"The Rings of Power" Vanity Fair article

[Thinlómien]

I started writing a commentary on the article on the other thread, but I'll post my scrambled rant here instead:

Galadriel’s world is a raging sea. Far from the wise, ethereal elven queen that Cate Blanchett brought to Peter Jackson’s acclaimed films, the Galadriel played by Morfydd Clark in Amazon’s upcoming series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is thousands of years younger, as angry and brash as she is clever, and certain that evil is looming closer than anyone realizes. By episode two, her warnings set her adrift, literally and figuratively, until she’s struggling for survival on a raft in the storm-swept Sundering Seas alongside a mortal castaway named Halbrand (Charlie Vickers), who is a new character introduced in the show. Galadriel is fighting for future; Halbrand is running from the past. Their entwined destinies are just two of the stories woven together for a TV series that, if it works, could become a global phenomenon.

It probably shouldn't have started with this particularly brainrot inducing snippet. Is there a lot to Galadriel's story we don't know? Yes. Can I imagine her castaway on the sea with some random human guy with whom she shares an entwined destiny? Yikes... Also a young and angry Galadriel is an interesting concept, but we're already in the Second Age. She's thousands of years old and has been through a vast number of things. I am... skeptical about this take on the character.

Tolkien, like space travel, is a personal obsession for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who’s among the richest people in the world. This is a big-ticket business venture that will allow him to create the most expensive, elaborate TV series ever made.

Yikes #2

Their series will juggle 22 stars and multiple story lines, from deep within the dwarf mines of the Misty Mountains to the high politics of the elven kingdom of Lindon and the humans’ powerful, Atlantis-like island, Númenor. All this will center, eventually, around the incident that gives the trilogy its name. “The forging of the rings,” says [showrunner] McKay. “Rings for the elves, rings for dwarves, rings for men, and then the one ring Sauron used to deceive them all. It’s the story of the creation of all those powers, where they came from, and what they did to each of those races.”

I was intrigued enough by this...

...until I read this:

The driving question behind the production, he adds, was this: “Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?”

No, please no, the obvious answer is NO.

“Everyone was crowding around the monitor as we’re doing this close-up where Galadriel’s face fills the screen and she cries, and she decides: I have to fight,” says McKay. As soon as the scene ended, the soundstage erupted in cheers. “It’s a perfect example of how Tolkien and Middle-earth have a way of finding you, even in the darkest and most uncertain moments,” says Payne.

...does this sound like a Tolkien-y scene? Nope. Yikes #3

McKay says the goal was “to make a show for everyone, for kids who are 11, 12, and 13, even though sometimes they might have to pull the blanket up over their eyes if it’s a little too scary. We talked about the tone in Tolkien’s books. This is material that is sometimes scary—and sometimes very intense, sometimes quite political, sometimes quite sophisticated—but it’s also heartwarming and life-affirming and optimistic. It’s about friendship and it’s about brotherhood and underdogs overcoming great darkness.”

I think this is ultimately going to be IT: whether the show manages to reach a tone that resonates with Tolkien's writing, or whether it falls flat. At least for me personally that's going to be the measure of whether I'm going to enjoy it or not.

We will finally see the full glory of Khazad-dûm

Strangely enough, this tidbit was the most exciting thing in the whole article for me. I am perhaps looking forward the most to see fresh visual depictions of Middle-Earth. I am very conscious they may fall short of my expectations, though...

It will also bring the elven smith Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards) to life, as his skill with metals and magic lead to the forging of the rings. And a canny young elven architect and politician named Elrond (Robert Aramayo) will rise to prominence in the mystical capital of Lindon. Another story line will follow a sailor named Isildur (Maxim Baldry) years before he becomes a warrior and cuts the soul-corrupting ring off Sauron’s hand, then falls victim to its powers himself.

I have so many questions about this. Are these the interpretations of the article writer, or new show canon? Will Elrond be a wily politician? Will Isildur's background still be royal, or will he be just an ordinary sailor?

In the novels, the aforementioned things take place over thousands of years, but Payne and McKay have compressed events into a single point in time. It is their biggest deviation from the text, and they know it’s a big swing. “We talked with the Tolkien estate,” says Payne. “If you are true to the exact letter of the law, you are going to be telling a story in which your human characters are dying off every season because you’re jumping 200 years in time, and then you’re not meeting really big, important canon characters until season four. Look, there might be some fans who want us to do a documentary of Middle-earth, but we’re going to tell one story that unites all these things.”

And funnily enough, this is the creative choice I'm the least suspicious about. It's very understandable - yet I guess we'll have to wait and see how it works out. Will Sauron be constantly zigzagging between Eregion and Númenór and various kingdoms of men where he is corrupting the future nazgûl?

Furthermore, I'm not sure what to make of the Estate's involvement in this. They seem to have made a full 180. Did they finally get so much money? Has the estate board changed? Or are they adapting to a new era and new ideas? I have to say I haven't been following the Tolkien Estate at all recently, but as a (relatively ) old school fan their enthusiastic seeming involvement in this baffles me.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Huin

Eventually she winds up back in Lindon, where she has a "reunion" with Elrond.

Which incidentally looks like this. Which makes me wonder about the protrayal of their relationship. I always imagined it as cordial but distant in a dignified manner. Which is what one might expect between a guy and his mother-in-law who is a legendary queen thousands of years his senior. (Not to downplay Elrond's achievements, but seriously...) Also wondering if Celeborn and Celebrían will make an apperance, and how old is the latter one going to be.

