the so called PJ's fans would be the most disillusioned regarding ROP even more than the so called book purists. 

 

By setting itself up as a "spiritual prequel" to the movies, the show effectivelly set itself up as an "adaptation" of two texts: Tolkien's and Jackson's, and on both account it is compromised because on the Tolkien side, it can only adapt from The Lord of the Rings to tell events which are primarily told elsewhere; and on the Jackson side, it can only approximate, never reprise.

[A. A. Ron 1,742]

I think that’s all definitely true, but the show could still be way better even within these limitations.

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

If the show doesn't break out this season (and it won't), assuming there are no contractual restrictions to the contrary, I predict they'll quickly wrap up the storyline and the next few seasons will be a new adaption of LOTR, and potentially The Hobbit.  

 

It's just unfathomable if more people don't start watching, Amazon will pour good money after bad in a show no one wants.  Especially when they have a perfectly good series of books to adapt that are actually books. 

 

Not that any of it will matter. I'm sceptical about the prospects for the WB films as well. I just don't sense there's a big clamour out there for more of these projects, and I sort of feel like Middle-Earth on screen is losing its lustre a bit. 

[Chen G. 3,950]

8 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

I'm sceptical about the prospects for the WB films as well. I just don't sense there's a big clamour out there for more of these projects, and I sort of feel like Middle-Earth on screen is losing its lustre a bit. 

 

I sometimes feel that, too. But I'm willing to give it a chance. I think there's good subject matter in the appendices that's worthwhile to adapt, and with Warners it at least won't be half measures in terms of the overall aesthetic of the thing.

[Brónach 1,302]

17 hours ago, TolkienSS said:

 

The Jackson movies are too big, too influential, and too good to ever be not thought of.

 

i don't know, i'm pretty good at not thinking on them

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

13 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

If the show doesn't break out this season (and it won't), assuming there are no contractual restrictions to the contrary, I predict they'll quickly wrap up the storyline and the next few seasons will be a new adaption of LOTR, and potentially The Hobbit.  

 

It's just unfathomable if more people don't start watching, Amazon will pour good money after bad in a show no one wants.  Especially when they have a perfectly good series of books to adapt that are actually books. 

 

Not that any of it will matter. I'm sceptical about the prospects for the WB films as well. I just don't sense there's a big clamour out there for more of these projects, and I sort of feel like Middle-Earth on screen is losing its lustre a bit. 

I mean I don't think Amazon is so stupid and reckless to try to fight a war they know they can't win

They know that they cannot produce something as good as the first trilogy of Jackson. People would start ranting and complaining  about it long before filming starts and so on

I think maybe a more likely scenario could be Amazon filling with gold the Tolkien Estate pockets and gets the rights of the Silmarillion and HOME to adapt the First Age(and the Tolkien Estate sooner or later will sell these rights to the highest bidder before they become pubblic domain).But they will butcher the First Age too if they follow the same mindset they're doing with the 2nd Age on ROP

 

I think that people nowdays prefer a different kind of fantasy like the one written by Abercrombrie or GRRM to be honest. As I book reader I can confirm

 

4 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

I sometimes feel that, too. But I'm willing to give it a chance. I think there's good subject matter in the appendices that's worthwhile to adapt, and with Warners it at least won't be half measures in terms of the overall aesthetic of the thing.

Yep the oath of Eorl, the Kinstrife, the golden age of Gondor with the ship-kings, the rise of the Witch King of Angmar and the fall of Arnor.. All at least on paper all worthwhile adaptations.

[Brónach 1,302]

32 minutes ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

But they will butcher the First Age too

 

these people hate fun. they don't want a weird as hell animated series with some non-literal plot points and a rotating cast of characters and i don't think they want it to be both too much for children and straight for children simultaneously and also really sad. the material is intrinsically at odds with the audience and type of show they want.

 

the solution is for them to look for current pg-13ish fantasy that has what they want or to invent their own. which is at odds with the corporate logic of of "buy known thing to milk for money". it would imply somebody having specific interests and they don't have that.

[Chen G. 3,950]

5 hours ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

the oath of Eorl, the Kinstrife, the golden age of Gondor with the ship-kings, the rise of the Witch King of Angmar and the fall of Arnor.. All at least on paper all worthwhile adaptations.

