Amazon Prime Rings of Power: Lord of the Rings on Amazon

Aldarion said:

They actually asked him multiple times IIRC for a right to make adaptations, and he refused them every single time.

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That is incorrect. Tolkien sold the entire media rights -- film, stage, and merchandising -- for Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1969 for just over £100,000; it is commonly claimed that this was because he was in need of immediate cash to pay overdue tax bills, but there was never any evidence for that. The cash amount is not nearly so small considering the economy of the day plus over half a century of inflation, and the deal also granted Tolkien a very substantial 7.5% royalty on all profits from any adaptations made.

United Artists inititally intended to immediately produce an LOTR movie, but ended up cancelling the project and selling most of the rights they had purchased to Saul Zaentz's film production company, which created a specialized subdivision -- Tolkien Enterprises, later re-named Middle-Earth Enterprises -- to handle licensing. United Artists retained, and continues to retain to this day, the global distribution rights for any and all film adaptations.

In 2012, the Tolkien Estate sued Middle-Earth Enterprises, Warner Brothers, and New Line Cinema over the production of LOTR licensed video games, claiming that the merchandising rights sold by JRR Tolkien included only the rights to "tangible" merchandising and that therefore they were only allowed to license the creation of video games that were distributed on physical disks. Moreover, the Tolkien estate claimed that Middle-Earth Enterprises was causing "irreperable harm to Tolkien's legacy" by allowing the licensing of LOTR-based gambling devices, i.e. the highly popular LOTR slot machines by WMS Gaming. Note that the irreperable harm claim was specifically about gambling, which the estate denounced as "morally questionable", and not any complaints about the content of storylines etc. That lawsuit -- and the counter-lawsuits filed by Warner Brothers and Zaentz Productions -- were settled out of court in 2017.

Honestly, we'd have an *enormously* greater amount of lore regarding Galadriel had Tolkien actually finished the stories he had planned for the eras of the First and Second Ages. However, what content does exist is *quite explicit* about her being a warrior princess type:

• Tolkien explicitly likens her to an Amazon, and more tellingly contrasts her with Eowyn of Rohan, whom he describes as capable of great valor when pressed but explicitly not a soldier or Amazon. In other words, Eowyn despite demonstrating substantial skill at arms is explicitly not on par with someone who is a professional warrior or soldier -- but Galadriel is.
• The Sindarin elves called her Nerwyn -- man-maiden -- specifically because of her strength and stature.
• In Morgoth's Ring, she is called the fairest and the most valiant of the House of Finwe. Not the most valiant maiden, the most valiant without qualification.
• In the Shibboleth of Feanor, she is described as an elven loremaster, and the loremasters are specifically described as not being "gentle scribes" but the greatest kings, princes, and warriors of their peoples.

So yeah, Galadriel definitely isn't a woke retcon. This is actually a far *more accurate* portrayal of her than the LOTR/Hobbit films portraying her as a stereotypical squishy elf caster, which the unfinished works of Tolkien make it quite clear she was not.

Actually, *Elrond* should be much closer to the squishy caster and *maybe* archer type than Galadriel, given his backstory and character. Yet I see no one whining about "out of character BS" when the LOTR and Hobbit films had him in armor and wielding a sword.

Elrond's martial achivements, incidentally, are entirely 'offscreen'. During the War of the Elves and Sauron in the Second Age, Gil-galad had him lead an elven army to Eregion to reinforce it against Sauron's invading forces; unfortunately, he arrived too late and with too few forces; he then led the surviving refugees north, but is explicitly stated to have only escaped because dwarven forces under Durin III sallied forth from Khazad-dum and attacked Sauron's forces in the rear, forcing them to cease pursuit. After this narrow escape, Elrond founded Rivendell at the base of the Misty Mountains, and held it as his stronghold pretty much for the rest of the Second Age and the entire Third Age.

Elrond sallied forth from Rivendell to join the Last Alliance in assaulting Mordor, but never fought in any battle ever again after that, remaining in Rivendell until after the War of the Ring was over; he then attended his daughter's marriage to Aragon, handed over the Sceptre of Annúminas which had been in his keeping since the fall of the northern kingdom of Arnor. Two years after that, he sailed West with the other Ring-Bearers.

(In other words: Elrond's martial prowess is entirely implied by his position as one of Gil-Galad's lieutenants, and the only time he was explicitly in a position of command, he suffered one of the greatest defeats in the history of Middle-Earth. Probably *the* greatest single defeat, as it was directly responsible for Sauron obtaining the Nine Rings of Men and at least six of the Seven Rings of the Dwarves, the sole remaining dwarf-ring being the one possessed by Durin III.)

A glimpse at a better world...

