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Amazon acquires Lord of the Rings rights, plans massive TV series (1 Viewer)

Let's face it, there's no way to read the Silmarillion between now and September 2.  Hence my advise - read the Hobbit (over a weekend) and avoid the confusion of the added crap from the movies; watch LOTR (you lose a little, but its pretty much all there, other than Bombadil.)  Watch a few hours of nerds talking about Numenor and the Rings on Youtube.

 
Foosball God said:
Sure reading the books would be best, but most people won't have that much time to invest.  The Hobbit movies, while not good, still establish certain characters.  Though I agree, reading The Hobbit shouldn't be that big a deal.
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For a crash course, I'd recommend someone read The Hobbit & watch the LOTR films. You can read/listen on audio to The Hobbit in as little time as it would take to watch those films :lol:

 
CletiusMaximus said:
Let's face it, there's no way to read the Silmarillion between now and September 2.  Hence my advise - read the Hobbit (over a weekend) and avoid the confusion of the added crap from the movies; watch LOTR (you lose a little, but its pretty much all there, other than Bombadil.)  Watch a few hours of nerds talking about Numenor and the Rings on Youtube.
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Agreed, though you could just read the last two Silmarillion chapters (Akallabeth & Of The Rings Of Power) after The Hobbit/LOTR and be pretty ready for this series.

 
Uruk-Hai said:
Agreed, though you could just read the last two Silmarillion chapters (Akallabeth & Of The Rings Of Power) after The Hobbit/LOTR and be pretty ready for this series.
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Yeah, I was going to suggest that as long as you're okay with having the plot spoiled, reading the Third Age chapter at the end of the Silmarillion might actually be a good thing to do before starting The Lord of the Rings to at least have the broad story arc and some of the main characters down.

Also agree that you can almost read the Hobbit in less time than the trilogy takes.  I didn't even bother watching the third one because the first two were so bad, although I have caught snippets here and there.  Read the Hobbit, watch the Gollum scene and the Smaug scenes and you've gotten the vast majority of the good stuff from that story.

 
I don’t know why someone should need to know about The Hobbit and LOTR to watch this. If a story taking place 2,000 years earlier can’t stand on its own, they did it wrong.

 
I'm not a reader. I read the hobbit. Loved it way more than movie. I tried to read the trilogy and quit halfway in book 2. It was a tough read imo 

Loved the movies 

Fwiw

 
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Juxtatarot said:
I don’t know why someone should need to know about The Hobbit and LOTR to watch this. If a story taking place 2,000 years earlier can’t stand on its own, they did it wrong.
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You could well be right. I think a few of us were just suggesting some background stuff if anyone was interested before the series starts.

I have to imagine that this show will have a lot of hand-holding for those unfamiliar with Tolkien's world. There's no way Amazon is spending half a billon dollars just to draw the eyeballs of hardcore fans. 

 
I’d have to dig for the links, but there is a lot of behind the scenes things that contributed to The Hobbit movies being a mess. Lawsuits, production delays one after another, bankruptcy of MGM, Del Toro dropping out and then Jackson having to retool the whole thing and start filming without finished scripts. Shoehorning in a 3rd movie for the money grab after the 2 part movies were mostly done and shooting new scenes to insert in as filler was the biggest poor decision.

Do not go on the internet after some cast photo’s were released this week. Amazing how many crazies are up in arms because the dwarf princess doesn’t have a beard or that there is a black elf. If social media had been a thing when the original LoTR trilogy was released the “true fans” likely would have butchered it.

 
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Foosball God said:
Start with the Hobbit movies, then do the LOTR movies
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Disagree.  I would start with the LOTR movies.

ETA:  Then I would read the Hobbit, then I would read the appendices at the end of Return of the King.

 
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1. Read the Hobbit.

2. Read LOTR trilogy.

3. Watch movies. I would watch them in the order they are released, i.e., LOTR trilogy followed by Hobbit trilogy.

4. If you have time after all that, read the final part of Silmarillion. I view this as icing on the cake, not truly necessary.

 
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CletiusMaximus said:
Honestly, it might be better to just read the Hobbit - its so short and the movies probably just confuse things - then watch the LOTR.
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If you can't read the Hobbit, I'd honestly just say to watch the original Rankin Bass animated version.

