Although LOTR does have similarities to GoT (lots of characters, vast, complicated world, lots of languages, etc), how is this even taken seriously, given the Peter Jackson movies pretty much did justice to the books? (I'm assuming they did from the fan following. I never read the books)
What value would they even really add?
At least with the Game of Thrones, it was the first time it was adapted to television.
In the case of LoTR, there's already been a big budget production that won a ton of Oscars.
This seems very strange to me. Usually these studios want to try new ideas and less conservative. This smacks of a typical Hollywood studio problem, just regurgitating existing franchises into new mediums.
You could do an anthology series of stories around but not inside the narrative of the films, taking sort of the same approach as _Rogue One_ (the only good post-first-trilogy movie) did with Star Wars.
As you say, though, an end-to-end retelling of LoTR doesn't make much sense.
I would live it if someone did a really good anthology series based on the Silmarillion. Those were some epic stories that, if told fully, could easily rival the Lord of the Rings.
I am right there with you! My favorite part of the books. Although, I can understand why it was cut. It doesn't work in the context of a movie to have an epic world encompassing battle followed by a minor skirmish.
I feel like this story would be a good mini-series or standalone movie.
> how is this even taken seriously, given the Peter Jackson movies pretty much did justice to the books? (I'm assuming they did from the fan following. I never read the books)
I love the books, but even I will admit they're are fairly dry with large, long-winded descriptions. Peter Jackson did a brilliant job with the movies, and I'm really not sure what could be done better or even differently (outside of a fan-fiction TV series).
He did OK, but they were overlong, inconsistent, poorly paced, full of one-dimensional characters and set-piece battle scenes with deus ex machina outcomes, and so. much. exposition. You couldn't do a better job serving the books with more editing, but you could make three better movies by getting each (with the possible exception of Fellowship, which is a strong movie that just starts a little slow) down under 100 minutes.
But that's not a problem for a TV series, which is why GoT --- despite being categorically worse source material! --- is in the aggregate stronger than the LoTR films, even if you leave out the execrable Hobbit movies.
>He did OK, but they were overlong, inconsistent, poorly paced, full of one-dimensional characters and set-piece battle scenes with deus ex machina outcomes, and so. much. exposition.
Sounds quite faithful to me. The books are plodding, most of the characters are fairly simple, and there's entire chapters that describe rolling hills and lush forests...to say nothing of the songs.
Ditto. The Hobbit as a book was "OK" but if it was all Tolkien ever wrote, you'd probably never have heard of him. The films were overpadded and filled with the worst of the current excess of movie CGI action sequences. Like you, I never bothered with the third.
Tolkien did, however, create a very detailed and very rich world. There's plenty of backdrop there on which to write new stories whether or not they hew to anything specific that's already been written in that universe. On the other hand, there are plenty of rich worlds that authors have built over time. And most of them don't carry the baggage and weight of expectations that anything associated with Tolkien inevitably would.
ADDED: As noted elsewhere, the rights to other Tolkien works would have to be obtained.
Haha yes, those were definitely awful. I only saw the first one and caught a little of the last one on a plane.
What I meant is I'm not tired of the Tolkien universe and would welcome more. That's not to say I enjoyed the hobbit series whatsoever. For instance, I'd love to see another director try their hand at a Hobbit series on television. At least then I could pretend the Jackson-led Hobbit series didn't exist.
For what it's worth, there are some fan cuts of the Hobbit movies that remove all the superfluous stuff and make it much closer to the book. Worth looking up.
It's really amazing that some amateurs can cut 10+ hours of film, and something like half a billion dollars worth of production costs down to three hours, with free video editing software, and that cutjob is the superior incarnation. Interesting times we live in.
I don't want to spoil anything but there are multiple characters that exist in both, though obviously younger since season 2 takes place some thirty years before season 1. Some of it is subtle but very interesting once you realize it. I don't want to hint at it more so as not to spoil it.
In effect each season stands alone, you're correct that there's not much world building.
I loved those movies, and Peter Jackson did a wonderful job operating within the constraints of the medium.
But many important things were cut from the books to make time. Tom Bombadil comes to mind. The many sorties and battles in the Two Towers were truncated.
And most importantly, as another commenter mentioned, the freeing of the Shire, which is integral to the entire premise of a hero's journey - that the hero must return to his homeland and share the hard won gifts with his community - was cut.
There's plenty in the books to warrant a series. Game of Thrones does ~9 hours per book and still had to cut characters and plot points. <2 hours per novel is pretty much always a huge compromise.
> There's plenty in the books to warrant a series. Game of Thrones does ~9 hours per book and still had to cut characters and plot points.
The books in ASOIAF are longer thsn those in LotR, there's more books, and ASOIAF books have a higher density of action vs. description. Yes, there were some elements cut from LotR in the Peter Jackson movies, so maybe you've got two short seasons of material.
