Lord of the Rings - [Amazon] *Spoilers*

Niska

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393496#Comment_119393496

Huh, that's interesting; didn't think there would actually be a singular origin!

One of the early characters met is Hugi, a very ach, aye, maun sounding dwarf- though there is probably more influences than just that book.

It's probably more linked to the 70's, when Dungeons and Dragons brought every fantasy book and legend it could lay it's hands on (including Tolkien, Moorcock, Vance, Anderson etc) into one big melting pot (before later removing some, including the balrog, after legal threats). This, kind of, created the 'generic' fantasy world - and in this Generica, Dwarves were Scottish.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119393496#Comment_119393496

Why would there be hype? Because Amazon is throwing one of papa Bezos rockets in money at the media to try to drum up the hype. Don't forget they bought a slot at the god damn Super Bowl for crying out loud to premiere their first trailer along with the hilarious in how poorly done "influencer video" they had to quietly make private. They had articles lined up to go along with it in the Vogue and handed Google a wad to remove over a million dislikes on their trailer there because people called them out on what they saw. As a TV series this is by far the most promoted thing in 2022 in terms of money thrown at it for what's arguably the biggest TV series this year (and arguably for multiple years if we look at cost alone). They have already committed to five seasons with a spend of $250MM for the rights and then another $58MM / episode in season 1 (that's $465MM in season 1) (The final season of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” cost approximately $15 million an episode as reference). By comparison the Lord of the rings trilogy had a $258MM total budget (which would be $398MM with inflation today) for 10h filmed in the end so they spend more than Lord of the Rings in cost for season 1 alone...

And yet there is no hype for it and I think we'll end up with a bland, boring snooze fest that's a total clown fiesta of the lore itself. I'm not even going to bother to pirate it, let alone sign up, same way I did not bother with the wheel of times either. I got better things to do and hey, I might be surprised and people come back raving about it and I'll sign up to watch it. Then again I might win the euro lottery as well though I hold the second to be more probable than the first...

Loafing Oaf

At the risk of backtalking a mod I have to say the more I hear about this show the more confident I get. Bayona says in a piece in Total Film that there's a 7-minute conversation between Elrond and Galadriel and that sort of stuff is the real heart of the show, which is exactly what I wanted to hear. There's a lot of very flat dialogue in The Hobbit films though, so hopefully the Amazon scriptwriters have more of a flair with words when JRRT is not supplying them...

is_that_so

Not sure at all about this. Lots of money for fleshing out some even more slender material than The Hobbit. It will find an audience, some of it out of curiosity as to how they handle the little-known source but also the many who felt The Hobbit was great and can't get enough of the world.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119427863#Comment_119427863

If that's mod part is in concern to my post I'm not a mod of this forum or category; hence all my posts here are like any other user (even if I'm a moderator in another part of boards). Even if I was a mod here (and as noted I'm not) you're always free to post any view you want as long as it would not be on the topic of moderation decisions etc. as those needs to be handled via PM. Hence if a local moderator would post stating that LoTR is the next best thing since the original Star Wars trilogy you'd be allowed to argue all you want with them on thread on that topic like any other user; if you on the other hand commented on moderator decision to ban a topic/user on the thread you'd be stepping over the line. That's the boards policy for all forums as a reference.

BruteStock

lol

https://mobile.twitter.com/TheMiddleborne/status/1554678568524943361

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119428137#Comment_119428137

I was pretty much joking I kind of knew I wasn't going to get in trouble for contradicting a mod on aesthetic matters but thanks for the clarification.

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119400973#Comment_119400973

I think people have their minds made up in this already.

TV shows that have attempted to follow particularly political ideologies haven't been mightily successful in recent years which suggests that this may potentially be the biggest flop ever.

Personally, I won't be getting an Amazon subscription for this but maybe it will be good and gain momentum, but with the budget it has they really needed the hardcore fans on board at the very least with this and those are the people who are seemingly most set against it which makes it look likely it will be an enormous failure.

human 19

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119427863#Comment_119427863

That reminds me of several long and boring conversations between Elrond and Arwen in the LOTR films (Two Towers, I think) which were totally invented by the film writers in order to inject some manufactured conflict between the 2 of them. Given the amount of manufactured and boring non-canon waffle Amazon injected into the WOT, I wouldn't be holding my breath for this episode.