 

And can scratch a lot of the same "itches" that the show was poised to scratch.

 

I think, conceptually, the main appeals of the Second Age storyline is to see the past glory of the Empires of Elvendom (under Gil-galad), Dwarrowdom (under Durin) and Mankind (under any number of Numenorean rulers, culminating in Pharazon). We got scarce little of that in the show, but we could potentially get a do-over by seeing Gondor at the time of its past glory.

 

Actually, all the Numenorean monuments that we do see (usually in the form of ruins) in the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (and which give you a sense of the reach of this faded empire) are ultimately not Numenorean: they're Gondorian and Arnorian!

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

 

And can scratch a lot of the same "itches" that the show was poised to scratch.

 

I think, conceptually, the main appeals of the Second Age storyline is to see the past glory of the Empires of Elvendom (under Gil-galad), Dwarrowdom (under Durin) and Mankind (under any number of Numenorean rulers, culminating in Pharazon). We got scarce little of that in the show, but we could potentially get a do-over by seeing Gondor at the time of its past glory.

 

Actually, all the Numenorean monuments that we do see (usually in the form of ruins) in the The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (and which give you a sense of the reach of this faded empire) are ultimately not Numenorean: they're Gondorian and Arnorian!

If you mean the Argonath sure. But Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul(originally Minas Ithil), Osgiliath were built by the Faithful Numenoreans

Such a pity that in ROP we have seen nothing of their might. Numenor's army was the biggest armada since the days of the War of the Wrath

Numenoreans were pride and tall and strong, their steel bows the true scarecrow of all M.E.

What we got in the show it's an army of 300 hundred untrained green boys with awful gear and helmets or even worse some random blacksmith ranting about elves stealing muh jobs. Numenoreans that made even the Valar tremble(not really it's just an overstatement from me)reduced to such pity human beings

[Brónach 1,302]

they might have built the first structures but stuff doesn't stay the same over time

 

but on the other hand, the numenorean settlers didn't really go anywhere right? even though they may have changed their names. plus they made the rest speak westron anyway

[Chen G. 3,950]

2 hours ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

If you mean the Argonath sure. But Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul(originally Minas Ithil), Osgiliath were built by the Faithful Numenoreans

 

Well yeah, but only after Numenore was destroyed, so they're basically very early Gondorians and Arnorians. And they also built Isengard, the Hornburg, Amon Hen, Amon Sul, and in the movie Dol Guldur is also reconcieved as one of their forts.

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

 

17 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

I sometimes feel that, too. But I'm willing to give it a chance. I think there's good subject matter in the appendices that's worthwhile to adapt, and with Warners it at least won't be half measures in terms of the overall aesthetic of the thing.

 

Of course I'll give it a chance. I'm just really sceptical. One, because of the same challenges the Amazon show has...a lack of fleshed out source material. Even if they do have better creatives behind it (and I believe they will), it's still a tough hill to climb.

 

But in addition to that, I just don't get a sense of any great desire in the cultural zeitgeist out there for more Tolkien on the screen. It was something of a minor miracle that the New Line films succeeded as spectacularly as they did. It was one of those things where you had the right creatives doing the right thing in the right way at the right time.

 

But there’s this assumption in Hollywood that just b/c something works in one medium (literature), it can and must work in another (film), and I'm not sure that's the case here. Add to that, any post-PJ project is just going to feel "smaller" than Lord of the Rings, no matter how epic the subject.

 

I just get the feeling that the moment has passed, and I personally don't think Middle-Earth lends itself to a "cinematic universe". But we'll see.

 

 

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

48 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

 

 

Of course I'll give it a chance. I'm just really sceptical. One, because of the same challenges the Amazon show has...a lack of fleshed out source material. Even if they do have better creatives behind it (and I believe they will), it's still a tough hill to climb.

 

But in addition to that, I just don't get a sense of any great desire in the sort of cultural zeitgeist out there for more Tolkien on the screen. It was something of a minor miracle that the New Line succeeded as spectacularly well as they did. It was one of these things where you had the right creatives doing the right thing in the right way at the right time. There's this assumption in Hollywood that just b/c something works in one medium, it can and must work in another, and I'm not sure that's the case here. Add to that, any post-PJ project is just going to feel "smaller" than Lord of the Rings, no matter how epic the subject.

