>>40796>Malthusian evilSorry, I meant Manichaen evil. Whoops.
>>40796The idea of virtue is also relative to one's ideology. Just because the evil is defined through the lack of good doesn't mean that it changes anything, it just makes "goodness" the ideology that defines what "evilness" is not. The kind of relationship between good and evil becomes a dependency instead of opposition, otherwise it's all the same.
https://www.cbr.com/lord-of-the-rings-red-book-of-westmarch-explained/ For once a decently accurate CBR article, on the Red Book of Westmarch.
>>40666The haradrim reads to me as more garden vs the jungle chauvanism (sublimated racism) than outright racism. I don't recall Tolkien ever dwelling on the physiognomy or anything like that.
>>36576This. No amazon show can be bad enough to be a worse legacy for Tolkien than his cheap imitators.
>>11616Varg's love of LotR in particular surprises me. Chances are he either read it so long ago he forgot the message or just remembers his MERP games more than the actual books. Tolkien's message is typically christian about the humble little people triumphing after enduring hardship. All the heroics are either futile like the last ditch assault on mordor or downright counter-productive in Boromir's case.
>>41850>The haradrim reads to me as more garden vs the jungle chauvanism (sublimated racism) than outright racism. I don't recall Tolkien ever dwelling on the physiognomy or anything like that.I don't know if that kind of paradigm makes sense in this case. The dichotomy for people in Tolkien's stories seems less like "civilized v barbarian" than "honest vs deceived." Like the haradrim aren't evil because they're a different color and culture, they're evil because they've been deceived by Sauron and are doing his bidding. In the books, the big victory over evil wouldn't have been possible without the help of the gondorian pygmies that iirc are implied to be more related to the original humans rather than the human/elf hybrids of Gondor. They've got their own ways and customs and are implied to be "primitive" but they're not evil.
Personally I think the lotr show should have just ignored all the parts of middle earth that we saw in the movies and instead gone off the edge of the map and made up their own stuff. There's those blue wizards we know nothing about, and it would give us a chance to see what was going on with the haradrim and rhun or whatever to flesh them out beyond "scary foreign bad guys."
>>41880>Personally I think the lotr show should have just ignored all the parts of middle earth that we saw in the movies and instead gone off the edge of the map and made up their own stuff. There's those blue wizards we know nothing about, and it would give us a chance to see what was going on with the haradrim and rhun or whatever to flesh them out beyond "scary foreign bad guys."I was hoping for something like this too, but then again it would probably be too far removed from what the general public considers "Lord of the Rings"
>>41882Main character has to be somebody recognizable while also not re-treading the stories that people have already seen adapted. So the hobbits, humans, and dwarves are right out.
This basically leaves the wizards and elves, and nobody wants to have their MC compared to giants like Ian McKellan and Christopher Lee. Plus the wizards don't work well as protagonists since most of what they do is act like plot devices.
That leaves the elves, and who among the elves is memorable and makes sense as a protagonist outside of the existing adapted stories? You are looking at two options: Galadriel and Elrond. And between Elrond being less interesting and the girlboss zeitgeist it's obvious they'd choose Galadriel.
Sure, there's a million other things to adapt that could be more interesting, but Amazon isn't in the business of being Fox Searchlight. They are fishing for a flagship prestige TV show that will blow people away. They were planning to spend a BILLION DOLLARS producing it.
>>41883Or you can make Gollum the main character
https://www.google.com/amp/s/variety.com/2024/film/news/lord-of-the-rings-movie-2026-release-warner-bros-1235997102/amp/
>Warner Bros. to Release New ‘Lord of the Rings’ Movie ‘The Hunt for Gollum’ in 2026, Peter Jackson to Produce and Andy Serkis to Direct
>"For over two decades, moviegoers have embraced the ‘Lord of the Rings’ film trilogy because of the undeniable devotion Peter, Fran and Philippa have shown towards protecting the legacy of Tolkien’s works, and to ensure audiences could experience the incredible world he created in a way that honors his literary vision,” De Luca and Abdy said in a statement Thursday. “We are honored they have agreed be our partners on these two new films. With Andy coming aboard to direct ‘Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,’ we continue an important commitment to excellence that is a true hallmark of how we all want to venture ahead and further contribute to the ‘Lord of the Rings’ cinematic history.”