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119435637#Comment_119435637

I already said I wasn't impressed with some of the original dialogue in The Hobbit films but I'm willing to give messrs Payne and McKay the benefit of the doubt. Whoever was making the series would have to be doing a lot more of the dialogue from scratch than Peter Jackson & co anyway...

PhiloCypher

Best case scenario for this for me is that its like Foundation. Too many story threads to truly land but one of them, the Empire storyline in Foundation, is compelling enough to keep you coming back.

The Golden Miller

Some amount of pressure on this show to deliver for many different reasons, from finance to the popularity of Game of Thrones, to the fact it derives from the greatest work of literature ever, itself followed by the greatest film adaptation ever. And I think it will, propel TV production to another level altogether. It seems like they went all out here

sekiro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119428851#Comment_119428851

It will be interesting to see how it goes but personally I think they have got their marketing all wrong and have gone about almost everything in the wrong way.

It's pretty obvious that they have a lot of mainstream media outlets on the payroll and so there's nobody really out there criticizing the act of paying loads of money for intellectual property and then employing folk who aren't good enough to come up with their own stuff to mess around with something the means a lot to many, many, people in the audience. Having a least a little mainstream backlash may have stolen the thunder from many of these YouTube "content creators" who are just absolutely ripping into this thing.

Maybe that's the marketing? Get people really riled up and angry as you completely bastardize one of the most beloved works of literature out there. Then profit? If that's true then fair play to them for making loads of cash but is there no media outlet that's willing to be critical of that approach at all?

To be honest, they are probably already looking for any excuse to do the movies again so hopefully this completely flops and it scares them off for a couple of decades.

Agent Coulson

Amazon have announced the world wide roll out times

Here’s how the premiere will rollout worldwide:

6 p.m. PDT — Thursday, September 1

9 p.m. EDT — Thursday, September 1

10 p.m. Brazil — Thursday, September 1

2 a.m. UK — Friday, September 2

3 a.m. Central European Summer Time — Friday, September 2

5:30 a.m. India Standard Time — Friday, September 2

10 a.m. Japan Standard Time — Friday, September 2

11 a.m. Australia — Friday, September 2

1 p.m. New Zealand — Friday, September 2

Week Two Timings Through to Season Finale:

9 p.m. PDT — Thursdays

12 a.m. EDT — Fridays

1 a.m. Brazil — Fridays

5 a.m. UK — Fridays

6 a.m. CEST — Fridays

9:30 a.m. IST — Fridays

1 p.m. JST — Fridays

2 p.m. AU — Fridays

4 p.m. NZ — Fridays

The Golden Miller

Got the marketing all wrong? There's never been a show more anticipated!

PhiloCypher

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119463840#Comment_119463840

How about waiting until they lift the review embargo before you accuse the media of being bought and sold. Just an idea .

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119481795#Comment_119481795

I've been posting here for what feels like 20 bajillion years and I've never read a thread for a high profile TV series where so many opinions have been made up before a single episode had aired, expressed in such vitriolic terms. TBH I'm in two minds even sticking with the thread as the show airs cos feels like it'll just be a sequence of "and this is wrong, and this is wrong, and this and this..."

pjohnson

How dare people be literate and have actually read Tolkiens work.

Time to lock all threads until an episode airs.

Promotional material generate discussion is no longer a part of discussion.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119482358#Comment_119482358

Ah now. Plenty of threads have pre-air discussion but I've rarely seen it this nakedly hostile before the show airs. Anyway said my peace, and think I'll pass on the thread as again, prickly. I hope it's good, and hope the Tolkien fans find it exceeds their expectations or hopes. High Fantasy's a rare enough beast on TV

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119482401#Comment_119482401

So only positive discussion allowed. Cool.

Some people liked the canon, just because you dont doesn't invalidate those dissapointed it's not what was previously marketed (a LOTR show)

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119482406#Comment_119482406

Where do I say anything about what's allowed? I just despaired at the negativity, minds made up quite vocally, all in my probably tactless fashion - then get jumped by a user I generally respected the opinions of. Oof. Definitely time to go. As said, hope you enjoy the show.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119482431#Comment_119482431

I generally respected and agreed with you aswell tbf but it seems just because you dont care for the canon no one else should which is a bit arsey (your comment complaining people will be saying "and this is wrong and this is wrong").

