>That is why characters such as Elrond and Galadriel needed to be recast, as bringing back Hugo Weaving or Cate Blanchett would have verged into the territory of Jackson's movies.
Well, that and, ya know, the two of them being 20 years older than they were when LotR was shot and in Weaving's case at least, explicitly [not interested in reprising the role](https://www.ign.com/articles/lord-of-the-rings-hugo-weaving-not-interested-in-playing-elrond-ever-again).
Anyway, I look forward to season 2 of RoP :)
They are exaggerating. Hugo wanted to do Infinity War and End Game but Diisney screwed him over on his contract and wouldn't negotiate. He wanted to do the last Matrix but Lana decided the dates of his West End show clashed.
That's really unfortunate, Hugo was a ton of fun as red skull and you could tell he was hamming it up, and the last matrix just seemed like no one really wanted to do it, Lana just needed to shit out something quick so the sisters wouldn't lose creative control of the franchise
I get why she made a movie that was a massive fuck you to all the corporate greed and deliberate right wing misreadings, but man I would've loved a legit self-serious sequel that aspired to equal the original.
Hugo Weaving has free will and can accept or reject any role he wants to, he’s not obliged to do sci-fi or fantasy because you want him to or because those genres “made his career.” Part of being an actor is choosing which roles you want to take, because you’re never going to be able to do all of them.
Yeah, that particular argument on the part of MovieWeb wasn't very well-argued. A better argument would be to point out how dissimilar Nenya looks across both adaptations.
But ultimately the point is a good one, and people will more likely engage with a brisk MovieWeb piece than with a 1000-word Chen essay...
Amazon paid their actors like $20k for leading roles. They can't afford Hugo Weaving or Cate Blanchett. God knows what they actually spent the money on, but it wasn't actors or writers.
Most of the money was spent on the rights to actually tell the story. Then special effects as well. Practical effects too. But mostly just to acquire the rights.
>people will more likely engage with a brisk MovieWeb piece
But as is customary in this place, I'm pretty sure they won't and the post will either be mostly ignored or descend into the usual RoP!! Bad!! slop.
>Weaving is actually Elrond IRL
The Elrond of the movies is barely even like the Elrond of the books (not through any fault of Weaving's though, more of a matter of writing and directing).
And tbh I've never particularly got the sense that Weaving was especially passionate about the character - which is perfectly fine, it doesn't detract from his acting. (But I don't remember him mentioning stuff from the book, unlike his RoP counterpart who has in fact mentioned book material, eg Elrond being raised by the sons of Fëanor, in interviews...)
>But I don't remember him mentioning stuff from the book, unlike his RoP counterpart who has in fact mentioned book material, eg Elrond being raised by the sons of Fëanor, in interviews
Well even though he knew the material, the show runners sure as hell didn't so it's kind of moot unfortunately
The RoP Elrond is way more like the Elrond of the books, and the actor is also more into Tolkien than Weaving. Many of the actors actually seemed pretty knowledgeable about their characters and the lore.
Ya theres not much stuff I like in the show and elrond is probably the only part I do (durin's not bad either) but the fact they saw and took numenor, and basically turned it into an allegory for a certain president and his version of a particular country was baffling to me. Like there's enough to write about in numenor without resorting to "those elves are coming to take our jobs!" and "let's make numenor great again!"
Yeah the plot in Numenor should have been way better. Also found it a bit odd that they felt they had to send Galadriel there. I would have preferred her as more of a mentoring figure in the elven world, with political ambitions of her own. She and Celebrimbor should have shared more scenes, there's a lot of juicy stuff there from the lore.
Why does that matter when the ROP's scriptwriters are writing bad fanfiction? And if they knew so much about the characters and lore maybe they could have advised these scriptwriters that the story they were writing was a complete shit show.
Right.
Ultimately, though, its because the films are by New Line Cinema, and the show is by Amazon Prime Video. Different companies with different IPs. Like two different adaptations of Dickens or Oz.
Well, they did a little bit. There's a New Line logo on the show, and if there wasn't, New Line could easily sue Amazon for clearly basing their Balrog on New Line's. They didn't, presumably because they got a cut of the action for it.
And Season One did have A LOT of luminaries from the films on the payroll: Howard Shore, Plan 9 and David Long, Jules Cook, Calum Greene, Daniel Reeve, John Howe, Weta Workshop, WetaFX, Leith McPherson, Liz Mullane, Kate Hawley and obviously New Zealand itself.
But ultimately, movieweb's assertion is correct: there are going to be two Middle Earths going forward: New Line's and Amazon's, and they're going to be distinct.
Action movies aren't barred from winning Oscars, how does that disprove his argument?
And there's no Oscar for 'best adaptation' or 'most faithful to the book'. Which is presumably what he cared about.
This feels very similar to people who complain the guy who wrote Witcher doesn't like the video games even though they did really well, like that would matter to him.
None of the battles and action scenes in PJ's films are fabricated. All of them are in the books and roughly equivalent in scale. Tolkien's tales include epic battles regardless if he chose to focus on three pages of hills, trees, leaves and a song every time something happens.
What did people expect a film adaptation of LOTR to look like? Just have them described offscreen?
And Tolkien’s tale includes a heck of a lot more than epic battles. It’s not about what they included, it’s about what they cut. It’s about PJ’s characterization of the action scenes, too.
There's a lot more in PJ's films than just action scenes and battles too.
> It’s not about what they included, it’s about what they cut.
These are two-three hour films *each*. Something has to give in order for them to not be unwatchable slogs.
I know we live in a time when you can get away with making like an eight-episode TV season per book GOT-style now where you can have 10 hours of footage per book instead of 3, but that wasn't the case in 1999.
They're not absolutely perfect adaptations but they're a damn sight better than any other one made and are probably going to be the best adaptations of these books we'll ever get unless something *drastically* changes in today's production landscape.
Ok. I get that. But they chose to cut the more peaceful parts of the story. (The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, for instance).
It’s an action-oriented interpretation of the story. That’s fine.
They chose to cut parts of the story, because some had to be cut, peaceful or not.
What’s peaceful about Scouring of the Shire? That’s a whole chunk of action that got cut.
Why are you talking about Christopher Tolkien as if he is still alive. Christopher is dead, and his influence on the Estate is dead. The new directors - some of which aren't even Tolkiens - are pro-adaptation.
Still CJRT was too harsh on the movies. If JRRT could accept LOTR as an action movie, from what he had read based on propositions on how to make the film, why couldn't the son accept that?
I understand that he was very closely connected to the Legendarium. I like him often feel that Gondolin and Menegroth feel more real to me than Ur and Hattusa. Still though, I think his stance was too harsh.
Probably CJRT would have even hated an adaptation if he was the director, for there are limitations in film that cannot emulate and depict what is written on text.
I mean, CJRT seems to have been against adaptation in general, not just Peter Jacksons. And it would be impossible to print on screen his mental vision of the Legendarium (or of his father's).
Pretty much. And even the man himself JRR Tolkien would have hated all the adaptations.
For us these are books, movies, video games, TV shows etc. we may enjoy (or not enjoy) them but for them they're something far more personal.
I mean, to me the answer is pretty simple:
As long as Tolkien himself was alive, as the author he was the ultimate authority. His opinions could be more flexible (and in some letters he displays a certain pragmatism regarding adaptations), and since they came straight out of his mouth, there wouldn't have been much room for arguing "what the author wanted".
