JRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and Other Middle-Earth Stories Book • Page 10

Can someone recommend any reading related to the second age?

 

Also a casual fan here....If it's taking place in The Second Age, that's the age that ends with the flashback we saw at the start of the first LOTR movie, right? With Isildur killing Sauron?

Does that mean we'd also see Elrond and Gandalf in this series? And Thranduil? If so, it's hard for me to imagine anyone other than Hugo, Ian, and Lee playing those characters so that's gonna be an adjustment haha

 

As awesome as Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy of films is, I was totally fine with the idea of Amazon doing the LOTR books again as a high-priced TV series. Like I said, I wasn't paying for it, and I'll take a new adaptation of LOTR any day as long as it took a different creative approach than PJ's films.

That being said though, there are SO MANY fantastic books that haven't been adapted even one time yet, a lot of which I think would make for better or should I say more popular TV. Doing LOTR again would have been kind of silly even though I would have gladly watched it.

I've read LOTR and The Hobbit more times than I can count. I've read Children of Hurin. I've read a lot of Unfinished Tales. I own The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-Earth books and have
perused parts of them all before but never read any of them straight through. Other Tolkien fans have always told me I need to read The Silmarillion but I honestly could never get into it and vastly prefer books written in the novel format a la Children of Hurin.

I never thought a Game of Thrones show on HBO would be as popular as it is. Both my wife and my brother - who have never read a fantasy book in their lives - have watched every single episode as it aired and are eagerly awaiting the final season. I am hoping they can somehow capture some of that appeal with this, but it just seems like a really tough sell to me.

 

It won't get cancelled, they have a five season commitment. I would imagine it is possible that they could move the show to an anthology series (assuming that isn't the plan already), where if this Second Age series doesn't light the world on fire they can just make season 2 set in the Third Age instead. There are good stories to tell there and having the name and Sauron prominently featured might be enough. Definitely risky though compared to the presumed Aragorn show that seemed like an easy sell for mass audiences.

 

Does the five season commitment really mean that they will make at least five seasons even if the ratings are absolutely abysmal...? I didn't even know they did that type of thing, even with the kind of money Amazon has. That makes me feel a little better.

 

Tolkien has the two best selling novels of all time. The ratings will be just fine.

 

I was obviously aware that The Lord of The Rings & The Hobbit were massively popular, but I had no idea they were the two highest selling novels of all time. I had never heard that stat before.

 

The ratings won't be bad because I will watch every episode 200 times.

 

The fantasy genre should really take hold once GoT finishes. I am absolutely ecstatic that we are getting this show and diving deeper into the lore.

 

Second Age confirmed on twitter. thank god - so much more interesting to me than young Aragorn or whatever the safer options they could have gone with are. Numenor could make for some phenomenal TV

 

those characters all come into play in the latter half of the age. I’m hoping we get more of a focus on Numenor and the rise of Sauron.
none of the maps show Gondor established, and Imladris (Rivendell) only shows up on second to last, so I’m assuming we’ll mostly see early Second-Age, or at least start there.

 

Elrond’s twin founds numenor, right? It’s been a minute.

 

Noob question here...why did Elrond and Galadriel and their considerable abilities decide to not participate in the fight against Sauron? Like I know they were bailing on Middle Earth and all but like, they would have been very useful in the fight haha

 

They did a lot for so long, I feel like fatigue plays a factor. I think I remember vaguely that Elrond is around 10,000 years old and Galadriel is closer to 100,000 years old (she’s the granddaughter of a first elf).

Cirdan giving his ring to Gandalf was one way he transitioned power to those who were ready to fight. Elrond facilitated a lot behind the scenes. He and Galadriel also flushed Sauron from Mirkwood during the events of The Hobbit.

Dwindling numbers because of the returning to Valinor. Movies did a pretty bad job of revealing how little elves were left in Middle-Earth. Like, Haldir and a legion didn’t go to Helm’s Deep.

 

yeah, their powers were waning, and they’d already fought against Sauron several times over the millennia. they were just kinda over it, and knew they wouldn’t be staying long, so it wasn’t their fight.

 

J.A. Bayona Simply Walks Into Directing THE LORD OF THE RINGS

Bayona's a great director, I like this news.

 

Finally some news regarding directing. Isn’t this going to start production soon?

 

This is very exciting news. He's a fantastic director. As much as I love Peter Jackson's take on Tolkien, I am ready to see another director's version of bringing this world to life on the screen.

 

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/bryan-cogman-game-of-thrones

Interesting read.

Honestly, I wasn't crazy about the idea of a main creative from Game of Thrones being one of the main creatives this project, but this article made me feel a lot better.

 

Some of the episodes he wrote weren’t good, but I also think he had to work with what stories D&D were willing to let happen. If he had his way, I imagine the show would have been a few seasons longer and included the actual correct Dorne and Iron islands storylines, because I’m pretty sure he’s a book purist type when it comes to ASOIAF

 

That's the impression I got from reading that article.

I was a little worried about them trying too hard to force this to be "the next Game of Thrones" in terms of mass appeal and success by blatantly copying some of the wrong aspects of that show, like the nudity for example, but that article eased my mind a little bit.

 

shit I completely forgot they're doing a show.

 

Cautiously optimistic.