For many (i know i and others were for a fact) who were looking forward to this series about Tolkiens work, the promo was a wet scuttery fart especially after a very interesting casting of characters like Galadriel, Elrond, Elendil, Celebrimbor, Gil-Galad, Dain, Isildur, Pharazon etc. Those characters are literally some of THE biggest hitters in the Middle Earth that were huge key parts of Tolkiens work. Theres dozens of huge stories attached to them to tell.

The story Amazon seem to be telling is an original. They should have used original characters for an original story. Don't tease this to be something it isn't by using big name characters. It was a ridiculous bait and switch to Tolkien fans. Thats what caused most of the negativity for actual LOTR fans, weird bastardised versions of existing immensely important, popular characters. Thats a valid problem in this case.

Sure theres the usual gombeens who see a woman/black person and start screeching about woke/liberal etc. They will always moan but thats not all thats going on here. This time there is a very valid motivation for upset aswell.

ixoy

How many hardcore fans are there actually of effectively the appendix to 'Lord of the Rings'? How important is that audience? I didn't read them myself (read 'Lord of the Rings' itself ages ago) but I'd be surprised if it wasn't a minority of the readers due to how it's structured. Similar really for the upcoming 'House of Dragons', also based off supplementary world-building material that would have a smaller audience than the core work.

Ultimately, even 'Game of Thrones' audience was largely people who had never even heard of 'A Song of Ice and Fire' never mind read it.

I don't see it then as comparable to the work on 'Wheel of Time'. The fact it's completely different showrunners aside, the 'Wheel of Time' is an adaptation of the core work that people are most familiar with and, having read the series, I still haven't yet been able to bring myself to watch the show. I know that's how some fans feel about this work but how much do they matter? It's designed to get people who liked 'Lord of the Rings' itself and, I suspect, the film series most of all.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119482651#Comment_119482651

I'm no superfan but I read the appendices around once a year. There was no need to co-opt existing characters to put into a made up story.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119481565#Comment_119481565

I'll have to disagree there; I stepped in and became a mod in the Game of Thrones forum around season 4. We ran two threads for every episode for book and non book readers, we had dedicated book and non book reader speculation threads for the existing season, another for next season speculation after a season ended etc. that were all very active. Newspapers would write click bait articles on the most whimsy items related to the cast was doing to try to see what it hinted for next season story line etc. That was hype and anticipation. For this? Weak sauce by comparison and the whole thing is revolving around the cast calling anyone who don't like what they seen so far are all racists. It's Ghostbuster 2016 playing out all over again which failed because of misogynist males if you believe the critics (when males were actually going in higher percentage than women to see the show go figure).

What I expect is that the initial numbers will be good because Lord of the Rings and Amazon will trumpet it out to the world. However like with their previous bastardization of a fantasy book (I'm looking at you Wheel of Times) to TV show I expect the numbers to drop through out the season and more importantly I think season 2 (in both cases) will be Niagara fall sized drop in viewers numbers. Which Amazon will not release (same way Blizzard stopped reporting WoW numbers when it started falling) because you don't air your dirty laundry that way. This is not something unique to these shows either, you can look at for example Dr Who's latest seasons, Marvel series that done bad etc. and see the same trend in viewing numbers and how they tend to go over a season if it's not well received.

nullzero

Amazon should have really just made an original IP fantasy show.

It's not reasonable to criticize fans of an existing IP for being concerned about a new show like this deviating radically from the source material.

Had Amazon created a new fantasy show of its own it would have found an audience, or not found one on its own merit.

Instead they paid a huge sum of money for the right to attach "Lord of the Rings" to the title of their show which brings with it the baggage of fans and their opinions and the standards they expect to be conformed to.

This is lining up to be the most costly miscalculation in TV history.

ixoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119484007#Comment_119484007

Original IP seems to be very rare and one studios don't want to take. There's plenty of other fantasy books, begging for adaptation, that would be far less costly in terms of rights that I'd love to see and would make a great show. It frustrates me when they get ignored in terms of the larger IPs that are seen as "safe bets".

In this instance, the question isn't really whether fans of the LOTR history care about it. They're a very small amount of the overall intended audience and the precise faithfulness to the source material isn't a big concern for most of the audience (I'm not sure what the changes are beyond compressed timelines and racial diversity). It's whether they can get the fans of the films interested - that's what they're gunning for. Very few of those will be familiar with the Age being depicted beyond the opening of Peter Jackson's film. If they can't get people who enjoyed the film fans interested then yes, it could be a costly mistake, especially as they're committed to another season already.