Originally Posted by Huin

I've seen rumours that Finrod is in the first episode, hence my concern; but set against that we have the teaser image of the Trees, plus rumours about the Helkaraxe. It's possible that the first episode includes a compressed retelling or flashback(s) to the First Age, and that Finrod's death (done correctly) is a part of that.

I'm not thrilled about First Age flashbacks. So many chances to set the whole thing up wrong...

Side note: is all this stuff about Galadriel and drowning going to explain why she got Nenya? If yes, I'm going to facepalm very hard. I'm already visualising her doing some kind of "water magic"...

Originally Posted by Legate

Which incidentally brings me - and this is a more major sidenote - to one realisation, with which I could conclude: the PJ films, for all that I disliked about them, even The Hobbit, had one tremendous advantage. Large part of the script were things quoted straight from Tolkien, written by Tolkien himself. This TV adaptation won't have the same advantage at all. It likely might attempt to emulate the FILM way of speaking, for that matter, at best. Unless of course Mr. Bezos managed to dig up some blessed talent, but somehow I am not holding my hopes high.

Yeah, I think the dialogue will easily be the dealbreaker: if it doesn't sound like Tolkien could have written it, the show won't have a Tolkien-y feel. And I'm somewhat afraid that maintaining Tolkien's complex, often archaic and very English way of writing dialogue has not been the screenwriters' priority.

(Side note: George R.R. Martin is no wordsmith like Tolkien, but you could just tell which episodes of Game of Thrones were written by him by the very recognisable way the characters spoke. Those episodes were much closer in tone to the books. Tolkien didn't write any episodes of The Rings of Power. I don't have high hopes for anyone else getting the tone right. Think of the PJ movies. Some of the added dialogue fits in quite seamlessly - at least in the ears of a fan who is no English language scholar - while some feels like a slap in the face. Tolkien would not have made Aragorn say "Let's hunt some Orc". That particular quote is probably a deliberate stylistic change of register for effect, but the thought of a whole Tolkien series sounding like a Hollywood blockbuster makes me suffer.)

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Which incidentally looks like this. Which makes me wonder about the protrayal of their relationship. I always imagined it as cordial but distant in a dignified manner. Which is what one might expect between a guy and his mother-in-law who is a legendary queen thousands of years his senior. (Not to downplay Elrond's achievements, but seriously...) Also wondering if Celeborn and Celebrían will make an apperance, and how old is the latter one going to be.

Or potentially only hundreds of years older! Late-stage Tolkien - ie, NoME - actually fixes Galadriel's age when crossing the Helkaraxe at well under a century (of the sun), so she would only have about 600 years on Elrond. If this is 3000 years later, they're practically peers.

-- except that Artanis was born under the light of the Trees, which I have always pictured as the biggest generational shift in Elvish history.

They'd better not play a romance angle, though. I am actually weirdly excited to maybe see Celebrian; I'm not sure why!

hS

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

maybe see Celebrian; I'm not sure why!

If they really are going to condense the timeline of the 2nd Age into Isildur's lifespan AND if they're going for "young, impetuous, not yet wise old Galadriel" then, assuming I'm right that they won't want to start with Galadriel already being a mother, is to pull a "Renesmee."

I've got to say, I'm sort of relishing just how divergent things are already appearing (the time crunch is THE thing that has my goat here) and I'm kind of rooting for it to be a completely unTolkienian travesty. Which is not exactly *charitable* of me, but it's easy to root against Amazon and is a lot easier to mentally prepare for than hoping against hope it'll somehow accord with the Spirit of Tolkien.

[Galadriel55]

After I started writing and had to step away 3 times in a row, with my attempt at a post disappearing, I will quit trying to do anything lengthy. Besides, I feel like most things have already been said and reacted to, and, well, here's one more voice in the chorus.

I wish they had less canon in there - or, rather, didn't try to put in so mucb canon. They could have had a great show with mostly new characters and a couple Tolkien ones to keep the ties to the fandom. It wouldn't be Tolkien, but it would have the potential to be a decent story in its own right, using the legendarium as a fanfic landscape. But they had to have ALL the characters, and ALL AT ONCE, and doing ALL THE THINGS that are thought to pizzazz a show, and that just doesn't work. Instead of being cool, it ruins existing Tolkien. Don't force a square peg into a round hole, whittle yourself a round one.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

I've got to say, I'm sort of relishing just how divergent things are already appearing (the time crunch is THE thing that has my goat here) and I'm kind of rooting for it to be a completely unTolkienian travesty. Which is not exactly *charitable* of me, but it's easy to root against Amazon and is a lot easier to mentally prepare for than hoping against hope it'll somehow accord with the Spirit of Tolkien.

I was holding out hope that it will remain obliquely Tolkienian. But this ridiculous time crunch (where Galadriel seems to be the worst affected), and the unnecessary pizzazzing (evil politician Elrond? Questionable romances?) - ugh, why.


I will not repeat what's been said, but something I noticed:

*the government of New Zealand has placed production expenditures at $462 million for the first season alone. That figure includes building infrastructure that will be used in later seasons

Does that imply they intend to have more seasons? And how strong is the intention? (Like, "if it works out, we will come up with more", vs "this story literally cannot be told in 1 season")?