>Jackson, Walsh and Boyens added: “It is an honour and a privilege to travel back to Middle-earth with our good friend and collaborator, Andy Serkis, who has unfinished business with that Stinker — Gollum! As life long fans of Professor Tolkien’s vast mythology, we are proud to be working with Mike De Luca, Pam Abdy and the entire team at Warner Bros. on another epic adventure!”
>"Yesssss, Precious,” Serkis said. “The time has come once more to venture into the unknown with my dear friends, the extraordinary and incomparable guardians of Middle Earth Peter, Fran and Philippa. With Mike and Pam, and the Warner Bros team on the quest as well, alongside WETA and our filmmaking family in New Zealand, it’s just all too delicious…”
>>41912had to be just WB handing them a fat stack of money to revive one of their beloved Franchises™. The time is right too - the trilogy is over 20 years old so it has the nostalgia factor, plus Rings of Power was mid so people want a return to the Peeta Jickson version of Middle Earth. I'm expecting more Hobbit-tier schlock though.
Also why the fuck is the obsession with Gollum? First that awful game, now this? Do they want him to be the memeable mascot or something?
>>41913it probably got focus grouped and he's the most memorable character lol.
>>41913>I'm expecting more Hobbit-tier schlock though.That's what you're going to get, because Andy Serkis was the 2nd unit director on those movies, and those were all the parts that people hated the most (the stuff without Bilbo).
>>41911I'm glad Tolkien isn't alive to see what his work has become. If he knew what would become of it I'm sure he'd have burned it all.
>>41913Gollum as a property has the benefit of being big enough to be immediately recognizable but also have enough blank spots in his narrative that you could conceivably do something with him. Also as a grey little gremlin weirdo he doesn't have any racial or gender aspects to navigate, like black hobbits or whatever.
But you'd think after that fucking video game they'd know better.
>>41911I love how every fucking thing must become its own MCU now.
>>41913Middle Earth Baby Yoda.
>>41947Yeah that really is what it is, isn't it
>>41947How fucking stupid do you have to be to think Gollum could be like Baby Yoda?
I'm gonna be honest, I don't really want more Peeta Jickson LOTR. The Hobbit trilogy kind of burned any enthusiasm I had for his take on Tolkein. I'd rather see someone else taken the reins (but not have it be some bland, watered-down Jackson like Rings of Power either). Maybe that animated Rohirrim movie will be cool, idk.
>>41968Or alternatively just fucking stop making sequels and prequels and reboots altogether
>no Tom bombadil movie
so are we getting Viggo and Ian McKellen back? need to get McKellen back and filming now before, I hate to say it the inevitable
>>42068obviously they are recasting which will make it extra weird for serkis to be doing gollum
it's incredible that JRRT never once in any passage in any of the hundreds of tomes he wrote on his fantasy world did he ever address the reason as to why the eagles didn't just fly the hobbits into mordor. mediocre writer tbqh
>>42071Sauron has air defences obviously, Tolkien predicted Ukraine.
>>42068Viggo didnt want to come back for the Hobbit and he was critical of the CGI use in the LOTR trilogy, I doubt he wants to come back for this.
>>42071Eagles get hungry, they would have ate them.
>>42071I don't know if this is sarcastic or not, but he wrote why the eagles didn't just fly the Fellowship to Mordor in Lord of the Rings itself.
I know the LOTR movies made some changes, but for the most part they were great and probably the best theatrical adaptations we'll ever get. Then you have the Hobbit, which took a 300 page kid book and bloated it into three films filled with CGI schlock and completely butchered the tone and story.
Now we've arrived here, where they just get to make shit up and do spinoffs focused on a single character. They've MCU'd Tolkien now.
>>42071Eagles were corruptible by the ring. One of the humans in the fellowship tried to take it from Frodo. Imagine if it was an eagle instead. Also the whole plan hinged on stealth. Eagles would give the game away and Sauron couldn't have been baited to send his forces elsewhere (which was the whole reason why Frodo and Sam didn't face much resistance sneaking through Mordor). Sauron could have easily stuck an army at Mt Doom if he saw the ring coming like that. The whole point is he got blindsided by the sheer audacity of sending a sneaky hobbit.
>>42088No, the real reason is because Tolkien thought not using eagles would make for a more interesting story. If we want to look at it realistically, whatever the risk of eagles, its clearly outweigh by trekking across entire Middle-earth while pursued by nazguls and goblins. You dont have to fly all the way to Mount Doom on them, they could have dropped fellowship off at whatever convenient location.