I believe 95% of the reason is $$$$. The reason there's so many sequels and superhero movies in Hollywood these days is that the risk factor of a flop goes down.
I suppose this is still risky if they mess it up big time, but they've already got a built in audience of tens (hundreds?) of millions. The story has been proven (obviously), so if they do it in a slightly different way while adhering to the books perhaps it's a slam dunk, according to their research.
But do they have a built in audience? I loved both the LotR books and Peter Jackson films, I love GoT and ASoIaF, I even have Amazon Prime, I probably fit perfectly into their intended target audience but I have no desire to watch this. The Jackson adaptations left me completely satisfied, a new adaptation can only go down from there.
There was an interesting nugget in the comments under that article:
The crucial thing about this is that it is a pitch by the Tolkien estate rather than to them. Christopher Tolkien hated the Peter Jackson movies [...snip...]
I was an avid reader of Tolkien as a teenager and the movies were a disappointment to me as well. Too much spectacle and derring-do, whilst I always enjoyed the construction of the world and the inner lives & secrets of the characters. The omissions made were sometimes grotesque: the removal of Tom Bombadil alone made the mockery of the books. Skipping the entire homecoming chapter of the hero's journey ("the scouring of the shire") is a common complaint and a travesty of storytelling.
However, Christopher Tolkien is the ultimate Tolkien purist, after a lifetime of curating his father's work. In the few interviews he gives he's clearly dismayed by any deviation from the original intent. I suspect he'd likely be unhappy with any TV adaptation as well.
Like many other Tolkien fans I'd much rather see an adaptation of The Silmarillion, which if anything is the more epic book of tales.
Film(s) aren't books. It's rarely good storytelling to literally translate a book--especially a long complex one--into a film or even a series of films. It just doesn't work. Especially, a book like Return of the King that has real structural problems with multiple endings, at least one of which is buried in an Appendix.
Anyone who goes to a theater looking for a completely faithful and literal adaptation of a beloved book is almost certainly going to be disappointed.
I agree - although to be clear, my reading is this means that LOTR was simply a poor candidate for movie adaptation at all. I'm sure the financial backers disagree.
I never really understood the significance of the Bombadil interaction, except to underline how ancient a world this was, and how much more power everyone had compared to hobbits.
Would you help me understand why the scene was so important for you?
Bombadil connects the story to the future, not to the past. He is the only character whose fate remains enigmatic after the book concludes. He transcends the plot and is unaffected by the ring, unlike literally every other character, including gods. In cross-reference to his characteristics depicted in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, and to the letters of Tolkien (which contain a specific denial of Bombadil being "Iluvatar", that is, Tolkien's fictional creator) I came to the conclusion years ago that Tom Bombadil is J.R.R. Tolkien inserting himself into the story. It's quite possible this is an unintentional self-insertion, and he's certainly not an author surrogate (which is a different and much more literal class of self-appearance, like William in The Naked Lunch), but nevertheless, the cap fits.
I'm pretty sure that Christopher Tolkien still owns the rights to The Silmarilion and has not sold off movie rights yet. That's why the hobbit movies didn't reference it. He was not a fan of the movies.
I agree. This doesn't seem wise. LOTR is vastly different from GoT in basically everything except the things you mentioned (the thing is full of Christian allegories, not constant depictions of sexual violence).
Honestly this seems like a late-to-the-party attempted at catch up.
My understanding is that LOTR is a mythology and not allegory. Any reading of allegory is in the interpretation of the reader and not the intent of the author.
The allegorical references seem rather concrete in the stories, and Tolkien's fascination with Christianity is long established (he was a devout Roman Catholic)
That's basically what it is, except with less Middle Earth and more sexual violence, incest and pedophilia. At least the first couple of books are; I never bothered reading past the second book or watching the series.
It's because I pointed those things out. As far as I could tell GoT is primarily about feeding those pornographic desires whilst hiding behind a facade of medieval fantasy fiction.
I would have continued the series if I thought his writing were any good, in spite of the clearly repressed sexuality he was indulging himself in.
Also, half the appeal of GoT is all the gratuitous nudity, with the other half being the gratuitous violence, and the last half a semi-decent story of a bunch of unlikable assholes. How do you make the LotR universe fit that mold? It has almost no female characters, no gory battles, and the story almost completely lacks nasty assholes. Even Sauron doesn't have the nastiness inherent in most GoT characters.
As much as I love The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I don't think I'd like to see Amazon take this on. In my mind, the Peter Jackson movies (not including the Hobbit series) were done so well they kind of put the definitive stamp on the Tolkien epic for me. I guess Amazon could mine some of the extensive Middle Earth history but there are so many other fantasy and scifi master pieces that have not been successfully adapted. Dune and Foundation come to mind or, for more adult fare, something like Kushiel's Legacy. How about bringing China Mieville's Bas-Lag and New Crobuzon to life on the small screen? I think Amazon should take a bigger risk than a LOTR retread.