Even the cast members were hired without being told which parts they would play.

Does anyone else think this is pushing the line?


Moosepeople. Moosepeople. Moople. Meople. What???

After news broke that Amazon had hired an intimacy coordinator for its New Zealand set, some fans feared that the production might have lost sight of what makes Tolkien Tolkien.

I think there has been enough proof posted on other threads for why sex in itself is not un-Tolkien, but 1) is there so much of it, or is it so unconventional, that it requires an expert advisor, and 2) how is "intimacy coordinator" even a job? Imagine having that as an answer for the age-old "what do you wanna be when you grow up?"

When Amazon released photos of its multicultural cast, even without character names or plot details, the studio endured a reflexive attack from trolls—the anonymous online kind. “Obviously there was going to be push and backlash,” says Tolkien scholar Mariana Rios Maldonado, “but the question is from whom? Who are these people that feel so threatened or disgusted by the idea that an elf is Black or Latino or Asian?”

You can make an Elf any race or colour you want, but at one point it's not gonna be a Tolkien Elf anymore. To reference GOT (should we call it the *true* source material?), a blonde Baratheon ain't a Baratheon. The article recites actors names and backgrounds like it's proving a point that this show satisfies the latest fashion criteria for diversity. We'll see what comes of it, but if it's diversity for diversity's sake, that often turns out even worse.

...Got to the picture of Halbarad... Halbard... Hal... with the T-shirt. Indeed, what's up with the T-shirt? And, speaking of costumes, I wasn't a fan of the faces on the Sylvan Elves's armour either.

“If you are true to the exact letter of the law, you are going to be telling a story in which your human characters are dying off every season because you’re jumping 200 years in time, and then you’re not meeting really big, important canon characters until season four. Look, there might be some fans who want us to do a documentary of Middle-earth, but we’re going to tell one story that unites all these things.”

Or you can do flashes of various points in that time, or carry two separate timelines, or have flashbacks. There are sooo many ways to avoid having a barely-out-of-her-teens Galadriel jump straight to Ringbearer just because you wanna showcase a mortal.

“We think the work will eventually speak for itself,”

It certainly will. The only question is - what will it say.

[Michael Murry]

I didn't come across the Vanity Fair article itself but only indirectly by way of RT.com:

Amazon’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ series unveils new details
‘The Rings of Power’ won’t feature Game of Thrones-level sex and violence, according to showrunners

https://www.rt.com/pop-culture/54896...eries-details/

First-look images and story details about Amazon’s upcoming ‘Lord of the Rings’ series have been debuted via Vanity Fair. The first season of ‘The Rings of Power’, which reportedly cost a staggering $462 million, will be a story about “friendship,” “brotherhood,” and “underdogs overcoming great darkness,” according to the showrunners.

While fans already expected the series to take place during the Second Age of Middle Earth, it has now been confirmed what locations and stories audiences can expect to witness in the series. The show will reportedly explore stories “from deep within the dwarf mines of the Misty Mountains to the high politics of the elven kingdom of Lindon and the humans’ powerful, Atlantis-like island, Númenor,” leading up to the forging of the rings of power.*

Showrunner Patric McKay says the driving question behind the production was this: “Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?”

It has been revealed that original characters from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy such as Galadriel and Elrond will make an appearance. Morfydd Clark will take on the role of young Galadriel, who is described as a warrior who is “angry and brash as she is clever,” while Elrond will be portrayed by Robert Aramayo, best known for playing a young Ned Stark in HBO’s ‘Game of Thrones’.

The series will also feature other characters and plotlines, many of which have been created from scratch. One such story is the “forbidden” romantic relationship between a human village healer played by Nazanin Boniadi and the elf Arondi, played by Ismael Cruz Cordova.

Instead of hobbits the show will feature their ancestor species – the harfoots – with Sir Lenny Henry portraying a harfoot elder while Megan Richards and Markella Kavenagh star as two harfoots who “encounter a mysterious lost man.”

Viewers will also get a look at the dwarven city of Khazad-dum inside the Misty Mountains, where a newly-created character – dwarven princess Disa, played by Sophia Nomvete, will “broaden the notion of who lives in Middle-earth” according to Vanity Fair.

The show will also tell the tale of the elven smith Cerebrimbor, portrayed by Charles Edwards, as he hones his skill with metals and magic, eventually forging the rings of power in tandem with Lord Sauron.

The show is being led by Patrick McKay and JD Payne, who describe the series’ narrative as being all about “the forging of the rings” and will delve into the “magic, warfare and mythology” that transpires.*

However, they also added that the story won’t be turning into a ‘Game of Thrones’ type of epic. According to Vanity Fair, McKay said the goal was to “make a show for everyone, for kids who are 11, 12 and 13, even though sometimes they might have to pull the blanket up over their eyes if it’s a little too scary. We talked about the tone in Tolkien’s books. This is material that is sometimes scary – and sometimes very intense, sometimes quite political, sometimes quite sophisticated – but it’s also heartwarming and life-affirming and optimistic. It’s about friendship and it’s about brotherhood and underdogs overcoming great darkness.”

‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ premiers on September 2 on Amazon Prime Video.

