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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

#521

Post by kergonath »

codeduck wrote: post #488
smsm42 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Numenor alone has enough to make a good series - you've got epic characters, great events, powerful kings, beauty, love, treachery, doom, magic, battles, betrayal and ruin. I've seen decent series done on much less than that.

Beren and Luthien would make a fantastic tale as well. Disguising themselves as a vampire and a werewolf to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth in the pits of Angband? Makes the quest of Mt Doom look like a picnic. Pity we'll never see it

> Beren and Luthien would make a fantastic tale as well.

And the fall of Gondolin. And the Children of Húrin. Though not with a happy ending, both of them.

Still, Gondolin has a great journey, love, betrayal, and an epic siege with mechanical dragons and balrogs.

Húrin is more of a greek tragedy than an American TV series, but I'd still love it.

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

#522

Post by samatman »

AlexandrB wrote: post #131
rglullis wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other word would you describe when people cry over "lack of diversity" when the story is set in a fantasy world that did not have such type of diversity to begin with?

I love how it's fine for there to be dragons and magic in fantasy. But minorities ? That's a bridge too far.

There are plenty of minorities in Middle Earth.

The Rohanim, for instance.

Or, in the racist euphemism way you've chosen to use it, the Haradrim.

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

#523

Post by tomtheelder »

Sebb767 wrote: post #158
synu wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how they managed to go from beloved franchise to salted earth in one season. People used to rewatch the seasons, but not so much now that they know where it's all headed.

If you look at discussions, you'll see that the actual decline started earlier, by some opinions as far as the end of season 4. The problem is that back then, it was not as clear that the series was declining - it could've been a super interesting new story thread or a new intrigue starting out. But now, with the knowledge that it leads nowhere, you can clearly see the problems starting out. Also, of course, it's les…

I felt like I was being gaslit during seasons 6 and 7. It was already pretty damn bad by that point, but all my friends kept telling me I was just being negative and that it was still an amazing show.

I hated being right about that one.

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

#524

Post by whiddershins »

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…

Sometimes a director prefers unknown actors so the audience doesn’t have an existing association with them.

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

#525

Post by oneoff786 »

tptacek wrote: post #373
philistine wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not one of the Marvel Shows would break any reasonable TV top 10. The "1-2 showrunners, a writers room, and a rotating cast of directors" model is unimpeachably successful; it got us Breaking Bad, The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Americans, and Mad Men, among many others.

But are those representative of the average 1-2 showrunner outputs? No. They’re not. Most tv sucks. The fact that some shows are not in the top 10 greatest series of all time is irrelevant.

I would say the marvel tv series so far have been pretty solid. Even if you don’t like them because you have an allergic reaction to marvel, their execution has been really good.

If we must talk of THE BEST, then season 1 of American gods on StarZ was the best season of television I’ve ever seen. Mostly all written by Bryan fuller and Michael Greene. Not entirely. How do we weigh this? Hard to say, but man did that show crash and burn when they left.

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

#526

Post by kergonath »

radicalbyte wrote: post #497
havblue wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is loads of material to draw from. The Unfinished Tales, the 13 tomes of the History of Middle Earth, some drafts that emerged later. The Lord of the Rings is tiny in comparison. Some of the endings are missing, and some are only roughly sketched, but having the general outline of millennia of history really helps filling the blanks.

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

#527

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> 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.

Wasn't the estate’s unhappiness with Jackson’s work (either genuine or as part of the long rights war) a big part of that?

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

#528

Post by tomtheelder »

xdennis wrote: post #440
treis wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there's not wildly successful books with wildly successful movies about the amazing empires that ruled the African continent. And it's hardly rewriting parts of LOTR to have a black actor portray Legolas. Everything is still the same except the color of the guys skin. You'll be fine.

> Everything is still the same except the color of the guys skin. That's exactly what people mean when they say wokesters use people's cultures as skins, with no content. If you wanted to add African representation, let's say Zulu, you'd add something specific to Zulu culture: people, language, songs, stories, etc. But instead they just change some skin colours in an existing story. That's not representation, that's…

I think the counterargument would be that casting people of different races isn't really supposed to be about culture at all. In theory it's meant to provide a sense of inclusion to those who might not look like the characters as they were intentionally written. As in: "LOTR is still for me, even if I don't look like a European."

I don't really want to get into the validity/efficacy of that. I just don't really have an informed opinion. But I do think that's the reasoning.

I think that wanting to have a more diverse cultural backdrop for the stories we tell is something I can definitely get behind, but I don't think it's really that related to having a more racially diverse cast for a story with a decidedly Anglo/Euro origin.

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

#529

Post by runarberg »

cygx wrote: post #490
AlexandrB wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. There are elves that live for thousands years and have magic powers. There are some humans who have a normal lifespan and others, like Aragorn, that live for hundreds of years. Elves and humans can somehow cross-breed. Why should we assume that Middle Earth genetics work anything like normal Earth genetics? It's so weird to insist on keeping this one aspect of human genetics when everything else seems to be u…

Why should we assume that Middle Earth genetics work anything like normal Earth genetics? Note that Middle-earth Earth ('Arda') supposedly is normal Earth: LotR takes place during the Third Age, whereas we're currently in the Sixth or Seventh Age.

Even if you assume that genetics works the same way in Middle-earth (where you know, magic exists) and today’s earth, why would anyone assume it works the same on the magical species as it does with modern humans?

Modern humans are one of the most homogeneous species we know of (apart from the our crops that we have bred into homogeneity) and even humans show very dynamic inheritance patterns. A red hair can pop up after several generations of different hair colors for example.

There is no reason to assume that genetics in different (often magical) species is less dynamic then in modern humans. If anything we should have more variety and more dynamic traits as different races are interbreeding then today. If only for the reason that more diversity opens more possibilities for more creative and fun stories.

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

#530

Post by twiddling »

boringg wrote: post #489
subsubzero wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beorn was in the 1st Hobbit briefly, but he could have more screen time! I forgot about one character that never saw the light of day in any film(cartoon or movie) Tom Bombodil, he was a strange character even for Tolkien's universe and was rumored to be a demi-god. I would rather see stories about him than what amazon is sending out.

Agreed more about Tom Bombadil would have been the way to go. Can't believe he didn't make the cut. Not sure how they managed to do that. If this was built as if it was MCU they would have had a small cameo then a full movie on Tom Bombadil.

A Taiki Waikiki directed Tom Bombadil series would be epic
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