Amazon, Warner Bros in Talks for LOTR Series Adaptation: Variety

Well, there's no comparison in terms of world-building between Narnia and LotR. And GoT is far too new to have much written about it.

Nice to hear more 2nd age confirmation!

'The show runners are determined to remain faithful to the existing trilogies and the spirit of the books.'


{{ Those two things are not compatible.
If they keep consistent to the look of the films then Rohan is a rocky hilly place instead of rolling grass plains and Minas Tirith sits in a plain of dust all on its own without so much as a single farm to support it. And the distance between it Osgiliath and Mordor changes according to plot convenience!
In terms of armour and the like for most of it they did a very good job on the original trilogy, but not all of it, the Witchkings get up for one with it 'Scream' helmet, and Saurons spiky Heavy Metal get up spring to mind as examples of PJ excess. }}

The idea of a Lord of the Rings television show set in the Second Age might just make us miss the days of Peter Jackson turning Bilbo and the dwarves into looney Toons characters

RA wrote:The idea of a Lord of the Rings television show set in the Second Age might just make us miss the days of Peter Jackson turning Bilbo and the dwarves into looney Toons characters

Nope! I'm pretty sure nothing could do THAT!

If I look at it from a cynical business man's perspective who just wants a return on investment I could maybe see what they might try. They will try to make the Lord of the Rings show the next Game of Thrones since now that's over. Maybe not the blood and sex, but the big action set pieces, the familiar and some political intrigue. So they could make a season set in Numenor starring Elendil, Isildur and Amandil, and Arpharazon, the king.

Then depending on how long they want the show to be - like 8 seasons - have the first season ending with the Numenorians invading Middle Earth and capturing Sauron. A bunch of political intrigue with the elves and Numenorians having a falling out the Faithful becoming some sort of political class even.

Then season 2 would be where the Numenorians go to war with Valinor. They'd probably add a bunch of battles or some other clique of elves that Numenorians could fight before getting to the Undying Lands.

Season 3 is the aftermath where the Faithful retreat to Middle Earth and settle into it. Maybe even introduce some sort of element of racism between the Numenorians and the lesser men in Middle Earth, depending on how much they want to go that route.

Season 4 could be stuff about Celebrimbor making the rings and Sauron reappearing in Mordor. I don't know what the rest would be about.

With the amount of money Amazon is pouring into this I think they'll pull out all the stops. Have Legolas show up or Galadriel or Elrond. Sauron is the big one they'll use throughout the whole show probably. Maybe even have hobbits there for no reason or dwarves once they get to Middle Earth. I think the gaping flaw with everything to do with this is that we don't have any extended narratives written by Tolkien himself in the Second Age outside a few like Aldarion and Erendis. But I don't think they would pull material from that anyways. The temptation for the familiar might be too strong. So all of this would just be fan fiction, possibly very bad fanfiction like what Jackson did with the Hobbit. I don't know how one would go about doing this properly...

David H wrote:

RA wrote:The idea of a Lord of the Rings television show set in the Second Age might just make us miss the days of Peter Jackson turning Bilbo and the dwarves into looney Toons characters

Nope! I'm pretty sure nothing could do THAT!  

Things could always get worse. I can't imagine something worse than a gritty re-imagining of Lord of the Rings where all the character swear like sailors and there's tons of sex scenes aka Game of Thrones.

RA wrote: I can't imagine something worse than a gritty re-imagining of Lord of the Rings where all the character swear like sailors and there's tons of sex scenes aka Game of Thrones.

Oh that's easy RA! Just imagine all of that plus LoonyToon dwarves and wizards on bunnysleds

{{and even THAT wouldn't be enough to make me miss PJ's adaptation of The Hobbit }}

halfwise wrote:I'm pretty much with you on the seasons, RA, but I would put your season 4 as season 1.

And the Numenorians did not really "go to war" with Valinor.  Yes, they did an invasion, but there was no fighting that I recall.

I think that the studio will feel inclined to add battles where there were none to keep people with low attention spans entertained. Also yeah I guess they'd make the Rings of power stuff first to hook the movie fans in first.

Well damn. Great to see you around again, RA!

I imagine there will be plenty of fighting in the series, and in all honesty it's not hard to fit it in even while following what Tolkien told us about the Second Age. The Númenóreans fought lots of wars in their time (including being the decisive factor in the War of the Elves and Sauron, something like 1500 years before Sauron was brought to Númenor) and countless implied colonial conflicts throughout the history of the empire they built in Middle-earth.

