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

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

#491

Post by havblue »

subsubzero wrote: post #309
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…

Huge LOTR/Tolkien fan ever since I was a kid, loved the Ralph Bakashi animated LOTR film from the 70's(great rotoscoping and creepy mood), absolutely loved the Peter Jackson trilogy, liked the hobbit animated films Rankin and Bass(good music!, weird animation?), even found enjoyment in the newer Hobbit trilogy(3 movies for 1 small book? Smaug was great though!). After seeing this amazon trailer though I am beyond dis…

While Tolkien certainly has plenty of material that could be filmed, most of it seems to be in short story format where each story would be an hour or two. Amazon is assuredly looking for another Game of Thrones and I don't think they can get that from Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales or Children of Hurin.

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

#492

Post by antonymy »

This budget feels very out of whack with what we have seen of the production. No big names either in front of or behind the camera. All the recognizable credits are at the producer level, and some of those are of dubious reputation. I don't want to disparage unknown actors and crew members, but it seems awfully risky to expect them to carry this show without any veterans to rally around. I guess the logic Amazon is using is that LotR's brand is so strong it doesn't need star power, or experience, or anything else to carry it besides apparently a huge pile of money. But this seems like a really, really bold direction for a project when Amazon is still very new to producing media and they have yet to produce a single unqualified hit.

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

#493

Post by usrn »

CivBase wrote: post #473
AlexandrB wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably just a job. Some Amazon executive says, "Hey, can you write us some Lord of the Rings episodes for X dollars?" Writer says, "Sure." I don't think hubris enters into it, the same way that construction workers don't usually compare their output to the Roman Colosseum. I also don't think that the Tolkien universe is somehow sacrosanct. If the show sucks, then it sucks - it doesn't take away from the origin…

> If the show sucks, then it sucks - it doesn't take away from the original writing. I disagree. Tolkien's work is not just a story; it is a fictional world. Merchandise exists outside that world, but new stories in that world become an inherent part of that world. Good stories elevate the value of that world. Bad stories damage the value of that world. Keeping with your first example, imagine if a cheap, ugly, concr…

Eh. It wouldn't be the first forgotten Lord of The Rings show/movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubynOv3VKB8

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

#494

Post by function_seven »

mrwh wrote: post #287
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.

Have to agree! I'm not sure what I was expecting with Wheel of Time, but I wasn't expecting it to look so cheap. Also one of the central characters wears a pullover in early episodes that's definitely dry-clean only, and had definitely just been dry-cleaned. While it sounds like a little thing, it's the little things that add up to an immersive world.

> Also one of the central characters wears a pullover in early episodes that's definitely dry-clean only, and had definitely just been dry-cleaned.

Wait, which character? If it was Morraine or Lan, then she can totally "dry clean" stuff as needed, right? If it was one of the Emond's Field characters, then yeah, you got a point :)

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

#495

Post by muststopmyths »

dragonwriter wrote: post #458
danso wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides Sean Bean — who was far from A-list — how many of the Games of Thrones cast were well-known? Jason Momoa and Pedro Pascal, who’ve probably had the most post-GoT success so far (and who were two of the most popular/memorable characters on GoT), didn’t have widespread recognition before GoT.

> Besides Sean Bean — who was far from A-list — how many of the Games of Thrones cast were well-known? None A-list, obviously, but (in no particular order) Lena Headey, Iain Glenn, Natalie Dormer, Peter Dinklage, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau, & Charles Dance, arguably.

Lena headey will always be on my A-list because of terminator:scc

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

#496

Post by samatman »

mrob wrote: post #411
b112 wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like donkeys and horses then?

Donkeys and horses produce infertile mules. Elves and humans produce fertile offspring. Aragorn has elvish ancestors.

In the Dark Sun setting from AD&D, the offspring of humans and dwarves are also infertile. Also called muls, which isn't the most creative move but hey.

I don't recall there being any children of dwarves and men in the Tolkien legendarium, though I've not read it all by any means.

Given how common "interfertile but with sterile offspring" is between related species in nature, it's relatively rare in games and fantasy settings.

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

#497

Post by radicalbyte »

havblue wrote: post #491
subsubzero wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge LOTR/Tolkien fan ever since I was a kid, loved the Ralph Bakashi animated LOTR film from the 70's(great rotoscoping and creepy mood), absolutely loved the Peter Jackson trilogy, liked the hobbit animated films Rankin and Bass(good music!, weird animation?), even found enjoyment in the newer Hobbit trilogy(3 movies for 1 small book? Smaug was great though!). After seeing this amazon trailer though I am beyond dis…

While Tolkien certainly has plenty of material that could be filmed, most of it seems to be in short story format where each story would be an hour or two. Amazon is assuredly looking for another Game of Thrones and I don't think they can get that from Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales or Children of Hurin.

Only there is no material to work from - so they've basically taken the same strategy as the final season of GoT did but they're doing that from the start.

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

#498

Post by havblue »

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.

One of the major themes of Wheel of Time is how myth changes over the ages as it passes from person to person, culture to culture. This can be very entertaining in the books because you read the inner thoughts of dozens of protagonists and antagonists. Each of them are ignorant in different ways and nobody really knows exactly how the wheel is going to weave things in the future.

I'm not sure how a narrator or having someone's thoughts read aloud would be done in a show like this, though, and Amazon didn't try. There are definitely a lot of villains in it but from what I saw they couldn't make the subject of ignorance interesting.

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

#499

Post by visarga »

subsubzero wrote: post #309
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…

Huge LOTR/Tolkien fan ever since I was a kid, loved the Ralph Bakashi animated LOTR film from the 70's(great rotoscoping and creepy mood), absolutely loved the Peter Jackson trilogy, liked the hobbit animated films Rankin and Bass(good music!, weird animation?), even found enjoyment in the newer Hobbit trilogy(3 movies for 1 small book? Smaug was great though!). After seeing this amazon trailer though I am beyond dis…

With that kind of money they could have bought DeepMind in 2014.

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

#500

Post by samatman »

philistine wrote: post #364
jowday wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 anything remarkable and seem to have just done other Amazon shows. With the exception of, say, the first season of True Detective, most TV shows use multiple directors. The director on a TV show is usually in charge of the technical execution of the writers scr…

Actually, you could say we're in the middle of a transition. All the Marvel shows have used one director for the whole season of their shows, and they're not the only ones to have moved on to this format. As for OP's point, with the series' budget so high, a gun-for-hire TV director might not be accoustemed to the staggering budget they have to manage.

This isn't even true, I went and looked up the directors for Daredevil out of curiousity and each season has a bunch.

Edit: I guess you're referring to the various recent miniseries Marvel has been doing? It's never been uncommon in miniseries, for fairly obvious reasons.

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