Lord of the Rings on Prime

[TesalionLortus]

we also have to remember what this series is based on, so a lot of new with old stuff will be added and changed, Its based on Tolkien's writings rather then a full novel as there is no real full Second Age story, its all over the place.

I don't mind creativity and new stuff. I just dislike un-creativity, quota to be filled and tokenization-worldbuilding which - so far - seems to be 90% of what we've seen so far. Like all of the 'diversity' stuff (which I have my doubts will be justified in logical ways, but we shall see), forcing hobbits into this, wizard dude from meteor, a "quest" "mission" across Middle-earth led by Xena Princess Galadriel just because (they're all so disturbingly wet about that Tolkien quote about Amazons yet conveniently ignore other ones), seemingly irrelevant unneeded Halbrand just to have a "Rohan" nod and "romance" thingy with Galadriel maybe, healer from a random village romancing a black elf with a child that has a weird sword artifact but what for in the story about rings who can tell, Adar being villain here instead of Sauron/Eastern Man under his service/anything else that would help with a bit more nuanced context of Sauron's domain in the East, if some casting leaks are to be believed yet another original character described as "Loki on the run who would sell their own kind to save his skin" all of which sounds to me like there will be lots of vagabonds... so clearly not enough focus and substance where it matters to this grand story about the forging, Eregion war, Numenorian colonization and Fall. There is this weird argument going around that they need to add so many characters because otherwise it would be just lord elfs, court Numenorians, dwarven royalty, and maybe others but prominent figures in general, and like that's something 'bad' but... but... if they don't like it they should have picked a different Tolkien story or even better redo LOTR? Because that's like the entire point of that Second Age story they chose - it IS about prominent figures and lords and that's where the focus should be otherwise it'll quickly turn into a cheapened imitation. Like maybe Sauron gives those rings to some randos from villages and strong adventurers, just because they are characters in this, and not based on his military strategy and geopolitics of Middle-earth lol

With the more logical and sensible approaches/storylines to explore apparently flashed down the gutter. To name just a few, Galadriel and Celeborn's relationship won't be explored (she will be single here undoubtedly), we'll hardly see nuanced, interesting, politically manipulated situation of the East stuck between Sauron/Numenorian colonization (since Sauron's organized Eastern dominion isn't even established here yet just some rando fallen elf going berserk with orcs looking for the talisman of power like it's some kind of mmo), Sauron is reduced to 'mystery' villain so hardly acting as such, perhaps even with memory loss and parading as 'a wizard' because they gotta have a wizard, HENCE... keeping in mind it's compressed timeline we'll most likely NOT see the military campaign finale with Ar-Pharazôn armies crushing Sauron's over dominion of Middle-earth in all its glory, the one and single time in Middle-earth when Sauron wielded (he did turn it into a victory later in Numenor court, kind of, but this was still a huge military loss and humiliation, the kind of which he didn't really suffer in Eregion campaign). Also, overall, without Ruler Sauron in the picture from the start, the show basically says no to any sort of interestingly handled political aspect of the story - will probably be a bunch of evil orcs pitted against better organized elfs and men in cool armors like movies even though a long tv series could have done it better, with more nuance and more POVs and more factions involved. Sauron had ambitions to rule over things and be worshiped too, not just let the orcs burn everything to the ground.

[Radhruin_EU]

I don't mind creativity and new stuff. I just dislike un-creativity, quota to be filled and tokenization-worldbuilding which - so far - seems to be 90% of what we've seen so far. Like all of the 'diversity' stuff (which I have my doubts will be justified in logical ways, but we shall see), forcing hobbits into this, wizard dude from meteor, a "quest" "mission" across Middle-earth led by Xena Princess Galadriel just because (they're all so disturbingly wet about that Tolkien quote about Amazons yet conveniently ignore other ones), seemingly irrelevant unneeded Halbrand just to have a "Rohan" nod and "romance" thingy with Galadriel maybe, healer from a random village romancing a black elf with a child that has a weird sword artifact but what for in the story about rings who can tell, Adar being villain here instead of Sauron/Eastern Man under his service/anything else that would help with a bit more nuanced context of Sauron's domain in the East, if some casting leaks are to be believed yet another original character described as "Loki on the run who would sell their own kind to save his skin" all of which sounds to me like there will be lots of vagabonds... so clearly not enough focus and substance where it matters to this grand story about the forging, Eregion war, Numenorian colonization and Fall. There is this weird argument going around that they need to add so many characters because otherwise it would be just lord elfs, court Numenorians, dwarven royalty, and maybe others but prominent figures in general, and like that's something 'bad' but... but... if they don't like it they should have picked a different Tolkien story or even better redo LOTR? Because that's like the entire point of that Second Age story they chose - it IS about prominent figures and lords and that's where the focus should be otherwise it'll quickly turn into a cheapened imitation. Like maybe Sauron gives those rings to some randos from villages and strong adventurers, just because they are characters in this, and not based on his military strategy and geopolitics of Middle-earth lol

Speaking of hobbits, something that sticks out a mile is that it appears hobbit names will be Shire-style (with surnames and everything) millennia before there's a Shire. That's like expecting ancient Germanic tribespeople to have modern English names. It's a really low-effort callback. As if the 'Harfoot' name would have been the same all that far back, or anything else for that matter. You can bet that if Tolkien had been doing something like that he'd have put proper thought into it and had 'archaic' hobbit names instead. (Just look at how Smeagol, as a name, sounds a bit different from the sort of names the Shire-hobbits have - and that only went back a matter of centuries, never mind thousands of years).

On a general note they don't seem to be even trying to get the linguistic stuff right - thus far the names of some original characters (e.g. Bronwyn, Theo, Disa, Arondir, Trevyn, the 'Brandyfoot' hobbit surname) are unaccountably bad and they seem to be just phoning it in, which puts the lie to talk about attention to detail. When LOTRO can do a proper job there, what's Amazon's excuse?