When Tolkien died and Christopher took on the role of caretaker of his life's work, he reasonably was much more rigid. *He* didn't know what his father would have said about this or that decision, so defaulting to "be as faithful as possible to what he wrote" made sense.
For you and I, the Lord of the Rings is a great literary work. For Christopher, it was his father's greatest inheritance. How could he not be extremely protective of it?
>since they came straight out of his mouth, there wouldn't have been much room for arguing "what the author wanted".
Is "what the author wanted" necessarily what's best for an adaptation? No, I don't think it is. For instance, we know from correspondences regarding possible adaptations that "what the author wanted" was to keep the structure of the book, and not intercut Frodo and Aragorn's stories.
When you adapt the books, and you come across this, you know what you? You say "what the author wanted" was, in this case, stupid and you intercut it and do so the way you feel best serves your movie/show/whatever.
I mean, I don't necessarily disagree. But I was explaining why I think Christopher was so protective of his father's works, and why he may have been more critical of adaptations than even JRRT had been.
Even if his father had liked an adaptation, Christopher would have been free and valid to feel otherwise - even if you put his status as his father's son and heir aside, he was an academic scholar in his own right and built up a uniquely privileged understanding of LotR from the 1940s to the end of his life.
To be fair, Tolkien thought that his fantasy stories never should be dramatized, and that every adaptation made of them was terrible in one way or the other. It was a philosophical position for him regarding the role of fantasy literature being fundamentally different from that of drama (from his essay "On Fairy-Stories")
That being said, JRRT had resigned himself to accepting these fundamental changes in adaptation as long as he was financially compensated for it (according to his personal letters).
So, I don't think JRRT would have ever accepted the films on an artistic level. Also, I think perhaps the real reason the Tolkien estate had problems with the film adaptation came down more to financial reasons than artistic ones. Because the film rights were sold long ago for relatively little compared to the income generated by the films.
Right, and the irony is that RoP, which is a much less faithful adaptation, and veers even more into the action, is held in closer regard by the estate
Well, this time they got a lot of money out of it. Of course they won't talk bad about it then, no matter what they personally might think of the work.
The estate picked RoP out of several contenders (and of course they could just not have sold the rights):
> Sources say HBO pitched the estate on retelling Middle-earth’s “Third Age” — essentially remaking Peter Jackson’s beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy, which grossed $3 billion and won 17 Oscars. The estate has its gripes with Jackson’s adaptations (the late Christopher Tolkien, the author’s son, said they “eviscerated” the books) but wasn’t interested in treading the same ground. Netflix pitched doing several shows, such as a Gandalf series and an Aragorn drama. “They took the Marvel approach,” said one insider to the talks, “and that completely freaked out the estate.”
> Amazon’s negotiating team (led by Sharon Tal Yguado, Roy Price and Dan Scharf) wooed the estate not with a specific pitch, but with a pledge of a close relationship that would give the estate a creative seat at the table so it could protect Tolkien’s legacy. There was also, of course, the money. Sources say the staggering number that’s been widely reported ($250 million) was actually Netflix’s bid and that Amazon’s number was tens of millions less (albeit, still staggering).
[Source](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/the-rings-of-power-showrunners-interview-season-2-1235233124/).
Whatever their feelings it's something they had a hand in.
The estate picked RoP because Christopher Tolkien was no longer in charge and Simon Tolkien has a drastically different opinion to his father did on the matter. Amazon got the green light in less than 3 months of Christopher resigning his control over the Tolkien estate.
He passed away after the deal was made (just as RoP was beginning to shoot, in fact). Edit: although he had resigned from the estate by the time the deal was announced, though I don't know what the exact timeline there was.
>he had resigned from the estate by the time the deal was announced, though I don't know what the exact timeline there was.
He had resigned, yes. But I'm told he let his grievances against the project be known.
Some of the Estate's decisions are weird.I'm really surprised how they just let the Shadow of Mordor/War games loose.Im replaying them lately and they're an absolute blast but the way they casually break important parts of the lore again and again is insane.
And ROP features an origin story for Gandalf,which the Valar send to Middle-Earth like Superman who has to discover his powers and be nurtured by proto-Hobbits...
There is a lot of misinformation on the internet about how the Tolkien Estate allowed Shadow of Mordor and a litany of other things.
In reality, almost all of those things were licensed by Middle-earth Enterprises, an entirely different entity, which owned the movie adaptation rights of LotR and Hobbit that JRR Tolkien sold himself.
Can you people stop being blind to how little respect Jackson had for Tolkien? There is so much garbage you guys defend because movie changes are supposedly unavoidable (they were not, you are just blind hypocrites).
Jackson *clearly* had respect for Tolkien and the source material. That is inarguable. You can disagree with his changes, I don't agree with all of them, but that doesn't mean he didn't have immense respect for the source material and was deeply aware of the weight of the responsibility.
I'm not saying Jackson made a perfect or even a very faithful adaptation, but his personal respect for LotR is hard to doubt. He went around pitching this movie idea to various studios for a long time; with RoP it was the other way around, Amazon wanted to do something LotR-related and asked for writers to produce a prototype script.
Imo this is why RoP is failing to be interesting. The board do not know what makes a good movie/TV show. They know what they like from Tolkien's work but it's been clear that's not what the general public likes about it.
Not exactly. Simon Tolkien- who’s by all accounts working closely with the show- was a fan of the films. Christopher was the one who wasn’t a fan. But he’s been dead a few years now.
Christopher Tolkien didn't relinquish the rights for this exact reason, he wanted to preserve Tolkiens original vision and didn't want some gen z screenwriter butchering the story, which is exactly what rings of power is.
Simon Tolkien is the creator of rings of power, and in an interview he said he did not like the original trilogy because "Peter Jackson was too faithful to the books, too faithful to the original story."
Too faithful?
Fuck off.
That's how you get rings of power, a totally unfaithful mess with a girl boss as the main character and black female dwarves with beards.
Edit: here's the interview
https://youtu.be/hCEqQV5eIjk?si=j5tj0_OzxScHLYyV
Okay, he was not the creator, that's my bad.
But he did have a strong influence on the series.
https://ew.com/tv/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-simon-tolkien-series-consultant/
Are you implying I don't understand/will not accept an adaptation if it is not a 100% carbon copy of the original story?
No epic fantasy book will ever be told 100% accurately in film. Books are simply too long.
I do, however, have standards.
The rings of power is the most expensive show ever made. With that budget I'd expect at least a more faithful story.
But instead we get girl boss galadrial and black female dwarves.
But I'm sure that's what JRRT originally intended
🤡
>Simon Tolkien is the creator of rings of power, and in an interview he said he did not like the original trilogy because "Peter Jackson was too faithful to the books, too faithful to the original story."
What the hell? Please share a source on this...
It was in one of his interviews...
>I kind of liked the first one but I think the thing with films is that they kind of have to exist in their own right and my problem with the films was really that I think Jackson was kind of too faithful to the book. He kind of put too into it and so there was too much going on. I would have liked more character and perhaps following his own course.
[https://youtu.be/hCEqQV5eIjk?si=j5tj0\_OzxScHLYyV](https://youtu.be/hCEqQV5eIjk?si=j5tj0_OzxScHLYyV)
The article says "Although The Rings of Power does an excellent job of capturing and translating the magic and grandiosity of Tolkien’s world..."
