Sfdebris.net

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... ina-amazon

I'm not sure how many of you are aware but Amazon's streaming company is going to attempt to produce a Lord of the Rings prequel TV series. I honestly have no idea what to make of this or whether or not I'll even bother to watch it, given that there are still several series I've been meaning to watch for years now such as Fargo, Hannibal, The Strain and more, as well as many missed episodes of Doctor Who.

This article is short and very opinionated but it made me laugh and I sympathise with the writers views on the films of the books. I've read The Hobbit and liked it, I never watched the films all the way through though but I thought they were okay-ish. I've seen the LotR films but I never read the books all the way through, but I liked both and while I do enjoy ye olde European and Nordic fantasy, I'm not crazy about the franchise like a lot of other geeks are.

What do you guys think?

If the concept sounds interesting to you, watch it. If you turn out not to like it, stop.

:shrug:

I'm a huge Tolkien fan, but I'm not really feeling this. It's easy to get Tolkien wrong. It's a minor miracle that The Lord of the Rings turned out so well, and Peter Jackson screwed up The Hobbit, which is the easiest and simplest Middle Earth material.

If it covered The Silmarillion, I would actually be excited. Unfortunately, the rumor is that it's going to be covering stuff from between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. For a multi-season series, that's going to have to mean a lot of material that writers will just be making up, and I'd hardly consider it to be the most interesting Middle Earth period to begin with. I just don't understand why the Tolkien Estate prefers they make something up rather than cover some of the First Age or Second Age material that would bring more people to read that material. If Amazon wants a show to compete with Game of Thrones, the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales actually have the darker story lines with violence, betrayal, tragedy, incest, etc.

The bottom line is that I just don't think the people who would be writing the series are likely to actually understand Tolkien's works, therefore creating something new in that universe is going to be highly problematic. I'm not really concerned with copying the sex and violence from Game of Thrones (again, The Silmarillion has that)- I'm more concerned that they're going to appropriate the setting while abandoning the mythological and philosophical underpinnings that make Middle Earth what it is.

Don't forget Star Wars, it seems they think that the only people willing to pay for streaming services are obsessive nerds and they're probably right.

I do wonder at what point the "this is going to piss some people off no matter what" factor of using old franchises becomes more risky than making something original. Particularly when old franchises have old ideas, if you're going to have things like Rothfuss' freak out over there being no women in the Hobbit then maybe its best to let old stories be old and not try to modernise them.

No big deal. If its good, great. If it sucks, don't watch it. Its not like Tolkien's reputation isn't secure.