If we were going to be absolutely true to Tolkien, the prologue (depicting events across a fourteen-year period) would be longer than all six feature films put together -- the events of the Hobbit stretch across only a few months, and the events of the three LOTR films across roughly a year and a half, plus an seventeen-year timeskip between Bilbo's party and everything else happening.

The prologue we actually got is actually mashing together two of the three major battles of the War of the Last Alliance; Tolkien also skipped the second major battle so its complete absence can be forgiven. What is depicted is an *extremely* abbreviated version of the climax of the siege of Barad-Dur, omitting the rather ciritical facts that said siege lasted seven years and that the only part actually fought "on the slopes of Mount Doom" was after Sauron took the field and single-handedly drove back the entire Alliance army.

However, this battle is for some reason repeatedly referred to in the script and other official materials as being the Battle of Dagorlad, which was the first major battle that the Alliance fought on its way to Mordor, and actually ocurred outside Mordor, near the Dead Marshes which Frodo and Sam travelled through with Gollum during The Two Towers.

In fact, the Dead Marshes are the Dead Marshes because of this battle, as they contain the dead from just *one portion* of that battle (which itself lasted months). Specifically, the dead Elves in that marsh are almost entirely from Lothlorien (pre Galadriel), because the Sindarin elves from Lothlorien and Mirkwood refused to actually join the combined elven forces under Gil-Galad, and literally pulled a Leroy Jenkins charge without waiting for the rest of the army. Needless to say, lightly armed elven skirmishers with no experience in pitched open field battles did not , and things got even worse since the two Mirkwood and Lothlorien groups split up in the confusion when they were routed, with the Lothlorien elves being driven south into the Dead Marshes and utterly massacred, suffering roughly 50% casualties in that single battle. This utter stupidity is the canonical reason that arrogant asshole Thranduil is Elf-King in Mirkwood; his father was the Leroy Jenkins.

In any case, there was subsequently a battle that Tolkien didn't bother describing at all when the Last Alliance army broke through the fortifications of the Black Gate and entered Mordor proper, followed by a seven-year siege of Barad-Dur.


P.S.: On a side note, given how badly the Hobbit had to be stretched to make a trilogy of its own, one must wonder if the movie itself was somehow wearing the One Ring.

ShadowArxxy said:

If we were going to be absolutely true to Tolkien, the prologue (depicting events across a fourteen-year period) would be longer than all six feature films put together [because] the events of the three LOTR films [stretch] across roughly a year and a half, plus an seventeen-year timeskip between Bilbo's party and everything else happening.

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I don't recall Tolkien dedicating about two-thirds of the The Lord of the Rings purely to recounting that fourteen-year period you mention here. Since he didn't do that, your insistence that the films would have to dedicate that kind of run-time to it is off-base. That wouldn't be required to be "absolutely true" to Tolkien.

Furthermore, I don't think many people expect or demand that adaptations are 100% accurate to all the details. Yeah, the LotR films aren't a 100% faithful adaptation. Not even a 75% faithful adaptation, if you ask me. But they're pretty good as films, and they do a good job conveying the main story-line, the central characters and the important themes. The Hobbit films are stetched-out garbage, but I think most everybody here feels that way, so pointing that out certainly isn't a "gotcha".

What I find interesting is that you post these extensive analyses, which are accurate and very interesting to read in themselves, but appear to be posting them for the ludicrous reason of defending the Amazon dreck via misguided whataboutism. I don't know if it's intentional, but your posts come across as good and intelligent insights... that are sadly mis-applied for the pettiest of causes.

After all, "warrior Galadriel" certainly isn't the big problem with this Amazon dreck. And I think you know it. Nor is anyone acting like that's the big issue. So my question is: why are you so bent on this attempt to (very selectively) answer criticisms aimed at this project, while (very carefully) ignoring the vast bulk of the criticism aimed at it? Are you just trying to play devil's advocate?

Because right now, your otherwise very insightful posts are kind of spoiled by the fact that they come across as being dedicated to a decidely unworthy cause.

you know guys it is possible for people to have different opinions without being shills or haters or *insert insult here*

KilroywasNOTHere said:

you know guys it is possible for people to have different opinions without being shills or haters or *insert insult here*

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I'm pointing out how it comes across. I'm actually assuming that shilling wasn't the goal, and I repeatedly stressed that the arguments themselves are pretty interesting. Just that they very much appear to be applied here to explicitly shield the Amazon project from criticism. And I don't know why.

Because that project certainly doesn't deserve such a mis-guided defence.

Skallagrim said:

I'm pointing out how it comes across. I'm actually assuming that shilling wasn't the goal, and I repeatedly stressed that the arguments themselves are pretty interesting. Just that they very much appear to be applied here to explicitly shield the Amazon project from criticism. And I don't know why.

Because that project certainly doesn't deserve such a mis-guided defense.

