Lord Sovereign
The resident Britbong
So, out of ten, how apoplectic with rage do you think the fandom will be after this series is over?
Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer:So, out of ten, how apoplectic with rage do you think the fandom will be after this series is over?
I'm partial to "NaN" or "Yes" myself.Is there an option for '12'?
So, out of ten, how apoplectic with rage do you think the fandom will be after this series is over?
To be honest, I don't think many people who grew up reading Tolkien are going to watch the show, or any more LotR licensed products. Anyone who has been vaguely paying attention to pop culture knows that Tolkien will never be faithfully adapted, at least not by Hollywood. The new Amazon show is aimed at a completely different audience. Most people will have simply never read the books and just won't care. At best, maybe the adaptation will get a few people interested enough to check out the source material.
Well, with any luck it'll turn out to be a really expensive flop for Amazon and social justice in general, get itself canceled after 1 or 2 seasons, and we can hold out hope for a better, more faithful adaptation showing off stuff like Númenór at its most glorious in 20 more years' time. As Frodo himself would put it...The Two Towers said:Standing there for a moment filled with dread Frodo became aware that a light was shining; he saw it glowing on Sam's face beside him. Turning towards it, he saw, beyond an arch of boughs, the road to Osgiliath running almost as straight as a stretched ribbon down, down, into the West. There, far away, beyond sad Gondor now overwhelmed in shade, the Sun was sinking, finding at last the hem of the great slow-rolling pall of cloud, and falling in an ominous fire towards the yet unsullied Sea. The brief glow fell upon a huge sitting figure, still and solemn as the great stone kings of Argonath. The years had gnawed it, and violent hands had maimed it. Its head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted by savage hands in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead. Upon its knees and mighty chair, and all about the pedestal, were idle scrawls mixed with the foul symbols that the maggot-folk of Mordor used.
The Two Towers said:“Look, Sam!” he cried, startled into speech. “Look! The king has got a crown again.”
The eyes were hollow and the carven beard was broken, but about the high stern forehead there was a coronal of silver and gold. A trailing plant with flowers like small white stars had bound itself across the brows as if in reverence for the fallen king, and in the crevices of his stone hair yellow stonecrop gleamed. “They cannot conquer forever!” said Frodo.
To be honest, I don't think many people who grew up reading Tolkien are going to watch the show, or any more LotR licensed products. Anyone who has been vaguely paying attention to pop culture knows that Tolkien will never be faithfully adapted, at least not by Hollywood. The new Amazon show is aimed at a completely different audience. Most people will have simply never read the books and just won't care. At best, maybe the adaptation will get a few people interested enough to check out the source material.
Peter Jackson's LotR was indeed flawed, but it cannot be said that they were not faithfully adapted. A proper adaptation would have required a series in its own right. This might have been the time for such a project, but we all know that as the entertainment industry stands, they would have butchered all of it. Legolas would be Black, Gandalf a stoner, and Frodo would have preferred getting Sam's pipeweed up his ass.
Something has occurred to me in this matter though. Amazon is obviously interested in cashing in on the GoT fanbase, now that HBO's series has finally ended. It's a coldly calculated attempt at a crash grab. The progressive narrative is either part of that--or just as likely a result of progressives within the industry pressing for such changes. In so doing however, I believe that this project is doomed to fail, simply based not even on the merits of the project, but its motivation.
George Martin has not been shy with the knowledge that he has written his work as a counterpoint or an 'answer' to Tolkien's LotR. Martin's is a cynical approach to a fantasy epic and thus far, it is an answer that remains unfinished. And yet this sort of cynical approach is being taken as the foundation of a new series, set in its declared opposite! Thus, even setting aside the issue of progressive values (if you cared to call it such), this project will feel wrong on the outset.
You cannot pass a cynical, materialistic outset as something that is wholesome and pious. They'll have all the clothes and styles of the LotR trilogy, to be sure--but it will be a hollow and distorted mockery. Complaining about the progressive concepts thrown in would be akin to complaining about the stale icing on a cake of shit. It certainly isn't pleasant or desirable, but it is not the true problem. I fully expect this series to fall flat on its face, but I can promise you that it will get 3-5 seasons.
And why, you might ask? Because Amazon has invested so much of its own wealth and reputation into the project, along with all those involved, that they cannot allow it to fail. They will push through, because anyone involved in the project will be responsible. Accepting its failure would be to accept a massive loss that would end careers. And they will look to positive press as proof that it should make money and therefore it will even as losses mount.