I think the thing with Sauron may reflect how they're compressing the whole of the Second Age into next to no time - when Sauron first reappeared he had to re-establish a power-base and start drawing Orcs and Trolls to him again and start to exert influence over the Easterlings etc. with the usual tricksy offers of power and wealth. It was only at that point (during the first millennium of the age, well before the scheme with the Rings kicked off) that any rival to him could have existed even theoretically. However it could be a rather Sauron thing to do to fake weakness and let someone else appear to be the real bad guy as a distraction while he gets his real scheme going. Something to both hold people's attention and make the gift of Ring-lore all the more compelling. And Sauron appearing as something like a Wizard would actually be quite a neat idea - I always thought that the whole Annatar thing (openly appearing as a Maia, in a supremely tall, regal and beautiful form) was a bit too on the nose, and a bait-and-switch with a seemingly kindly, modest figure turning out to be you-know-who in disguise might work better. He could perhaps introduce himself to the Dwarves first, win their confidence and then use their friendship with the Gwaith-i-Mirdain to inveigle himself into Celebrimbor's company.

All that said I'm still profoundly unconvinced by the idea of having all the events of the Second Age mashed together into a short time-span. With so much big stuff to happen, it needs room to breathe (like the moral collapse of the Numenoreans was a slow-motion catastrophe happening over the course of generations, not some sort of all-at-once "that's it, we're evil now" thing). It'd also be nice if we could get to see something that doesn't immediately give pause, e.g. 'Theo' (what's with that name?) and that excessively high-fantasy evil-looking black sword-hilt, as you mentioned. They lack all subtlety - if you want to make a sword look evil, making it black is pretty much all you need to do (you don't even need sinister runes on it). You certainly don't need it to look like some comic-book version of Stormbringer to make the point.

With the more logical and sensible approaches/storylines to explore apparently flashed down the gutter. To name just a few, Galadriel and Celeborn's relationship won't be explored (she will be single here undoubtedly)

By implication, yes - this appears to take after the First Age's feisty 'Amazonian' Galadriel (although even then she didn't go around in armour fighting Orcs!), not the Lady of an elvish realm - with a husband and young daughter - that she should be in the Second Age. By rights she should already be much like how we see her in LOTR, just not so wise and powerful and with fewer sorrows. As I've said before (and others have observed), they don't seem to know what to do with a strong female character other than an angry, combative stereotype.

[TesalionLortus]

Speaking of hobbits, something that sticks out a mile is that it appears hobbit names will be Shire-style (with surnames and everything) millennia before there's a Shire.

On a general note they don't seem to be even trying to get the linguistic stuff right - thus far the names of some original characters (e.g. Bronwyn, Theo, Disa, Arondir, Trevyn, the 'Brandyfoot' hobbit surname) are unaccountably bad and they seem to be just phoning it in, which puts the lie to talk about attention to detail. When LOTRO can do a proper job there, what's Amazon's excuse?

Oh yeah, I noticed that too! Seems pretty off and completely needless, but you gotta have hobbits and you gotta connect it to the likes of Frodo and more prominent well-known families too, otherwise it's not "tokenized" enough. At which point it begs to question why even bother to have a story in Second Age to begin with. The answer of course is they gotta have a "franchise" to milk rather than create literally anything of their own but even then it's not enough to have a well-recognized franchise, they gotta tokenize and modernize it to the point where it's no longer a nuanced, quality epic it could have been but more of a conglomeration of conflicting concepts and visions (or utter nonsense) in constant battle with each others. Maybe some of that stuff will be interesting and even joy-enticing to have it portrayed on screen at all BUT... the entire narrative and premise, with all nooks and crannies of it contributing to the perfect whole and original epic, told coherently and with logic underneath it all - clearly not.

And Sauron appearing as something like a Wizard would actually be quite a neat idea - I always thought that the whole Annatar thing (openly appearing as a Maia, in a supremely tall, regal and beautiful form) was a bit too on the nose, and a bait-and-switch with a seemingly kindly, modest figure turning out to be you-know-who in disguise might work better.

I do get the appeal and maybe it'll work, but still - I guess they would be able to achieve the same kind of logical result and success behind this deception if they only wanted to actually go through with the entire Annatar thing from the start and then figured out how to make it work in believable, interesting way. But it is clearly the backward logic of "gotta have a wizardly guy otherwise it's not Tolkien" cheapened tokenization which only then led them to say 'hey, so maybe Sauron is disguised as a wizard' or something else along these lines, not them actually caring about the underlying logic behind Sauron's deception. Probably. Still, I hope you're right and they can make it work in original way that feels organic at least not just... discard the tokenized 'mystery' disguise and THEN do the Annatar as described by Tolkien anyway!

All that said I'm still profoundly unconvinced by the idea of having all the events of the Second Age mashed together into a short time-span. With so much big stuff to happen, it needs room to breathe (like the moral collapse of the Numenoreans was a slow-motion catastrophe happening over the course of generations, not some sort of all-at-once "that's it, we're evil now" thing).

