Television The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

I don't remember Tom Bombadil being involved in the second age, what am I forgetting?
 
Skills said:
How much material do they have?
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Not a huge amount, I mean, Tolkien outlined the events of the 2nd age in pretty decent detail but its ultimately missing the dialogue, minor characters and sub plots that are required for a TV show. But it does have the overall main story outlined in detail, which is a big positive as TV shows tend to make it up as they're going along which results in horrible amount of plot holes after a few seasons.

It's why I think its well suited to a TV show format tbh, it gives the writers freedom in creating characters and sub plots (which they tend to be pretty good at) but also giving them a focus end goal (which they're normally really shit at). 20 episodes is probably too much for Season 1, but I guess they have to introduce a whole new set of characters, locations and history which would confuse the average viewer who are expecting Aragorn, Gandalf etc.

Markella Kavenagh has also been confirmed as a having a role in the show, she's some minor Australian actress afaik. Character name is one I don't recognise and she looks a bit elf like (character name is Tyra).
 
My memory’s a bit foggy, but Second Age is the rise and fall of Numenor yeah? Followed by the Last Alliance and all that? Should be epic, Numenor is a great story.
 
If they’re doing 20 episodes in season one then they better be doing 20 episodes in the seasons following, so they don’t do what GOT did where they had too much material left to cover but couldn’t be arsed with it anymore.
 
2cents said:
Great, I really want to see Sauron corrupting the Numenoreans, great TV potential there.
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Aye, it'll be intriguing to see what their focus will be. Whether its going to be just following Sauron/Numenor or will they show what happens to each Race. There's also lots of war and battles, so plenty of emotional death scenes (assuming they do a good job building up character development).
 
Is it worth reading the books before this comes out? I've heard that they're quite complex and are difficult reading (language wise, not necessarily story-wise).
 
RobinLFC said:
Is it worth reading the books before this comes out? I've heard that they're quite complex and are difficult reading (language wise, not necessarily story-wise).
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They are very very tiring to read. Remember putting them away for a good while now and again to take a break.
 
... 20 episodes? Let's hope they're no longer than 30 minutes each.
 
RobinLFC said:
Is it worth reading the books before this comes out? I've heard that they're quite complex and are difficult reading (language wise, not necessarily story-wise).
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Well they’re worth reading anyway. From what it looks like so far, this series will be set in the Second Age of Tolkien’s world, which is not actually covered comprehensively in any of his books, but the outline of its history is told in an additional section on the Second Age at the end of the Silmarillion and in the appendices at the back of the Lord of the Rings.
 
RobinLFC said:
Is it worth reading the books before this comes out? I've heard that they're quite complex and are difficult reading (language wise, not necessarily story-wise).
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You’ve got to be really invested to find those books enjoyable, and there isn’t a great deal about the 2nd age in them anyway. The Silmarillion is separated into 5 parts and only the 4th part is about the 2nd age. It’s written more as if it’s a recounting of middle earths history, than it is an actual story. That said I enjoyed it, so if the history of Middle Earth really does intrigue you, give it a go.

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It’s a good choice for the series. There’s enough material for the basis of a story already existing within the confines of Tolkien’s work, but not so much as to restrict artistic license. They should be able to add what they need adding without offending the purists.
 
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This is mostly going to be about the Numenor, Sauron and the orignal wars of the rings, isn't it? It's been about 15 years since I've read the Silmarillion but a lot of the best stuff is from before the Second Age iirc. Seeing the battle of Gondolin and characters like Morgoth and Feanor come to life on screen would've been incredible. Or terrible.
 
RobinLFC said:
Is it worth reading the books before this comes out? I've heard that they're quite complex and are difficult reading (language wise, not necessarily story-wise).
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It's not that they are complex, it's more that they are written more in a mix between a descriptive memory + encyclopedia, flooding the reader with tons of information and just essential dialogs.
 
Thing is, the thing we love about LOTR is the underdog story of the unlikely hero and the “band of brothers” on a seemingly impossible mission . The other plots of the one ring, the Elves, Aragorn as King etc are great but I think not the heart of the story.

The casual fan only knows the films, so when there are almost zero characters from them (just Sauron, right?) it’s going to be quite an ask to be invested. Also think 20 episodes is ridiculous.
 
crappycraperson said:
This is going to flop.
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My prediction too. You can see the script writing team has no clear directions, otherwise we would already knew a lot of things about the story line at this time.

And it's sad if it flops, because the base material is very good, but they have to remember that Silmarillion is like a compendium: a lot of relatively small stories who can be developed into a lot of entertaining episodes.

Ubik said:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...of-the-rings-cannot-use-much-of-tolkiens-plot
(contains spoilers for what's likely gonna happen if you're worried about that sort of thing)

Apparently banned from using anything but 2nd age stuff, per Amazon's Tolkien bod.
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Thank God! 3rd age has almost nothing left to tell and if they kept digging it it would mostly be out of creative than actually following some inspiring material.
 
André Dominguez said:
My prediction too. You can see the script writing team has no clear directions, otherwise we would already knew a lot of things about the story line at this time.
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We already know everything about the story though? They've only officially announced one cast member, it's very early production.

I think they'll nail it, 2nd Age is great fun. Full of war and drama with what will hopefully be a great villain. Casting of Sauron will probably be the most important part of the show mind.
 
André Dominguez said:
Thank God! 3rd age has almost nothing left to tell and if they kept digging it it would mostly be out of creative than actually following some inspiring material.
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The wars against Angmar, the fall of the Northern Kingdoms, the founding of the Shire, Gondor's battles with the Easterlings and the Southrons, Rohan's early history, the fall of Minas Ithil and the end of the line of kings in Gondor - there's a lot to tell from the 3rd age, too. Having said that, I'm glad the series will take place in the Second Age, I agree it's probably the more intriguing setting at this point but I take issue with "almost nothing left to tell".
 
RedSky said:
We already know everything about the story though? They've only officially announced one cast member, it's very early production.

I think they'll nail it, 2nd Age is great fun. Full of war and drama with what will hopefully be a great villain. Casting of Sauron will probably be the most important part of the show mind.
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It's easy to get over board if they follow a lot of different stories from the Silmarillion. And also stakes are high. I will watch every single episode nonetheless.
 
Siorac said:
The wars against Angmar, the fall of the Northern Kingdoms, the founding of the Shire, Gondor's battles with the Easterlings and the Southrons, Rohan's early history, the fall of Minas Ithil and the end of the line of kings in Gondor - there's a lot to tell from the 3rd age, too. Having said that, I'm glad the series will take place in the Second Age, I agree it's probably the more intriguing setting at this point but I take issue with "almost nothing left to tell".
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Those would be very interesting for me and you, but can't say the same for neutrals. But I admit that the wars of Northern Kingdoms and fall of Minas Ithil might have good potential because you can actually link the story, and that would appeal for "neutrals".
 
They announced a large part of the cast the other day.

One of the leads will be the guy who played a young Ned Stark on GoT...thats kind of funny really. Hope for him he won't find the same early fate as Sean Bean usually does.

More excited for this than I am for the GoT prequel.
 
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