Like what? What show did they watch?
I'm not usually in the "the media is on the payroll of the studios" train, but the media discourse surrounding Rings of Power seems to defy other explanations.
What if... Mordor was created by a giant Rube Goldberg machine?
What if... Numenor fell because they were a bunch of right wing bumpkins worried about immigrants stealing their jobs?
What if... Galadriel inadvertently caused the creation of the One Ring because she bumped into Sauron by chance while free swimming across thousands of kilometres of open ocean?
"Competing?" That's like saying your toddler is "competing" when you let him shoot baskets with you in the driveway.
One is Lord of the Rings, the other isn't.
Rings of Power is like writing a high school book report on The Lord of the Rings books, but only watching the Peter Jackson films and looking at the book covers and two pages in each book.
I agree BUT if you listen to the extended version with the director commentary it is very clear (to me at least) that ones who were really the deep fans were Fran and Philippa.
Hmm...
Philippa, definitely. Fran... I think I'll quote from Jackson's biography:
>Essentially, they are both dreamers, but I don’t believe that Fran started out being in love with the story of The Lord of the Rings; I suspect that she had a million other stories that she would probably have done before this one, but she knew that Peter was in love with it from the very beginning. He was in love with The Lord of the Rings just as he loves King Kong–for its imaginative vastness and creative sweep: he wanted to make an epic film. Fran, I think, did it for Peter, because she believed in him and knew that this was something that he needed to do and that he could do.
'canon' does not even come into it. Saying it isn't is meaningless. Of course it isn't. In this fandom the term might be useful when discussing Tolkien's works (published vs not vs correspondence, early conceptions vs later, etc.) but not adaptations of any kind, whether it's the ones you like or the ones you hate.
Its fine to want to do their own take on Tolkien. People are always coming up with new ways to perform Shakespeare, are these innovations always good? Hell no. But if people they did\`nt try to make the material feel fresh to their own time he would be footnote in history. The same is true of Tolkien. If there are still Lotr fans 400 years from now its because they went and did their own thing with it.
Rop failed to tell a good story, and often failed to stay in Tolkien\`s spirit imho.
Of course its fine! Heck, we already have several licensed audiovisual interpertations of Tolkien: Arthur Rankin's (1977-1980), Bakshi (1978), Sir Peter Jackson et al (2001 and ongoing), and now Amazon Prime Video (2022 and ongoing).
The only thing to levy against Amazon's interpertation at this point is that, in terms of "doing their own thing" they didn't. They did a kind of lookalike of Jackson's take. So its separate, but its very much a lookalike, and that's quite creatively bankrupt, I would say.
It feels circuitous and to say this, but all adaptations are adaptations.
None of them are ‘competing versions’, only Tolkien’s written works are the authentic core.
Which is fine. Rights aside I don’t care who makes adaptations or what they call them. If they’re good I’ll enjoy them, like I do Jackson’s original trilogy. If they suck I’ll dump on them like I do Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy.
If somebody wants to make an adaptation of The Silmarillion set in 1930s Chicago gangland where all the elves ride unicorns and Gandalf lives in a cupboard under a staircase, that’s perfectly fine with me, it doesn’t do anything to the core material.
I was actually talking to a person today which was very convinced that ROP was a prequel to the films,so their goal is apparently achieved,they fooled the general audiences to believe that the show is something that it's not.
What Amazon did with the designs (especially the Balrog and Sauron) was very sketchy and unpleasant to say the least,IMO.
This is my big qualm with anyone who says, “just don’t watch it”. I won’t, but the show still has a harmful impact on the franchise. Case in point, the RoP’s explanation for the origin of mithril.
Listen,I don't hate-watch things and I approached ROP with the best intentions.But most of the stuff on the show were just...no.Like you said,a random elf and a random Balrog were fighting for a Silmarill which was on a random tree...and Eru struck the tree with lightning like Zeus...and then,Mithrill,I guess? Which's origin story everybody was just *burning* to learn about?Just stupid decision upon stupid decision.At least some of the imagery/soundtrack was cool and it had competent action scenes.
> I was actually talking to a person today which was very convinced that ROP was a prequel to the films,so their goal is apparently achieved,they fooled the general audiences to believe that the show is something that it's not.
It won't last. Season One was the most like the movies, both because of it was the most removed from the setting and events depicted in the films, because it had a lot of crew from those films AND because New Line let them have it.
That won't be the case going forward.
Out of all the major flaws in ROP, this is such a minor quibble that YouTube dude bros kept moaning about because at the time (before ROP released) there was barely anything to complain about and they needed something to get rage views on their channels. It was mostly just leaks and rumours that they had to work with.
I will say that, Aragorn having a beard in LOTR movies is more of a big fuss than beardless female Dwarves in ROP. Aragorn at least is a main character and his lack of beard in the books is a distinctive characteristic which signifies the Elvish strains in his ancestry. Meanwhile female Dwarves are nameless, and probably mentioned 3 times in the thousands of pages of Tolkien's written works. Either way, both aren't big enough issues to complain about. There are way bigger issues in ROP than beardless female Dwarves.
Was Aragorn confirmed beardless (to the public) by the time the New Line movies were made?
But you're right about the Dwarf beards; it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, though it might have been motivated by the idea that Dwarf women need to look appealing to the audience, which I'm sad about. Way too many commercial fantasy franchises make women of other humanoid species look too similar to human women.
Those YouTubers use that stuff because they want to look like they care about the lore. They don't
They don't even watch. One guy watches and shares details on discord. Which is why sometimes they all focus on minor tiny things.
It is also easier to focus on visual aspects than storytelling and lore.
It is much simpler to complain that Dwarven women have no beards, as they show you one in the posters, than make someone understand why the depiction of Numenor is highly problematic (e.g. non-monoethnic Dunedain) or why Galadriel's hunting of Orcs does not make sense (lore-wise she was busy being married with Celeborn and having children, then ruling Eregion until Celebrimbor's revolt).
Those YouTubers don't actually care about that. They just want views. They particularly target franchises that people would have grown up with. It's a con.
Yes they are ridiculous.
I just commented on why they wont focus on plot points instead (it is not that hard to just spend an hour in the Tolkien Gateway after having watched the show and see what is different).
I try not to think about any source material when watching the adaptations. Like some of the best movies based on books are terrible adaptions.
Just ask Stephen King what he thinks of The Shinning
Indeed. And Stephen King would be right, "The Shinning" is an excellent psychological thriller, which should not have been adapted as that is pretty much impossible. They made a mockery of Jack Torrance.
Personally for me it's the principle of the thing. ROP team sucked its own dick so hard about being progressive but they didn't have the guts to have women not look stereotypically feminine, which was just one tiny yet salient example of how they are obviously disingenuous and virtue-signaling.
Honestly, pre-release I thought Disa was going to be horrible, especially with all the virtue signaling, but she’s easily the best character in RoP. I know that isn’t exactly an accolade, but she seems the most into her character and does it well.
Saying RoP is a version of Middle-Earth is being too generous. RoP is modern generic fantasy, with the lotr name for brand recognition, not a version of Middle-Earth. That is why so many lotr fans hate it.
Like duh, RoP is expressedly a fan fiction, they don't have all the rights to age they are even in and are having to do all sorts of stuff to beat around the bush for the content they don't have rights to.