Not having a subscription to Amazon Prime Video, I await the erudite deconstruction of this entertainment offering by others far more knowledgeable about Tolkien's unpublished writings than myself. For the present, I can only hope that "young Galadriel, who is described as a warrior who is 'angry and brash as she is clever'," doesn't recapitulate that tedious Itaril/Tauriel killer elf-chick thing in The Hobbit movies debacle.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Legate

"Really, why" was my reaction, but... well, of all people, I am okay with that it's Galadriel who might not have problems hanging out with a mortal (but at the same time, young Galadriel, again, I would imagine to be a bit more... well, sticking rather with her own kind than Men?).

I mean, she does have a Thing with a dwarf later... I suspect that they're going to be doing the Game of Thrones thing where different characters move between plotlines. Halbrand won't be a permanent fixture in Galadriel's story - just a chance meeting, as they say, in Middle-earth. Their 'entwined destinies' are because they're both part of the story of the forging of the Rings, as is everyone else.

Originally Posted by The Article

... we’re doing this close-up where Galadriel’s face fills the screen and she cries, and she decides: I have to fight,” says McKay.

Lommy asked if this sounds like Tolkien, and it totally doesn't - but it might if it was better described. This is literally just "character falls down, character picks themselves back up", which, how many times does Frodo do that? (Not as many as in the movies, but still...) "She cries" may just mean "she has tears on her face", not "she bawls her heart out".

Originally Posted by Lommy

I think this is ultimately going to be IT: whether the show manages to reach a tone that resonates with Tolkien's writing, or whether it falls flat. At least for me personally that's going to be the measure of whether I'm going to enjoy it or not.

[...]

Yeah, I think the dialogue will easily be the dealbreaker: if it doesn't sound like Tolkien could have written it, the show won't have a Tolkien-y feel. And I'm somewhat afraid that maintaining Tolkien's complex, often archaic and very English way of writing dialogue has not been the screenwriters' priority.

I think I agree. I mean, I'll enjoy the visuals whatever, probably, but whether I'll love the show depends on the tone. It's good that they at least think they're trying to do it right!

Originally Posted by Lommy

Are these the interpretations of the article writer, or new show canon? Will Elrond be a wily politician? Will Isildur's background still be royal, or will he be just an ordinary sailor?

Elrond is a politician. ^_~ He's the Herald of Gil-Galad, a high-ranking noble. If Tolkien had written a full story about Lindon, Elrond would fit naturally into the Tuor role of "noble advisor arguing against obvious evil dude that nobody recognises is evil" - except he didn't, so there isn't an Evil Dude in Lindon to argue against. (It might be nice if Elrond is a convert to Galadriel's view that Sauron is still out there; would explain why he winds up setting up Imladris.)

I actually really like the idea of him as an architect. I mean... someone had to design the Hall of Fire, right?

Originally Posted by More Lommy

Side note: is all this stuff about Galadriel and drowning going to explain why she got Nenya? If yes, I'm going to facepalm very hard. I'm already visualising her doing some kind of "water magic"...

Okay, but if they do this for Galadriel they have to do it for every single Ring. Each one gets an element - the elves get classical elements, the dwarves get metals, and the men get... I dunno, noble gases or something. Durin gets trapped in a collapsing nickel mine and winds up with the Ring of Nickel. Bronwyn spends an episode speaking really squeaky after inhaling helium and gets the Ring of Helium (it even has "heal" in its name!). Sauron trips over a gold brick and gets a thoughtful look on his face...

Originally Posted by Legate

Purely as a series with a plot that one would want to enjoy watching: I wonder how well they can manage this task. It feels like a logical idea in terms of what they intend to portray, but is it too much? Can they? Will it end up being too disjointed? Every episode, one scene with Disa asking Durin about weather, one scene with Galadriel doing the same with Hallsbaldwagon, then wait until next episode to see what they replied?

So is this what they did with Game of Thrones? I never watched it, but I thought it was. My guess is that the characters go about in twos or threes (so maybe 10 plot threads), with each episode focussing on 3 or so plotlines. That'd be 15-20 minutes per plot, which is enough to get some stuff done.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

If they really are going to condense the timeline of the 2nd Age into Isildur's lifespan AND if they're going for "young, impetuous, not yet wise old Galadriel" then, assuming I'm right that they won't want to start with Galadriel already being a mother, is to pull a "Renesmee."

Celeborn to be played by Robert Pattinson, you heard it here first.

Originally Posted by G55

I wish they had less canon in there - or, rather, didn't try to put in so mucb canon.

Wait, there was canon in there? ^_^ No, but seriously - other than the Harfeet, the only canon elements they've actually talked about are the ones tied directly to the creation of the Rings. I don't think the article names a single canon character who isn't a Ringbearer at one time or another.

Originally Posted by G55

Does that imply they intend to have more seasons? And how strong is the intention? (Like, "if it works out, we will come up with more", vs "this story literally cannot be told in 1 season")?

I think they've been approved for 5, and there's indications that the forging of the Rings won't even be in this one (a rumour about the posters suggested one was "Pharazon, not yet king"). So maybe we have S1 - look, characters! S2 - 'Brim makes some jewellery. S3 - Pharazon takes over, Sauron hands out goodie bags. S4 - Sauron takes a cruise and it ends badly. S5 - The Last Alliance.

Originally Posted by G55

Moosepeople. Moosepeople. Moople. Meople. What???

