Amazon, Warner Bros in Talks for LOTR Series Adaptation: Variety

Continuing my previous thought, Tolkien hasn't yet gone the way of Shakespeare, people aren't ready to read universalist themes into his work on a wholesale basis, ditching the cultural context.

Lance makes a good point about Africans etc having good stories to tell (the series African Civilizations by Henry Louis Gates is truly eye-opening - I vote for a flim about Mali's Mansa Musa), but I'm afraid what's driving this is money. There's fear of a lack of interest among those who have money to spend. I think we'll get there, but it will take time. Black Panther showed there's an audience, now it has to be expanded into true history. Asian culture has already made tremendous inroads into world film.

I think placing Black and other races into Western white stories is basically lazy, its easier to plonk a Black actor in a story than make a new African/Black story come to life. Its an easy and lazy way to show their woke diverse credentials. Its much harder to tell African stories because quite frankly, we don't live in Africa, and in the UK its about 20% of the population who would be interested. As for Black Panther I thought that must surely have been a parody it was so ridiculously racially stereotypical.

We don't live in Africa, but that doesn't mean there aren't interesting stories to tell. Most people have heard of Shaka Zulu for example. Or maybe something to do with the Songhay Empire?

I am sure Disney could have an African princess film to starting bringing some of the culture and mythology to life.

There have been plenty of wars down there... plenty involving the west that could be the jumping off point.

Tolkien hasn't yet gone the way of Shakespeare,- Halfy

{{ Shakepseare hasnt for me either, not at least when they choose to set in the actual historic period and setting. As my review of the latest Macbeth with Denzil said it totally took me out the film having a soft spoken black American as Macbeth and a bunch of yanks chanting "Hail King of Scotland" at him. When I should have been immersed in the narrative I was instead wiping tears of laughter from my face. }}

A image of a very young John Wayne as Romeo just flashed into my mind. "get off your balcony and drink your milk".

https://www.instagram.com/lotronprime/

Some posters here from the series.

I don't instagram. I hope they post them somewhere else.

I don't Instagram either.

There all over Twitter. Still don't no how to send pictures on my phone. Saying that I'm not on instagram either. Just pressed the link.

https://collider.com/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-character-posters-prime-video/

Try here.

This is a better way to see them.

Thanks Chris. You must have signed up on instagram years ago, because it won't let me in.

Those are all costume shots, and I have to say they look fabulous. I wonder who the dude is with the gold plated fingers?

Those costumes are amazeballs. I bet there is an Elven Queen in there with the armour and golden sword. if everything is as good as the costumes its looking interesting indeed.

Well, the Hobbit looked amazing too...

I didn't like the way it looked, I found it boring. I also hated the costumes of The Hobbit. The Dwarves were horrible.

Yeah, the dwarves were bad, but if you took selected shots of things, it looked good. I liked Laketown, I liked Dale. Mirkwood looked good. The elves looked good when they weren't doing super mario stunts.

This current LoTRs costumes look more GoTs, lots of weathering and dirty nails. I am hoping the dude with the apple is Tom Bombadil.

Actually LotR pioneered dirty nails for fantasy good guys. GoT owed so much to the trail that PJ blazed. Despite all the PJ bashing on here he did an amazing job redefining the genre for film.

{{ Here's all the posters. In spoilers purely so they dont take up ton of room to scroll on phone and stuff.

Spoiler:

9 for men, 7 for dwarves, and 3 for elves. 19 rings, 19 posters. So let the guessing as to who is who begin! (I think we can exclude Sauron, dont think he is here as if you include the One should be 20 posters).}}

I don't see rings on all the fingers, and those that look female don't necessarily look elvish to me. Those with gold on their fingers have dress that may line up with dwarvish. It's a good catch that there's 19 posters though I have a hard time lining them up.

Is that an Oaken Shield? as in Thorin? my timing might be way off though. You can tell there are Hobbits because the acorns and fruit are large in their 'smaller' hands. Who is the chick with the flower? cant tell if its meant to be somebody from a warmer climate. There is defo a man from Rohan with the white horse sword, and the man with the rope could be a sailor. Number one is a Dwarf obvs, some of them are very intriguing.

If Petty's surmise is right then we'd have hobbits with rings. Wouldn't that just set off the crabbit meter!

Well there are 23 in total: https://www.theonering.net/torwp/2022/02/03/111905-exclusive-all-23-lotr-the-rings-of-power-posters-now-with-hi-res-extended-versions/

I'm reading through some of the tOR.N's discord discussion about the images. It's such a joke when people latch on to some newly-familiar phrase like it's both really cool and also makes perfect sense. The word of the day is "Harfoot". Oh! the Harfoots will be there, oh! the Harfoots will be here. Yes the Harfoots are going to be so interesting and cool! Huh I wonder where we'll see the Harfoots first? Hey did you know that the Harfoots were like this and looked that way and it totally makes sense!

Here's what's most annoying about it: the cloying of their personalities to the newest thing coming down the pipeline. Oh wow Harfoots are so neat. They're totally like the new hobbits now! Huh I wonder if Sam is a Harfoot???!?

{{ If there are 23 then site I got them from was a few short, which would pyay to any colloration between number of characters shown and number of rings. Though I do wonder if they were all released at once, or if the the lot I posted were released as 19 first on their own?

And not to worry Forest- thats whats good about Forumshire- Amazon are going to have prove their worth to tackle Tolkien here by what they do and how they do it. No amount of marketing, buzzwords, or twitter feeds will make the slightest dent in the crabbit here! They either come up with the goods and produce something that respects Tolkien's work, world and languages, and that keeps in line with Tolkien's presentation of things, or they will get ripped a new arse on here }}