So, thanks to a recent (Feb. 10th) article in VANITY FAIR, of all places, a general overview of the forthcoming Amazon Tolkien is finally being made available, with images and snippets about many of the characters. The release date is September 2nd, so we have plenty of time to speculate, debate, and argue. The most interesting detail for me is that they've taken the Shakespearean option, collapsing the events of the Second Age into one human lifetime.
Also new to me was word that a second Tolkien film project is also in the works, this one an animated film about the Rohirrim at the time of Helm Hammerhand; it's due out in 2024. Since the RINGS OF POWER project is supposed to run for multiple seasons (five I think) this seems to indicate that they want to have multiple projects coming out either staggered or at more or less the same time.
--John R
--current reading: PRINCE OF ANNWN, TREACLE WALKER (re-reading).
I'm nervous about both projects, they seem more interested in connecting to the Jackson films then they do to Tolkien's work. Why would a film set at the time of Helm Hammerhand have an oliphant in its preview? And the time collapse feels really wrong to me. :( As does the idea that Galadriel is riding about in armor tracking done Morgoth's collaborators who "killed her brother"(which brother?)... I fear that we will get a lot of focus on casting which, IMO, doesn't matter at all. I don't want the production to skate by on important stuff because loud mouths complained about skin tone.
ReplyDeleteI see you are currently reading Prince of Annwn. I really hope we get your take on Walton's works, I read them a couple years ago and really enjoyed them. You can get my take here: https://historytruefeigned.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-mabinogion-tetralogy.html