On reflection it's rather funny that the compressed timeline was done because otherwise all the mortal characters would keep dying. Because the following characters are all immortal:

Galadriel
Elrond
Gil-Galad
Celebrimbor
Halbrand/Sauron
Adar
Arondir
The Stranger

So you would only lose:

Nori
Durin
Bronwyn and Theo
Elendil
Isildur
Miriel

I can't help but feel that the compression was actually unnecessary, and that it would have been acceptable/better to have these characters just being around for maybe one season each, when their respective timelines came along.

 

I mean, it's kind of hard to make engaging television out of forging of the rings that takes 90 years. How do you show that? Fade to black, text overlay: 90 years later? How do you make it make sense to the audience that it takes that long to make some jewelry?

Tolkien timeline has the same issues as all other epic fantasy timelines in that the events in ancient history take way too long.

 

I don't know what all the fuss was about with the show supposedly looking cheap or being horribly terrible. Some of the dialogue was meh. Some of the runtime was boring (folksy Harfoots folksily folksying and Gandalf, cough the Stranger gesticulating at stars in confusion). Seems like complaining for the sake of complaining because there's a black elf and and a black dwarf. Some people apparently thought Galadriel was unlikeable? I'll take this Galadriel gal over Rey Skywalker Palpatine any day.

I shan't repeat all the points on lore conflicts that Taure and Steelbadger have raised before. As I said in my post on adaptations much earlier in this thread, I didn't go in expecting an exact translation of Tolkien to the screen, so all of that is fine.

This one person who complained about Pharazon's monologue in the plaza was completely wrong btw, the actor knocked it out of the park. More Pharazon pls.

Things I particularly liked:

The R's (NumenoRRRR, GaldRRRRiel, TaRRRR-MinyatuRRRR, ARRRRmenelos and so on)

Narsil

panning shots of all the great civilisations (Armenelos, Eregion, Lindon, Khazad, a glimpse of Valinor)

Durin's tree (fuck you Elrond I don't like you anymore, but this tree you gave me, yeah that's my baby, so I actually still like you... you're still
an asshole for missing my wedding)

Adar

Gil-galad (hands down best-looking elf on the show, dude must win the Middle-Earth's Best Dressed Elf Award every year)

Sauron reveal scene (he recounted everything he told Galadriel, afterwards she must have been feeling like "goddamnit, he literally gave me every clue"; I like how his eyes looked like the fire eye from the Jackson movies in the closeup, I like how once the jig was up and Galadriel went for the kill, he just blocked the strike like it was nothing AND Sauron had the best line in the whole show so far: "I have been awake since the breaking of the first silence" is up there with "Not idly do the leaves of Lorien fall", very melodic line, well-delivered, terrific stuff)

terraforming of Mordor

---

I enjoyed it. I think waiting to binge the whole season was the right decision, I can't imagine how much more the Harfoots would have annoyed me if I couldn't fast-forward through some of those scenes to get back to the good stuff. Tbh I don't understand why the Gandalf storyline is in this show and I don't care about it. More Numenor and more Sauron please.

 

I didn't know where to put this but I want to talk about it.

There will be two new WB/NewLine LOTR films produced by Peter Jackson. The first, tentatively titled "The Hunt For Gollum" and directed by Andy Serkis is coming 2026 at the earliest. It'll be written by Boyens/Walsh.

I think it will be really interesting having PJ and the original writing team back in LOTR projects, and I will never say no to more of Serkis' Gollum work.

I look forward to it potentially lighting a fire under Amazon's ass to maybe shell out for some extended lore rights and hopefully improve TROP. I hope it will also finally settle the debate on whether LOTR or Hobbit/MortalEngines is Jackson's baseline quality output for genre films.

At the same time, I'm worried. Doing a trilogy era spinoff feels.... incredibly cash grabby. Without access to the Hunt for the Ring chapter in Unfinished Tales, they're gonna have even less material to go off of for Hunt For Gollum than Amazon had for TROP. Basing an entire movie off of like... 6 sentences in the appendices.

 

Season 2: Sauron Wears a Wig





Welp... hoping they learned some lessons.

Not a lot to glean from the trailer. Guessing Wigron is a flashback to pre-Halbrand (or something he uses as a temporary disguise) cause just slapping a wig on and walking up to Brimby and being like "Sup babes I'm Annatar" would be... not it.