While concerning, the concept of a time compression never really bothered me THAT much (before we knew any other details, anyway). If they wanted to make it work without the sudden "now they're evil" switch AND get actual portrayal of some modern-issues albeit in more organic way, they could have capitalized on that colonial aspect and explore it extensively from the start. Like, they're still good guys, but there are already lots of underlying issues and systemic exploitation in more desolate places of Middle-earth (weakness of men resurfacing). Show it. Explore Harad with its many POCs and maybe other dwarven clans and coast of Belfalas, extensively. Make lots of your original characters a relevant part of THAT setting, deforestation in-progress and all that, so not hobbits, too much Moria dwarves (apparently) and a healer/black elf romance. That last one is particularly worrying here since I read a particularly interesting casting text leak - the names were different but it was evidently a romantic scene between Arondir and Bronwyn. The context was... weird. Because it implied she was worried about Arondir's 'people' being angry with him because she was a descendant of some kind of local rebel or something, the entire scene even left me with an impression that Arondir's 'people' are like keeping the local population in line or something? LOL (the elven kingdoms???), and if Tirharad is supposed to be anywhere near Harad rather than just south of somewhere closer to home, it's weird and again, kind of needless. Whereas there should be lots of POC civilizations there with their own problems and already under Numenorian influence (and Sauron's) not some kinds of elven militias guarding the place "against evil" or whatever else they came up with, I can't guess. And if anything, my interpretation would have been that it was Sauron who started to rule over some of these people under the guise of "order" and "protection" (later also from Numenorian colonization), not elves!

[Radhruin_EU]

Oh yeah, I noticed that too! Seems pretty off and completely needless, but you gotta have hobbits and you gotta connect it to the likes of Frodo and more prominent well-known families too, otherwise it's not "tokenized" enough. At which point it begs to question why even bother to have a story in Second Age to begin with. The answer of course is they gotta have a "franchise" to milk rather than create literally anything of their own but even then it's not enough to have a well-recognized franchise, they gotta tokenize and modernize it to the point where it's no longer a nuanced, quality epic it could have been but more of a conglomeration of conflicting concepts and visions (or utter nonsense) in constant battle with each others. Maybe some of that stuff will be interesting and even joy-enticing to have it portrayed on screen at all BUT... the entire narrative and premise, with all nooks and crannies of it contributing to the perfect whole and original epic, told coherently and with logic underneath it all - clearly not.

Having hobbits *at all* ought to be quite enough of a callback to LOTR (if they feel the need for that for what you might call brand recognition with the wider audience), but since they're also doing the "but these aren't the hobbits you remember" thing then it'd be natural to give them different names, too. It's not good world-building (especially not given how Tolkien was so particular about languages changing over time), it's clinging to the established franchise while simultaneously trying to distance themselves from it in other ways and that's incoherent. Same damn thing that's afflicted other big franchises.

I do get the appeal and maybe it'll work, but still - I guess they would be able to achieve the same kind of logical result and success behind this deception if they only wanted to actually go through with the entire Annatar thing from the start and then figured out how to make it work in believable, interesting way. But it is clearly the backward logic of "gotta have a wizardly guy otherwise it's not Tolkien" cheapened tokenization which only then led them to say 'hey, so maybe Sauron is disguised as a wizard' or something else along these lines, not them actually caring about the underlying logic behind Sauron's deception. Probably. Still, I hope you're right and they can make it work in original way that feels organic at least not just... discard the tokenized 'mystery' disguise and THEN do the Annatar as described by Tolkien anyway!

I don't have any problem with a wizard-like figure if it's used to subvert audience expectations. A figure who's basically just a wizard except they don't call him that would be cheap, sure, but a fake 'wizard' intended to fool the Free Peoples would go along with the logic of Sauron's deception. It'd still be an obvious callback but at least it'd serve a valid purpose in the plot as something Sauron *could* have done. I guess the thing about Sauron turning up looking all pretty as Annatar was that he was too prideful and sure of himself to adopt a more humble disguise, but a more subtle take on it might be better as it'd look a lot more plausible. Creative use could be made of his ability to change his shape because the general audience won't even know about that (things could become very, very dark and scary, if you think about it, and it'd be fair play to them if they ran with that).

if Tirharad is supposed to be anywhere near Harad rather than just south of somewhere closer to home, it's weird and again, kind of needless.

About that - 'Tirharad' could be translated as 'Southwatch', I believe and I don't think it has anything to do with Harad. The architecture doesn't look like it's meant to (from the photo they released) and having a character called 'Bronwyn' (which is an Anglicised version of a Welsh name) living there doesn't either so it simply being south of somewhere seems likely. The rest, I'd wait to see what the actual script might be like compared to whatever stuff they might have used during casting. But the question would have to be why the place has an Elvish name to start with.

[Radhruin_EU]

Also while we're on the subject, Empire magazine has some exclusive RoP covers.

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/...vers-revealed/

1) Galadriel sitting moodily in armour (because nothing evokes the grace and poise of the Eldar quite like looking grumpy). Can't help thinking they keep missing a trick there, they could have gone for a Joan of Arc style pose with a banner, putting something Elvish on that (Tolkien had ideas about how Elvish heraldry worked, and they could always make something up along the same lines) and that might be a tad more evocative. (It's been done before, there were High Elven banners to be seen in the FotR movie prologue).

2) Durin IV and Disa in a Dwarf-hall, judging by the decor (which does look nice, I'll give them that but then if they're going to bring Khazad-dûm to life then it's going to need to look mighty impressive).

3) Hobbitses. What they're wearing looks rough and homespun, so a lot more basic than we're used to seeing on hobbits and that's a nice touch. Not buying Lenny Henry as a hobbit though, he's too gangly for it to work (he's 6'2" IRL, what were they thinking?)

And it turns out the Snow-troll (as we now know it's called) that we've already seen started off as concept art by John Howe.

[TesalionLortus]

From 'very, very dark and scary' I initially hoped for some vampire!Sauron vibes, maybe while in Numenor. Everyone is "no no, not GoT-esque!!!" from the very start of this project but comes Ar-Pharazôn's Numenor - the mood would be just about right, including in Numenorian colonies and the beginning of Umbar, for example. Or the entire "Celebrimbor as a banner" thing... But now I don't know, I don't even have confidence they'll capitalize on the darker parts of Second Age if logical, more like they don't do anything because "we promised not GoT levels of anything" and the most of the violence/dark parts we can get is rise back to the *normalcy* of fight scenes as utilized in PJ's original trilogy where blood is visible during fights, after the fiasco of the Hobbit's "uh oh kid friendly no blood yet we're doing this huge cinematic battle with siege engines and whatnot.' Also, we know that Adar's attire got changed from possibly scarred one (tortured under Morgoth?) to absolutely elven fabulous in a way that screams "wow, a fabulous elf with longer hair!" something that doesn't appear to be the case with anyone else, and that change was influenced by Amazon's execs. So no, I don't have confidence here they'll capitalize on anything darker where due...

