Jump to content

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


Recommended Posts

46 minutes ago, Quintus said:

I honestly can't imagine how, further down the line, like, ten years from now, the whole thing didn't culminate in the Downfall of Numenor. 

 

Oh it will, but I don't think it'll happen in this show.

 

Amazon is said to have optioned a spinoff, so...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
Quote

It’s The Fellowship of the Ring’s 20th anniversary this year. How do you reflect on the trilogy’s success and legacy, and your part in that success?

The recordings have been released in vinyl, CD and every other format, and they’ve also been played in concert, so the music has traveled far. I’m delighted with the interest in it, and I’m very pleased to meet and talk to the fans that come to the concerts. It’s a great joy to work on something as brilliant as those films by Peter Jackson and J.R.R Tolkien’s book.

 

What were some of the biggest challenges associated with composing the three scores?
I think the pieces are over 12 hours, so I put everything I had learned, up to that point, into them. Each one took a year to compose, orchestrate, conduct and record. The extended versions were another three months, so it took three years and nine months of pretty continuous work.

 

Have you been contacted about scoring Amazon’s Lord of the Rings TV series? If not, would you consider it if it was offered to you?
I haven’t talked to the production about it, so I haven’t been following it, but I would consider it.

 

What would you consider to be the best score you’ve produced, or your favorite one to create?
I’d have to say Fellowship of the Ring. It was really something that allowed me to create film music in a much more creative way of working with a narrative. We do live to projection concerts, and hearing the music that I wrote in relation to the films’ imagery and story is really wonderful. I love being in the concert hall and hearing it played live.

 

#savedeveryoneaclick

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There, he said it quite openly, he's possibly interested. So if the showrunners don't even speak to Shore about it and just go in another direction, basically fuck this show. 

 

I'm really fearful of a Djawadi style approach with this. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

It really isn't. TORN is just spreading misinformation and histrionics:

 

  • Will Poulter had to drop-out BEFORE PRODUCTION STARTED and purely due to scheduling conflicts.
  • If Tom Shippey's involvement with the project had indeed ceased (and this has not been proven to be the case) than that might just as well be simply because he wasn't actually needed (nor could be bothered, in his age) beyond early development.
  • Same with John Howe: if he did stop working on the show (which seems unlikely given his series of conveniently-timed forays to New Zealand) its because conceptual designers aren't typically needed after pre-production. The WingNut film productions being very much the outlier on this subject. Even on The Lord of the Rings Howe would be absent for long periods of time, because he had a young son back in Switzerland.
  • Cogman was involved from the outset in an advisory position.

 

Tom Budge's exiting the project at this stage is NOT a good thing, but its far from a cause for panic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Bilbo said:

this thing is cursed. 

 

Indeed. Anyone who knows the first thing about Professor Tolkien knows he would have hated this. Christopher knew, which is why he resisted anything like this for so long, and so vehemently.

33 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Budge's exiting the project at this stage is NOT a good thing, but its far from a cause for panic.

 

I find your abundance of faith disturbing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To me, it boils down to the fact that Amazon get a lot of good faith from me from their mere choice of subject matter.

 

Y'all remember all the early rumours about this show doing Young Aragorn? Well, they weren't just spurious rumours - Amazon did consider this storyline. But then they decided to go for something bigger, more obscure and much, much more ambitious. I give them a lot of credit for that.

 

People like Shippey are OBVIOUSLY only needed for early development. Anyone thinking he could have been bothered to go through all the finished scripts or to supervise the production design are deluding themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The story of Celebrimbor is hardly a fanfic. Its pure Tolkien, and it has the potential to be really compelling.

 

I like the version where Celebrimbor is compelled by Annatar to oust Galadriel from Eregion. I'll bet good money that's the one Amazon are going with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Chen G., have you actually read the material they're allowed to adapt? It's only told by Tolkien in VERY broad strokes. They have a very, very, very general outline about some events that took place over a long period of time, and that's it. They don't have any novels or even proper stories to base this on. These TV writers (the second set, not the ones that got fired) are going to have to make up most of the plot particulars, a lot of characters, and almost all of the dialogue to make a series out of this. 

 

This isn't "adaptation". It's "inspired by", at best. I think even Shippey said something along these lines. And yes, Tolkien would have hated it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have Unfinished Tales right beside me at the moment. Sure, its written more after the manner of a historical chronicle than a narrative (which is why I've said elsewhere its closer to "adapting" historical events as opposed to a novel) but its still there.

