Lord of the Rings TV Series in Development - How could this POSSIBLY go wrong...

[Ishtar]

I'm now remembering a rumor I heard decades ago that there was gonna be a reprint of Chronicles of Narnia with all the religious text/subtext taken out to make it more atheist-friendly. People were UP IN ARMS at the mere suggestion. IIRC it turned out that the publisher just planned to do a line of spinoff Narnia novels, but even that seems to have gotten quietly shitcanned.

(Still wish they would reprint the series in the PROPER order--Wardrobe first, Magician's Nephew is book six).

Holy Jesus, there is literally no way to do that without completely destroying the series. Like the religious allusions are so blatant and so numerous that it would not even be Narnia at the surface level of plot.

As for the Tolkien series-female orcs are a thing implied-though there doesn't seem to be much evidence IIRC of sexual dimorphism amongst orcs. Though they definitely existed "reproducing in the manner of the children of iluvatar".

Beyond that and some uninspiring elf casting choices-I haven't heard much about the series. Its like they are unwilling to promote it in any genuine way.

Oof-they casted black woman as Tar-Miriel.



Just watched the teaser-fucking awful. Why is there a meteor? Absolute shit.

 

[There Is Light At The End]

This new series is a reminder that some things are better be left alone and never touched by overly eager faggots with current year problems leaking from their every orifices. In short:

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

I still think Tolkien's works should have become public domain instead of going to the highest bidder...

 

[skykiii]

I still think Tolkien's works should have become public domain instead of going to the highest bidder...

If I had a time machine, I would use shenanigans to become rich then outbid Saul Zaentz on the film rights (should be easy as Tolkien only agreed so he'd have something to leave his kids). I'd sit on them, only allowing the Rankin-Bass and Ralph Bakshi stuff to exist, but then saying "no" to Peter Jackson.

I'd instead toss him some crap like Dragonlance or Sword of Shannara and say "make this movie instead." I don't mind if he fucks up already commercial trash.

 

[Jason Wynn]

Sword of Shannara

How that fucking hack still has a career is beyond me. How Tolkien’s estate didn’t sue him for plagiarism is baffling.

If you made a drinking game out of how many times Terry Brooks ripped off Tolkien in that novel, you’d die of alcohol poisoning before you reached 50 pages.

Autistic sperging over.

 

[TVB]

I still think Tolkien's works should have become public domain instead of going to the highest bidder...

Huge companies are sadly never gonna let their IPs fall into the public domain any time soon.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Huge companies are sadly never gonna let their IPs fall into the public domain any time soon.

Unless they become controversial (in Chima)

 

[White Devil]

How that fucking hack still has a career is beyond me. How Tolkien’s estate didn’t sue him for plagiarism is baffling.

If you made a drinking game out of how many times Terry Brooks ripped off Tolkien in that novel, you’d die of alcohol poisoning before you reached 50 pages.

Autistic sperging over.

The only thing I ever read by him was his novelization of The Phantom Menace, and it was better than the actual movie.

 

[Chester Rigby]

Just remembered this little pearl of wisdom from the film trilogy (sorry about the abismal quality, it's the only clip available [from 2006!]):

I don't want to be so pretentious to say "this is how it should be done, Bezos!", but I really like this snippet from The Two Towers extended edition. In less than two minutes, it manages to encapsulate the tragedy of war, and humanizes a Haradan (which, in the regular versions, are just faceless minions of Sauron).

Sorry about this little digression.

 

[skykiii]

How that fucking hack still has a career is beyond me. How Tolkien’s estate didn’t sue him for plagiarism is baffling.

If you made a drinking game out of how many times Terry Brooks ripped off Tolkien in that novel, you’d die of alcohol poisoning before you reached 50 pages.

Autistic sperging over.

It's probably just that when his first novel came out, the Tolkien Estate wasn't as big as it is today... and in any case, going after a novel written by a 17-year-old boy (yes Brooks was 17 when he wrote Sword of Shannara) would probably have been seen as petty.