Right?! I almost wonder if they're Harfeet, with how ridiculously large the antlers are. Still wouldn't make a whole lotta sense.

Originally Posted by G55

how is "intimacy coordinator" even a job?

Basically: safety. Much like how showing a bird flying past requires a "No animals were harmed" statement, having any form of nudity really should require someone on hand to keep it from going badly wrong. There have been a lot of news stories about directors and actors being abusive in that sort of situation. I approve of this even if it's only for one fraction of a scene.

Originally Posted by G55

You can make an Elf any race or colour you want, but at one point it's not gonna be a Tolkien Elf anymore. [...] The article recites actors names and backgrounds like it's proving a point that this show satisfies the latest fashion criteria for diversity. We'll see what comes of it, but if it's diversity for diversity's sake, that often turns out even worse.

Does Tolkien ever describe a Silvan elf's skin or hair colour? The movie wanted Haldir to be blond, but I don't know that that's from the books.

Eitherhow, I don't think it's "diversity for diversity's sake" - I would say it's more "diversity because it gives you more options". It lets you tell different stories, with different resonances with the modern world - and it also lets you hire different actors! If all lead characters had to be white, male, and American, we really would have Benderbatch Cumbleface playing everyone again. (And in a show like this, hordes of white men with brown hair would make it impossible for me to know who anyone was; I'm rubbish at faces.)

The reason for highlighting it is that we've finally got society to the point where they will, just about, accept a diverse cast. Go back, what, two, three decades at most, and it becomes something a producer would never even consider, because they "knew" it "wouldn't sell". Well - now it will.

Originally Posted by Eomer

And well met, Huinesoron! I can tell I will enjoy your posts.

Greetings to you, and thank you very much.

Originally Posted by Michael Murry

For the present, I can only hope that "young Galadriel, who is described as a warrior who is 'angry and brash as she is clever'," doesn't recapitulate that tedious Itaril/Tauriel killer elf-chick thing in The Hobbit movies debacle.

Oh cripes, hadn't even thought of that.

(With all these quotes, I feel like I should be voting for a wolf around now!)

hS

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I understand there was a book, back in the pre-Silmarillion days, which tried to draw out all the details of the Elder Days contained in LotR. If they're smart, the writers should have found themselves a copy and stuffed it full of post-it notes.

Hey, I did that in my pre-Silmarillion days! I had a whole sheet full of scribbled notes and speculations. I didn't know someone published their reference sheet.

Originally Posted by Michael Murry

For the present, I can only hope that "young Galadriel, who is described as a warrior who is 'angry and brash as she is clever'," doesn't recapitulate that tedious Itaril/Tauriel killer elf-chick thing in The Hobbit movies debacle.

I have been so distracted by the fear of their misunderstanding First vs Second vs Third Age Galadriel (if there is an adjective for SA Galadriel, would you not go with "ambitious" over "brash"?), I have completely neglected this possibility.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Elrond is a politician. ^_~ He's the Herald of Gil-Galad, a high-ranking noble. If Tolkien had written a full story about Lindon, Elrond would fit naturally into the Tuor role of "noble advisor arguing against obvious evil dude that nobody recognises is evil" - except he didn't, so there isn't an Evil Dude in Lindon to argue against. (It might be nice if Elrond is a convert to Galadriel's view that Sauron is still out there; would explain why he winds up setting up Imladris.)

I actually really like the idea of him as an architect. I mean... someone had to design the Hall of Fire, right?

I like the idea of Elrond as an architect, councilor (even war councilor / general), squire, herald (let's not forget that), librarian, and bunches of other roles. But I take issue with him as - how did Lommy put it? - wily politician. Numenor is a great setting for wily politics. Lindon? Perhaaaps... but to a much lesser extent. Just too many things that could go wrong with that.

Originally Posted by Hui

So is this what they did with Game of Thrones? I never watched it, but I thought it was. My guess is that the characters go about in twos or threes (so maybe 10 plot threads), with each episode focussing on 3 or so plotlines. That'd be 15-20 minutes per plot, which is enough to get some stuff done.

Episode 1 of GOT was an introduction to the main characters, so it was basically that - a basic "this is who that guy is", switch plots, repeat. But the subsequent episodes would advance each plot in a similar manner a chapter in a book would - though that might be broken over several scenes over the course of the episode. The 2-second plot line was not the reason GOT tanked; it was rather the compression of too much plot into too little time in the final season, cut out too much of it and dropped plotlines, which made the whole thing not make sense.

Originally Posted by Hui

Wait, there was canon in there? ^_^ No, but seriously - other than the Harfeet, the only canon elements they've actually talked about are the ones tied directly to the creation of the Rings. I don't think the article names a single canon character who isn't a Ringbearer at one time or another.

They're attempting to describe canonical characters and events. So yes, they are attempting canon - though I have every doubt that they will succeed at it. In fact, I have the full conviction that they won't - which is exactly why I wish they didn't do it.

Originally Posted by Hui

Does Tolkien ever describe a Silvan elf's skin or hair colour? The movie wanted Haldir to be blond, but I don't know that that's from the books.

