How Faithful Is Amazon’s Rings of Power to JRR Tolkien’s Books?
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It's worse with Rings of Power because they don't have all the rights, but they wanted to take advantage of the name to increase the views, create some sort of off brand world that is there but not quite, just like sports games where one company doesn't hold all the rights and you end up playing with some weird teams like White Blue and some generic player names, because you know you can't legally use a name. Can't wait for Gonbolf next season.
Nope, never seen any MBA do that.
Anything to not actually finish the main books.
I've heard it said that Martin is a pantser rather than a plotter, so he tends to let characters go where it makes sense for them to go. The problem might be that because he knows the broad strokes of the ending, being closer to it means it's harder to organically get characters where they need to be - he has to become more of a plotter, which isn't his preferred approach -- sounds exhausting. I think the last 2 seasons of the show demonstrated what happens if you navigate this transition poorly.
The idea behind LOTR is that Tolkien tried to create a modern "mythos". The guy drew on and expanded a lot from existing mythology and folklore (especially Norse myths) when creating the setting of LOTR/the Hobbit. Trying to keep the story of LOTR focused on the One Ring and all the other attached rings seems... wrong?
In the grand scheme of things, Sauron is a fairly minor villain of the setting, he's merely a high ranking general of Morgoth/Melkor (name depends on the published version of Return of the King where he gets namedropped once, Morgoth being the one used later and the intended one). The rings are just the instrument Sauron used to try and gain power. Other stories don't have to keep focusing on the rings, in fact, they're probably more interesting when they don't. The other book written by Tolkien, The Hobbit (the book, not the movies) understood this; the One Ring provokes mystery but ultimately is just a tool for the actual narrative which is Bilbo and the dwarves restoring the dwarven kingdom. Sauron doesn't even play a role in it!
If someone wanted to expand on something in the "mythos" of LOTR, then it'd be much better to just... tell a new story and tie it through sharing locations and maybe a few background characters instead of fawning over The One Ring constantly. That story has been told. Tell a different story, there's plenty of possible "room" to fit it in, even if you don't own the rights to the Silmarillion.
But who am I kidding, that idea would never make it past a Marketing Executive who wants to milk the original story for what it's worth by overfocusing on stuff that doesn't need to be focused on.
Well Melkor is his "true" name (his Valar name), Morgoth is a name given to him by the elves, meaning "The Enemy" in Sindarin.
So much this. And it can be done without any additional information from the works not covered by the existing movie rights - after all, most of the information about the Third Age exists pretty much only (at least in a finished form) in the Appendices to LotR.
Story of the fall of Arnor/Arthedain, including defeating the Witch King? Story of the Kin-strife in Gondor? Fighting the Corsairs of Umbar?
In fact, a story I would pay gold to see, and which can easily be tied into the films, is the one about the exploits of young Aragorn - as a Ranger in the North, then in the courts of Gondor and Rohan, and in the lands of Rhun and Harad. Even the title writes itself: "Where the Stars are Strange"...
Is it because there isn't any other IP out there to do? They are starved for writers? Or is it these few things are all that'll actually sell/work?
This doesn't apply to House of the Dragon. They've done a great job adapting and expanding upon the source material. It does not feel soulless. These are rich worlds created by talented authors who've dedicated their lives to building them out. Audiences are happy to see these worlds explored further.
Assumptions made about what the Elves could have been doing during this time period in Eregion? The author makes them sound absurd and completely outside of what was written. Whatever the Harfoots are doing? That's okay because the author likes their storyline on the show
If you don't like the show that is 100% okay, I think the show is a 7/10 at best and sometimes it dips well below that, but don't hide that distaste behind a call for literary purity.
The source material is a vague outline that stretches out over centuries.
But I'm tired of purists looking to complain about film and TV adaptations, because there are necessary constraints:
- You want story arcs that fit within a season.
- The timeline is compressed to keep the story moving.
If you don't do this, people will get bored of the show. And in the end, you care about people watching the show, not satisfying purists.
That being said, I would gladly watch a TV series about day-to-day shire life in the third age.
That's pretty much The Darling Buds of May. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Darling_Buds_of_May_(TV_se...
For a summary of the criticisms of Jackson's interpretation, the only article I know of is "JACKSON, PETER" in Michael Drout's J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia (2007). Maybe someone else has a better reference.
Not at all. This article is primarily trying to answer the question from the title; any personal opinions are incidental, and not the article's focus; it is a personal blog after all.
So the question is, when are we talking about giving Orcs Uzis, and when is it a reasonable change/addition? I don't feel like this article addresses the question.