They seem more concerned with going after stuff like Black Book of Arda and The Last Ringbearer, Russian stories that are part of a whole line of "perspective flips" on Middle-earth (I've only read summaries, but basically all of them do the "the supposed heroes are actually the bad guys" thing. Which honestly it makes sense that this perspective comes out of Russia of all places).

 

[Jason Wynn]

It's probably just that when his first novel came out, the Tolkien Estate wasn't as big as it is today... and in any case, going after a novel written by a 17-year-old boy (yes Brooks was 17 when he wrote Sword of Shannara) would probably have been seen as petty.

They seem more concerned with going after stuff like Black Book of Arda and The Last Ringbearer, Russian stories that are part of a whole line of "perspective flips" on Middle-earth (I've only read summaries, but basically all of them do the "the supposed heroes are actually the bad guys" thing. Which honestly it makes sense that this perspective comes out of Russia of all places).

Oh shit, didn’t know he was only 17 at the time. Yeah I can see that being seen as petty now

 

[skykiii]

I still think Tolkien's works should have become public domain instead of going to the highest bidder...

I'd like for them to have remained with Tolkien's heirs personally.

Tolkien is a sad case where he apparently actually needed money at the time (his works being worth millions was apparently post-death, much like Lovecraft). Thus my "time travel and outbid Saul Zaentz" fantasy (Zaentz was the highest bidder who had the film rights, and New Line had to negotiate with him to make their films).

Ralph Bakshi reported that Zaentz actually told him "I don't even know or care who Tolkien is, I just know his work is valuable."

 

[Grant McClellan]

I can't wait for this show to succeed so it makes you all scream in terror like headless chickens. There is nothing woke about this

 

[Chester Rigby]

I can't wait for this show to succeed so it makes you all scream in terror like headless chickens. There is nothing woke about this

You're in for a (shit)show, kiddo.

 

[Operator Core]

You're in for a (shit)show, kiddo.

Yeah, a shitshow of a mediocre story uninterested in telling an interesting story, ignoring the established canon and laws of the universe its pilfering all in service of nothing.

At least the orcs looks interesting, but that's a very low barrier of entry considering the original movies.

 

[TVB]

I can't wait for this show to succeed so it makes you all scream in terror like headless chickens. There is nothing woke about this

You right now:

 

[Ishtar]

Not seen much commentary on the black Tar-Miriel. Weird, you think there'd be more stuff but then again she is an obscure character.

I can't wait for this show to succeed so it makes you all scream in terror like headless chickens. There is nothing woke about this

I'll make it very simple-blacks where they don't belong=woke.

 

[PenguinSuitAlice]

Not seen much commentary on the black Tar-Miriel. Weird, you think there'd be more stuff but then again she is an obscure character.

At this point I've given up on complaining about this or pointing it out, focusing on the story decisions is seriously more interesting than typical racial pandering.

 

[skykiii]

At this point I've given up on complaining about this or pointing it out, focusing on the story decisions is seriously more interesting than typical racial pandering.

Do we actually *know* anything about the story of this Amazon show though?

 

[Ishtar]

Do we actually *know* anything about the story of this Amazon show though?

Not really. They have clearly added a lot of fanfic tier crap-black dwarves, elves, hobbits. Galadriel is an YA girlboss, and uh they have Tar-Miriel, so...Numenor something?

They have also condensed the timeline (the second age talks place over thousands of years).

My guess? It will "loosely" adapt the main second age story, probably in such a way as to be nigh unrecognizable. Probably with enough OCs and un-Tolkien moments a casual observer could be forgiven for thinking it wasn't related to him.

I suspect that they will add a lot of non Tolkien elements- the meteor thing and what not. Probably because they do not have access to the silmarillion, one because they lack talent and two because well...why not? Why should they respect the source material?