You know? That's a good question. I'm not sure. I wonder if Legolas is the only one with a sort of detailed description - and he is rumoured to have a special lineage, so he is not a proper candidate. But Silvan Elves still fall under the broader umbrella of "Teleri", and I expect physical traits would be similar too. Of course, by virtue of sampling, it's possible that "all purple-haired Teleri happened to remain in the East", thus depriving the western gene pool of that trait while allowing it to persist in the eastern population in, perhaps, larger percentages that it appeared in the original population... So yes, I suppose Silvan Teleri are not limited to the traits described for other Teleri tribes.

But the blonde Baratheon example was just an arbitrary reference and joke about why appearances matter, not that Silvan Elves need to have blonde hair. And I think you would agree that there still is a limit to how much you can mess with the outlines we do have before it becomes ridiculous. Like purple hair. Technically, nowhere in Tolkien does it say that it's impossible, but why.

(If you haven't seen/read GOT, here is the explanation, spoiler warning: a characters uncovers that every time a dark-haired Baratheon marries a blond spouse, their children are always dark-haired, which proves that the blond children of a current marriage are not legitimate children and heirs of the current Baratheon..

Originally Posted by Hui

Eitherhow, I don't think it's "diversity for diversity's sake" - I would say it's more "diversity because it gives you more options". It lets you tell different stories, with different resonances with the modern world - and it also lets you hire different actors! If all lead characters had to be white, male, and American, we really would have Benderbatch Cumbleface playing everyone again. (And in a show like this, hordes of white men with brown hair would make it impossible for me to know who anyone was; I'm rubbish at faces.)

Lol, so am I. And you're probably right - I think I am just paranoid about it after a number of stories which did the opposite of benefit from diversity (*coughDoctorWhocough*). You are absolutely right that based on what we have so far, I don't have any great issues. But it's the tone of the thing that galls me, "we do diversity, you have to watch us now", it just rubs me the wrong way. Having a diverse cast does not make it a good movie/show, and rubbing in diversity simply to highlight it doesn't make it a good story (again, *coughDoctorWhocough*).

Originally Posted by Hui

(With all these quotes, I feel like I should be voting for a wolf around now!)

++Halberband?
++Meeple?
...or...
++Bumblebee Cabbagepatch? ^.^

Originally Posted by Rhun charioteer

I’m honestly surprised at this thread. I would have expected people to be far more hostile and negative than they are. I have to say I’m disappointed. This show will be an absolute garbage fire(and honestly I’d probably rather watch a garbage fire) and you are acting as though it deserves any consideration at all?

Some people are disappointed that we are too negative, some are disappointed that we are too positive. *shrug* You can't suit everyone. And if it doesn't deserve any consideration at all, the response would not be to throw rotten eggs at it, but rather to ignore its existence. Personally, I prefer not to be overly negative over something so trivial as a TV show which I can quit watching the moment the cons outweigh the potential pros, so I don't let it spoil my appetite.

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

It probably shouldn't have started with this particularly brainrot inducing snippet. Is there a lot to Galadriel's story we don't know? Yes. Can I imagine her castaway on the sea with some random human guy with whom she shares an entwined destiny? Yikes... Also a young and angry Galadriel is an interesting concept, but we're already in the Second Age. She's thousands of years old and has been through a vast number of things. I am... skeptical about this take on the character.

You know what, this. They should not have started with that piece. I know they wanted to emphasize the familiar characters, but this was probably the worst thing to choose for a "first impression". I think that by the time I've walked around with the image of Life of Pi Galadriel spitting out cliches in my head for half a day before I could read the rest of the article, I didn't have a lot of sympathy for the whole thing. I feel somewhat less pessimistic about a bunch of stuff in there now, after sleeping on it, but Galadriel's piece still sticks out as brainrot which I cannot be reconciled with. Besides, she is a character in whom I have a certain personal investment.


P.S.: as an expected but unlooked for benefit of the whole thing, I am very happy that it brought a number of Downers out of slumber even for a little while. So let it not be said that no good may come of evil. ;-)

[Boromir88]

I will perhaps have time to comment with some more thoughts later this weekend, but just popping in to...

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Ah, hello everyone - nice to see you. And well met, Huinesoron! I can tell I will enjoy your posts. It seems there has been some activity over the last few years which I should catch up on.

More than anything I am inspired to re-read the Sil this year, just to ensure I'm completely prepared to make cranky posts about what the Amazon people did wrong. Because lord knows I'm not gonna do that on reddit...

*waves to Eomer* What an unexpected surprise! That's been the thing for me that I appreciate (and probably will appreciate) the most about the series being made. It sparked my interest to read The Sil again (and currently reading UT) because I wanted to be more familiar with the source material than I was when the LOTR movies came out. I got part way through Fellowship before I saw the first movie, and I think that's why I still am biased towards Boromir. Sean Bean is not Tolkien's Boromir, but he played the character just a touch different, where I can well imagine that somber scene between him and Aragorn in Lothlorien might have happened.

Anyway the buzz around the series, sparked an interest to read the source material again, because I was so unfamiliar with the 2nd Age characters. I think Isildur, Celebrimbor and Galadriel are fascinating and well-written characters. My hope is the series portrays them well. That would be fantastic. My suspicions are it's not much more than a Fool's hope, but I'm not Denethoring around about it. If it's poorly done, and not-Tolkien, then I'll stick with reading Tolkien when I have the interest. But I credit the series buzz for re-igniting my interest to read Tolkien's "earlier" tales.