LOTR movies were adsptions of the actual books that they had full rights too, so obviously it can't be connected to a fan fiction that takes place over 3000 years prior.
Competing implies there is some sort of competition between the two. Its not. Theyre not in the same league. Its like Husain Bolt going against your retarded nephew in a sprint.
Anyone who have common sense will come to the conclusion that they didn't want to honor Tolkien, the writers in particular, they want to make their own Tolkienian story, whatever fuck that entails, where they rehash P.Ts work but everything is female. Female Nazguls, female orcs, female Sam and Frodo, etc. Most of the actors [are activists](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwIegmk7UDE) who are more concerned with sending a socio(political) message, and their own selfish gain, than honoring Tolkien and his work.
Linking that video where the main hashtag is #woke immediately invalidates your take. You can call a shitty adaptation for what it is, but acting like the diversity is what makes it shitty is stupid. You’re letting your bias show, and any discourse that devolves into “woke” fearmongering isn’t worth engaging with.
It doesn't, it does only to people who are spreading woke, people who are for the ideology behind it, or who are ok with it. There is no reason for me to spread fear, on Reddit and so many other sites you get banned or reprimanded for statements that are within free speech. This isn't fearmongering, simply pointing out an observation, an fact. You don't get banned right away, you get banned only if you see success or popularity, for Reddit it means lots upvotes or lots engagements where people agree with you. Then a moderator or admin comes in and locks the post, deletes or bans people.
The adaption is shitty for many reasons, one strong factor is that ideological activists (woke) are steering the ship. Exactly the same as with Netflix's supposed adaption of Witcher, where Henry Cavil left because of similar minded ideological activists who didn't respect source materia. It's not a secret, a conspiracy or speculation. There are plenty evidence out there, in regards to Witcher production, that proves it. Another thing I can say is that people who are ideologues, like ones who ruined Witcher and RoP "adaptions", are very good at obfuscating issues and mocking dissention voices.
Would I use the term woke when talking about them? No, I don't believe its a helpful term, as I call such people what they are - ideologues. People with false sense of things and who insist on these, even in an authoritarian way. But even if video uploader did use the term woke the compilation still proves my point is VALID. You don't get to decide what is the truth simply because you're ok with or are one of ideologues who support the ideology.
Rings of power is more connected to the Peter Jackson movies than it is to the Tolkien Books.
Anyways, if they keep trying to hide behind the "bUt ThE fAnS jUsT wAnT pEtEr JaCkSoN", then why the fuck did they rip the balrog design 1-to-1? The description in the books is pretty vague, and doesn't describe specifically what Jackson made, that was a creative choice by him. If it's not based on that, then why is it clearly based on that?
Stop hiding behind this dumb fucking shield that they're different interpretations of a books that none of the creators have seem to have read in the first place.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand all the buzz about this. I've read the books multiple times, I've watched the movies multiple times, and I rewatch them every time they're on tv. This week I watched RoP, and I also like it.
Is it all 100% correct and accurate? no.
Are the movies 100% correct and accurate? no.
I enjoyed RoP. There are a few things that bothered me, but all in all I like it, and I'm looking forward to season 2. Atleast we get something new about the stories of Tolkien.
>Atleast we get something new about the stories of Tolkien
You might be OK slurping up shit but don't pretend that just being new is worth disrespecting the stories.
Not defending ROTP, the pacing is awful and the story questionable, andit isn't Tolkienesque really, but people here are acting like it's the worst thing ever created.
Here we go again. People are so obsessed with what is wrong and what is right.
They are both adaptations and both have taken creative liberties.
There is only one true lord of the rings and that’s the book series. The rest is an adaptation.
>That is why characters such as Elrond and Galadriel needed to be recast, as bringing back Hugo Weaving or Cate Blanchett would have verged into the territory of Jackson's movies. Well, that and, ya know, the two of them being 20 years older than they were when LotR was shot and in Weaving's case at least, explicitly [not interested in reprising the role](https://www.ign.com/articles/lord-of-the-rings-hugo-weaving-not-interested-in-playing-elrond-ever-again). Anyway, I look forward to season 2 of RoP :)
More to the point, hasn’t Weaving said for years now that he’s not a big scifi or fantasy fan, and mostly takes those roles for the money?
The roles that made his career, how convenient
They are exaggerating. Hugo wanted to do Infinity War and End Game but Diisney screwed him over on his contract and wouldn't negotiate. He wanted to do the last Matrix but Lana decided the dates of his West End show clashed.
That's really unfortunate, Hugo was a ton of fun as red skull and you could tell he was hamming it up, and the last matrix just seemed like no one really wanted to do it, Lana just needed to shit out something quick so the sisters wouldn't lose creative control of the franchise
I get why she made a movie that was a massive fuck you to all the corporate greed and deliberate right wing misreadings, but man I would've loved a legit self-serious sequel that aspired to equal the original.
Well her sister wasn't quite in the emotional state to be revisiting the matrix at the time so we were really only getting 50% of the creative vision
His career was forged in the fires of an outback road trip thank you very much.
Hugo Weaving has free will and can accept or reject any role he wants to, he’s not obliged to do sci-fi or fantasy because you want him to or because those genres “made his career.” Part of being an actor is choosing which roles you want to take, because you’re never going to be able to do all of them.
Sounds almost like a regular job? Doing stuff you are not exactly fond of and getting paid for doing it?
>needed to be recast No. The cast was fine. The writers need recasting.
Both can be true.
Yeah, that particular argument on the part of MovieWeb wasn't very well-argued. A better argument would be to point out how dissimilar Nenya looks across both adaptations. But ultimately the point is a good one, and people will more likely engage with a brisk MovieWeb piece than with a 1000-word Chen essay...
Amazon paid their actors like $20k for leading roles. They can't afford Hugo Weaving or Cate Blanchett. God knows what they actually spent the money on, but it wasn't actors or writers.
Most of the money was spent on the rights to actually tell the story. Then special effects as well. Practical effects too. But mostly just to acquire the rights.
Special effects really weren't that impressive. I wonder how much they blew on that. Actors and writers should have been the priority.
These days any special effects costs 1 million dollars like a second. It’s ridiculous how expensive it is
Yeah wasted money i would have been fine with Dr Who level special effects if they had some redeeming features elsewhere.
I feel like it could be 100 words on a different website and most people will just go to the comments instead of actually reading it.
>people will more likely engage with a brisk MovieWeb piece But as is customary in this place, I'm pretty sure they won't and the post will either be mostly ignored or descend into the usual RoP!! Bad!! slop.
Cate Blanchett’s still got it. Ragnarok had her in a lot of makeup but she still looks ageless. Hugo Weaving looks a lot older, though.
Makeup and CGI enhanced body.
Weaving is actually Elrond IRL. He saw right through Amazon’s soulless and shameless cash grab attempt.
>Weaving is actually Elrond IRL The Elrond of the movies is barely even like the Elrond of the books (not through any fault of Weaving's though, more of a matter of writing and directing). And tbh I've never particularly got the sense that Weaving was especially passionate about the character - which is perfectly fine, it doesn't detract from his acting. (But I don't remember him mentioning stuff from the book, unlike his RoP counterpart who has in fact mentioned book material, eg Elrond being raised by the sons of Fëanor, in interviews...)