 
The problem with the Hobbit movies is they tried to capture the irreverence of the dwarves and just made them comical/campy, while simultaneously trying to keep overarching brooding undertone of LOTR throughout.  I did not care for the first Hobbit movie one bit, but as a hardcore Tolkien fan seeing Smaug in second installment was absolute nerdgasm

The Silmarillion is the best book of Tolkien’s and I have a first edition hardbound on my bookshelf…prized possession 

 
Jackson didn't do Gimli any favors in the LOTR films, either. He turned him into one of the Three Stooges. In the book, Gimli was wrong about a lot (so were others) but Tolkien did a really good job of showing why all of these different people were estranged. Jackson dumped all of that, and made Gimli the lone village idiot. The only character he assassinated worse was Denethor, who didn't have near the amount of screen time Gimli did. 

 
Uruk-Hai said:
Jackson didn't do Gimli any favors in the LOTR films, either. He turned him into one of the Three Stooges. In the book, Gimli was wrong about a lot (so were others) but Tolkien did a really good job of showing why all of these different people were estranged. Jackson dumped all of that, and made Gimli the lone village idiot. The only character he assassinated worse was Denethor, who didn't have near the amount of screen time Gimli did. 
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Interesting, maybe Jackson is an anti-dwarfite.

 
Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, LOTR Appendices, Hobbit, LOTR proper. I imagine they'll pull from unfinished tales at some point if the series runs long enough, there are some good stories in there.

 
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belljr said:
I'm not a reader. I read the hobbit. Loved it way more than movie. I tried to read the trilogy and quit halfway in book 2. It was a tough read imo 

Loved the movies 

Fwiw
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lol. Hobbit is a kid's book. LOTR more for teens/adults... really nice prose, but a bit dense.

I felt like the Hobbit movies lost the easy-breezy aspect of the book and loaded it down with too much LOTR back story. 3 freaking movies from that book is silly.

 
Uruk-Hai said:
Jackson didn't do Gimli any favors in the LOTR films, either. He turned him into one of the Three Stooges. In the book, Gimli was wrong about a lot (so were others) but Tolkien did a really good job of showing why all of these different people were estranged. Jackson dumped all of that, and made Gimli the lone village idiot. The only character he assassinated worse was Denethor, who didn't have near the amount of screen time Gimli did. 
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Amen.  Shame what he did to Gimli.  

He dumped on Faramir, too.  

 
NewlyRetired said:
SDDC just released a new long trailer.  This is the best one to date imo.  I am excited for this to start

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYnQDsaxHZU
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Sure doesn't look like Amazon spared any expense on the visuals, that's for sure. 

I can't get a handle on how the showrunners are going to present their storyline. I think it's pretty obvious they are going to concentrate events into a much smaller timeframe than Tolkien used but, other than that, I'm not sure how all of this is going to play out. 

I'm looking forward to it, though. I expect unbelievable outrage from some corners of the Tolkien purist universe, so it'll be fun no matter what.

 
NewlyRetired said:
oh that is certain :)

I am going to try and not compare back to Tolkien.  I just hope for a decent adaptation similar to the movies. 
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Yeah, in this case they are working with basically a bare sketch of events (as opposed to Jackson's films) so - IN THEORY - they should have more rope. But I know how Tolkien purists can be (Star Wars nerds are relative newborns compared to this bunch), and the fact that we've each had to fill in the blanks on these events in our own ways, may make the outrage worse.

The "they're trying to be woke!!!" criticism will be very loud (read the Game Of Thrones thread on this very page) because they have darker-skinned hobbits or (apparently) have Galadriel as the lead. 

 
Uruk-Hai said:
Yeah, in this case they are working with basically a bare sketch of events (as opposed to Jackson's films) so - IN THEORY - they should have more rope. But I know how Tolkien purists can be (Star Wars nerds are relative newborns compared to this bunch), and the fact that we've each had to fill in the blanks on these events in our own ways, may make the outrage worse.

The "they're trying to be woke!!!" criticism will be very loud (read the Game Of Thrones thread on this very page) because they have darker-skinned hobbits or (apparently) have Galadriel as the lead. 
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Already tons of online "outrage" that there is a black elf and a black female dwarf with no beard. Fanboys suck all the fun and positivity out of everything.