Also, seconding your comment about Huey's posts. (Not to make him feel like this is a game of WW any more than he might already feel )

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

It's a fine line to walk - I imagine you'd want legal advice on what's in-scope - but it would be better than just throwing it all out and saying "Feanor came to Middle-earth in a yellow submarine, and nothing we have says different!"

This is literally my biggest fear about this. Especially if it is done out of spite, "you didn't give us rights to the Silmarillion? Okay! The world was created by Radagast's rabbit hatching an egg, ha! Now deal with it!"

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Ah, hello everyone - nice to see you. And well met, Huinesoron! I can tell I will enjoy your posts. It seems there has been some activity over the last few years which I should catch up on.

I am verrry happy this thread seems to be bringing back more and more people! Welcome back after a long absence - and Form, too!

Originally Posted by Michael Murry

For the present, I can only hope that "young Galadriel, who is described as a warrior who is 'angry and brash as she is clever'," doesn't recapitulate that tedious Itaril/Tauriel killer elf-chick thing in The Hobbit movies debacle.

To be fair, Tauriel would be better (as long as she and some Dwarves weren't making whats-in-your-pants-joke *shudders*). She was at least a clearly made-up character. Galadriel is an existing character and she is no Tauriel.

In fact, Halbenstein and Brontosaurella et al. are more or less whom I imagine to be basically some sort of semi-tauriels. In the sense that they will be wannabe-cool and hip made-up characters who might fit better into a D&D campaign. Well, I hope I am wrong and for instance the healer really remains a healer and not an "I am occasionally jumping on walls and throwing knives because that's what film characters do" or somesuch.

Originally Posted by Rhun charioteer

I’m honestly surprised at this thread. I would have expected people to be far more hostile and negative than they are. I have to say I’m disappointed. This show will be an absolute garbage fire(and honestly I’d probably rather watch a garbage fire) and you are acting as though it deserves any consideration at all?

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Even the Ents are fair to Saruman.

Plenty of time AFTER the show comes out to rip on the basis of known facts--there's no reason to do it on the basis of supposition.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

And if it doesn't deserve any consideration at all, the response would not be to throw rotten eggs at it, but rather to ignore its existence. Personally, I prefer not to be overly negative over something so trivial as a TV show which I can quit watching the moment the cons outweigh the potential pros, so I don't let it spoil my appetite.

Basically what Form and G55 said. I am known to be the most anti-adaptation person, but, I won't judge anything before I know more of it. That is, hum hmm, not a mark of the wise. What do we have so far? Five photos and ten sentences. What do they look like? Not particularly good, but who knows. Show me half of an actual episode and I can tell you something more concrete.

But yeah. Everyone gets riled up about something, these days it has become almost a hobby, but in my opinion, life is too short to spend it on just hating something. It doesn't leave anything behind.

Originally Posted by G55

I have been so distracted by the fear of their misunderstanding First vs Second vs Third Age Galadriel (if there is an adjective for SA Galadriel, would you not go with "ambitious" over "brash"?), I have completely neglected this possibility.

Ambitious, indeed!

On the same note: I have been thinking about Galadriel, and here is the thing - I realised why it was that the first image of the "Joan of Arc"-Galadriel caused such instant intuitive revulsion in me. Ought she be a warrior at all? Nerwen*, sure. But this elf-paladin-level-7? That answer is obviously negative.

*(Sidenote: I just realised that if there is any "contemporarily socially debated" topic they could tackle and throw half of the audience out of balance, it could be toying with Galadriel's gender identity. I mean, they would have absolutely genuine canon basis for it, and here they would have the creative space to explore it. I'm thinking stuff like her having this early-Second-Age phase where she would want people to address her as "him", generally dress up very "manlily" and such. Obviously eventually she would in the end settle on the LotR-era, more feminine side of herself. But it would be an interesting character trait. It might cause mixed feelings and not just among those who would have some knee-jerk reaction, but if done right, it could be even a good way to explore Galadriel's personality - and importantly, it would be based on canon.

But that is only in the Sil, is it...)

And more specifically about "young and brash". I would actually be happy if they took Galadriel's entire personality development arc and somehow stuffed it in here - it would be condensed, and therefore uncanonical, but ultimately faithful to the character. I mean the - what I consider to be the super-amazing thing about Galadriel - the development from her young self to the Galadriel we meet in LotR. Show us how she got there. From the young, "adventurous" voluntary exile to (and this already IS early Second Age) the "I am too proud to accept your forgiveness, I'm staying and founding my own elven kingdom, finally, when finally this Dark Lord is dead!" to eventually the Galadriel who will refuse the Ring.

I REALLY hope they keep that dynamic. And they can do it unsubtly and hammer it in our face for all I care, but it has to be there, else I don't see the purpose of making this series at all. But - and that is important at the same time - they should make THAT the focus, this internal dynamic (plus possibly some sort of back-and-forth pining "well perhaps I miss the Undying Lands, 'and by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree'-style") and not push it aside for the sake of some "I will fight!!!" That's not Galadriel.

Originally Posted by G55

You know? That's a good question. I'm not sure. I wonder if Legolas is the only one with a sort of detailed description - and he is rumoured to have a special lineage, so he is not a proper candidate. But Silvan Elves still fall under the broader umbrella of "Teleri", and I expect physical traits would be similar too. Of course, by virtue of sampling, it's possible that "all purple-haired Teleri happened to remain in the East", thus depriving the western gene pool of that trait while allowing it to persist in the eastern population in, perhaps, larger percentages that it appeared in the original population... So yes, I suppose Silvan Teleri are not limited to the traits described for other Teleri tribes.