Yes, so it could mean anything really, but if they can't come up with interesting names in other places who is to say they haven't just added a word to Harad to create fictional place near Harad for some kind of "easter egg" factor yet illogical and uncaring as they are the population won't be even darker-skinned/different culture, just your typical medieval village with Athelas undoubtedly thrown in I mean that's why they made her a healer in the first place it's too obvious. Seriously, I hate the tokenization behind every single choice here (apparently).

Covers are just covers, but still... Galadriel impression seems like she could be a dark elf from Skyrim or other fantasy franchise. Oh, and have sex with Geralt after the fight. You know she would.

I wonder if they'll be able to beat PJ's dwarven stuff from Hobbit or come close to LOTRO's Moria (beating PJ's Moria from FotR is easy, let's be honest), found it strange they haven't shown anything nice yet, and all of the screens and covers don't really show much architecture, some of that Moria scenography even looked bad but maybe that's because the shots were not indicative of the quality on the show.

I honestly hope Disa can actually be from another clan and it's a political marriage (happy one, let's not be too depressive here, but initially arranged maybe). Although, after that name... who knows. It'll probably turn out that Khazad-dum is like a diverse city from US with lots of diversity (that even in current era many of the world's cities simply don't have lol), that's the only thing they know how to do, or worse even - a few darker-skinned dwarves here and there, but generally lots of white non-African actors, and YET, somehow, it turned out very dark-skinned Disa ended up as princess... you know, her, of all possible candidates the majority of which white and possibly members of the local court... Like, what are the odds?

[Radhruin_EU]

From 'very, very dark and scary' I initially hoped for some vampire!Sauron vibes, maybe while in Numenor. Everyone is "no no, not GoT-esque!!!" from the very start of this project but comes Ar-Pharazôn's Numenor - the mood would be just about right, including in Numenorian colonies and the beginning of Umbar, for example. Or the entire "Celebrimbor as a banner" thing... But now I don't know, I don't even have confidence they'll capitalize on the darker parts of Second Age if logical, more like they don't do anything because "we promised not GoT levels of anything" and the most of the violence/dark parts we can get is rise back to the *normalcy* of fight scenes as utilized in PJ's original trilogy where blood is visible during fights, after the fiasco of the Hobbit's "uh oh kid friendly no blood yet we're doing this huge cinematic battle with siege engines and whatnot.' Also, we know that Adar's attire got changed from possibly scarred one (tortured under Morgoth?) to absolutely elven fabulous in a way that screams "wow, a fabulous elf with longer hair!" something that doesn't appear to be the case with anyone else, and that change was influenced by Amazon's execs. So no, I don't have confidence here they'll capitalize on anything darker where due...

'Vampire' in this context means 'monstrous blood-drinking bat' but if you just mean in terms of Sauron's appearance as Annatar being tall (of course) and palely beautiful with long black hair (i.e. Goth as heck, like you might imagine Thuringwethil was as well) then sure. I'm all for Celebrimbor being tied to a tree and used for target practice by the Orcs (go all in with that Saint Sebastian iconography, why not) and yeah, do the banner thing as well. Tolkien isn't that dark very often so when he is, I say run with it.

Yes, so it could mean anything really, but if they can't come up with interesting names in other places who is to say they haven't just added a word to Harad to create fictional place near Harad for some kind of "easter egg" factor yet illogical and uncaring as they are the population won't be even darker-skinned/different culture, just your typical medieval village with Athelas undoubtedly thrown in I mean that's why they made her a healer in the first place it's too obvious. Seriously, I hate the tokenization behind every single choice here (apparently).

The architecture looks wrong for southern climes (the visual design for locations seems on point thus far so I don't think they'd mess that up), you'd expect a more Mediterranean vibe if it were meant to be anywhere near Harad. But we'll just have to wait and see.

Nobody but the Numenoreans should know about athelas yet. I wouldn't jump to conclusions there (give them the benefit of the doubt, there's no reason not to right now). As for Adar, if the idea is that he was an Elf taken captive by Morgoth and made to serve evil then lore-wise that's at least somewhat plausible. (Although if he's meant to be Galadriel's long-lost brother then I think having someone from the royal house of the Noldor serving evil would be a bit much).

Covers are just covers, but still... Galadriel impression seems like she could be a dark elf from Skyrim or other fantasy franchise.

Exactly, there's absolutely *nothing* about that which says Middle-earth or that she's meant to be one of Tolkien's Elves. (Also, what's with the hair? At the very least there should be some braids in there to keep it out of the way, we know she braided her hair).

I wonder if they'll be able to beat PJ's dwarven stuff from Hobbit or come close to LOTRO's Moria (beating PJ's Moria from FotR is easy, let's be honest), found it strange they haven't shown anything nice yet, and all of the screens and covers don't really show much architecture, some of that Moria scenography even looked bad but maybe that's because the shots were not indicative of the quality on the show.

It's a little early yet for the big marketing push. Word is there's another slightly longer trailer coming (two and a bit minutes) before too long but the hype probably won't really kick off until a month or so before release. (That'd be early August, if so).

