Warner Bros wants to make Lord of the Rings films. Not remakes, fyi.

[schneeland]

If they can get the rights to Tolkien's other writings, especially his "great tales" (Children of Hurin, Beren and Luthien, the Fall of Gondolin), there are some good movies to be made. If they can't, and they're stuck respinning the same 50 pages of the LotR appendices endlessly, then it would be better just to leave it alone.

Yeah, those could potentially be good movies. It'll take someone with "attunement" to the source material and the will to not pad out the material longer than it should be, but then it could be really good.

I would probably also take a new animated version of the original story if they wanted to do that.

 

[schneeland]

Also, I would watch this

 

[Mallus]

You know, there are some perfectly good Riftwar novels you could start adapting...

 

[Zaukrie]

You know, there are some perfectly good Riftwar novels you could start adapting...

There are SO MANY great books that could be movies or series. Like some of them don't even need huge budgets (tv series wise)......

 

[Benjamin Olson]

100% this. If you just watch it w/o JUDGING IT against whatever "realism" for a fake world, it's quite good (with some great things and some not so great things). If you insist on comparing it to content they don't have the legal rights to use, and you don't like black elves, well, you are going to review bomb it. It's so silly, imo. There is nothing sacred about a fictional world.....nothing.

I haven't gotten around to watching that show, so I can't really opine, but, accepting your analysis, if I have to turn off the part of my brain that is invested in Middle Earth content to appreciate a piece of Middle Earth content it should not be made as Middle Earth content. Just make it as... anything else. Middle Earth minus a strong basis in Tolkien's actual writing is functionally just another generic fantasy world.

But I totally get how it could be a perfectly fine series on its own terms. I thought the Disney+ Willow series was a fairly charming little YA fantasy series, that mostly tonally clashed with the movie it was allegedly based on. On its own terms I think it was fine, as a sequel it was a bit lousy. But it only got made because some executive could be sold on visions of franchise and nostalgia dollars, which required messing with an old IP, and inviting all sorts of comparison thereto, most of which was unflattering to the mostly new IP. Perhaps being ugly stepchildren to nostalgic franchises they don't belong in is just the Faustian bargain a high fantasy series needs to make to get greenlit these days.

 

[Mercurius]

This thread kind of proves my point.... That serious fans want only the books, and not totally new stories in the same world. I really don't get that. We have those stories.

Well, I didn't comment in the thread yet, but I'll give you my perspective as someone who loves Tolkien's written works, really liked the first Jackson trilogy, and disliked RoP - and, in this case, am leery of this proposition.

To me, Middle-earth is Tolkien, and Tolkien was a genius. To do justice to his works is impossible; the best you can hope for is a quality homage, which is what PJ pulled off with the LotR trilogy.

I suppose it would be possible for the right person/people to "re-envision" Tolkien in a way that both honors his work and tells new tales, but it would be very, very difficult, nearly impossible really. So I'm not opposed to "new stories" on principle, I just see it as very difficult to do well.

I'd much rather see them pour that money into a new world or adaptation. It just seems rather exploitive and lacking in any kind of creative ingenuity: take a tried and true franchise, squeeze out every drop, then gather the drops with a new towel and squeeze that out too.

 

[Zaukrie]

Well, I didn't comment in the thread yet, but I'll give you my perspective as someone who loves Tolkien's written works, really liked the first Jackson trilogy, and disliked RoP - and, in this case, am leery of this proposition.

To me, Middle-earth is Tolkien, and Tolkien was a genius. To do justice to his works is impossible; the best you can hope for is a quality homage, which is what PJ pulled off with the LotR trilogy.

I suppose it would be possible for the right person/people to "re-envision" Tolkien in a way that both honors his work and tells new tales, but it would be very, very difficult, nearly impossible really. So I'm not opposed to "new stories" on principle, I just see it as very difficult to do well.

I'd much rather see them pour that money into a new world or adaptation. It just seems rather exploitive and lacking in any kind of creative ingenuity: take a tried and true franchise, squeeze out every drop, then gather the drops with a new towel and squeeze that out too.

I'd also prefer different books get made into shows...... But then those fans would be angry at every change.

I don't understand the opposition to new stories in middle earth.

 

[Mercurius]

I'd also prefer different books get made into shows...... But then those fans would be angry at every change.

I don't understand the opposition to new stories in middle earth.

Well I tried to explain my "opposition" to it, and it isn't really opposition as it is trepidation.

That said, what I'd love to see some pioneering studio do is gather a group of top fantasy authors and artists and say, "Make a world and story for us to tell." Meaning, a collaboration of different authors and artists, but with adaptation to film being part of the process.

Or just offer Steven Erikson a GRRM/HBO style gig, and have done with it.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Sequel and prequels. Lord of the Rings Expanded Universe. Follow the exploits of King Aragorn in the Fourth Age. Witness the rise of yet another threat to the people of Middle Earth. Thrill as the wastrel grandson of Aragorn is forced to confront his legacy as he is tempted down the path of the Dark Side by Darth Krayt.