I am a big fan of the series and I never noticed that!Speaking of the movie trilogy. I learned something interesting about Gandalf's staff:
Anyway, something far better than the series:
Didn't Aragon slay the Mouth of Sauron on the spot for claiming they are torturing Frodo and Sam at the moment of speaking?Thumbnail reminded me of something unrelated to Rings of Power. So this thread gets a bump.
I gotta say the Mouth of Sauron was something that I was glad was just a deleted scene in the Peter Jackson movies. He was like a hint of what was to come in the Hobbit trilogy.
When I read the bit about the Mouth of Sauron in the novels I was picturing some sort of Black Knight/Death Knight sort of presence who was the evil servant of Sauron opposite of Aragorn as the literature seemed to imply. Maybe even one gifted with oratory, almost like 'The Voice' of the Bene Gesserit, or kind of how Saruman was able to speak and ensorcel people when the Rohirrim confronted him when the Ents trapped him in his Tower. Plus I liked the idea of him at the head of a column of Black Numenoreans Dark Riders. Actual Living Men equal to the Dunedain or any Men of the West in service of Sauron.
Not... whatever the fuck joke the mutated Mouth of Sauron actually turned out to be in that deleted scene.
Not a sin as great as the Scrubbing Bubbles Army of the Dead but... it is worth mentioning even if it was just a deleted scene. Maybe a properly presented 'Mouth of Sauron' whose so long lived and evil he doesn't even recall his own name or past beyond being a speaker for Sauron would've been a better final duel for Aragorn then the Olog-Hai Troll that we did got (though still not as epic as the Sauron duel we almost got).
Okay that is all.
Didn't Aragon slay the Mouth of Sauron on the spot for claiming they are torturing Frodo and Sam at the moment of speaking?
He did in the films. Which is completely in contradiction to the novel.Didn't Aragon slay the Mouth of Sauron on the spot for claiming they are torturing Frodo and Sam at the moment of speaking?
I've always found it hilarious that Movie-Aragorn commits a war crime by murdering the Mouth of Sauron (even if he was being a prick, as should have been expected from the most evil Man in Sauron's employ) in the middle of parley. And before he even got to relay any actual terms from Sauron to them (which he did in the books) too. Very kingly and civilized, lmao.He did in the films. Which is completely in contradiction to the novel.
Film was bullshit compared to both.But now,thanks to Amazon "great work" that movie would be remembered as classic.Pity.He did in the films. Which is completely in contradiction to the novel.
I've always found it hilarious that Movie-Aragorn commits a war crime by murdering the Mouth of Sauron (even if he was being a prick, as should have been expected from the most evil Man in Sauron's employ) in the middle of parley. And before he even got to relay any actual terms from Sauron to them (which he did in the books) too. Very kingly and civilized, lmao.
Best use I've found any adaptation made of the Mouth of Sauron is the Fourth Age: Total War mod for the first Rome Total War, where he's the power-behind-the-throne of the evil usurper faction challenging the Reunited Kingdom's legitimate rulers for control over Aragorn's legacy. Fits well with the theme of diminishing but persistent evils rising in each progressively declining Age of Middle-earth, from Morgoth to Sauron and now to Sauron's Mouth.
Agreed; I’ve always suspected that had Tolkien written all of ‘the New Shadow’ the Mouth of Sauron would have (or at least should have) shown up as the real antagonist.I've always found it hilarious that Movie-Aragorn commits a war crime by murdering the Mouth of Sauron (even if he was being a prick, as should have been expected from the most evil Man in Sauron's employ) in the middle of parley. And before he even got to relay any actual terms from Sauron to them (which he did in the books) too. Very kingly and civilized, lmao.
Best use I've found any adaptation made of the Mouth of Sauron is the Fourth Age: Total War mod for the first Rome Total War, where he's the power-behind-the-throne of the evil usurper faction challenging the Reunited Kingdom's legitimate rulers for control over Aragorn's legacy. Fits well with the theme of diminishing but persistent evils rising in each progressively declining Age of Middle-earth, from Morgoth to Sauron and now to Sauron's Mouth.
Agreed; I’ve always suspected that had Tolkien written all of ‘the New Shadow’ the Mouth of Sauron would have (or at least should have) shown up as the real antagonist.