The forging of the Rings of Power is in many ways the obvious starting point for an epic seeking to cover the grand sweep of the Second Age, if Amazon chooses to go that route. However, the Númenóreans don't become central actors until the end of that conflict, and I'd imagine/hope that the series will focus more on humans that Elves--though I would like for there to also be plenty of Elfy goodness. I could see Amazon choosing to just focus on the concluding centuries of the Second Age, which would make for a more focused multi-season narrative.

Yeah I expect lots of battles and warfare. I think the problem comes from trying to string that all to one set of characters that a casual tv audience can empathize with. Maybe they'll pull a little bit of a Game of Thrones by giving us a set of characters we're meant to like, The Starks aka Arpharazon the King. And then within the second or third season they'll switch our focus to Isildur and the Faithful.
But telling a generational story would be difficult and risky. With the amount of money Amazon is throwing at this I don't think they'll give us more than the lifetime of one character or two characters, say Elendil's youth up to the last alliance of men and elves.

To be fair, that's a whole lot more of a lifetime than what is usually meant by the phrase!

Forest Shepherd wrote:To be fair, that's a whole lot more of a lifetime than what is usually meant by the phrase!

True I guess they could get away with a lot because early Numenorians lived so long. But before Jackson's Hobbit trilogy I remember thinking it would be cool to see some of the dwarves history. That is until we actually saw it and what that meant. So this show kinda has me gun shy of what sort of hatchet they might take to the story of the Numenorians...

Didn't Thrones spend that much? And they only covered a handful of years.

halfwise wrote:

With the amount of money Amazon is throwing at this I don't think they'll give us more than the lifetime of one character or two characters

Don't you mean they'd give MORE than a lifetime of one or two characters?  We're talking something like a billion dollars, right?

I would think they'd want to take less risks and having a story that covers generations of different people is harder to do than telling the story of a few people. But who knows what they're actually gonna do.

{{ First up and most importantly- RA!!!! Welcome back! Its great to see you here again.

You hit on an issue I have always had with adapting this time period- its generational which makes it hard to adapt, not impossible, its been done before, but it throws up a lot of extra challenges when you have to invest the audiences with each new generation of characters. It like changing your entire principle cast every series. }}

Pettytyrant101 wrote:{{ First up and most importantly- RA!!!!  Welcome back! Its great to see you here again.

PETTY!  

Pettytyrant101 wrote:You hit on an issue I have always had with adapting this time period- its generational which makes it hard to adapt, not impossible, its been done before, but it throws up a lot of extra challenges when you have to invest the audiences with each new generation of characters. It like changing your entire principle cast every series. }}

I never really watched American Horror story but I guess it's popular with general audiences and they were able to switch most of their cast each season... Still there's isn't the issue of world building there or adhering to any source material (as far as I know...) It makes me wish that Merp never got shut down. I've seen this quote quite a bit the last few days looking into the Amazon show...

The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.

People have been using that quote from Tolkien to justify studios coming and writing tons of fan-fiction to fill in whatever gaps they can think of. I just feel that quote being applied in this case is sort of disingenuous. Something silly like Merp, that mod for Skyrim years ago, that's something I could get behind. There would be an element of fanfiction to it no doubt. But that would be a way to 'explore' Middle Earth as it were.  The horizons that could never be seen, the vistas that can never be crossed. I think that would be better canvased by fans who have a genuine love for the mythos. Whether that's artists drawing cool depictions of scenes from the books, people making music about whatever, or even programmers/modders trying to make some render of parts of Middle Earth in Unity, I think at this point it would be better served in that way. At least this way if someone comes in writes or creates something horrible in Middle Earth, everyone else can ignore it easier... that doesn't become the definitive version of the story now. That's something I think I might try to do some time. Make some 3D environment of a part of Middle Earth or something.

halfwise wrote:

this way if someone comes in writes or creates something horrible in Middle Earth, everyone else can ignore it easier... that doesn't become the definitive version of the story

A very good thought.   I'm not much familiar with the Star Wars extended universe, but didn't much of that get set in stone in the minds of the fandom?  I think even with the less studio/cultural-bully based creation, some of the better ideas do become entrenched.

Maybe Star Wars is a bad example because there's been hundreds of different writers. And it's a mess now to work out what's canon since Disney took over. Personally I think the story in Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 is the best in Star Wars

Anything new in this video? I've taken the stance of not watching these.

That guy was saying that Gandalf could be in the show during the second age because Gandalf is thousands of years old.