You know, the usual stuff.

I would assume it's prequels upon prequels upon prequels.

 

[pukunui]

I would watch a movie where Gandalf finally remembers the names of the two blue wizards and then we get to see what they’ve been up to.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

After the RoP debacle, I can't say I'm holding out much hope.

Unless the Tolkien Estate releases the rights to other works, we'll have to wait until they enter the public domain.

There's an interesting breakdown of that legal minefield here:

link

 

[MNblockhead]

I like the series.

Me too. But we should keep it on the down low.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I think The One Ring RPG showed there can be plenty of new stories set in the 60+ years in between The Hobbit and LOTR. I would hope for movies set during this same time. And for stuff from that time in the books, you could have the failed attempt at retaking Moria, for one. And movies about a younger Aragorn would be good too. I still remember how the initial rumors for the Amazon series were about that.

 

[delericho]

If there is no room for other stories in the world of the supposed paragon of worldbuilding does that not suggest that we misjudged how deep the world was somewhere along the way?

The problem is that Middle Earth is so foundational to modern fantasy that any story set there that isn't directly derived from Tolkien's words is basically just "fantasy lands of generica" again. And we've had at least three series of that in the last 12 months: Rings of Power, Wheel of Time, and Willow.

 

[Kaodi]

I wonder whether if you were going to try and make a sequel to the Lord of the Rings you would have to set it, once again, like a thousand years later, at the very end of the Elessarian golden age. And instead of having a "new shadow" the enemy is rooted in the fact that prosperity has made people covetous and bold to the point where they revisit some of the evils of before, as humans are wont to do. So you have an enemy that can challenge Gondor but their power is not rooted in dark magic (though maybe some people are able to employ a bit of dark magic at the margins).

 

[MarkB]

I wonder whether if you were going to try and make a sequel to the Lord of the Rings you would have to set it, once again, like a thousand years later, at the very end of the Elessarian golden age. And instead of having a "new shadow" the enemy is rooted in the fact that prosperity has made people covetous and bold to the point where they revisit some of the evils of before, as humans are wont to do. So you have an enemy that can challenge Gondor but their power is not rooted in dark magic (though maybe some people are able to employ a bit of dark magic at the margins).

It feels like that would lose all the trappings that would be the selling point of a movie set in this world. Most likely no elves, and a more mundane conflict more akin to Game of Thrones than Lord of the Rings.

 

[Dausuul]

What's the specific source of the screenshot quote, please?

While I know that the chances of this happening is virtually nil, but in light of the fact that Christopher Tolkien is no longer a roadblock, they could renegotiate with the Tolkien Estate for the rights to The Silmarillion which would give access to many epic tales. Three specific ones of the First Age I could easily imagine being big budget action movies would be The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Fall of Gondolin while using Quenta Silmarillion/War of the Jewels as a bridge to tie together these separate tales. If they wished to continue to the Second Age they could then do Akallabêth/Downfall of Númenor.

That... is a brilliant idea. I've wondered for a long time how one could possibly do justice to the Silmarillion on screen; a sequence of connected but stand-alone movies would be perfect.

But it'd be pretty hard to convince the studio not to bollix it up. Most of the stories in the Silmarillion are grand tragedies, and Hollywood doesn't like tragedy.

 

[Kaodi]

It has been properly established on screen that orcs are derived from elves. With no dark lord perhaps orcs are on the verge of being exterminated, or perhaps their descendants are slowly "revolving" away from their most brutish forms to the point where they more resemble Adar and their elven forebears while still being decidedly orcish.
Not to mention there are still dwarves, hobbits, Ents, Bombadilses, and so on.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It has been properly established on screen that orcs are derived from elves. With no dark lord perhaps orcs are on the verge of being exterminated, or perhaps their descendants are slowly "revolving" away from their most brutish forms to the point where they more resemble Adar and their elven forebears while still being decidedly orcish.
Not to mention there are still dwarves, hobbits, Ents, Bombadilses, and so on.

If we are talking the 4th Age, or the Age of Man, I don't remember if Tolkien ever wrote what became of orcs, the way he did about elves, dwarves, and hobbits.

 

[JAMUMU]

If we are talking the 4th Age, or the Age of Man, I don't remember if Tolkien ever wrote what became of orcs, the way he did about elves, dwarves, and hobbits.

Hmmm if I remember correctly all the MERP PCs wiped them out.

More seriously, the 4th Age probably has the most potential for new movies. Magic fading, elves disappearing, hobbits going into stealth mode, orcs as both threat and sympathetically doomed characters, human nobility on the wane. And one last existential threat* that needs magic, elves, hobbits, orc-friends and supernaturally-noble humans to defeat.

*The Coming of the Supermarket Car Parks