 

I just get the feeling that the moment has passed, and I personally don't think Middle-Earth lends itself to a "cinematic universe". But we'll see.

 

 

I agree overhall. Amazon and I fear Warner too  have yet to understand  they miss the boat. Bezos wanted the next Game of Thrones but Game of Thrones had such huge cultural impact and viewers because the circumstances were pretty unique. It came at the right time with no competition.. 

Let's see how The War of the Rohirrim will be welcomed by the fans and the critics alike...If it'll be a huge flop I doubt Warner will go ahead with the other movies planned they've announced a couple of months ago.. 

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

12 hours ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

I mean I don't think Amazon is so stupid and reckless to try to fight a war they know they can't win

They know that they cannot produce something as good as the first trilogy of Jackson. People would start ranting and complaining  about it long before filming starts and so on

 

Oh, I think they are that reckless. Spending what they did was an act of recklessness. Pairing inexperienced show runners with inexperienced writers on such a massive project that they couldn't hope to handle was an act of recklessness. 

 

Remaking The Hobbit and LOTR would be reckless as well (the comparisons would be brutal), but at least it's a proven commodity that they can actually adapt. I can see it happening much more than I can see Amazon committing to another three seasons of a show that's not giving them the cultural moment they want. The fact that HBO is doing the same with Harry Potter shows that a remake so soon after the beloved originals is more than possible.

 

12 hours ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

I think maybe a more likely scenario could be Amazon filling with gold the Tolkien Estate pockets and gets the rights of the Silmarillion and HOME to adapt the First Age(and the Tolkien Estate sooner or later will sell these rights to the highest bidder before they become pubblic domain).

 

The Tolkien estate as far as I know isn't prepared to sell the rights to The Silmarillion. And if they did, it would dwarf the already confiscatory amount Amazon has already paid to them. If ROP fails, I seriously doubt Amazon is going to double down on Middle-Earth. In fact, if both ROP and the new WB films aren't wildly successful, in my opinion the market for the rights to The Silmarillion will be seriously reduced.

 

33 minutes ago, Servant of Morgoth said:

I agree overhall. Amazon and I fear Warner too  have yet to understand  they miss the boat. Bezos wanted the next Game of Thrones but Game of Thrones had such huge cultural impact and viewers because the circumstances were pretty unique. It came at the right time with no competition.

 

When something is a cultural phenomenon, everyone is always looking for "The next...", which is typically a copycat and fails to capture the moment like the original. 

 

Boardwalk Empire wasn't the next Sopranos, Game of Thrones was the next Sopranos. There will be a next Game of Thrones, but it won't look anything like Game of Thrones.

[Chen G. 3,950]

12 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

Of course I'll give it a chance. I'm just really sceptical. One, because of the same challenges the Amazon show has...a lack of fleshed out source material. Even if they do have better creatives behind it (and I believe they will), it's still a tough hill to climb.

 

I don't mind that aspect of it as much as you. Yes, they're basically working from brief outlines that aren't structured as scenes with dialogue and beats and characters with motivations, just a description of the main plot points and the personae dramatis. But, you know, that's also true of some of the stuff that's in the films, and its true of almost the entire genre of historical movies and the way they adapt from history books. Certainly, that aspect of it is less of an issue in a two-hour-ish movie or a couple of them than it is in a 40+ hour TV show! It can actually prove quite liberating!

 

I do think Warners have a couple of advantages over Amazon. One is that they can make a bona-fide prequel rather than a mere "spiritual" prequel as Amazon had. So it won't have that neither fish nor fowl feeling where you're constantly reminded of a movie you could be watching instead, without feeling like what you are watching is an organic extension of that film.

 

Ontop of that, the stories they have at their disposal - mainly stories about early Gondor, Rohan and Arnor - are much more matter-of-fact. They're less aethereal like the Forging of the Great Rings or the Downfall of Numenore. So it isn't as likely to lead the creatives' hands towards stuff like all that Mithril nonesense, or all that Mordor stuff.