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eh fair enough, I think for some of us it just feels like beating a dead horse at this point kind of like dunking on the star wars sequel trilogy. there are only so many ways you can say the same thing over and over again.

Skallagrim said:

I don't recall Tolkien dedicating about two-thirds of the The Lord of the Rings purely to recounting that fourteen-year period you mention here. Since he didn't do that, your insistence that the films would have to dedicate that kind of run-time to it is off-base. That wouldn't be required to be "absolutely true" to Tolkien.

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Yes, that's called me being a little bit snarky about it.

Although the thing is, the movie actually showed that it was a significant timeskip, bookended by Gandalf's telling Frodo "Keep it secret; keep it safe", a dramatic flash-cut montage of the key events during that period: i.e. Gollum being tortured in Barad-Dur and revealing to Sauron that the Ring was in the Shire, the Nine riding forth from Mordor in pursuit of that knowledge, and Gandalf's parallel realization from studying historical records in Gondor. You then have Gandalf returning to Frodo with the call-back wording, "Is it secret!? Is it safe!" The only thing a viewer might not necessarily realize was that it was fourteen years skipped over and not merely a few months.

In contrast, the way the prologue compresses the War of the Last Alliance leaves the viewer with the impression that the Battle of Dagorland and the Battle of Barad-Dur were one and the same , and that the battle in Mordor was a single decisive conflict lasting perhaps a few hours as opposed to a seven year long siege. That's a pretty fundamental difference, not just "It is not entirely clear how long the timeskip covered by this montage actually was."

ShadowArxxy said:

Yes, that's called me being a little bit snarky about it.

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On the internet "actually being a retard" and "lol, I was only pretending to be a retard" are pretty hard to tell apart. I genuinely can't tell your tone, especially since -- as I mentioned -- the actual intent behind your posts remains pretty unclear. Are you just obsessively nit-picking? Are you trying to say all possible criticism of all adapatations are equally weighty, regardless of how gnificant they are? Are you saying you think the Amazon thing will be based, actually?

ShadowArxxy said:

In contrast, the way the prologue compresses the War of the Last Alliance leaves the viewer with the impression that the Battle of Dagorland and the Battle of Barad-Dur were one and the same , and that the battle in Mordor was a single decisive conflict lasting perhaps a few hours as opposed to a seven year long siege.

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And nobody gives a fuck. Because that's all ancient history to the general viewing public; only there to provide a bit of context for the real story.

What you appear to be suggesting in your posts is that "they abbreviated the backstory and glossed over these details!!!" is supposed to be considered just as big a violation of the lore and its intent as "Elves and dwarves were actually totally black, dude, and modern feminism was big thing in Middle-Earth! Tolkien was actually a progressive, and we have to show that!"

It comes across like that because you start your series of posts, by all appearance in response to criticisms of the Amazon show, and turn it into an "acksuwally..." kind of whataboutism. Where you then stress such utter, crude violations of Tolkien's work as... abbreviating the prologue.

In reality, one of these things is a bit more serious than the other, you know? As I said: the Jackson LotR films weren't perfect, but they were decent adaptations. Whereas this Amazon dreck appears to be tantamount to raping Tolkien's corpse. So I'll ask you again: what is your intent with your posts? What are you trying to say?

If I was being a nitpicking purist, I'd point out that Galadriel's voiceover explanation of the Rings of Power gets one major detail completely wrong:

Sauron originally made all of the Rings of Power for the elves. The Nine going to men and the Seven going to dwarves was his backup plan, and actually only happened after the beginning of the war between Sauron and the Elves, which was sparked *because* Celebrimbor belatedly realized Sauron's betrayal and fled with all of the "lesser" Rings in his possession. Elrond's failure to succor Eriador directly led to Sauron recovering the Nine and all but one of the Seven, and it was only then that he gave them to Men and Dwarves.

Skallagrim said:

In reality, one of these things is a bit more serious than the other, you know? As I said: the Jackson LotR films weren't perfect, but they were decent adaptations. Whereas this Amazon dreck appears to be tantamount to raping Tolkien's corpse. So I'll ask you again: what is your intent with your posts? What are you trying to say?

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I'm saying that warrior Galadriel is explicitly more true to Tolkien's writing, which makes it completely ass backwards to complain that warrior Galadriel is a woke revision. Because if anyone was actually "raping Tolkien's corpse", it was actually Peter Jackson turning Galadriel into a squishy non-combatant elf queen who had to be "rescued" by Elrond who by Tolkien was actually the squishy, useless one.

ShadowArxxy said:

If I was being a nitpicking purist (...)

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"If I was doing that, I'd be doing the thing I'm doing right now, at this very moment!"

ShadowArxxy said:

I'm saying that warrior Galadriel is explicitly more true to Tolkien's writing, which makes it completely ass backwards to complain that warrior Galadriel is a woke revision.