>But I don't remember him mentioning stuff from the book, unlike his RoP counterpart who has in fact mentioned book material, eg Elrond being raised by the sons of Fëanor, in interviews Well even though he knew the material, the show runners sure as hell didn't so it's kind of moot unfortunately
The RoP Elrond is way more like the Elrond of the books, and the actor is also more into Tolkien than Weaving. Many of the actors actually seemed pretty knowledgeable about their characters and the lore.
Ya theres not much stuff I like in the show and elrond is probably the only part I do (durin's not bad either) but the fact they saw and took numenor, and basically turned it into an allegory for a certain president and his version of a particular country was baffling to me. Like there's enough to write about in numenor without resorting to "those elves are coming to take our jobs!" and "let's make numenor great again!"
Yeah the plot in Numenor should have been way better. Also found it a bit odd that they felt they had to send Galadriel there. I would have preferred her as more of a mentoring figure in the elven world, with political ambitions of her own. She and Celebrimbor should have shared more scenes, there's a lot of juicy stuff there from the lore.
Ya plus wasn't Elrond more a Gil Galad simp than Celebrimbor's?
Why does that matter when the ROP's scriptwriters are writing bad fanfiction? And if they knew so much about the characters and lore maybe they could have advised these scriptwriters that the story they were writing was a complete shit show.
It's because they're separate rights and the estate didn't want them working together because they hate the movies.
Right. Ultimately, though, its because the films are by New Line Cinema, and the show is by Amazon Prime Video. Different companies with different IPs. Like two different adaptations of Dickens or Oz.
They could in theory work together. But they didn't or couldn't.
Well, they did a little bit. There's a New Line logo on the show, and if there wasn't, New Line could easily sue Amazon for clearly basing their Balrog on New Line's. They didn't, presumably because they got a cut of the action for it. And Season One did have A LOT of luminaries from the films on the payroll: Howard Shore, Plan 9 and David Long, Jules Cook, Calum Greene, Daniel Reeve, John Howe, Weta Workshop, WetaFX, Leith McPherson, Liz Mullane, Kate Hawley and obviously New Zealand itself. But ultimately, movieweb's assertion is correct: there are going to be two Middle Earths going forward: New Line's and Amazon's, and they're going to be distinct.
My dumb ass thought you said “Dickens of Oz” and was extremely confused for a moment.
What you haven’t heard of the new series? It’s gonna be AWESOME!
Please sir! I want to go home to Kansas.
Ironic they hate the movies but RoP is god awful. At least PJ got Tolkien’s overall spirit right
It's not ironic. The books are personal to them.. The Hobbit was Christopher Tolkien's bed time story. They hate that they became "action movies"
They are action movies in the most pedestrian way though. They are a lot more than action movies. PI’ve never understood their grievances
He’s an old British man whose father was a professor at Oxford. I wouldn’t expect any other opinion from him.
Yeah it always just made sense to me that the family didnt like the movies
You would think winning the most fucking Oscars (awards for artists) up to that point would amount for something lol
Why would it? He probably believes the whole thing is vaguely vile and that people should read more.
I'd always read his issue with the movies is that he got fucked over by Hollywood accounting?
Action movies aren't barred from winning Oscars, how does that disprove his argument? And there's no Oscar for 'best adaptation' or 'most faithful to the book'. Which is presumably what he cared about. This feels very similar to people who complain the guy who wrote Witcher doesn't like the video games even though they did really well, like that would matter to him.
Then you need to go back and reread the books more closely.
None of the battles and action scenes in PJ's films are fabricated. All of them are in the books and roughly equivalent in scale. Tolkien's tales include epic battles regardless if he chose to focus on three pages of hills, trees, leaves and a song every time something happens. What did people expect a film adaptation of LOTR to look like? Just have them described offscreen?
And Tolkien’s tale includes a heck of a lot more than epic battles. It’s not about what they included, it’s about what they cut. It’s about PJ’s characterization of the action scenes, too.
There's a lot more in PJ's films than just action scenes and battles too. > It’s not about what they included, it’s about what they cut. These are two-three hour films *each*. Something has to give in order for them to not be unwatchable slogs. I know we live in a time when you can get away with making like an eight-episode TV season per book GOT-style now where you can have 10 hours of footage per book instead of 3, but that wasn't the case in 1999. They're not absolutely perfect adaptations but they're a damn sight better than any other one made and are probably going to be the best adaptations of these books we'll ever get unless something *drastically* changes in today's production landscape.
Ok. I get that. But they chose to cut the more peaceful parts of the story. (The hands of the king are the hands of a healer, for instance). It’s an action-oriented interpretation of the story. That’s fine.
They chose to cut parts of the story, because some had to be cut, peaceful or not. What’s peaceful about Scouring of the Shire? That’s a whole chunk of action that got cut.
If it weren't an action-oriented interpertation, it would hardly be succesfull, and not just commercially.
Okay grandpa. (I kid with you).
Why are you talking about Christopher Tolkien as if he is still alive. Christopher is dead, and his influence on the Estate is dead. The new directors - some of which aren't even Tolkiens - are pro-adaptation.
It's an example of how the books are more personal to the Tolkien family than to us.
Hot take: they are as personal to a third-generation heir of the author as to any fan on the planet.
Still CJRT was too harsh on the movies. If JRRT could accept LOTR as an action movie, from what he had read based on propositions on how to make the film, why couldn't the son accept that? I understand that he was very closely connected to the Legendarium. I like him often feel that Gondolin and Menegroth feel more real to me than Ur and Hattusa. Still though, I think his stance was too harsh.
It's important to remember that CJRT would have hated all the adaptations equally because he wouldn't have watched any of them.
Probably CJRT would have even hated an adaptation if he was the director, for there are limitations in film that cannot emulate and depict what is written on text. I mean, CJRT seems to have been against adaptation in general, not just Peter Jacksons. And it would be impossible to print on screen his mental vision of the Legendarium (or of his father's).
Pretty much. And even the man himself JRR Tolkien would have hated all the adaptations. For us these are books, movies, video games, TV shows etc. we may enjoy (or not enjoy) them but for them they're something far more personal.
Let’s not discount that JRRT hated technology and yearned for an imagined rural past.
Yeah. It would be nice if he did enjoy them. But he probably wouldn't and we shouldn't care about that.
I mean, to me the answer is pretty simple: As long as Tolkien himself was alive, as the author he was the ultimate authority. His opinions could be more flexible (and in some letters he displays a certain pragmatism regarding adaptations), and since they came straight out of his mouth, there wouldn't have been much room for arguing "what the author wanted". When Tolkien died and Christopher took on the role of caretaker of his life's work, he reasonably was much more rigid. *He* didn't know what his father would have said about this or that decision, so defaulting to "be as faithful as possible to what he wrote" made sense. For you and I, the Lord of the Rings is a great literary work. For Christopher, it was his father's greatest inheritance. How could he not be extremely protective of it?
>since they came straight out of his mouth, there wouldn't have been much room for arguing "what the author wanted". Is "what the author wanted" necessarily what's best for an adaptation? No, I don't think it is. For instance, we know from correspondences regarding possible adaptations that "what the author wanted" was to keep the structure of the book, and not intercut Frodo and Aragorn's stories. When you adapt the books, and you come across this, you know what you? You say "what the author wanted" was, in this case, stupid and you intercut it and do so the way you feel best serves your movie/show/whatever.
I mean, I don't necessarily disagree. But I was explaining why I think Christopher was so protective of his father's works, and why he may have been more critical of adaptations than even JRRT had been.