 

They're also stories with far more recognisable iconography: Rivendell, Minas Tirith, Mithlond, Gundabad, Amon Sul, Edoras, the Hornburg, Osgiliath... in that regard, its all much more familiar, and much of it is actually set-up in the movies: there's an awful lot of talk of Angmar in The Hobbit, for instance. Whereas Numenore...for all casuals know, its just a name that's mentioned a couple of times.

 

And, really, as I've said, what happens in Numenore is not actually all that relevant to what happens later in the story: all the ruins we do see in The Lord of the Rings are actually early Gondorian monuments, not Numenorean ones, and so seeing the early days of Gondor is actually much more "relevant" than seeing those of Numenore.

 

I don’t think about it as a…shudders…"cinematic universe." It’s just a film series. When I think “cinematic universe” I think something like Marvel where you have multiple separate threads of story happening over multiple different films that cross-over. Or maybe the recent Star Wars model where you have the main story and these side stories sandwiched between entries (to the ludicrous extent that we have more intermezzi than atti). That’s not the case here.

[Brónach 1,302]

1 hour ago, Chen G. said:

Or maybe the recent Star Wars model where you have the main story and these side stories sandwiched between entries (to the ludicrous extent that we have more intermezzi than atti).

 

this and disposing of the atti like they don't matter (although they did find genuine hurdles) bugs me a lot

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

17 hours ago, Chen G. said:

But, you know, that's also true of some of the stuff that's in the films, and its true of almost the entire genre of historical movies and the way they adapt from history books.

 

Well, OK, but don't forget....there are a lot of really bad historical epics. It's a genre I'm fond of, but let's not fool ourselves, it's just as easy to screw up one of those films as it is any other genre, if not more so.  Have many truly great ones have there been since Braveheart (hell, even post-Lawrence), and how many not directed by someone not named Ridley Scott? 

 

[Chen G. 3,950]

6 hours ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

t's just as easy to screw up one of those films as it is any other genre

 

I mean, you're not wrong, but here is the operative word: any film from anyone in any genre has the chance of being a screw-up. Now, its not that I'm going to look at every upcoming project with rose-tinted glasses until it comes out: if there are storm clouds brewing around a project, then one knows to expect the worst. I was all onboard for The Rings of Power conceptually, and then we started hearing about Middle Earth Ewoks Harfoots and by the time the Vanity Fair piece came out, everything about it just looked and sounded a little off, and one smellt trouble.

 

I haven't yet been given similar reason to suspect The War of the Rohirrim (much less any future project that's currently nothing more than an idea, I wager) would follow suit. It can be bad, it can be good. We will wait and see.

[Nick1Ø66 4,718]

7 hours ago, Chen G. said:

I mean, you're not wrong, but here is the operative word: any film from anyone in any genre has the chance of being a screw-up.

 

True enough. And I agree, any film from anyone has the possibility of getting screwed-up. But I just think there are inherent flaws in trying to do any kind of Tolkien "adaptation" that's not directly based on one of the novels. 

 

This NYT opinion piece pretty much sums up how I feel about the issue. It's about ROP, but could equally apply to the upcoming WB films.

 

Quote

 

Please Don’t Make a Tolkien Cinematic Universe

 

“The Rings of Power,”...is based primarily on only a few dozen pages in one of the historical appendices to “The Lord of the Rings" meaning that almost the entire plot of the show has been created by Amazon Studios’ writers and showrunners. But not all stories are equally suited to being exploited by studios, and a Middle-earth that’s spread out — “like butter that has been scraped over too much bread,” to quote Bilbo Baggins — may not have the same appeal...

*

There’s a huge gulf between Tolkien’s originality, moral sophistication and narrative subtlety and the culture of Hollywood in 2022 — the groupthink produced by the contemporary ecosystem of writers’ rooms, Twitter threads and focus groups. The writing that this dynamic is particularly good at producing — witty banter, arch references to contemporary issues, graphic and often sexualized violence, self-righteousness — is poorly suited to Middle-earth...

*

...when attending a production of “The Hobbit” adapted as a children’s play, Tolkien frowned every time the dialogue departed from what he had written. So it is hard to believe that he would have approved of a team of writers building almost entirely new stories with little direct basis in his works....