 

I am not particularly enthusiastic about the new spinoffs. I am fairly certain the Peter Jackson production is in name only or isn't too significant, just something for the trailers and name recognition (Think Chris Nolan's credit on MoS). Besides, I am fairly certain he lost all passion for this universe somewhere in the making of the third Hobbit, if you look at the bts and his interviews about that movie he just sounds exhausted and tired of it all.

Re Andy Serkis, he doesn't have the greatest directing catalog, and certainly not for something like this. So yeah idk feels very cash grabby.

Also this was listed as a similar thread below and I found it very funny https://forums.darklordpotter.net/threads/lord-of-the-rings-the-hunt-for-gollum.13183 would not be shocked if it's a conscious rip off of the name tbh.

 

This is definitely going to be like this. But my guess is that they will explain it as a magic, maybe have a scene with a mirror like in Quantum Leap with how others see him, and Charlie Vickers is back because he is a fan favorite and Amazon really needs to keep these few happy.

 

Oh they've 100% seen the fan film. It got a copyright strike from WB within 8 hours of their announcing it, and was taken off youtube. Tolkien fanspaces literally exploded with rage. The big film twitter accounts like Discussing Film and Culture Crave caught wind and had the general audience joining calls to boycott the movie.

Managed to get it reversed in a day or two. WB did NOT want to deal with a pissed off fanbase.

It's so lazy though fuuuuuuuuck.

 

Imo it makes more sense to keep the same actor for the same character and handwave his Clark Kent-tier disguise with magic rather than recast the role and have the new actor try to emulate the mannerisms of the last guy. And then when the Annatar jig is up, what? Go back to the first actor? Recast again? Meh. When you've found a good actor for a major part in a project like this, you want to hold on to that talent. Assuming this is about 5 seasons with 2-year cycles between season releases, that's a 10-year production timeline.

Also, this is literally the dumbest, dullest complaint to have with a character established to be a sorcerer of epic skill.

The best thing about the teaser is that I saw no Harfoots.

 

Sauron's whole deal is that he is a physical shapeshifter. He SHOULD have multiple actors. Locking him into one face on the show and just handwaving it as having a magic disguise that the viewer can see through at all times but no one else can is fucking stupid end of story.

Unrelated: If you freeze frame the circular shot with Elrond and Galadriel, it looks like we might be getting the Barrow Wights, which is awesome. Likely how they will bring in ol Tom Bom-ba-dill-o.

In the BTS video there's also a little storyboard panel behind Isildur that shows a giant spider. Sounds like he'll be Cirith Ungol-ing his way out of newly formed Mordor.

 

@KHAAAAAAAN!!

I might agree with you if the story was a mystery about repeatedly figuring out who Sauron is, but that's not what the story of this show is--in the sense that it shouldn't be, if they're trying to do Tolkien. Tolkien wrote classic good vs evil (yes, because he invented the modern fantasy genre pretty much). This is not the first 3 HP books, where the mystery drives the plot. The mystery part of the first season was that Sauron is active and lurking. Now it's gonna be elves and friends of elves vs Sauron, that's the story.

I very much doubt Amazon has the patience to do a mystery thriller out of "Find Waldo Sauron" when they are clearly gunning to put some epic battles on screen to try and draw in the audience of the OG LotR trilogy.

Of course, this is a conclusion based on speculation, but I'm willing to bet I'm more right than wrong on this.

 

I wouldn't see an issue with choosing another actor and just introducing the character as one of saurons known aliases. He was able to shape shift pretty much at will before he vested his power in the one ring. He fought berens hound in the shape of a werewolf.

On the other hand the "one wig to rule them all" memes are funny.

 

Looks like it was Rory Kinnear who was cast for Tom Bombadil. It's an odd choice, but he's a great actor. The article gives me some assurance that they understand the basics of the character and won't be demystifying or doing anything too crazy with him beyond extending his wandering phase a bit longer than Tolkien implies it lasted.

Blue jacket yellow boots is on point. Literally straight out of the old Tolkien Calendar art and I appreciate that a lot.

 

shoulda been Jack Black, unironically real talk

 

It would have been great, but I've never heard him do a convincing accent other than his own. Matt Berry would have been my first choice.

 

Jack Black's past the point where I can take him seriously as an actor, every time I see him it just takes me right out and kills immersion, his part in the mandalorian made me feel like I was watching an SNL sketch.