I honestly hope Disa can actually be from another clan and it's a political marriage (happy one, let's not be too depressive here, but initially arranged maybe). Although, after that name... who knows. It'll probably turn out that Khazad-dum is like a diverse city from US with lots of diversity (that even in current era many of the world's cities simply don't have lol), that's the only thing they know how to do, or worse even - a few darker-skinned dwarves here and there, but generally lots of white non-African actors, and YET, somehow, it turned out very dark-skinned Disa ended up as princess... you know, her, of all possible candidates the majority of which white and possibly members of the local court... Like, what are the odds?

I think that's probably the idea (as with LOTRO, the existence of other Houses of the Dwarves in faraway places affords a certain poetic license). But if they try to make the place diverse in a modern way 'just because' that'd be really weak.

[TesalionLortus]

'Vampire' in this context means 'monstrous blood-drinking bat' but if you just mean in terms of Sauron's appearance as Annatar being tall (of course) and palely beautiful with long black hair (i.e. Goth as heck, like you might imagine Thuringwethil was as well) then sure.

I was thinking more like he appears fair (or whatever disguise he took on while in service of Ar-Pharazôn) but comes night and he goes feral eliminating political opponents under the cover of darkness and drinking blood of the seduced ladies of the court :P First in secret, then the entire Morgoth cult happens and perhaps openly, as the high-priest, and some of the crazed Numenorian supporters can be willing of their own accord to get bitten. They don't even need to change him into a beast/bat which would be too far = copyrights (unless the vampire form is mentioned in appendixes can't remember now) but if they could get away with something more feral, more beastly, why not, some Witcher vibes wouldn't even be that far off here. All as part of this court game between Sauron and Ar-Pharazôn, who knows with who he's dealing with after all, but Sauron always managing to find a good excuse for himself. Make him the seducer and show that he's obviously evil-spirited on another "otherworldly" level not just your typical bad guy (so not just this 100% humanized character with 100% humanized motivations under different humanoid disguises, or clad in some dark armor that screams evil like Third Age) but at the same time human enough (so with a beacon of humanized sympathetic quality shining through - sometimes) and cunning enough to get the Numenorians to give in to his kind of debauchery. Because it's easy enough when Tolkien wrote Numenorians/Ar-Pharazôn felt the death approaching and so were swayed by Sauron's promises, that's all he needed because he didn't intend to write a whole novel about it. When they want to do this in a series AND they have time compression... that's another thing entirely, they need nuance and things like that, otherwise it'll appear flat. This underlying theme about approaching death can be there of course but gotta be more than *just* that.
Although my confidence in their abilities and ideas here is pretty low... well, we shall see.

I think that's probably the idea (as with LOTRO, the existence of other Houses of the Dwarves in faraway places affords a certain poetic license). But if they try to make the place diverse in a modern way 'just because' that'd be really weak.

The entire licensing issue "oh so they can't do that!" and how people will almost certainly make excuses for them if they go just with a "single" dwarven civilization (with another lords/domains being an extension of Khazad-dum at best, if mentioned at all) is already becoming pretty - I would say funny but not really, because I expected a nicer show! - sad. Since you know, after all... they decided to do the story of the forging... and called it Rings of Power... so it's only natural you would expect them to portray vastly different dwarf lords (so from different kingdoms and lands) who get the rings (which only make sense from Sauron's POV, that they aren't all just from one single place in Middle-earth), and - if they want to correct PJ - the "vastly different" part would need to include different looks/races/cultures, one of the three at least. Just like LOTRO, they can change names. Or they can even refuse entirely to act like they're from "clans" but merely come up with dwarves who live in different parts of Middle-earth so there are some other kingdoms out there other than just Khazad-dum. Or communities organized in different ways, under some sort of leader who doesn't even need to belong to a specific "clan" or a specific kingdom that he rules over, but either way you end up with lords from different parts of the map who all get a ring and you can tell that all these dwarves/dwarven lands are somehow different. Lots of ways they could do that without getting themselves into the whole "licensing" issue by having 'distinct' dwarven clans that act as such. Dwarven kingdoms/clans being very distinct each with own heritage is how LOTRO has done it - and seems the most logical/lore-accurate, as long as you're willing to commit - but it's not the only way. So if, despite all this, they stay *just* with Khazad-dum/its characters and give little-to-no indication there are more dwarven lands out there and more dwarves across Middle-earth with some prominent, different leaders (future ring-bearers) that we can see from time to time... UGH, that would be BAD. (and yet, at the same time, they would have Galadriel soloing all of Middle-earth on her Amazonian quest... without anything interesting to show for it, location-wise).

Yeah, I guess THAT trailer will tell us a lot. They had time to think on this so the parts they decide to show now... will be very interesting to find out...

[Radhruin_EU]

I was thinking more like he appears fair (or whatever disguise he took on while in service of Ar-Pharazôn) but comes night and he goes feral eliminating political opponents under the cover of darkness and drinking blood of the seduced ladies of the court :P First in secret, then the entire Morgoth cult happens and perhaps openly, as the high-priest, and some of the crazed Numenorian supporters can be willing of their own accord to get bitten. They don't even need to change him into a beast/bat which would be too far = copyrights (unless the vampire form is mentioned in appendixes can't remember now) but if they could get away with something more feral, more beastly, why not, some Witcher vibes wouldn't even be that far off here. All as part of this court game between Sauron and Ar-Pharazôn, who knows with who he's dealing with after all, but Sauron always managing to find a good excuse for himself. Make him the seducer and show that he's obviously evil-spirited on another "otherworldly" level not just your typical bad guy (so not just this 100% humanized character with 100% humanized motivations under different humanoid disguises, or clad in some dark armor that screams evil like Third Age) but at the same time human enough (so with a beacon of humanized sympathetic quality shining through - sometimes) and cunning enough to get the Numenorians to give in to his kind of debauchery. Because it's easy enough when Tolkien wrote Numenorians/Ar-Pharazôn felt the death approaching and so were swayed by Sauron's promises, that's all he needed because he didn't intend to write a whole novel about it. When they want to do this in a series AND they have time compression... that's another thing entirely, they need nuance and things like that, otherwise it'll appear flat. This underlying theme about approaching death can be there of course but gotta be more than *just* that.
Although my confidence in their abilities and ideas here is pretty low... well, we shall see.