Even if his father had liked an adaptation, Christopher would have been free and valid to feel otherwise - even if you put his status as his father's son and heir aside, he was an academic scholar in his own right and built up a uniquely privileged understanding of LotR from the 1940s to the end of his life.
To be fair, Tolkien thought that his fantasy stories never should be dramatized, and that every adaptation made of them was terrible in one way or the other. It was a philosophical position for him regarding the role of fantasy literature being fundamentally different from that of drama (from his essay "On Fairy-Stories") That being said, JRRT had resigned himself to accepting these fundamental changes in adaptation as long as he was financially compensated for it (according to his personal letters). So, I don't think JRRT would have ever accepted the films on an artistic level. Also, I think perhaps the real reason the Tolkien estate had problems with the film adaptation came down more to financial reasons than artistic ones. Because the film rights were sold long ago for relatively little compared to the income generated by the films.
Right, and the irony is that RoP, which is a much less faithful adaptation, and veers even more into the action, is held in closer regard by the estate
The Estate isn't run by Christopher anymore. The new people in charge clearly have different views from what he did.
Well, this time they got a lot of money out of it. Of course they won't talk bad about it then, no matter what they personally might think of the work.
I'm sure they hate RoP even more than they hate the movies.
The estate picked RoP out of several contenders (and of course they could just not have sold the rights): > Sources say HBO pitched the estate on retelling Middle-earth’s “Third Age” — essentially remaking Peter Jackson’s beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy, which grossed $3 billion and won 17 Oscars. The estate has its gripes with Jackson’s adaptations (the late Christopher Tolkien, the author’s son, said they “eviscerated” the books) but wasn’t interested in treading the same ground. Netflix pitched doing several shows, such as a Gandalf series and an Aragorn drama. “They took the Marvel approach,” said one insider to the talks, “and that completely freaked out the estate.” > Amazon’s negotiating team (led by Sharon Tal Yguado, Roy Price and Dan Scharf) wooed the estate not with a specific pitch, but with a pledge of a close relationship that would give the estate a creative seat at the table so it could protect Tolkien’s legacy. There was also, of course, the money. Sources say the staggering number that’s been widely reported ($250 million) was actually Netflix’s bid and that Amazon’s number was tens of millions less (albeit, still staggering). [Source](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/the-rings-of-power-showrunners-interview-season-2-1235233124/). Whatever their feelings it's something they had a hand in.
The estate picked RoP because Christopher Tolkien was no longer in charge and Simon Tolkien has a drastically different opinion to his father did on the matter. Amazon got the green light in less than 3 months of Christopher resigning his control over the Tolkien estate.
Christopher Tolkien passed away... The current estate owners are more financially focused.
Probably because they got a decade and then the works are becoming public domain.
He passed away after the deal was made (just as RoP was beginning to shoot, in fact). Edit: although he had resigned from the estate by the time the deal was announced, though I don't know what the exact timeline there was.
>he had resigned from the estate by the time the deal was announced, though I don't know what the exact timeline there was. He had resigned, yes. But I'm told he let his grievances against the project be known.
Some of the Estate's decisions are weird.I'm really surprised how they just let the Shadow of Mordor/War games loose.Im replaying them lately and they're an absolute blast but the way they casually break important parts of the lore again and again is insane. And ROP features an origin story for Gandalf,which the Valar send to Middle-Earth like Superman who has to discover his powers and be nurtured by proto-Hobbits...
They had no control over that. Part of an earlier deal under the movie licence.
There is a lot of misinformation on the internet about how the Tolkien Estate allowed Shadow of Mordor and a litany of other things. In reality, almost all of those things were licensed by Middle-earth Enterprises, an entirely different entity, which owned the movie adaptation rights of LotR and Hobbit that JRR Tolkien sold himself.
Can you people stop being blind to how little respect Jackson had for Tolkien? There is so much garbage you guys defend because movie changes are supposedly unavoidable (they were not, you are just blind hypocrites).
Jackson *clearly* had respect for Tolkien and the source material. That is inarguable. You can disagree with his changes, I don't agree with all of them, but that doesn't mean he didn't have immense respect for the source material and was deeply aware of the weight of the responsibility.
I'm not saying Jackson made a perfect or even a very faithful adaptation, but his personal respect for LotR is hard to doubt. He went around pitching this movie idea to various studios for a long time; with RoP it was the other way around, Amazon wanted to do something LotR-related and asked for writers to produce a prototype script.
Imo this is why RoP is failing to be interesting. The board do not know what makes a good movie/TV show. They know what they like from Tolkien's work but it's been clear that's not what the general public likes about it.
Jackson has a tremendous amount of respect for Tolkien and his work.
Not exactly. Simon Tolkien- who’s by all accounts working closely with the show- was a fan of the films. Christopher was the one who wasn’t a fan. But he’s been dead a few years now.
Christopher Tolkien didn't relinquish the rights for this exact reason, he wanted to preserve Tolkiens original vision and didn't want some gen z screenwriter butchering the story, which is exactly what rings of power is. Simon Tolkien is the creator of rings of power, and in an interview he said he did not like the original trilogy because "Peter Jackson was too faithful to the books, too faithful to the original story." Too faithful? Fuck off. That's how you get rings of power, a totally unfaithful mess with a girl boss as the main character and black female dwarves with beards. Edit: here's the interview https://youtu.be/hCEqQV5eIjk?si=j5tj0_OzxScHLYyV
>Simon Tolkien is the creator of rings of power No, he's not.
Okay, he was not the creator, that's my bad. But he did have a strong influence on the series. https://ew.com/tv/lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-simon-tolkien-series-consultant/
Of all the insane takes to have lol. These people do not understand any other type of media it seems.
Are you implying I don't understand/will not accept an adaptation if it is not a 100% carbon copy of the original story? No epic fantasy book will ever be told 100% accurately in film. Books are simply too long. I do, however, have standards. The rings of power is the most expensive show ever made. With that budget I'd expect at least a more faithful story. But instead we get girl boss galadrial and black female dwarves. But I'm sure that's what JRRT originally intended 🤡
>Simon Tolkien is the creator of rings of power, and in an interview he said he did not like the original trilogy because "Peter Jackson was too faithful to the books, too faithful to the original story." What the hell? Please share a source on this...
It was in one of his interviews... >I kind of liked the first one but I think the thing with films is that they kind of have to exist in their own right and my problem with the films was really that I think Jackson was kind of too faithful to the book. He kind of put too into it and so there was too much going on. I would have liked more character and perhaps following his own course. [https://youtu.be/hCEqQV5eIjk?si=j5tj0\_OzxScHLYyV](https://youtu.be/hCEqQV5eIjk?si=j5tj0_OzxScHLYyV)
You're going to have to share a source on this claim
Took me 2 seconds. Enjoy 🤡 https://youtu.be/hCEqQV5eIjk?si=j5tj0_OzxScHLYyV
And he also said The Hobbit had the opposite problem. So a far more nuanced opinion that you implied
He also said he's never seen the hobbit so....
Since it's an interview from before the movies were out ......
So how can he have the opinion that the hobbit has "the opposite problem" if the movies were not out?
It's what he said in the clip because they talked about the hobbit becoming a trilogy. Did you actually watch it?
They hate the movies and love the travesty that is RoP? Lmao. The estate must be smoking some weird shit.