I'd go for either KSR's Mars Trilogy or, ideally, Stephenson's Baroque Cycle - which has plenty of material and has some great characters. Jack Shaftoe (AKA King of the Vagabonds, L'Emmerdeur, Half-Cocked Jack, Quicksilver, Ali Zaybak, Sword of Divine Fire, and Jack the Coiner) is one of my all time favourite characters.
A Harry Potter TV show would be better. The movies didn't do the books justice, there is enough material there to make it into several seasons, and a different cast could do well with it too.
There was a lot wrong with Jackson's versions where he thought he knew better than Tolkien (missing half the endings, representing Sauron as a literal flaming eye in a tower, "fixing" Arwen badly because Tolkien couldn't write a female character). But it's still a very substantial work, and I don't see how a miniseries would improve on it.
The setting I'd want to see for a complex multi-party high-budget drama, is a fictional world in the age of sail. Conquerors, unlikely allies, traders, and even pirates.
It could have social commentary around first contact, exploitation, different belief systems, different social structures, relations with the crown.
And it'd be really ambitious if the cultures involved were somewhat evenly matched. A bit better technology on one side vs. home field advantage and numbers on the other. Possibly diseases going in both directions.
Black Sails might be the closest to what you're looking for. While it's a Starz show, with the requisite amount of violence, sex, and general wackiness, it actually ended up a pretty complex political drama.
There are definitely a good number of fantasy series that could be adapted to television. just like GOT the vast majority of them aren't household names. GOT certainly wasn't until it became popular on HBO.
LOTR, is there even enough content in the three books for a multiple season show? deviation becomes very difficult because the stories are widely known and all sorts of cliques exist around what is what. While the LOTR movies did good work with the books there is always the danger for Amazon that we would end up with a LOTR meeting a Hobbit style treatment so that it moves so far from the books that fans of the source material tune it out.
rehash, the fact they want to use a known story such as LOTR shows they are concerned only about money and not a good show. They are approaching it from the wrong angle
IMO instead of trying to find the "unicorn" they should be working toward perfecting a process through which they can bring in a lot of inexperienced / passionate / relatively low cost teams and support them with a small core group of highly skilled / experienced people in the industry.
It's all about the story. A high budget film with a mediocre story will still only be mediocre. A low budget film with an amazing story will more than likely still be amazing.
Slightly off tangent, but how is Man in the High Castle both in terms of quality and trueness to the source material? I feel like the book would have made a great miniseries, but it didn't seem long enough to turn into a multi-series show.
I'm not sure if I like the idea of this adaptation and I'm wonder if Amazon will give this a big enough budget to make an epic like GoT.
If anything, I'd love to see The Silmarillion turned into a series. I think it lends itself better to bursts of short epic episodes and the stories are largely untold outside of the book.
Dragonlance offers much depth in its world and mythology, although its use of traditional high fantasy tropes may come off as cliche and make it unappealing.
I did laugh that it was MTV that did The Shannara Chronicles, everyone is jumping on board GoT. They did an ok job for a series, nothing heavy though and I don't think accurate to the books.
But why you would ever redo the LoTR novels is beyond me. They are done by the movies... end scene.
Adding new material doesn't seem to me to be something the fans would allow.
I don't get how this idea ever got floated, as per South park a few weeks ago, Amazon are trying to Greenlite everything now?
What a fucking terrible idea. They have completely missed the point of what makes Game of Thrones so popular.
GoT is about the victory of the historically downtrodden--women, eunuchs, slaves, "wildlings", bastards, and a dwarf--over the traditionally powerful men. GoT is full of sex and death. And, best of all, was totally unpredictable. (For the first six seasons, anyway)
LotR, on the other hand, is about the victory of a bunch of white males going to war against a multiracial army. Their goal: to help a white man from a "superior" race (the Numenoreans) reclaim his birthright: dominion over almost all of middle earth. The only two women in the books with any substantive role are Galadriel and Eowyn. Galadriel is in a no-win situation; most of her power is destroyed when the One Ring is destroyed. Meanwhile Eowyn, the scrappy shieldmaiden of Rohan, is rewarded for killing the Captain of the Nazgul by getting to assume a gender-normal role as the wife of the Steward of Gondor. (HT to David Brin for pointing a lot of this out first.)
Worst of all for the TV series, in LotR everyone already knows what's going to happen!
LotR is about how the wisest and the strongest barely manage to survive while the weak save the world.
In the books, Gandalf states that expliitly: “Many are the strange chances of the world,' said Mithrandir, 'and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.”
In the movies, they even have the King of Gondor kneeling before the hobbits, just to drive the point home. It's hardly subtle.
What value would they even really add?
At least with the Game of Thrones, it was the first time it was adapted to television.
In the case of LoTR, there's already been a big budget production that won a ton of Oscars.
This seems very strange to me. Usually these studios want to try new ideas and less conservative. This smacks of a typical Hollywood studio problem, just regurgitating existing franchises into new mediums.