I'm encouraged by the optimism I'm hearing here, and yes, I'm using the term 'optimism' rather than 'wishful thinking' because I feel there is a hope, however slim - my opinion here and everything else that follows - that Amazon may turn out something that is watchable by people like myself, a self-admitted book purist.
It is possible to cross the divide between book and screen, and PJ proved that. Some other purists would burn me at the stake for saying that, but despite a few things that make me grind my teeth to this day, Jackson managed to remain true to the essence of Tolkien, and where alterations were made, the ones that were necessary made sense, and the ones that didn't... well, everyone is entitled to have regrets and I think even PJ has a few. At any rate, what matters here is that it is possible to adapt and still cling faithfully to the source material without reinventing it in way that clearly telegraphs that you are only interested in pandering to the audience of the day. This principle had largely fallen by the wayside by the time the Hobbit movies came along, but to be fair, the studio interfered too much in those, and PJ was tired and had already checked out.
As has been rightly pointed out, this series will differ drastically from those movies in the sense that there is not nearly as much meat to put in the sandwich that is the Second Age as PJ did with three thick books rich with detail at his disposal. Where Amazon can still pull this off is if all the scenes, characters, dialogue, and plots that they are going to be forced to invent don't betray the spirit of the author and the work they are derived from. They are going to have to create a lot of things from scratch, and that's fine, otherwise there is not enough for a dramatic series, only a short documentary, and that is not what they are going to deliver. But the minute you start to go to the well of shows like GoT to start mining for the things that they feel worked, they will have lost before they've even begun. These are two completely separate IPs, that function on very different strengths. To simply lump them as 'fantasy' and think that what worked for one can just be shoe-horned into the other to make it successful is the worst kind of logic at work. This is why I made my earlier comment about nudity and intimate scenes being called for in this series. Though quite shocking and daring at first, it became an integral part of GoT (graphically so in the first half of the series, less so later on) and one of the things that defined it as a show that was willing to take risks with its realism, and have it pay off as a result. However, the works of JRR Tolkien have managed to be at the top of the heap for decades, and doing so in spectacular fashion in terms of cultural impact and longevity, without having gone anywhere near those kinds of storytelling devices. So why would there be a need now? Or have we become so cynically devoid of imagination that we can't conceive of an imaginary world where such things are not necessary to tell a good story?
I worry, and I think I have cause to, because all I see these days in many shows and movies is a blatant attempt to throw as many ingredients into the soup pot as possible and then see what kind of a face the audience makes when they have their first taste. The hope is then that they will stick around at the table and have some more. Tolkien gave us a very refined recipe, and it is my honest belief that you don't mess with perfection. Don't throw in parsley when cilantro is called for. Just don't.
So, is there a chance this will work? Of course there is. But not if their hubris is so great that they treat Tolkien's wonderfully complex world as a convenient stepstool to tell their own story that ends up looking like a round peg being forcefully jammed into square hole. Like the aforementioned Star Wars, this is something that is very precious to a lot of people, and it needs to be treated with the reverence and respect that it deserves, not just a cow with dollar signs tattooed on its udder. For me, the last three SW movies failed spectacularly because they were precisely about that: spectacle. There was no care given to characters, story, or proper deference to what had come before. Even for many who were not as invested in SW as hardcore fans, the vibe I got was 'meh, they were ok movies, whatever.' That's not what I want to hear for Middle-earth because there is no room for mediocrity. Deliver deserving excellence, or just don't bother.
All of the above brought to you by "My two cents".
It is possible to cross the divide between book and screen, and PJ proved that. Some other purists would burn me at the stake for saying that, but despite a few things that make me grind my teeth to this day, Jackson managed to remain true to the essence of Tolkien, and where alterations were made, the ones that were necessary made sense, and the ones that didn't... well, everyone is entitled to have regrets and I think even PJ has a few. At any rate, what matters here is that it is possible to adapt and still cling faithfully to the source material without reinventing it in way that clearly telegraphs that you are only interested in pandering to the audience of the day. This principle had largely fallen by the wayside by the time the Hobbit movies came along, but to be fair, the studio interfered too much in those, and PJ was tired and had already checked out.
As has been rightly pointed out, this series will differ drastically from those movies in the sense that there is not nearly as much meat to put in the sandwich that is the Second Age as PJ did with three thick books rich with detail at his disposal. Where Amazon can still pull this off is if all the scenes, characters, dialogue, and plots that they are going to be forced to invent don't betray the spirit of the author and the work they are derived from. They are going to have to create a lot of things from scratch, and that's fine, otherwise there is not enough for a dramatic series, only a short documentary, and that is not what they are going to deliver. But the minute you start to go to the well of shows like GoT to start mining for the things that they feel worked, they will have lost before they've even begun. These are two completely separate IPs, that function on very different strengths. To simply lump them as 'fantasy' and think that what worked for one can just be shoe-horned into the other to make it successful is the worst kind of logic at work. This is why I made my earlier comment about nudity and intimate scenes being called for in this series. Though quite shocking and daring at first, it became an integral part of GoT (graphically so in the first half of the series, less so later on) and one of the things that defined it as a show that was willing to take risks with its realism, and have it pay off as a result. However, the works of JRR Tolkien have managed to be at the top of the heap for decades, and doing so in spectacular fashion in terms of cultural impact and longevity, without having gone anywhere near those kinds of storytelling devices. So why would there be a need now? Or have we become so cynically devoid of imagination that we can't conceive of an imaginary world where such things are not necessary to tell a good story?
I worry, and I think I have cause to, because all I see these days in many shows and movies is a blatant attempt to throw as many ingredients into the soup pot as possible and then see what kind of a face the audience makes when they have their first taste. The hope is then that they will stick around at the table and have some more. Tolkien gave us a very refined recipe, and it is my honest belief that you don't mess with perfection. Don't throw in parsley when cilantro is called for. Just don't.
So, is there a chance this will work? Of course there is. But not if their hubris is so great that they treat Tolkien's wonderfully complex world as a convenient stepstool to tell their own story that ends up looking like a round peg being forcefully jammed into square hole. Like the aforementioned Star Wars, this is something that is very precious to a lot of people, and it needs to be treated with the reverence and respect that it deserves, not just a cow with dollar signs tattooed on its udder. For me, the last three SW movies failed spectacularly because they were precisely about that: spectacle. There was no care given to characters, story, or proper deference to what had come before. Even for many who were not as invested in SW as hardcore fans, the vibe I got was 'meh, they were ok movies, whatever.' That's not what I want to hear for Middle-earth because there is no room for mediocrity. Deliver deserving excellence, or just don't bother.
All of the above brought to you by "My two cents".
One major reason why I like that show is because there is so much more than just the Skywalker family in Star Wars universe and they have realised it and they delve deep into it. A well done tv series is a perfect place to explore the universe outside the major characters. One can concentrate on developing certain things slowly but surely and you can't have a 10 minute discussion by the camp fire in a StaWa movie but you can do it in Mandalorian. Actually can't remember if there was one but you get the point. Same thing in coming Marvel shows and I trust and wish and hope it will happen in Amazon series too. If they have already ordered 3 seasons they will have enough time to really delve into character development and hopefully without nudity, gore or profanity. I love to see more M-E but naturally in a way it makes sense and fits into the "big picture". It would have been really interesting to see how Benicio del Toro would have laid out his vision of Hobbit but that didn't happen. All in all I'm very excited about the Amazon series and I do hope they know what they are doing. They should because they paid a pretty sum for the rights + the overall development will also be very expensive so there will be many heads rolling down the lane if the series is a bust.
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