Oh heck no, sorry. That's a bit more gothic horror than will pass; Sauron was seemingly more focused on spiritually corrupting the Numenoreans (the King's Men, at least) for his own amusement just to see how far he could take it, getting them to offer human sacrifices (fruitlessly, but they don't know that) and, one might imagine, engage in other rather colourful rites as well. I can't see him as a literal vampire (there's a sexual element to that which doesn't really fit a Maia), he just finds it hilarious to drag them down while the Valar could only watch. Sauron's effectively a demon (being a fallen 'angel') and that's a different deal; it's all about him getting them to damn themselves and then watch with sardonic amusement, because if he gets off on anything it's making the little people dance to his will. (Where Morgoth was nihilistic and just wanted to watch the world burn, Sauron's a control freak).

The apparent time compression in the series will take the sting out of the original plot point of Ar-Pharazon becoming ever more in thrall to Sauron as he got older and became more desperate, and they'll need to give it enough time to have the cracks start to show before he goes off the deep end and declares war on heaven (as it were).

The entire licensing issue "oh so they can't do that!" and how people will almost certainly make excuses for them if they go just with a "single" dwarven civilization (with another lords/domains being an extension of Khazad-dum at best, if mentioned at all) is already becoming pretty - I would say funny but not really, because I expected a nicer show! - sad. Since you know, after all... they decided to do the story of the forging... and called it Rings of Power... so it's only natural you would expect them to portray vastly different dwarf lords (so from different kingdoms and lands) who get the rings (which only make sense from Sauron's POV, that they aren't all just from one single place in Middle-earth), and - if they want to correct PJ - the "vastly different" part would need to include different looks/races/cultures, one of the three at least. Just like LOTRO, they can change names. Or they can even refuse entirely to act like they're from "clans" but merely come up with dwarves who live in different parts of Middle-earth so there are some other kingdoms out there other than just Khazad-dum. Or communities organized in different ways, under some sort of leader who doesn't even need to belong to a specific "clan" or a specific kingdom that he rules over, but either way you end up with lords from different parts of the map who all get a ring and you can tell that all these dwarves/dwarven lands are somehow different. Lots of ways they could do that without getting themselves into the whole "licensing" issue by having 'distinct' dwarven clans that act as such. Dwarven kingdoms/clans being very distinct each with own heritage is how LOTRO has done it - and seems the most logical/lore-accurate, as long as you're willing to commit - but it's not the only way. So if, despite all this, they stay *just* with Khazad-dum/its characters and give little-to-no indication there are more dwarven lands out there and more dwarves across Middle-earth with some prominent, different leaders (future ring-bearers) that we can see from time to time... UGH, that would be BAD. (and yet, at the same time, they would have Galadriel soloing all of Middle-earth on her Amazonian quest... without anything interesting to show for it, location-wise).

The existence of the other Houses of the Dwarves is a given (if LOTRO can refer to it, so can this series) and so there's no need for them to do that. The thing is that Khazad-dûm was the greatest of the Dwarf-realms (and had cultural clout as Durin's own realm) so it'd naturally be a hub for trade and know-how, and you'd expect to find Dwarves from other Houses who'd come to trade or study there. What you wouldn't expect to see is modern-style diversity even if the Dwarves as a whole were that diverse, you'd expect to see it limited by the difficulties and dangers of travelling long distances much as it used to be in real history. They could imply the Dwarves being diverse without having more than a few of each House about the place (I'd imagine that they'd have ambassadors and whatnot as well as more ordinary visitors, merchants, scholars etc.). There'd probably be pilgrims too, on their way to Gundabad (its fall into the hands of the Orcs would be yet to come). Quite the bustling metropolis.

[TesalionLortus]

Sauron was seemingly more focused on spiritually corrupting the Numenoreans (the King's Men, at least) for his own amusement just to see how far he could take it, getting them to offer human sacrifices (fruitlessly, but they don't know that) and, one might imagine, engage in other rather colourful rites as well. I can't see him as a literal vampire (there's a sexual element to that which doesn't really fit a Maia), he just finds it hilarious to drag them down while the Valar could only watch. Sauron's effectively a demon (being a fallen 'angel') and that's a different deal; it's all about him getting them to damn themselves and then watch with sardonic amusement, because if he gets off on anything it's making the little people dance to his will. (Where Morgoth was nihilistic and just wanted to watch the world burn, Sauron's a control freak).

Which is why I said something 'more feral' would have been preferable, but when it comes to that - I wouldn't mind a more humanized vampire deeds either, if that would be something they went with. In essence, there is a sexual element to sadism too, so Maia/not Maia doesn't really play a big role here. So with it being a tv series - I mean, he gotta do something different too, not just... talk... and manipulate... The Istari were Maia but they were specifically "bound" to their bodies to walk amongst the people and help them, in a familiar form, and discarded much of their power from the start to limit temptations. Sauron doesn't care, he is in full form, so I would rather have him treated as such (with lots of cool shenanigans, shape-shifting, going feral as a vampire, or perhaps even "energy" kind of thing, as in his true form or something). Rather than merely like an Istari would be treated, only putting on lots of humanized disguises throughout the show - but even that doesn't make much difference from an istari because we know Istari could actually wear disguises too, like Saruman parading just as an old man without all of his usual splendor.




