The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Amazon Prime)

Why HBO didn't pick up Lord of the Rings.

Apparently the HBO statement went:

Which doesn't really make sense due both Game of Thrones and Westworld not being their intellectual property but ok.

edited 3rd Dec '17 3:16:18 PM by Gaon

They're the only people to make a screen adaptation of Game of Thrones. The Lords of the Rings tv series is always going to draw comparisons to the films.

edited 3rd Dec '17 3:28:15 PM by Hackett13

Ian Mckellen says he's entirely on-board with playing Gandalf again in the Amazon LOTR show

In a series of tweets, Amazon shows interactive map of Middle-Earth which shows some intriguing information.

Most obviously, the map shows what's better-known as "Minas Morgul" as Minas Ithil. That's how it used to be called before Sauron took hold of it, but that takeover happened centuries before Aragorn was born, meaning (if the map is to taken at face value), this show is actually not about a young Aragorn but must be set somewhere early in the Third Age.

From what I gathered, the map info goes thus:

• The map shows Minas Ithil still standing. Minas Ithil became Minas Morgul in the year 2002 of the Third Age, so it must be set at least on 2002 or beforehand.

• It also shows Barad-Dur. Barad-Dur was destroyed during the War of the Last Alliance (in the year 3441 of the Second Age) and was rebuilt circa 2951 of the Third Age.

Those two facts combine mean the show cannot be set in the Third Age at all (there is no period where both Minas Ithil is called Minas Ithil and Barad-Dur also stands within the Third Age).

And the twitter account of Amazon LOTR says "Welcome to the Second Age".

All of these facts taken together mean that the most likely setting for the show is not, as previously thought, either a young Aragorn series (late Third Age), a Angmar War series (early Third Age) or even a Fall of Númenor series (the map shows Tolfalas as a tiny island, which wasn't a tiny island until after the Fall of Númenor).

From all those context clues, one can see that the most likely setting for the show is, in fact, The War of the Last Alliance.

Looks like I was actually correct on my assumption that the War of the Last Alliance was the safest bet for a prequel (since mainstream audiences know it from the aforelinked opening scene of Fellowship).

Get ready to meet Gil-Galad, Círdan, Celebrimbor, Isildur, Elendil, and probably Durin III-IV, kiddos.

Damn. That's actually a pretty good place to set the series, as people know it from the very beginning of the first film, but they also won't be stepping on the toes of the trilogy, since that beginning only lasts, what, five minutes?

Although I wonder if we're also going to see the Fall of Numenor, too.

What I want is a show that goes through the entire Legendarium in chronological order.

I'd also like that, but I'm happy with this. It's a good setting to start with, and they can go back or forwards later.

Oooooh the possibilities... I can almost imagine the Ainulindale...

Yeah, the War of the Last Alliance promises the same sort of scale as LOTR along with allowing us to get a bunch of characters that are Elves, Men, and maybe Dwarves too.

I've heard the theory that there were heroic orcs as well (since supposedly "every race except the elves was divided") but I'm not sure if there's any support for that besides the one line.

Dwarves will probably show up since they receive rings of power as well. The opening moves of the Sauron conflict that basically encapsulates the War of the Last Alliance involves Sauron sending troops to Eregion due the close relationship of the Khazad-Dûm and the Elves (hence the Doors of Durin, the one "you speak friend and enter" In Elvish, as it was built by a Dwarf and an Elf). After Eregion fell, Durin III shut the Doors of Durin and sealed off Khazad-Dûm from the outside world to avoid Sauron attacking their kingdom.

But despite this, it still stated that a small expeditionary force of Durin (III or IV, it's unclear) from Moria/Khazad-Dûm still fought in the war proper in the side of the Last Alliance, and a handful of Dwarves "from other clans" fought for Sauron. I imagine they'd just make King Durin III the Dwarven King of the Show (which would make sense, since he's the one who receives a ring of power).

There were multiple dwarven kingdoms, though, even beyond those that received Rings.

I doubt they're really focusing on any Dwarven Clan that isn't Durin's Folk. Durin's Folk is the only one Tolkien really focused on, at any rate. The only truly relevant characters not from Durin's Folk are King Azaghál of the Broadbeams (owner of the best Last Stand in the Silmarillion), Naugladûr (the guy who fights Beren 1v1 and nearly kills him) and Mîm (one of the most prominent Tragic Villain figures in the Silmarillion) and they're all from the First Age (and the latter two have very vague affiliations, just presumably not Durin's Folk), not the Second.

You'd basically need to wrangle six other Dwarven clans from scratch, and that's a bold proposition.

I can see them creating some Evil Counterpart for King Durin III/IV with the Dwarves who fight for Sauron, but that's about it.

The map also shows Ost-in-Edhil, so it’s possible we’re going back all the way to the forging of the Rings of Power (followed by later seasons covering the Downfall of Numenor and the War of the Last Alliance).

Which would be fantastic.

I figure the forging of the ring will be there one way or another, even if it is through extended flashbacks.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom director, J.A. Bayona to direct 2 episodes of series.

At first I panicked, but then I actually remembered he is also the director of The Orphanage, The Impossible and A Monster Calls. The fist and last of which are great films, so I'm more willing to say Fallen Kingdom was just a mistep outside of his stomping field of human drama/thriller.

while Fallen Kingdom wasn't a great movie overall, the problems seemed to lie more with the script (which Bayona had nothing to do with), than the directing, which was pretty good.

Yeah, the script was...eh.

"I'm going to release dinosaurs into the world because they're like me!"

Okay, hope you're ready for the environmental consequences of releasing a large group of predators into the world who don't know to stay away from populated areas!

I don't think a 9 year old thinks that far ahead. Which is probably why the kid was the one to do it. The adults were getting ready to let the dinosaurs die, as much as they hated to do so.

Story goes the Tolkien Estate has explicitly forbidden Amazon from adapting the Third Age.

Well, while there are some events in the Third Age I'd like to see eventually (namely the Angmar War) I can't say this bothers me. It's good that they're focusing on the other ages.

Yeah. They could do the War of the Last Alliance.

I also imagine in the aftermath of Game of Thrones ending that the Tolkien Estate is hedging their bets against the possibility that Amazon will pull a D&D and fuck up the source material.

Edited by theLibrarian on Aug 10th 2019 at 3:15:07 AM

I'm seeing reports that they're forbidden from contradicting Tolkien's lore. I'm honestly a bit curious how that works considering Tolkien contradicts himself multiple times over the years.

I mean, why start now, given that they blatantly did so several times before (Aragorn already being famous by the end of the third Hobbit movie, on top off my head) ?

This project is entirely unconnected to the Jackson movies though. I imagine the estate is keeping Amazon on a tighter leash.