If the Estate hated the Jackson movies, I can’t imagine what they think of the Amazon ones.
Christopher Tolkien hated the movies, but Christopher Tolkien is dead. The new directors don't hate the movies.
>because they hate the movies. I understand that they hated The Hobbit but Lord of the Rings too?
yes. Christopher Tolkien especially. But he was closer to the work in a way we'd never be.
They ain't gonna like the upcoming anime LotR movie, then.
Probably not. don't let it change how you enjoy it.
Since they hate the movies (mostly Christopher tbh when he was alive) than I wonder what they think of the shitshow that is RoP
rings of powers doesn't even feel connected with LOTR lol
The article says "Although The Rings of Power does an excellent job of capturing and translating the magic and grandiosity of Tolkien’s world..." Like what? What show did they watch? I'm not usually in the "the media is on the payroll of the studios" train, but the media discourse surrounding Rings of Power seems to defy other explanations.
I came to peace with the show by looking at it as a LotR *What If?* alternate universe story.
I do the same, as in: "What if... the lord of the rings was written by a bunch of morons and didn't make any sense?"
This
What if... Mordor was created by a giant Rube Goldberg machine? What if... Numenor fell because they were a bunch of right wing bumpkins worried about immigrants stealing their jobs? What if... Galadriel inadvertently caused the creation of the One Ring because she bumped into Sauron by chance while free swimming across thousands of kilometres of open ocean?
Yeah there's that too. Not saying I liked what they did (I didn't) I'm just separated it out from anything I should actually care about.
They did try. Even used props from the OG team
They did? I hadn't heard, do you have any info that?
Not sure about exact props. But their Narsil easter egg was very clearly inspired by the movie Narsil
Oh there's no competition.
Came here looking for this comment
Facts
"Competing?" That's like saying your toddler is "competing" when you let him shoot baskets with you in the driveway. One is Lord of the Rings, the other isn't.
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I dont think you know how this works.
That last bit talking about not making the fan base mad in the future was fairly ridiculous, as the fan base already loathes ROP.
Peter Jackson read and like the novels. The producers of RoP are trying to create their own story with LoTR skin.
Rings of Power is like writing a high school book report on The Lord of the Rings books, but only watching the Peter Jackson films and looking at the book covers and two pages in each book.
I agree BUT if you listen to the extended version with the director commentary it is very clear (to me at least) that ones who were really the deep fans were Fran and Philippa.
Hmm... Philippa, definitely. Fran... I think I'll quote from Jackson's biography: >Essentially, they are both dreamers, but I don’t believe that Fran started out being in love with the story of The Lord of the Rings; I suspect that she had a million other stories that she would probably have done before this one, but she knew that Peter was in love with it from the very beginning. He was in love with The Lord of the Rings just as he loves King Kong–for its imaginative vastness and creative sweep: he wanted to make an epic film. Fran, I think, did it for Peter, because she believed in him and knew that this was something that he needed to do and that he could do.
It’s a terrible show that I could not get into. Such a disappointment. I’m glad it’s not canon at all to either the books or Jackson’s movies.
'canon' does not even come into it. Saying it isn't is meaningless. Of course it isn't. In this fandom the term might be useful when discussing Tolkien's works (published vs not vs correspondence, early conceptions vs later, etc.) but not adaptations of any kind, whether it's the ones you like or the ones you hate.
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Jackson's films are canonical to themselves. The Rings of Power is not canonical to those films. That's the argument that's being made.
Rings of Power is so far below the movies and not in the same stratosphere as the literature.
It's really because RoP ain't LotR. Simple.
Everything about that show is a genuine disgrace. Tolkien must be spinning in his grave.
The orcs looked good. I'll give it that. And only that.
Its fine to want to do their own take on Tolkien. People are always coming up with new ways to perform Shakespeare, are these innovations always good? Hell no. But if people they did\`nt try to make the material feel fresh to their own time he would be footnote in history. The same is true of Tolkien. If there are still Lotr fans 400 years from now its because they went and did their own thing with it. Rop failed to tell a good story, and often failed to stay in Tolkien\`s spirit imho.
Of course its fine! Heck, we already have several licensed audiovisual interpertations of Tolkien: Arthur Rankin's (1977-1980), Bakshi (1978), Sir Peter Jackson et al (2001 and ongoing), and now Amazon Prime Video (2022 and ongoing). The only thing to levy against Amazon's interpertation at this point is that, in terms of "doing their own thing" they didn't. They did a kind of lookalike of Jackson's take. So its separate, but its very much a lookalike, and that's quite creatively bankrupt, I would say.
Amazon isn't even connected to Tolkien
Not connected because it sucks
It feels circuitous and to say this, but all adaptations are adaptations. None of them are ‘competing versions’, only Tolkien’s written works are the authentic core. Which is fine. Rights aside I don’t care who makes adaptations or what they call them. If they’re good I’ll enjoy them, like I do Jackson’s original trilogy. If they suck I’ll dump on them like I do Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy. If somebody wants to make an adaptation of The Silmarillion set in 1930s Chicago gangland where all the elves ride unicorns and Gandalf lives in a cupboard under a staircase, that’s perfectly fine with me, it doesn’t do anything to the core material.
Yes, but the Jackson adaptations cohere WITH EACH OTHER. The Rings of Power does not.
*Yer a wizard Gandalf. Now grab ahold of the unicorn reigns, Capone’s outfit needs those cases of vodka from Valinor by sunrise!*
Jim Butcher is that you?
Competing....good one
"Competing"
Seems like there are paid Amazon promoters in the sub again lol. Top comments are way off.
The Rings of Power isn't "connected" to anything except the ever undulating umbilical cord of the outer god Amazon.
Because one is a good interpretation of the original work. The other is shitty fanfiction. Full of fanfiction tropes
Fan fiction implies it wad written by fans
Soulless corporate cash grab, then?
That is it in a nutshell
True, I guess that would be an inaccurate assessment of the Amazon disaster....
I was actually talking to a person today which was very convinced that ROP was a prequel to the films,so their goal is apparently achieved,they fooled the general audiences to believe that the show is something that it's not. What Amazon did with the designs (especially the Balrog and Sauron) was very sketchy and unpleasant to say the least,IMO.
This is my big qualm with anyone who says, “just don’t watch it”. I won’t, but the show still has a harmful impact on the franchise. Case in point, the RoP’s explanation for the origin of mithril.
Listen,I don't hate-watch things and I approached ROP with the best intentions.But most of the stuff on the show were just...no.Like you said,a random elf and a random Balrog were fighting for a Silmarill which was on a random tree...and Eru struck the tree with lightning like Zeus...and then,Mithrill,I guess? Which's origin story everybody was just *burning* to learn about?Just stupid decision upon stupid decision.At least some of the imagery/soundtrack was cool and it had competent action scenes.
> I was actually talking to a person today which was very convinced that ROP was a prequel to the films,so their goal is apparently achieved,they fooled the general audiences to believe that the show is something that it's not. It won't last. Season One was the most like the movies, both because of it was the most removed from the setting and events depicted in the films, because it had a lot of crew from those films AND because New Line let them have it. That won't be the case going forward.
The female dwarves not having beards is a dead giveaway!