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And to repeat myself:

Skallagrim said:

After all, "warrior Galadriel" certainly isn't the big problem with this Amazon dreck. And I think you know it. Nor is anyone acting like that's the big issue. So my question is: why are you so bent on this attempt to (very selectively) answer criticisms aimed at this project, while (very carefully) ignoring the vast bulk of the criticism aimed at it? Are you just trying to play devil's advocate?

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...so we're still where we left off. At a point where it does very much appear like you're just deliberately trying to only discuss certain, specific criticisms of the Amazon project, while nit-picking the Jackson films like a true obsessive and shouting ACKSHUWALLY!!! about that, while utterly ignoring the way bigger problems with the Amazon production.

From your posts, it seems like you really do think that the Jackson trilogy is worse than (or at least as bad as) the Amazon project when it comes to violating Tolkien's world and ideas. Either that, or you're deliberately being disingenuous in order to shill for Amazon. Or you're just trolling everyone here and giggling behind your computer, in which case congratulations.

But in none of these cases does it strike me as plausible that I can reason with you about any of this. So... have a nice day, I guess. And enjoy the Amazon series when it comes out. You may well be among the few who do.

Apparently they don't even have the rights to The Simarillion, only the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit books and appendices.

This is going to be a challenge for Amazon, creating a series based on the Second Age setting while not basing it on a majority of the material that takes place in said Second Age setting.

Husky_Khan said:

Apparently they don't even have the rights to The Simarillion, only the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit books and appendices.

This is going to be a challenge for Amazon, creating a series based on the Second Age setting while not basing it on a majority of the material that takes place in said Second Age setting.

The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Showrunners Admit They Don't Have The Rights To The Silmarillion Or Unfinished Tales

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay admitted their show does not have a number of rights that depict events from the Second Age of The Lord of the Rings world.

boundingintocomics.com

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so they don't have source material, they don't have the right to drop any Simarillion characters beyond what was already mentioned in LOTR or the hobbit and again this is brought to you by many of the same people who gave us the last season of GOT. I hope they have some of the people who wrote LOTRO and/or the shadow of war series, otherwise even as an AU I expect it to suck.

Expensive, shit tier fan-fiction that is 25% different from the source material so as to not pay royalties.
That certainly rings more than a few bells.
I am totally completely and utterly invested in this thing sucking, I even have the popcorn bag ready to be popped when the reviews start dropping.

KilroywasNOTHere said:

I hope they have some of the people who wrote LOTRO and/or the shadow of war series, otherwise even as an AU I expect it to suck.

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Agent23 said:

I am totally completely and utterly invested in this thing sucking, I even have the popcorn bag ready to be popped when the reviews start dropping.

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Two kinds of people.

One is "it's going to suck, but I hope it's at least as good as possible" and the other is "I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this trash-can fire".

Skallagrim said:

Two kinds of people.

One is "it's going to suck, but I hope it's at least as good as possible" and the other is "I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this trash-can fire".

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I'll agree on that assessment. I mean I quite enjoyed Lord of the Rings Online and Shadow of Mordor despite both series feeling more like D&D more than Middle Earth. One at least tried to make it's story a background story and tried to make it tie into the main events as best it could the other at least knew it was an Alternate universe power fantasy and used that aspect to tell a compelling story while also fleshing out Mordor and it's inhabitants. (plus give us fanficers and what ifers plenty to play with

I get the feeling with this amazon series is that they are going to try and have thier feet in both worlds and not enough in either of them. They are going to do whatever they can to make superficial references to future events jn the books and movies, but stray from them to the pointthe story makes no sense.

Skallagrim said:

Two kinds of people.

One is "it's going to suck, but I hope it's at least as good as possible" and the other is "I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this trash-can fire".

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I was never much of a fan of Tolkien, and most of my favorite franchises have already been rebooted or gotten shitty prequels/sequels.

Wars.
Trek.
B5's sequels were rather underwhelming but the story is complete and I see zero benefit from reboots, I'd rather keep my fond memories of the franchise and see it forgotten by the mainstream.
I did not see OBSG but NuBSG went to the shitter after 2-3 seasons, and Caprica was a junkyard fire.

Most science fiction novels are repetitive trash nowadays, especially the ones that were nominated for or won Hugo or Nebula.

Even the HPL universe is being invaded by SJW filth.

40k is a money grab and most of the writers are virtue signalling leftard idiots, and the canon gets raped constantly.

I am basically left with anime and cyberpunk 2077 at this point.

My hills in the west got overrun a while ago, might as well enjoy the dumpsterfires upon and fights for the other ones.And I sincerely hope that the woke morons destroy Hollywood and, western comics the AAA game industry before spread spreads their filthy tendrils
into stuff I actually care about.

Burn, baby, burn!