That's the case, not sure if it's "a given" - but true, in theory what you said might work, with ambassadors pilgrims etc. Who knows what they'll do in practice, and then again, as said, if we spend all that time dealing with hobbitses and lots of weird original characters, or spend it on Galadriel's search plot point that takes her "all across middle-earth" and other cultures of men/dwarves don't get their time to shine and be explored, all limited to Lindon/Khazad-dum/Numenor mostly - ugh. Why just why.

[Radhruin_EU]

Which is why I said something 'more feral' would have been preferable, but when it comes to that - I wouldn't mind a more humanized vampire deeds either, if that would be something they went with. In essence, there is a sexual element to sadism too, so Maia/not Maia doesn't really play a big role here.

It absolutely does because Maiar weren't sexual beings, as an almost invariable rule. (The only exception being Melian marrying Thingol and bearing a child out of love for him).

Yes, Sauron could make much of his ability to shape-shift and the opportunities for malicious trickery would be countless. I don't buy this 'feral' idea of yours, though - he never showed any particular urge to do that before, he had an accustomed form (presumably something typical for a Maia, Elf-like but taller) and when we know he did take on the form of a monstrous beast it was with a particular end in mind (hoping to fulfil the prophecy about Huan's death in one case, and getting away from Tol-in-Gaurhoth as fast as possible in the other) rather then revelling in being bestial.

I should have thought that for a prideful being like Sauron, having to pretend to be merely human would chafe (it'd be beneath his dignity) and he wouldn't suffer it for any longer than he might need to for some scheme of his. And I don't think he'd be into it at all. The idea of being stuck like that for millennia like the Istari might strike him as appalling.

That's the case, not sure if it's "a given" - but true, in theory what you said might work, with ambassadors pilgrims etc. Who knows what they'll do in practice, and then again, as said, if we spend all that time dealing with hobbitses and lots of weird original characters, or spend it on Galadriel's search plot point that takes her "all across middle-earth" and other cultures of men/dwarves don't get their time to shine and be explored, all limited to Lindon/Khazad-dum/Numenor mostly - ugh. Why just why.

I meant that it's in the book so it's up for grabs, just like it's been in LOTRO. They'd have to make up their own names for the other Houses, just like the devs did here, if they wanted to use them.

[Pontin_Finnberry]

More news from Empire Magazine, Lenny Henry talks about Hobbits
Lenny Henry Plays ‘Harfoot’ Sadoc Burrows In LOTR: The Rings Of Power: ‘We’re The Traditional Tolkien Little Guy’

And the Showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay talk about five seasons
Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power’s Five Seasons Are Fully Planned Out: ‘We Know What Our Final Shot Will Be’

[TesalionLortus]

Some parts of it, as usual, are full of irony and hit me in all the wrong places:

...they were faced with a conundrum: how do you conjure that world without featuring its most notable inhabitants?

Normally??? Because you have plenty of stuff to explore with Tolkien's dwarves, elves and VERY DIVERSE men from different parts of the map? You know, Tolkien, who was very peculiar about his cultures and their languages so there is plenty to explore, fill-in-the-blanks and take inspiration from real life history? Also, Tolkien, who popularized things such as dwarves and tall, fair elves in fantasy genre to begin with, pretty much? Hobbits were like these creatures that got him more popular as a storyteller with the Hobbit and - by extension - Lord of the Rings and indeed very close and important to Tolkien but that's not the only thing that mattered, before hobbits have even risen to any sort of prominence in his creative mind, there was... well, PLENTY in the First and Second Age that doesn't concern hobbits.

But yes, they're clearly 'so fluent in Tolkien' :P nothing to worry about :P


Funny that they describe Harfoots as the complete opposite of what Tolkien hobbits were supposed to be, as The Peoples:

You’re going to see us run the full gamut of emotions and actions in this adventure.

As in action scenes too, I bet? :P Right, right... That being said, I don't mind a single adventurous hobbit portrayed or even entire tribe faced with harsh reality if there are orc raid parties and they need to defend themselves, but still, they hardly belong in this story/time period and the focus really seems to be, well... too much on them from the sound of it. They were not THAT important as the peoples of this age, heck, they're not even important - as the peoples who take part in big events - in Third Age, except maybe the Goblin invasion and Witch-king's campaign, where they're known to take part in military feats.

Then, of course, the conclusion of the interview is that Harfoots will be lots of representation, so they're just repeating same old on cue here, as if it was a main selling point of their story (which it appears to be... so far).

[Radhruin_EU]

Funny that they describe Harfoots as the complete opposite of what Tolkien hobbits were supposed to be, as The Peoples:

Things that stick out in the article:

• Lenny Henry's wig. Just no.
• The idea of hobbits being both nomadic and growing crops. That doesn't work: farmers settle down, nomads need to be either hunters or herders. Like if they kept goats and moved around in search of fresh pastures, that would work.
• The idea of whole bands of halflings being nomadic by choice is a meme from D&D. This is from how WotC describe halflings:
  
  "Though some halflings live out their days in remote agricultural communities, others form nomadic bands that travel constantly, lured by the open road and the wide horizon to discover the wonders of new lands and peoples."
  
  So no, not the traditional Tolkien little guys, somebody else's version from a well-known mainstream source. Tolkien's hobbits migrated when they needed to, to get out of harm's way and to find better and safer lands to settle (which was why they left the East to start with, because of you-know-who and his followers) rather than because they felt the lure of the open road.
• 'You can either have the traditional Tolkien little guys or you can do the modern representation thing ''just because' but you can't do both.

And from the other one:
- Cherry-picking Tolkien's mention of "other minds and hands, wielding the tools of paint and music and drama" without either (a) getting the implied reference (something that had actually happened in the 18th century when James Macpherson published the supposed epic poetry of Ossian, and caught the artistic world's imagination) or (b) going on to see Tolkien dismiss the grandiose ideas his younger self had had as 'absurd'. Not to mention that the older Tolkien did *not* apparently want that to happen to his work.
- Since the inventions seem to include such things as turning Galadriel into Little Miss Angry I think the essence of Tolkien is a little more elusive than they fancy
- "We trust those ideas so deeply, because they’re not ours." Oh right, sure, that's why you felt the need to modernise tales that were purposely archaic in style to begin with and drop in direct callbacks to LOTR rather than trusting the Second Age to stand on its own two feet.