In fact this got me thinking, what was the original plan? Like if everything went smoothly and fellowship never slip up, how did Elrond and Gandalf plan to get to Mordor? Did they always plan to create some sort of distraction and then send the hobbits alone across Gorgoroth with pat on a back and kiss on a cheek, hoping for the best?
>>42090Sauron has birds as spies and Sauron's forces are hardly grounded themselves, if you've forgotten the fell beasts the Nazgul ride on.
The whole point was to be somewhat stealthy. Riding the eagles anywhere would not have been stealthy.
I think the original plan was for the whole Fellowship to sneak into Mordor, but with a definite "we'll figure it out when we get there" attitude. The war was already on when the Fellowship formed, so I think they were hoping that this would keep Sauron distracted.
>>42091But they were already being pursued by both Sauron and Saruman. Saruman knew their location pretty much entire time, while Sauron was at the very least aware of ring being in Rivendell. Eagles have speed, they couldnt have been followed, and Middle-earth is a big place, even if Sauron got some report about sightings of eagles flying south-east, that wouldnt really help him locate fellowships.
>>42087It's kind of incredible to me how much worse the Hobbit was than LOTR.
>>42093Saruman did not know their location. Both Sauron and Saruman only had a vague sense of where they were or even who they were.
It is something of a plot point that the Fellowship hadn't been spotted yet which at least informs their decision to go through Moria because they were surrounded on all sides by patrols and the way they had wanted to go through had become impassible.
There's also the fact that the eagles aren't Gandalf's pets. They're intelligent creatures that owe Gandalf a favor and would want an explanation as to why they're hauling a bunch of strangers halfway to Mordor.
>>42087I actually don't mind that they're making MCU fanfics.
That's clearly what they wanted to do with The Rings of Power. Let them make up their own little stories set in Middle Earth. There's actually a chance it might be good if they're basically just telling their own story instead of stumbling over existing material and butchering it.
>>42094Well they had to come up with filler to turn it into 3 movies. Realistically the book only has content for 1. It seems like the studio was diving it hoping to make a shitload of money which they did btw. Collectively they made almost 3 billion dollars against a budget around $700 million. A big part of this was the sheer spectacle since they made a big deal out of shooting natively in 3D at 5k resolution and 48fps throughout. They made a really big deal of the format and charged more for tickets with 3D and HFR. A bunch of theaters even had to install new projectors just to be able to do this. It was part of a push to build on what Avatar had already done to try to make 3D really take off. Unlike Avatar though they did a
lot of the cliche 3D movie thing of deliberately drawing attention to the 3D effects, shoving shit at the camera and doing a lot of excessive camera movements that felt really un-grounded in reality unlike the original. The result is the movies were very bloated and obnoxious instead of feeling more immersive.
They also had a lot of "growing pain" type of issues experimenting with the format, like having to redo a lot of makeup, props, and practical effects when they realized they don't look good in 3D/HFR/5k. They also completely abandoned the technique of forced perspective that allowed actors playing characters of different sizes to be in the same shot together (3D ruins the illusion by showing the depth), so they had to shoot these scenes on separate sets. This made it a lot harder for actors to convincingly do the scenes because they could no longer react to each other at all. This alone should have made anybody with a brain realize this was the wrong franchise to try this with. Do it with Star Wars or something.
>>42098Endless suffering.
>>42098The endless hamster wheel of culture trash.
>>42120Yeah IIRC when the GOT show hired a guy to make conlangs for Dothraki, High Valyrian, etc and asked GRRM for his notes he was just like "yeah the four or five words in the books are all I came up with." Like it's fine to not be on Tolkien's level with that, but it's kind of a major thing to think about if you aren't just hand-waving language altogether. Especially if you're then going to pretend you are doing more homework on the worldbuilding than the all time champ. GRRM also notoriously has little grasp of math and when he saw how what the Wall actually would look like at 700 feet tall and wide enough for a dozen horsemen to ride side by side along it he was like "oh wow that's a lot bigger than I thought lol."
GRRM's point is really more about the political realities though, so it's more fair to criticize over that, like how the realm managed to last for thousands of years despite the irregular winters periodically causing mass famines.
>>42122Does the winter only affect Westeros? Like no one else really seems that concerned about it. With their stupid culture it seems like all it would take is a sufficiently long cold snap to wipe out the dothraki.
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