 

I've seen no evidence (TORn is not evidence) that the writers on the show had been fired. Cogman, who participated in the writing as a consultant, left but he had clarified from the outset that his involvement was minor. I know of at least one of the principal writers (her name escapes me at the moment) who's still involved in the show.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...
On 4/2/2021 at 4:02 AM, gkgyver said:

Can't wait for the first LGBT nuances in this series

 

I can't speak to that, but they're most certainly diversifying the show ethnicity-wise.

 

They seem to be rendering many of the Numenoreans as Middle-Eastern-looking people. They're probably going for a "exotic Mediterranean kingdom" vibes with it.

 

Not what Tolkien had imagined (although he went quite far down the rabbit-hole of comparing Numenore to ancient Egypt, so...) but its the kind of thing I'll wait to see on the screen before I pass judgement.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Art Directors are needed. Scholars - not so much. I'm beyond positive they never needed Shippey beyond the early development phase, nor do I think he could have been bothered with a more hands-on position in the production. He was just there to consult on the shape of the show as a whole, the intricacies of the time-period, etecetra. That seems to me quite clear.

 

I've yet to see any substantive evidence that this show will be like Game of Thrones apart from two, rather generic aspects: the first being, the proverbial "tentpole fantasy series" and the second, is that it will be more of a political thriller than an adventure story: that's just inherent to the subject matter: its not a "quest"-type story and honestly, that's a good thing. Anything else to do with the Game of Thrones comparison is pure speculation.

 

We shall see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There’s been lots of news of this series that can be construed in a positive light. But I can’t think of anything positive we’ve heard or seen from this series. 
 

I can see this being a massive flop for Amazon. And given how their other fantasy series have been received I don’t see anything to convince me otherwise. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We haven't heard or seen much of anything from this series, good OR bad.

 

I think the very choice of the subject matter is encouraging. They could have done Young Aragorn (ostensibly, a Middle Earth "Rogue One"). They considered doing it; and not to say that it would have been a bad choice of subject matter, but instead Amazon decided to go BIG and go into largely-uncharted waters.

 

There's an ambition there that I like, and that sort of thing is enough to buy a lot of good faith on my end.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/6/2021 at 12:19 PM, Quintus said:

music, eye rolling titillation/gratuity and woke agenda. 

 

The sum of all fears.

 

On 4/6/2021 at 8:50 AM, Chen G. said:

Amazon decided to go...into largely-uncharted waters.

 

thats-what-im-afraid-of.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Quintus said:

 

I don't think you understand what franchise means. 

 

Whatever they want to call it, I don't like thinking of Middle-Earth as a "franchise" either.  In fact in general I think the term is unfortunate when describing works of art considering the word was previously more associated with owning a McDonalds. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Naturally, but the Peter Jackson adaptations are said to be the stylistic foundations of this series, and so that whole audiovisual ID is now firmly an intellectual property franchise in of itself. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Nick1066 said:

What could possibly go wrong?!

 

I think the minister is conflating season one for the first two seasons, which will obviously share sets and costumes, and which are to be shot back-to-back. So its more like $200 mill per season, which sits well with the initial figures.

 

Meanwhile, suspicions mount as to the identity of the show's third director... :whistle:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Meanwhile, suspicions mount as to the identity of the show's third director... :whistle:

 

What, is the rumour PJ?  It won't help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't either. I mean, I knew her name but I don't really have a good knowledge of her filmography.

 

Nevertheless, its but one of potentially several nuggets of information (and not necessarily the most interesting of the lot) that could pop-up in the coming days/weeks...:whistle:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Nick1066 said:

what's going to make or break this show will be the writing, not directing.  The SFX and production values are assumed given the budget and WETA's involvement. But this is going to be a show that's going to be exceptionally difficult to get right in terms of plot and character, and if the writing's not there the whole thing is going to fall apart.

 

I agree With Nick1066

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 3/14/2021 at 8:51 PM, Nick1066 said:

These TV writers...are going to have to make up most of the plot particulars, a lot of characters, and almost all of the dialogue...

 

On the plus side, that might imply that the writers aren't under the delusion that redistributing lines of dialogue among the characters, or shoehorning in chapter titles, constitutes fidelity to the source material.

 

20 hours ago, Jay said:

I agree With Nick

 

Famous last words...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Huh.  I had no clue what you were talking about, so I googled it.  I had never heard of that expression before

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.