He mentions the Uzi rule in relation to "Galadriel was not a warrior in Tolkien’s stories. "But later he writes "So the Amazon show’s portrayal of Galadriel is not inconsistent with some of his thoughts."
So is it unreasonable or not? Can we not talk about significant changes/additions to characters or plot points that might have been consistent with Tolkiens thoughts, without immediately jumping to the idea that it's the same as adding Uzis or fighter jets to the story?
The "Uzi Rule" seems almost completely useless in this discussion. The use of "Uzi Rule" itself seems like a logical fallacy to me. It's a bit of a false dilemma and a slippery slope fallacy. A change is either OK because it's small enough, or it's just like adding Uzis, and if you made a change as big as X you might as well have added Uzis or fighter jets.
The world can thank Jackson for doing a great trilogy that doesn't change the story that much and that is still a master piece.
Let's hope Amazon don't ruin the name.
Given the deal Amazon made (and that it's a one-off), can you name one reason they would be afraid of destroying the reputation of the lord of the rings universe? Doesn't damage them at all.
Besides, let's face it, most of the value in Middle Earth comes from the books. Yes the films brought in a lot of people for a short while, but even the films don't make the impressions the books made on many fans.
Sadly, it makes sense, especially to business MBA's that fear one thing above all else: risk (mostly risk for themselves personally, but entire boards of companies are known to make the same reasoning). This is exactly the behaviour you'll find all over any wall street firm, which is the environment Jeff Bezos "grew up in". And sorry to say, you have to admit: it can work pretty well.
I won't defend the quality of the Rings of Power—I think it's lacklustre at best—but the premiere did get 25 million people watching it. It seems doubtful a completely original series would have attracted so large an audience right off the bat.
And I don't think there's necessarily a problem deviating from the source material when adapting something. But you do need to make sure your new ideas are as good, or better, than the original. To me, the single biggest failure of Rings of Power is that those deviations have been so poorly executed. Bad plotting and bad writing abounds.
The benefit the movies had was just that they were executed very well. As you mention, so much of Rings of Power is just bad execution (or really odd pacing/writing choices).
I'd argue that the vocal internet-based fanboys are the minority, so while I truly can respect the integrity you'd prefer they take with the source material... I can also see why they would not worry about it and just make a show that they believe will be well liked by the more general audience.
In the end, I'm sure they'll do the same thing we software folk do when your audience has mixed feelings about your product - listen to all sides and then choose who they want to make happy and react accordingly.
Actually, LotR the book has been a major influence in American pop culture since the 1960s. The debate here seems to be whether RoP is faithful to Tolkien's vision, not Jackson's vision. Not criticizing, just trying to keep the original point in focus.
No. RoP isn't faithful to either visions, as Jackson's vision wasn't exceptionally far from Tolkein's vision. The differences come from the reality of the medium.
Possibly true for the LoTR movies, decidedly less so for the Hobbit movies.
Where RoP falls down is the execution of the storytelling. Inconsistent pacing, cringy amateurish dialogue, fakeout deaths, plot armor, and so much Harfoot filler. The first five episodes should have been two episodes and the last episode should have been three episodes. I wish they had opened the mystery boxes much earlier in the season and then showed how Sauron was cunningly manipulating the other characters - but that would have required some intelligent plotting and dialogue.
My diagnosis of root cause is that a good show starts with a good story. But what RoP started with was a brand, onto which they grafted a story.
I am hoping that someone will recut the whole first season into a 3 hour movie.
For fairness, it’s not a terrible show, just a bit mediocre. I want to give credit to some parts which were awesome: Adar, the dwarves, the cast and character design generally, the scenery, mount doom, and all of the forging of the rings (this is the bit that I wish was shown over more episodes, not just squeezed into the finale).
I really hope we've seen the last of them.
I've not read the books and so can't comment on accuracy, but despite the slow start the last aired episode wasn't bad at all.
Honestly, I think they're probably the best example in the show of the writers extrapolating off of what's in the books to create new content that is mostly consistent with the world Tolkien created. I can see where opinions could vary, though.
However, I'd put more weight on the bad things here. The writing, story, dialog, characterisation, consistency of character. They're all really bad. It stops you getting drawn into the world because it's not believable. The characters don't seem to do things because that's what they'd do, they do things because the story needs them to do it for the next thing to happen.
The CG, effects and all that, these get all the attention but aren't typically why people come back to a show. I don't want to watch a third rate drama dressed up.
So Amazon spent $250M on the acquiring rights [1], and yet, that doesn't even cover the meaty parts of the source material? They budgeted a whopping billion dollars, and gave the job of show running to people who had no experience in managing the show of this scale; heck they have no experience at all. Both of them have barely any credits on IMDb [2, 3].