Nody

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119484812#Comment_119484812

On what's changed; ignoring the compressed timeline and racial diversity and attributes such as the female dwarf beard etc. it's a question of character. Let's take Galadriel as an example; this is her in LoTR movies:

And this is her in the Amazon version:

In LoTR movies she's a badass wizard of legendary beauty and wisdom; from a lore perspective she basically held the evil races from her whole kingdom during the second age alone due to her power alone. Yet for some reason she's now made out to go play tomboy playing warrior instead and act as a man because cool... Now here's the thing; she's been around since the first age, by the time of the movie she's been around the gods and seen an age end, she's thousands up on thousands year old queen. Tolkien considered her as one of the strongest elves yet she's casted like a young 20s person with no life experience running around behaving like a rebellious teen. That's a very different approach than LoTR movies character if nothing else and I'm not going to go in on what they have done to the rest of the cast...

I've said it before in this thread and I'm sure I'll repeat it; the story should have been placed in the Southern Lands and told of the ruthlessness of the elves colonizing the world and played out to why the Southerners joined Sauron. They could have hit all the themes they wanted to achieve (colonization, racism in elves vs. humans, following charismatic leader to doom, no issues with skin colour etc.) in a as close to a blank page as you can get from a story perspective. They could have sprinkled in the major characters for the "Oh I know that one" moments to get the big name recognition in there as well. Minimal lore to run up against, minimal pissed of people and telling the story Tolkien never wrote in an unexplored part of the world tying it directly back into the movies. But no, instead we get brat Galadriel having to show she can be more man then the rest of the men and told we're racist bigots if we got a problem with that. Great...

TheIrishGrover

I'm not going to talk about the changes in specifics. I have done so before and there are valid points on both sides I thought.

But I suppose, looking purely from a business POV, it's a tough line to follow: You are after spending in the region of a billion dollars on your new property. Now even for Amazon, this is not a small amount of money, so this is going to be your tentpole property for the next couple of years. But how to sell it.

So now you have LoTR. Thousands of years of "history". Do you adapt an existing story? Or come up with something brand new but in the universe? Remember, this is simply a product. A product they need to sell to as many people as possible. Not just fans of the books. Not just fans of the Jackson/Boyens trilogy (Let's just agree The Hobbit never happened, OK?😀).

So do you go for a brand new story? NO characters from any of the previous incarnations? Certainly this would give you more room. It would also limit the potential impact of the ire of existing fans (Not a criticism. Just an observation). But, then you need to bring in the more casual fan. Someone who "Oh I liked those films years ago with Orlando Bloom and whatshitname and hername". They NEED as many people as possible.

So do you incorporate existing characters? And how would you incorporate those characters? A more straightforward path may have been to focus on the Dunedain? Either at their peak or post. But that's not what they chose. So do you introduce other long-lived characters? Great, you have Galadrial and Elrond. However, do you have 8 episodes of Regal Galadrial and cold Elrond? While these may be (are) more authentic to the books, they do not make 8 hours of good TV. Of course I don't want to see a gutted, sassy Galadrial or Poochie Elrond. lol. I don't want to see a CW-like love triangle between Galadrial, Elrond and Celeborn. but I can see their quandary.

They should have taken a risk and gone for a brand new story and never even mentioned any existing characters (Or only in passing). But they didn't. A billion dollars is a few quid. Game of Thrones worked as it was something people haden't seen before on TV. Fantasy, yes, but barely. And full of the good stuff: Sex and violence and swearing :) This won't have that. And I think it is a very hard sell. Traditional fantasy? I'd love to see it do well on TV (I grew up reading old-school, quite light, fantasy like Feist and of course Tolkien) but, is it a bit.... twee? Personally, I'm surprised Rings did as well as it did. God knows I loved the movies but I was SURE that as soon as an Ent appeared that all the mainstream fans would go "Talking tree? Nope. Outahere"

I mean, I will certainly give this a chance. I will admit, I am not as invested as some. I have read TLoTR and The Hobbit many times from an early age. Attempted The Silmarilion many times (Never finished), Huge fan of the movie trilogy. I'll give it an honest go and hope for the best. I will not base my judgement on fake reviews from people who have already made up their minds (Nobody here).

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119484973#Comment_119484973

Exactly. Galadriel is possibly THE strongest character of the Second and Third Ages. Sauron actually feared her such was her power.

This version is hilariously nerfed into oblivion.