The Desolation of TV News

Thought we should have a separate thread for movie news, when it arrives.

admin  can cancel this if you don't like it.

Do you mean TV news?

I like Wood's and Astin's takes on it, though their confusion on the TV series was (like a lot of ours) partially because it was still unclear a week ago what exactly the TV series was going to be. Not that we know for sure yet but at least it's been confirmed that it won't be Silmarillion-related but also not a LOTR remake.

I would kinda prefer that the series be a more or less fresh slate though. I don't necessarily expect it to be a significantly more faithful take (though it's hard to compare directly since by the nature of the spin-off they'll have to invent a lot of material), but I don't want it to be set in the PJ-verse. That's not so much because of my beef with PJ (I do after all have mixed feelings about his work as a whole and mostly positive feelings about the first trilogy), but more because I don't find the idea of watching someone other than PJ fill in the corners of his work very exciting.

https://www.rubyninja.org/2017/11/18/lord-of-the-rings-tv-series/

Eldorion wrote:Do you mean TV news?

I like Wood's and Astin's takes on it, though their confusion on the TV series was (like a lot of ours) partially because it was still unclear a week ago what exactly the TV series was going to be. Not that we know for sure yet but at least it's been confirmed that it won't be Silmarillion-related but also not a LOTR remake.

I would kinda prefer that the series be a more or less fresh slate though. I don't necessarily expect it to be a significantly more faithful take (though it's hard to compare directly since by the nature of the spin-off they'll have to invent a lot of material), but I don't want it to be set in the PJ-verse. That's not so much because of my beef with PJ (I do after all have mixed feelings about his work as a whole and mostly positive feelings about the first trilogy), but more because I don't find the idea of watching someone other than PJ fill in the corners of his work very exciting.

yeah TV news, changed it.

interesting theories for tv show.

That video is antiquated, if the news about an interim show set between The Hobbit and LotR are to be believed.

I don't recall hearing confirmation that the show will be set between TH and LOTR (though I may have missed something) but I think it's overwhelmingly likely that it will be the case, and I'm highly skeptical of the arguments made at the start of the video against this idea. The claim that making an Angmar series featuring Eärnur (and somehow incorporating the Balrog of Moria?) is "safer" than a Young Aragorn series because some people will be upset about the role of Aragorn being recast is utterly bizarre to me. As much as I enjoy reading the Appendices, Amazon is not spending half a billion dollars on obscure Third Age history shit. Some people will be mad about the existence of the show, period, but there will be plenty of others who want to see more of the characters they care about, and the latter group far exceeds the number of people who are eager to see "political intrigue" involving countries that never even appear in LOTR proper. Normally I would be more sympathetic but most of the information we have about the mid-Third Age is only briefly sketched out and I would prefer that Amazon's fanfic stick to periods where there's slightly more of a basis to build from.

Not sure why I'm feeling crabbit about this but oh well.

I wish I felt crabbit about this, but I don't give the vaguest shit about it, doubt I'll even watch the trailer.

oh well I thought it might hold something interesting, I quite liked the bit about Osgiliath.

I thought it was quite interesting ? I actually enjoyed the 2nd vid & anything right now is speculation. We had that in spades before we were traumatized by The Hobbshit The guy was easy to listen too & didn't get jumped up & hyped liked some do. Id like to assume I will watch the whole dam thing when its finally fleshed out. I wouldn't be much of a Tolkien admirer if not. In saying that I'm capable of looking at it as diplomatic as I can & not gush & swoon at every little bit of it. What irks me is, that everything has the tang of money about it. Oooh Amazon ! so I think mega dollars. I want to slip into fantasy like cuddling into a duvet. I want the child in me to disappear into that world as I did with Narnia & my creaky old wardrobe.

I shouldn't be so dismissive, I didn't actually watch the video yet Figgs.

I would like to see Lake Evendim on-screen, if I had my way.

I had a dream/nightmare(?) that this whole series was going to be directed by PJ and all the original cast was going to come back. In my dream I was surprisingly neutral to the whole thing.

Anyone else think Frank Langella would make a good Saruman?

Does he have the voice for it though? I'm not sure.

He certainly has the eyebrows

its funny two actors who have previously played Dracula are ok for Saruman.

Its the stare, you need 'the stare'

https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/7pqcrq/im_a_screenwriter_developing_a_script_for_amazons/

Erm. I'm incredibly skeptical of what this person is saying. Anybody's cousin can call themselves a "screenwriter", and this person is not working for Amazon, only hoping to pitch his ideas to Amazon.

Forest Shepherd wrote:Erm. I'm incredibly skeptical of what this person is saying. Anybody's cousin can call themselves a "screenwriter", and this person is not working for Amazon, only hoping to pitch his ideas to Amazon.

Tbh I didn't even really read the thread properly before linking it, yeah sceptical as well, if a writer were to share his plans publicly it would presumably be in a more official thread or the IAMA subreddit.

Sceptical, but if this were genuine I'd certainly be pleased. If, as the "screenwriter" says, he or she is an actual fan, then that bolsters my confidence that this might actually be interesting. We wait.

Eh, even if this brand new (presumably throwaway) reddit account does in fact belong to a professional screenwriter, which there's really no reason to assume without further evidence, most of the claims they make can be reasonably surmised by anyone paying attention. However, some of the ideas they claim to be preparing to pitch are a little eyebrow-raising to me.

Thank you. Of the two pilots/treatments I have written so far, the one we like most is the about the fall of Númenor, and we had very similar ideas about how we could springboard from that tale into the other ages! Tar Palantir, Miriel, Ar Pharazon, Elendil and his family, Sauron- truly a story that both fully reflects Tolkien’s sensibilities AND is full of interesting connections to the LOTR trilogy that can help introduce people to parts of Tolkien’s world they haven’t seen yet (all without scaring away those who aren't looking for a show that is 100% high fantasy).

This really makes no sense if Amazon is, as claimed in the OP (which I agree with), keen to build the show around the "backbone" of PJ's films and "lean on the familiar". I highly doubt that Amazon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make a Middle-earth series specifically if their ambition is simply to make a fantasy series that uses the same relatively grounded/low magic aesthetic of LOTR. I think it is far more likely that they plan to make use of specific characters and elements that people know and like from the main story. But I'm just repeating myself at this point so I should probably stop and wait and see. :/

Edit: okay, one more thing I will add is that this person claims to want to tell the story of, among other people, Tar-Míriel. However, we already know that Amazon does not have the rights to The Silmarillion (as per Variety), so any hypothetical Second Age series would have to be based solely on the Appendices and scattered references to early history in the main text of LOTR. Guess how many times Tar-Míriel is mentioned in LOTR. Once, in the list of Númenórean monarchs near the beginning of Appendix A. There is a grand total of half a paragraph about Tar-Palantir a few pages later, but isn't even a mention of Ar-Pharazôn forcing Míriel to marry him when he usurped the throne.

But if Amazon has the support of the newly re-aligned Tolkien estate they could probably get rights to the Silmarillion. If Jeff Bezos has anything to do with it, he didn't get where he is by playing it safe. So there's hope, if we ignore hints about building the show around the backbone of PJ's films.

The Estate might offer the rights to The Silmarillion at a later date, sure, but this guy claims that he's writing a Númenor proposal for Amazon's first series. There has been nothing so far to indicate that Amazon wants to (or legally can) pursue that option at this point.

Grab your pitchforks! Burn 'im anyway!