*

If viewers find themselves disappointed by “The Rings of Power,” it will probably not be because the computer-generated imagery is second-rate or there are not enough fight sequences. It will be because the new adaptation lacks literary and moral depth that make Middle-earth not just another cinematic universe but a world worth saving.

 

 

Anyway, I know we're not going to agree on this. I just hope WB has the decency to put "inspired by" rather than "based on" Tolkien in the credits (I can't remember how Amazon handles this?) Because at the end of the day, unlike say Braveheart or 300, which are fleshed out dramas based on historical sources, scant as they are, Tolkien's is a work of literature, from a singular mind, not history. And as a result, such films are going to essentially be fan fiction, not historical fiction. 

[Servant of Morgoth 20]

To be honest Amazon is not even trying to adapt the few dozen pages from LOTR, the Appendices and the Hobbit they have

See Elendil being a petty lord and a sea captain, see the forging of the Three before the lesser rings and much more

[Chen G. 3,950]

45 minutes ago, Nick1Ø66 said:

But I just think there are inherent flaws in trying to do any kind of Tolkien "adaptation" that's not directly based on one of the novels. 

 

Yeah. That point really sunk-in for me when Ian Nathan said in an interview that, when you embark on something like this, "you're not actually doing Tolkien anymore."

 

But I do think there's a difference between extrapolating from 5 pages about the Angmar War into maybe a couple of two-hour-ish movies, as compared to extrapolating from 15 pages into a 40+ hour show...

[Jay 37,372]

Renewed for season 3

[Brónach 1,302]

don't worry, it'll be over after that

[enderdrag64 624]

On 28/09/2023 at 9:43 PM, Jay said:

Renewed for season 3

I'm shocked how negative of a reception this show seems to have on the wider internet, even in the comments of the post you linked. I thought it was maybe a bit long but I enjoyed it for what it was.

 

I get how people might not have liked it because it strayed too far from the source material or made choices they didn't like or whatever, but I don't understand the vocal group that wants to shit on it as much as possible, especially a *year* after it stopped airing. Why spend so much mental energy thinking about something you hate?

 

Hopefully the show keeps getting renewed so we can get even more of Bear McCreary's score 

[A. A. Ron 1,742]

And I’m shocked that anyone liked it at all. Even ignoring the source material, it’s an awful, awful show in its own right. I’m with you as far as Bear’s scores go though. I’ll definitely keep buying them as long as he keeps releasing more.

[Chen G. 3,950]

9 hours ago, enderdrag64 said:

I'm shocked how negative of a reception this show seems to have on the wider internet, even in the comments of the post you linked. I thought it was maybe a bit long but I enjoyed it for what it was.

 

I have to say, as somebody who didn't really like this show much, it did reasonably (in fact, surprisingly) well with critics. I personally think it came in just the right time when, coming off of COVID, critics were wanting something fantastical that WASN'T styled after Game of Thrones.

 

To me, regardless of any adherence to Tolkien's outline of these tales (which is really all have left for them), its just much too slow; much to convoluted at times; Galadriel is played much, much too angry; and the whole "Spiritual" prequel aspect of the show is throwing me off, both in the "uncanny valley" aspect of the visuals compared to Jackson's, and in how the show is trying to set-up not just characters or events but events like the creation of Mordor, or the making of the Rings. Its depicting the undepictable.

 

It has its triumphs, too. Elrond is excellent here. Peter Mullan was born to play a Dwarf and except for one slightly treacly scene he was awesome as one would expect. It was glorious to see what little we saw of Eregion, the first Elven city depicted onscreen. Bear's score is lovely. And I appreciate that season one gave some Middle Earth-themed employment to the likes of John Howe, Howard Shore, Plan 9, Daniel Reeve and Weta Workshop. In fact, a lot (not all) of the visuals look great, including but not limited to the New Zealand countryside, playing Middle Earth yet again.

[TolkienSS 407]

An chance of Howard Shore doing more for season 2? Or doing a new opening?

[Chen G. 3,950]

I can't imagine.

 

Would be cool if his work gets incorporated into the score, though!