Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

winteriscoming.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 605 posts

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#121

Post by bigDinosaur »

anshumankmr wrote: post #47
pflenker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a huge ASOIAF fan, I had the same concerns after Game of Thrones was announced and first details were shared. The crucial difference, though, is that GRRM himself was involved in the series.

Sean Bean wasn't an unknown. He wasn't a star either, but he was the villain in one of better Bond movies and also was in the first Lord of the Rings.

Also the voice actor for the emperor's son in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. I'd say he was pretty well known and a bit of a star given that he was sought out for such roles and used in marketing, although not obscenely famous.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#122

Post by DeusExMachina »

anoonmoose wrote: post #69
rb666 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, it's really unlikely this show will be worse than the Hobbit movie.

I am not so sure that your statement is obviously true. One of the issues with The Hobbit films is that they stretched one relatively short book into three movies...this time around, it looks like they're stretching some apocrypha from the appendix of a book into an 8-episode TV show. Feels like a fairly similar effort to wring blood from a stone.

Not that I am interested in defending Amazon's series, which I think will be a disaster, but I don't think the comparison with the Hobbit movies holds.

True, the material they have rights to is from the appendixes of The Lord of the Rings. The difference, though, is that in this case they are going to create a completely new story. So, they can fill as many episodes they want.

With the Hobbit, instead, they had the story already and they had to stretch it to create a trilogy.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#123

Post by arethuza »

bmj wrote: post #110
causi wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The better question is whether it's possible to create a LotR representation with even a shred of the original's soul. Chris Tolkien hated the Jackson trilogy, and then see how much further modern market demands pushed The Hobbit's execution. I don't want to see what another ten years of compromises and pandering will do to the product.

Christopher Tolkein was hopelessly grumpy (or protective, depending on your perspective) about anyone doing anything with his father's works. Personally, as a fan of Tolkein's works, I thought LoTR was fine . I didn't necessarily agree with all of Jackon's decisions, but, in the end, I enjoyed watching the movies (and still do). The Hobbit films are a different beast, for sure.

Didn't his father sell off the film rights for £10,000 - no wonder he is slightly grumpy about any movies!

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#124

Post by Tao3300 »

alexpotato wrote: post #98
Terretta wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a gimmick — known name, killed off. Buzz!

No perhaps. Ned being killed off early is a key part of the "no one is safe in the game of thrones!" motif. Having a known actor and playing against type (nice guy when usually villain) just underscores the surprise. There is a similar story about Gene Wilder in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He first appears with a limp and then somersaults to show he's fine. The whole point of that scene is to have the audience…

> Having a known actor and playing against type (nice guy when usually villain) just underscores the surprise.

Normally you'd be right, except Sean Bean always dies.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#125

Post by prepend »

bsaul wrote: post #86
cloutchaser wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOTR, and also Peter Jackson are not compatible with modern media. LOTR is completely opposed storytelling wise to the current dogmas of postmodernism and equity, it's fundamentally a story based on old western/european/christian myths, basically what gets called white supremacy these days. I think this will turn out to be an absolute morbid tv series as it will force LOTR into the current dogmas, but this is probabl…

although i wouldn’t have worded it the same way, there’s definitely something true in your comment. I’m still amazed that people keep torturing stories made at different eras with different mentalities to try and promote today’s philosophy instead of coming with original materials. If you want diversity and black people on screen, why not create stories about the amazing empires that ruled the african continent in th…

I have a morbid fear that studios want the “conflict” as it’s 1) news and any news is good news, 2) set up a right vs wrong narrative that puts their tv show on the right side against whatever jerks are being racist/sexist/whatever.

So it seems like a non-creative way to get free promotion, but I think it distracts from storytelling.

The example I remember is how bad the 2016 ghostbusters reboot was. And the studio had this whole narrative about how sexist trolls were maligning the movie and this got repeated with any criticism. It seemed like astroturf that highlighted a small amount of internet sexist complaining and used it to smear any criticism for any reason. That seems like something that would be attractive to a beancounter-type.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#126

Post by nicce »

JCharante wrote: post #119
prepend wrote: post #18

Obviously, I’ll wait and see once it comes out. But it seems odd to spend so much and not have a single established creator that has put out great content. And not to involve Jackson seems off because even having him in a consulting role would be a good sign. Looking at the imdb page this seems like a corporate driven project rather than a creator driven project with lots of different directors that haven’t don’t any…

Why do known actors matter? When I see Chris Pratt in a movie I just think oh it's Andy from parks and rec. I see Forrest Gump but in a different movie or Jim Halbert in a horror movie. Known actors make it hard to be immersed.

Nobody becomes known if they don’t have their first time. I think it is not bad at all.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#127

Post by tonfreed »

anshumankmr wrote: post #47
pflenker wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a huge ASOIAF fan, I had the same concerns after Game of Thrones was announced and first details were shared. The crucial difference, though, is that GRRM himself was involved in the series.

Sean Bean wasn't an unknown. He wasn't a star either, but he was the villain in one of better Bond movies and also was in the first Lord of the Rings.

He was in the Sharpe movies as well

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#128

Post by jsmeaton »

panick21_ wrote: post #42

After Wheel of Time my expectations are so incredibly low, if it still manages to disappoint I will be impressed. I'm expecting a shitshow and a shitstorm of epic proportions.

Yeah, Wheel of Time was really bad. I tried so hard to like it but it had little to redeem it.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#129

Post by bigDinosaur »

bmj wrote: post #110
causi wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The better question is whether it's possible to create a LotR representation with even a shred of the original's soul. Chris Tolkien hated the Jackson trilogy, and then see how much further modern market demands pushed The Hobbit's execution. I don't want to see what another ten years of compromises and pandering will do to the product.

Christopher Tolkein was hopelessly grumpy (or protective, depending on your perspective) about anyone doing anything with his father's works. Personally, as a fan of Tolkein's works, I thought LoTR was fine . I didn't necessarily agree with all of Jackon's decisions, but, in the end, I enjoyed watching the movies (and still do). The Hobbit films are a different beast, for sure.

Christopher Tolkien I think was fairly correct in his analysis of the LoTR films, and I think it became clear with the Hobbit what the ultimate conclusion of that style of treatment of the source material would be.

What he got wrong is that they're perfectly fun and good films in their own right - it'd be more accurate to say they're heavily inspired by the LoTR books rather than being direct adaptions. In some cases they cut things which just would never have even worked on screen, and in general I don't think a deeply ponderous and weighty mood would have really been received that well. That said, some of the changes they made (e.g. to Denethor) were just gratuitous.

Re: Amazon spending $465M on season 1 of The Lord of the Rings series

#130

Post by randomsearch »

jpgvm wrote: post #37
oblio wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even with the rebate, how can they hope to recoup the investment? Merch? DVD Sales? Increasing sign ups to Prime? I have a doubt the profits from that will help them earn money to cover up the remaining 300 million or so they have still invested. Probably all of the above plus it's a long term move. Amazon needs to build up a strong catalog and marquee TV shows are long term attractions. As an example, Mad Men, esp…

Last 2 seasons of GoT still hurt to think about. It's not the ending that hurts it's how it got there. The last 2 seasons probably should have been 3 full seasons instead of the barely 1.5 we got and had a lot more build up/Dany descent into madness/Bran having some relevance that would justify his elevation to ruler, etc. The suddenness of everything, the exposition, everything was just poorly executed. Too much mon…

Spoiler! Maybe edit
Post reply on HN