The curse of streaming services is that return on a piece of content is nearly impossible to derive. For a movie, whether it made money or lost money, is pretty obvious. Netflix on other hand sees if you watched something for two minutes and calls it a victory [4]. I won't be surprised if there's a lot of grifting going on in making the production decisions.
[1]: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/isn-t-game-thrones-amazon-234...
[2]: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4260438/
[3]: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm4259881/
[4]: https://screenrant.com/netflix-2-minutes-veiwership-numbers-...
The stories were basically written from whole cloth, based on fairly short mentions, in the four "later" books. From what I understand, they weren't even allowed to use Tolkien's notes.
I haven't encountered anything that has made me think this was a different "universe," but the general "feel" of the show is vastly different from Tolkien's writing.
For one thing, ol' J. R. R. was more than a little chauvinistic. Women didn't really play much of a part, in his writings, and when they did, they were fairly peripheral, or "objectified" (not necessarily in a sexual manner, but they were obvious stand-ins for some ideal).
I've been enjoying seeing Galadriel as an arrogant ass-kicker, but am a bit disappointed in a flower-sniffing Elrond.
I'm curious, because aside from the disregarding the lore, attacks on fans, etc., in the end, the show was just boring. Like seriously falling asleep boring.
I don't 100% agree on your take that Tolkein's stories were outright chauvanistic, but I do agree that the tone of the show is different to the books and the movies to its detriment. Rings of Power does not feel like an Epic in the genre sense, like Beowulf, which was a genre and style that Tolkein knew very well. The show feels far too...casual, the dialogue too sitcom-y at times (the dwarf scenes are brutal), and the world too clean and empty. When there are "epic" scenes, they end up feeling more like Disney or power rangers stuff (akin to Legolas riding the shield down the steps, I must admit).
While the effects are, at times, fairly incredible,I also think the writing has been an obvious weakness. The show is just kind of floating along in permanent exposition land. Only when a certain "dark land" is finally created does it actually start to have any stakes at all, but that is 5/6s of the way through the season already. By focusing on 5 distinct storylines for most of the show they keep everything in the shallows.
You can't write Tolkien elves like that. At this point in the story Galadriel is like 3000 years old yet her dialog is that of an inexperienced teenager when she has already seen everything (or knows someone who has) there is to see in the whole world.
Then there is the tone. The harfoot sections are the most unwatchable with an almost Dinsey vibe. The Numenoreas acting feels like the cringey dialog right before they start singing in a musical.
Make all the women act like toxic men, and make all the men act effeminate.
It goes back to the old line: "Being powerful is like being a woman. If you have to tell someone you are, you aren't." Galadrial in LOTR was an insanely powerful, to the point it was frightening. But she acted like a woman, not an arrogant man.
The writers are so clueless as to how to make a woman be a powerful character, the only way they can figure out how to do it is turn her into Captain Marvel / Rey / Mary Sue.
The archetype itself isn't new. If anything, women were overrepresented in that archetype as side characters for decades. Changing the character's role just doesn't magically solve the need for the archetype to interplay with others in a less brash way.
Isn't that exactly what is getting Tolkien devotees twisted in knots?
I can empathize both with people who want to see something new in a Middle-earth setting and those who don't want to see anything incongruous. It depends on how happy you are with the original. For example, traditional Westerns bore me to tears, and I only really like Westerns that make a drastic break with tradition, like Cowboys & Aliens (2011).
I love the stars, and that was what attracted me.
However, I found myself not liking the characters too much.
The finale worked for me, though, and retrospectively made the overall narrative flow work for me as well, so that makes it easier to dismiss the self-indulgent deadwood as ultimately I felt the core story was solid and well-told.
On Tolkien's chauvinism, one review I read noted that Tolkien doesn't come across as especially sexist -- as in, he's not anti-woman -- so much as he just kind of forgets about women. Which, granted, is still a form of sexism, but one that leaves a gap that can be filled rather than a hostile rejection that would be difficult to overcome. So like you, I've been enjoying the Galadriel character, and really the general increased peopling of this world overall, and don't feel it necessarily contradicts Tolkien's writings so much as fills them in.
That's just your toxic masculinity creeping through.
I kid, I kid. The biggest lesson here is calling out these types of absurdities gets you "labeled". This is the real issue.
And then go and ask Catholics to just give it a chance. C’mon don’t be a hater it’s still about Jesus. Give it a chance.
Why not just make a show set within the rights you do have?!?
Imagine something that follows the ring-smithing process but with the tone of Primer between Annatar and Celebrimbor. Galadriel in something plotted and shot like a Western war film instead of a handful of mediocre martial arts scenes. Durin and Disa but it's a sitcom with Elrond as the crazy neighbor who keeps dropping by.