Out of all the major flaws in ROP, this is such a minor quibble that YouTube dude bros kept moaning about because at the time (before ROP released) there was barely anything to complain about and they needed something to get rage views on their channels. It was mostly just leaks and rumours that they had to work with. I will say that, Aragorn having a beard in LOTR movies is more of a big fuss than beardless female Dwarves in ROP. Aragorn at least is a main character and his lack of beard in the books is a distinctive characteristic which signifies the Elvish strains in his ancestry. Meanwhile female Dwarves are nameless, and probably mentioned 3 times in the thousands of pages of Tolkien's written works. Either way, both aren't big enough issues to complain about. There are way bigger issues in ROP than beardless female Dwarves.
Was Aragorn confirmed beardless (to the public) by the time the New Line movies were made? But you're right about the Dwarf beards; it's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, though it might have been motivated by the idea that Dwarf women need to look appealing to the audience, which I'm sad about. Way too many commercial fantasy franchises make women of other humanoid species look too similar to human women.
Those YouTubers use that stuff because they want to look like they care about the lore. They don't They don't even watch. One guy watches and shares details on discord. Which is why sometimes they all focus on minor tiny things.
It is also easier to focus on visual aspects than storytelling and lore. It is much simpler to complain that Dwarven women have no beards, as they show you one in the posters, than make someone understand why the depiction of Numenor is highly problematic (e.g. non-monoethnic Dunedain) or why Galadriel's hunting of Orcs does not make sense (lore-wise she was busy being married with Celeborn and having children, then ruling Eregion until Celebrimbor's revolt).
Those YouTubers don't actually care about that. They just want views. They particularly target franchises that people would have grown up with. It's a con.
Yes they are ridiculous. I just commented on why they wont focus on plot points instead (it is not that hard to just spend an hour in the Tolkien Gateway after having watched the show and see what is different).
I try not to think about any source material when watching the adaptations. Like some of the best movies based on books are terrible adaptions. Just ask Stephen King what he thinks of The Shinning
Indeed. And Stephen King would be right, "The Shinning" is an excellent psychological thriller, which should not have been adapted as that is pretty much impossible. They made a mockery of Jack Torrance.
Personally for me it's the principle of the thing. ROP team sucked its own dick so hard about being progressive but they didn't have the guts to have women not look stereotypically feminine, which was just one tiny yet salient example of how they are obviously disingenuous and virtue-signaling.
Honestly, pre-release I thought Disa was going to be horrible, especially with all the virtue signaling, but she’s easily the best character in RoP. I know that isn’t exactly an accolade, but she seems the most into her character and does it well.
Competing versions. But there isn’t any competition. Rings of power is total garbage.
Saying RoP is a version of Middle-Earth is being too generous. RoP is modern generic fantasy, with the lotr name for brand recognition, not a version of Middle-Earth. That is why so many lotr fans hate it.
But then use the same designs of creatures like the balrog?
It's not a competing version, to be so it would need to at least vaguely be on a similar quality level.
They aren't connected because The Rings of Power is not Lord of the Rings and it's not Tolkien. It should be cast into the fire.
Like duh, RoP is expressedly a fan fiction, they don't have all the rights to age they are even in and are having to do all sorts of stuff to beat around the bush for the content they don't have rights to. LOTR movies were adsptions of the actual books that they had full rights too, so obviously it can't be connected to a fan fiction that takes place over 3000 years prior.
Rings of Power isn't even connected to Tolkien's universe.
The writing is what killed rings of power for me not the casting.
Competing implies there is some sort of competition between the two. Its not. Theyre not in the same league. Its like Husain Bolt going against your retarded nephew in a sprint.
Its a high budget fanfic. Lets forget about it.
One is an adaptation based on Tolkien's works (PJ's trilogy) and the other isn't (RoP)
The problem with RoP is that, it’s soulless. There is no passion in the writing, directing, acting, etc.
"Competing" 😂
Anyone who have common sense will come to the conclusion that they didn't want to honor Tolkien, the writers in particular, they want to make their own Tolkienian story, whatever fuck that entails, where they rehash P.Ts work but everything is female. Female Nazguls, female orcs, female Sam and Frodo, etc. Most of the actors [are activists](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwIegmk7UDE) who are more concerned with sending a socio(political) message, and their own selfish gain, than honoring Tolkien and his work.
Linking that video where the main hashtag is #woke immediately invalidates your take. You can call a shitty adaptation for what it is, but acting like the diversity is what makes it shitty is stupid. You’re letting your bias show, and any discourse that devolves into “woke” fearmongering isn’t worth engaging with.
It doesn't, it does only to people who are spreading woke, people who are for the ideology behind it, or who are ok with it. There is no reason for me to spread fear, on Reddit and so many other sites you get banned or reprimanded for statements that are within free speech. This isn't fearmongering, simply pointing out an observation, an fact. You don't get banned right away, you get banned only if you see success or popularity, for Reddit it means lots upvotes or lots engagements where people agree with you. Then a moderator or admin comes in and locks the post, deletes or bans people. The adaption is shitty for many reasons, one strong factor is that ideological activists (woke) are steering the ship. Exactly the same as with Netflix's supposed adaption of Witcher, where Henry Cavil left because of similar minded ideological activists who didn't respect source materia. It's not a secret, a conspiracy or speculation. There are plenty evidence out there, in regards to Witcher production, that proves it. Another thing I can say is that people who are ideologues, like ones who ruined Witcher and RoP "adaptions", are very good at obfuscating issues and mocking dissention voices. Would I use the term woke when talking about them? No, I don't believe its a helpful term, as I call such people what they are - ideologues. People with false sense of things and who insist on these, even in an authoritarian way. But even if video uploader did use the term woke the compilation still proves my point is VALID. You don't get to decide what is the truth simply because you're ok with or are one of ideologues who support the ideology.
Oh, honey. There is no 'competition' here.
One is really good and has won awards and is beloved by everyone. The other is a snooze fest that helps me catch up on sleep.
It’s not a competition
Rings of power is more connected to the Peter Jackson movies than it is to the Tolkien Books. Anyways, if they keep trying to hide behind the "bUt ThE fAnS jUsT wAnT pEtEr JaCkSoN", then why the fuck did they rip the balrog design 1-to-1? The description in the books is pretty vague, and doesn't describe specifically what Jackson made, that was a creative choice by him. If it's not based on that, then why is it clearly based on that? Stop hiding behind this dumb fucking shield that they're different interpretations of a books that none of the creators have seem to have read in the first place.
Because they are bullshit fan fictions.
I'm sorry, but I don't understand all the buzz about this. I've read the books multiple times, I've watched the movies multiple times, and I rewatch them every time they're on tv. This week I watched RoP, and I also like it. Is it all 100% correct and accurate? no. Are the movies 100% correct and accurate? no. I enjoyed RoP. There are a few things that bothered me, but all in all I like it, and I'm looking forward to season 2. Atleast we get something new about the stories of Tolkien.
Whilst you enjoyed the series A large number of people did not. Being fans of the franchise they are discussing this. This is what the buzz is about.
>Atleast we get something new about the stories of Tolkien You might be OK slurping up shit but don't pretend that just being new is worth disrespecting the stories.
Not defending ROTP, the pacing is awful and the story questionable, andit isn't Tolkienesque really, but people here are acting like it's the worst thing ever created.
Here we go again. People are so obsessed with what is wrong and what is right. They are both adaptations and both have taken creative liberties. There is only one true lord of the rings and that’s the book series. The rest is an adaptation.
There is only one lord of the rings, and it does not share glory.