In the teaseriest of teasers–though one step beyond the single landscape image released last year that sent the digital world of Tolkien lovers scurrying into Reddit arguments or making “everything you need to know about” videos (above)–Amazon Prime has finally released the title of its new series with a one-minute teaser video.
It isn’t much, admittedly–an earnest voice evoking Galadriel of the Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy reading the Ring-verse.
We also have a full title: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power–forged in gold, no less, which would be a significant undertaking with so few goldsmiths available locally during COVID prevention measures.
And we have a date: September 2, 2022.
My heart and mind dance between two modes about this series. I love that there is, possibly, a way to live in Middle-earth in imaginative ways. I like that we may get a Second Age Middle-earth story. However, my “Faint Hope for the Hobbit” led to a declining sense that the bright and fun film before was anything more than a high-tech dream wagon (see here and here). Moreover, my confidence is not high that this studio, in this age, is able to create a rich experience for lovers of the literature. The Dune adaptation gives me hope of the possibility of a brilliant, world-evoking film series that extends, enhances, and fills out my reading experience.
Calligraphy by J.R.R. Tolkien, from Tolkien Gateway
I do like that there is, at least, a connection to the text in this title trailer, the “Ring-verse” from The Fellowship of the Ring:
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
I like the text–and would have loved all of it.
Can it possibly be something that might “live on in the spine of a book next to J.R.R. Tolkien’s other classics” as show creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay hope (see the press release here)? We’ll have to see. They did, however, put the accent for Númenor in the right place (unlike the biggest LOTR fan ever, C.S. Lewis).
In any case, here is that title trailer–the #1 trending video on Youtube today. Below is the studio’s press release. I hope you enjoy this little bit of something.
Amazon Studios’ forthcoming series brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien’s pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.
Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the breathtaking island kingdom of Númenor, to the furthest reaches of the map, these kingdoms and characters will carve out legacies that live on long after they are gone.
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Are they using Tolkien for source material, or are they simply inserting characters and “new adventures” into the setting? I’m suspicious. I’m also frustrated that streaming services, which not long ago, very briefly, were the most affordable ways to access content, are now mostly controlled by entities that have hellalot of money already. I don’t have Disney or Amazon and don’t plan to get them, so I guess I’m SOL….
/rant
Dana
Curious, the only thing I can find about “J.D. Payne & Patrick McKay” at IMDB is that they were uncredited writers for Star Trek: Beyond (2016). I do not recall encountering the term “Showrunners” before, but Wikipedia tells me “A showrunner is […] typically also character creator, head writer, and script editor”. The press release says nothing about writers, script, screenplay, etc., though IMDB lists them both under “Writer” and then with reference to episodes, “creator” – though, again, clicking through I find various others credited as “Writers” per episode, including “Justin Doble, Jason Cahill, Gennifer Hutchison,” (who appear in the press release) and Bryan Cogman, who does not, for all of whose previous writing credits, see IMDB.
Looking further, I see the Tolkien Gateway article, “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”, has quite a lot of (footnoted) detail….
Reblogged this on CREATION to ESCHATON.
All of the film treatments so far have been trashy fare – dodgy acting, ‘inserts’ into plot and dialogue totally at odds with the source material and that seem to have been contrived by an odd hybrid of a marketing committee and a creative-writing-by-numbers workshop.
The sources for this are mostly the appendices, so the bulk of it is going to be shuddersome new work from crassest of contemporary monsters, amazon.
Visually, it looks horrendous – nauseous cgi that looks like AI attempts to replicate paintings.
Greedy Tolkien family, sadly, countering the decrease in their income as the estate yields get diluted by the increasing number of heirs. Indicitive of our times, I suppose.
‘Lord of the Rings: The Appendices’ – what do ‘we’ know about the film rights to LotR (since the fascinating glimpses in the selection of Tolkien’s letters)? For instance, in what position legally has the Tolkien Estate ever been, to have how much ‘say’ in what the current ‘owner’ of the film rights decides to do? On the other hand, take Númenor: would the current ‘owner’ be in some way constrained to use only what is in the Appendices and not all that has been added to our knowledge by The Silmarillion, HME, The Nature of Middle-earth, etc.? Even, free to indulge in “‘inserts’ into plot and dialogue totally at odds with the source material”, but not equaly free to use those additional post-LotR sources?
I have not done my James Bond homework, but what an astonishing variety of movies are supposed to be versions of one or another of the novels…
I think permission was only granted after Christopher Tolkien’s death, so I presume it needed to avail of other sources outside the appendices (Unfinished Tales).
I’m not sure … I had heard differently. But I have never found a direct line between the agreements that estates sign and the films that result.
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At least they won’t be ruining our favourite characters. I can’t forgive Peter Jackson for what he did to Faramir. Anyway I do t have Amazon Prime so I’ll be sitting this one out. I’ve read LoTR and The Silmarillion many times but I have never been a fan of the Lost Tales, Unfinished Tales etc etc. Especially not after someone explained the cats of Queen Berúthiel to me.
* Don’t have Amazon Prime
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