 
Buckna said:
Already tons of online "outrage" that there is a black elf and a black female dwarf with no beard. Fanboys suck all the fun and positivity out of everything.
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Blows my mind, man. People went ape#### when a little girl in one of the Hunger Games movies had darker skin than a Norwegian.

 
NewlyRetired said:
oh that is certain :)

I am going to try and not compare back to Tolkien.  I just hope for a decent adaptation similar to the movies. 
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I still can't believe how bad they ruined the Wheel of Time.  I mean I only watched like six eps, but the casting was awful for starters.

 
PIK95 said:
I still can't believe how bad they ruined the Wheel of Time.  I mean I only watched like six eps, but the casting was awful for starters.
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Egwene is smokin'.  But, really, it's the unnecessary changes and cheap ### sets that really ruin the immersion.

 
The trailers leave me with the impression they did a better job with this than the GoT sequel.

 
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matuski said:
The trailers leave me with the impression they did a better job with this than the GoT sequel.
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Holy crap. Just watched the new trailer on my big screen. Damn, it looks way better than Wheel of Time or House of the Dragon looked. Man I hope they keep it up. Could be an amazing multi-year series like GOT was before the end.

 
I am excited for the The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim movie coming out next summer. The movie is set 183 years before The Two Towers and will be based on Helm Hammerhand.

The movie will be animated. Brian Cox is voicing Helm and Mirando Otto will voice Eowyn, who will act as a narrator.

One question that I am having trouble getting an consistent answer to is whether Helm became a Nazgul as part of the cannon on not. Some some places say it is cannon and others say it is not cannon. Does any one know for sure?
 
NewlyRetired said:
Uruk-Hai said:
NewlyRetired said:
One question that I am having trouble getting an consistent answer to is whether Helm became a Nazgul as part of the cannon on not. Some some places say it is cannon and others say it is not cannon. Does any one know for sure?
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I have never in my life heard Helm became a Nazgul.
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I think maybe it came from a video game but I am unsure.
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Definitely not cannon, but the identities of the Nazgul as humans are almost completely unknown. I believe there are hints or Tolkien writings or something that 3 may be Numenorean and some maybe from the south like the Haradim. Lots of speculation we will see some in the Rings of Power show.

The game Shadow of Mordor and its sequel revealed the origin of one but its not considered canon per the books.
 
Buckna said:


The game Shadow of Mordor and its sequel revealed the origin of one but its not considered canon per the books.
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Thank you for this mention. I looked this up and this is the source of the idea that Helm was a Nazgul.

================

In Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Helm is shown to have become a Nazgûl. He received his ring from Sauron and Celebrimbor after he was mortally wounded in an ambush by Wulf's men, during which his daughter was kidnapped. After recovering, he led a group of men to Wulf, but accidentally fatally struck his daughter in rage. This further fueled his anger, and he proceeded to slaughter everyone in the room, including his own troops who tried to calm him down. He wields a great hammer unlike the Helm of the books, and the story appears to have been pushed up to the end of the Second Age in order to fit in with the game's timeline. His hammer later ends up in the hands of Talion after the latter joins the nine himself.
 
NewlyRetired said:
Buckna said:


The game Shadow of Mordor and its sequel revealed the origin of one but its not considered canon per the books.
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Thank you for this mention. I looked this up and this is the source of the idea that Helm was a Nazgul.

================

In Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Helm is shown to have become a Nazgûl. He received his ring from Sauron and Celebrimbor after he was mortally wounded in an ambush by Wulf's men, during which his daughter was kidnapped. After recovering, he led a group of men to Wulf, but accidentally fatally struck his daughter in rage. This further fueled his anger, and he proceeded to slaughter everyone in the room, including his own troops who tried to calm him down. He wields a great hammer unlike the Helm of the books, and the story appears to have been pushed up to the end of the Second Age in order to fit in with the game's timeline. His hammer later ends up in the hands of Talion after the latter joins the nine himself.
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Neat, I tried the first game but never finished it. Someday I’ll go back if I ever have free time again!
 
In Tolkien's own works, only 2 of the 9 are named: The Witch King of Angmar (lord of the Nazgul), and Khamul The Black Easterling. I never read anything among Tolkien's works that implied Helm became a Nazgul.

In the 90's collectible card game Middle Earth The Wizards (which is/was a great game) they named all 9 (the two above, plus names for the other 7). I have no idea where they got the names for the other 7 there.
 
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