[TesalionLortus]

"We trust those ideas so deeply, because they’re not ours." Oh right, sure, that's why you felt the need to modernise tales that were purposely archaic in style to begin with and drop in direct callbacks to LOTR rather than trusting the Second Age to stand on its own two feet.

This is particularly amusing how almost in every interview we hear something like "paying tribute to Tolkien and his stories" but it's followed or proceeded by something like... representation never before seen in Tolkien's world, made up characters that we needed to come up with because 'things' and 'correcting Tolkien' 'modernizing Tolkien' 'Middle-earth reflecting what the modern world actually looks like.' Just like with Harfoots occupations you pointed out, the two don't really go in pair but they don't seem to know the difference... or they simply don't care. In all honesty, not sure which one is worse

[Bauglin]

This line, from the Lenny Henry article, kills me:

The answer was the Harfoots – beings who feature in the original Tolkien lore as the Hobbits’ predecessors.

The Harfoots were not "prececessors" of the Hobbits, they weren't ancestors of the Hobbits. They were Hobbits. Their only distinction is that they showed up in Middle-Earth a hundred years before the other Hobbits - but at least a thousand years after the events of the Amazon series.

YMMV, but this was my first "red flag" about the series when Lenny Henry tweeted his tweet way back when, and about the show-runners' thinly-veiled disregard for Tolkien's world. Though, given the cultural mix that the Harfoots are supposedly going to be, I'm morbidly curious how the Fallohides and Stoors might have been portrayed...

[DavidmeetHal]

More news from Empire Magazine, Lenny Henry talks about Hobbits
Lenny Henry Plays ‘Harfoot’ Sadoc Burrows In LOTR: The Rings Of Power: ‘We’re The Traditional Tolkien Little Guy’

And the Showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay talk about five seasons
Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power’s Five Seasons Are Fully Planned Out: ‘We Know What Our Final Shot Will Be’

He lost all respect from me when he started beating his chest about his skin color. I wish people could just leave skin color out of the equation.

[miriadel]

I guess they're trying to make some kind of statement with the short hair

Meet The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power’s Pivotal Elf Celebrimbor – Exclusive Image | TV Series | Empire (empireonline.com)

more on their Galadriel

Morfydd Clark On LOTR: The Rings Of Power’s Galadriel: ‘She Still Has A Lot To Learn’ – Exclusive | TV Series | Empire (empireonline.com)

[TesalionLortus]

I guess they're trying to make some kind of statement with the short hair

Short hair a symbol of elven diversity? Since, you know... the only one with fabulous long hair so far... is Adar the villain... regal, white and fabulous, like the elves from PJ's movies...

“It was like being on a school trip!” Clark tells Empire in our world-exclusive cover feature. “I got to do swimming, riding, climbing…”

“still has a lot to learn” through the course of the show. “I had to find that balance between someone who has got an element of the eternal but hasn’t yet seen it all. Don’t expect the same character that you meet later on.”

Ugh. Makes me wonder... what is it that she has to learn? Politics maybe... and court stuff... because as a bad girl on a school trip without a husband in sight... she doesn't know any of this stuff yet... and solves problems with a sword... Idk, it's probably THAT bad.

Anyway, the climbing the ice wall part is especially stupid already (hunting Morgoth's monsters like a Witcher huh? alone? no battalion of elves sent? also who would bother to hunt them down in the Wastes of Forodwaith anyway???) and we don't even know anything about that other stuff yet...

[DavidmeetHal]

Short hair a symbol of elven diversity? Since, you know... the only one with fabulous long hair so far... is Adar the villain... regal, white and fabulous, like the elves from PJ's movies...





Ugh. Makes me wonder... what is it that she has to learn? Politics maybe... and court stuff... because as a bad girl on a school trip without a husband in sight... she doesn't know any of this stuff yet... and solves problems with a sword... Idk, it's probably THAT bad.

Anyway, the climbing the ice wall part is especially stupid already (hunting Morgoth's monsters like a Witcher huh? alone? no battalion of elves sent? also who would bother to hunt them down in the Wastes of Forodwaith anyway???) and we don't even know anything about that other stuff yet...

I dunno, it can’t be much worst than The Hobbit.

[miriadel]

at least in the hobbit Thranduil's hair was FABULOUS!

(and hair lenght is not a make or break issue for me, but their decision is, nonetheless.... curious)

[DavidmeetHal]

at least in the hobbit Thranduil's hair was FABULOUS!

(and hair lenght is not a make or break issue for me, but their decision is, nonetheless.... curious)

Off topic post: I just wanted to say I love the website in your sig. Very well done.

[Kaeneth]

I don't know how they manage to do it, but every time they release something new it manages it look or sound worse than what they've presented before.

I'm not even interested in watching it just to see how bad it will be. I don't want to acknowledge it at all, really.

[Pontin_Finnberry]

Heres some pictures from Empire shared by reddit user https://www.reddit.com/r/LOTR_on_Pri...ire_via_apple/

[TesalionLortus]

Can't say much based on scenography here and some of the stuff looks really cool even. Still, they haven't raveled anything "big" yet when it comes to locations/architecture.

Although the Harfoots... idk... so, if it's enough to judge based on this, they're not even living in anything resembling holes/proto-hobbit homes (or just hobbit homes, just less refined than the ones we know from Third Age) but something more like... homeless shelters? Geez... Although if according to the showrunners they're nomadic flower people maybe that makes sense...