If you're going to invent, invent.
I think the show is hitting the spot for people only vaguely familiar with the lore. The greedy look on the faces of the elves in the end looking at the rings was well done. I wonder though how they can make the next seasons interesting, now that we know it is all about getting dwarfs and then humans equipped with rings.
I must say, I was positively surprised by the show. I had expected much much worse.
Lot of great content on that channel, without it I would have been completely lost watching Rings of Power.
Biggest problem with the show is the writing and the pacing. There's really good stuff in Season 1, it just isn't well written.
For all the money Amazon spent on production (it's a really beautiful show), they seemed content to hire amateur writers.
Things have totally flipped. I’m actually enjoying HoD. Not perfect but really engaging story.
I literally hate RoP. It has the story, direction and acting quality of a badly done high school musical. It has literally no redeeming qualities.
Coming up with an origin story for mithril was stupid enough but the stupidity of the story isn’t even consistent. It’s an absolutely terrible show.
Contrasting to LOTR where a bunch of miscast 20 year olds give wooden performances in front of sterile CGI to advance a bolted on story. Disappointment of the year.
They failed to leave an impact on me where Game of Thrones succeeded.
The Harfoots aren't just made-up, actually. They're mentioned in "Concerning Hobbits", the prologue to The Lord of the Rings.
"Before crossing the [misty] mountains, the Hobbits had already become divided into three somewhat different breeds: Harfoots, Stoors, and Fallohides. The Harfoots were browner of skin, smaller, and shorter, and they were beardless and bootless, their hands and feet were neat and nimble, and they preferred highlands and hillsides.
...
The Harfoots had much to do with Dwarves in ancient times, and long lived in the foothills of the mountains. They moved westward early, and roamed over Eriador as far as Weathertop while the others were still in the Wilderland. They were the most normal and representative variety of Hobbit, and far the most numerous. They were the most inclined to settle in one place, and longest preserved their ancestral habit of living in tunnels and holes."
Presumably the Rings of Power storyline takes place before the Hobbit's recorded history began, before they settled between the misty mountains and mirkwood and long before the settled the shire, while they were still wanderers.
[Tolkien-related tidbit: My English teacher at school was taught by Tolkien at Oxford, so my teacher's teacher was Tolkien!]
It's not unlike what happened when Disney bought Star Wars and struck down the entire Extended Universe. I suspect when Disney gets around to retelling some of the SWEU's more famous works, that their creative liberties will be similarly challenged.
So, while RoP aren't too exciting, it's probably better off not using that book
https://www.thetolkienforum.com/threads/the-silmarillion-in-...
Want Shiny.
I mean, they spend an obscene amount of money anyway...
But:
* You can't cover 3000+ years of history in five seasons without making changes.
* If you want to have the same human characters (and the actors who portray them) season after season, you need even more changes.
* The series must stand on it's own, without forcing viewers to read the books; and
* There are a number of gaps and inconsistencies in Tolkien's writings on events and motives. (Galadriel's history and motives in particular are a mess, so it's not clear what her "true" story even is).
The published Silmarillion (including the texts summarizing the Second and Third Ages) is based on the most complete versions of Tolkien's writings, not necessarily his most recent. When did the Sun and Moon first appear? Are Orcs descended from Elves? Was Sauron fully evil when he first collaborated with the Elves on the Rings? The answers all depend on what text you read.
So I think there is more freedom here for the show writers than many of their on-line critics acknowledge. Even more so when you consider the Second Age writings have very few scenes and dialogues between characters. We don't get to "know" Elendil, Isildur, Galadriel, or Sauron like we get to know Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, and Gandalf. Does filling in those details make them "unfaithful" to the books?
In addition, some of the deviations they clearly have made -- the importance of mithril, Galadriel's dagger and quest, the dark elf Arondir -- do have important useful payoffs in the plot. The lack of mithril gives the writers an opportunity to show how Sauron aided the Elves in Ring making in an understandable way. It also leads to Galadriel giving up her dagger and (hopefully) giving up her obsession with avenging her brother (and perhaps starting her transition to the Wise High Elf we meet in the LotR?). Arondir's appearance allowed for the casting of a damn good actor (Ismael Cruz Córdova), and exploration of an interracial (Elf-Human) relationship by an interracial set of actors (likely emotionally engaging the viewers). I think those payoffs have been worth it.
A tangent: I think the casting and acting has been excellent, the CGI beautiful, and the plot twist at the season ending clever (giving viewers a reason to watch the whole season all over again). I enjoyed it, and look forward to the next season.