Sidenote, I recall one of the "Balrog Wings-type" threads here where people have been bashing each other with arguments about what colour Legolas's hair was supposed to be. I recall things like arguments about dark hair and others countering that it was described when his head was in the shadow etc. Overall, I think the hair of those we-do-not-belong-to-any-of-the-colour-coded-major-groups Elves is pretty much an open question.

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

(With all these quotes, I feel like I should be voting for a wolf around now!)

I propose having the right, once the series comes out and if there is need for it, to call a deadline.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I like the idea of Elrond as an architect, councilor (even war councilor / general), squire, herald (let's not forget that), librarian, and bunches of other roles. But I take issue with him as - how did Lommy put it? - wily politician. Numenor is a great setting for wily politics. Lindon? Perhaaaps... but to a much lesser extent. Just too many things that could go wrong with that.

Even beyond Lindon, I would say that "politician" just isn't really a dominant Elvish mode. The only things that you'd really call politicking among Elves happen during the exigencies of the Elder Days: Fëanor vs. Fingolfin under Melkor's influence, Celegorm & Curufin in Nargothrond, Maeglin once Tuor arrives, etc. It's always an explicitly bad thing, and while Elrond in his youth might not have been as much of a paragon of Elvish virtue as he was in 3018 T.A., there's also no textual evidence that he wasn't.

And, sure, politicking could happen in the Second Age (and I agree that Lindon is the LEAST likely realm for it, thus tacitly agreeing that it might be more likely in Eregion or Lórien or Mirkwood), but the nature of the Elves, i.e. that they are undying within time, combined with their preferred form of government, kingship, leads to a lot of political stability. The Elvish mode of government is that the King as Father of the Clan, and once an Elvish realm gets going and has peace, there aren't really examples of jockeying and conniving for the sake of power.

That might have been a bit different at the start of the Second Age, when Lindon was sorting itself out--Celeborn and Galadriel started there with some of the Sindar before moving on, but Elrond never does, and he should have had at least as much a chance, as the Heir of Turgon and Thingol to have done a similar thing if he were interested with a subsection of Elvish society, but Elrond explicitly DOESN'T: he remains with Gil-galad until the founding of Imladris and the his establishment there quite definitively never becomes a Kingdom or lordship, though given his lineage, you'd almost expect the establishment of a separate territory at a far remove to merit at least a "lordship," but that doesn't happen.

What does happen? Elrond is clearly still a deputy of Gil-galad, serving as his Herald even in the War of the Last Alliance. Admittedly, after Gil-galad's death, he does make what I call a very shrewd political decision, though it is one that is humble and peace-making: he decides the time of High Kings is over and does not take the title. This could be compromise, because he's not the eldest or most powerful of the remaining Finwëans--that's clearly Galadriel on both fronts--or because he's not a male-line Finwëan, being descended through Idril, or because he's Half-Elven (though that consideration doesn't seem to have mattered with Dior, who was actually mortal, or anywhere else in Elrond's life--and The Nature of Middle-Earth backs up this assertion, generally, in how it talks about his ageiing). I also think it could be a consideration of the fact that Elrond had no interest in going to Lindon and read the tea-leaves that Elvish power would wane, but it's also a political decision: staying in the colony rather than returning to the main homeland.

So... I think politician is a bad word to describe an Elf. It's a modern word and in the context of fantasy makes you think of the endless machinations of things like Game of Thrones, and is the kind of neo-Greco-Latinate word that Tolkien would avoid. But, despite that, I think Elrond is something of the ideal politician: a servant, consensus-builder, peace-maker.

But tell me that you think that THAT is what Amazon means.

X-ed with Legate, as we said in the Elder Days.

[Boromir88]

Actually what has me thinking could be one of the more interesting things the show-runners say they are attempting to is about the 2 hobbit characters.

I noted the show runners mentioned the two Harfoots are going to be similar to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern roles, from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. If this is true, and they aren't just fooling us, this is an interesting and creative thing to do in my opinion. It's not something that I would call original, because it has been done before and can be fairly common in the fantasy genre, but I think it would be creative to have this in a Tolkien adaptation. What I mean is think about the roles C-3PO and R2-D2 play in Star Wars or the ghost brothers in Stardust. Their roles aren't directly involved in solving problems the protagonists come across. They stand off in the distance and act as commentators to the audience, through their own robot-colored (or ghost-colored) glasses. R2-D2 (at least in the original trilogy) serves as a useful mechanic who does some minor things to help the protagonists out of sticky situations, but particularly C-3PO's role is to simply be a translator. He sits off as an observer and translates information to the audience ("Well, Master Ani has been under a lot of stress lately" or tells us the odds of surviving an asteroid field). As the article mentions, hobbits are noted for being able to avoid the eyes of "big folk" blundering through. So if their roles in the series are indeed to be something like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, or R2-D2 and C-3P0 than that could be rather fitting to use hobbits to fill that role. Think of just how much interest gets sparked by wanting to know what happened to the random fox passing by sleeping hobbits in the Shire.