onthetrail wrote:
Mr. Underhill wrote:
Scarlet_Sorcerer wrote:
No adaptation will alter the source material.
Not entirely true. While the words on the page will not be altered, perceptions of cannon and source material can be altered by adaptations. Especially to novice readers/fans. Misunderstandings about fundamental laws and values of Tolkien’s writing can form without realizing. I’ve heard others make this argument too and I don’t buy it.
While I see your point Mr. Underhill, someone understanding the material has no bearing on the material itself. We might end up with a generation of fans who only know what adaptation tells them, but it won't matter to us or the books. In fact, bad adaptation could drive more fans to the books.
That’s not how I approach it. I very much do care how the community at large approaches Tolkien and his works and as Stu says above nothing is experienced in a vacuum. It’s not possible for an adaptation (however bad in this case) to not have any impact on your experience with the source material. I also don’t think it’s a given that a bad adaptation will drive someone to want to know more…I’ve also seen others make this argument and I don’t buy that either. Seems counter intuitive to assume that something that is not well written or acted will drive more people to want to know more about these stories.
Mr. Underhill wrote:
That’s not how I approach it. I very much do care how the community at large approaches Tolkien and his works and as Stu says above nothing is experienced in a vacuum. It’s not possible for an adaptation (however bad in this case) to not have any impact on your experience with the source material. I also don’t think it’s a given that a bad adaptation will drive someone to want to know more…I’ve also seen others make this argument and I don’t buy that either. Seems counter intuitive to assume that something that is not well written or acted will drive more people to want to know more about these stories.
Yeah, I'm not entirely persuaded by poor quality content (as I viewed the first series, anyway) driving people to the source material. You kind of need to know the show isn't really related to it in order to know the source is better. And then in this specific case, the 1st/2nd age source material isn't exactly readable for the casual reader to dip into anyway. I think the adaptation quality would have to be pretty excellent to persuade viewers it was worth the time/energy investment in the books.
I think PJ's LoTR - for all its faults - did achieve that. RoP had a more difficult job to start with, but by failing to write (IMHO) engaging material, didn't have much chance at pushing people to the books. If you are not engaged with the show, why would you think the books were worth the look? I think the slow sales of FoN was directly due to the lack of engagement with RoP. Unlike LoTR the viewers simply weren't engaged enough to care.
All that said, I generally hear of less contempt for S2.
The main reason why I have not written a substantial critique of the series are the circumstances we live in - the wider Tolkien community but also many other fantasy and science fiction fandoms are subject to what some people term the 'culture wars' and the simple yet lovingly capitalist development that you can live off online 'hate' with certain Youtubers over the 1m followers mark.
I could quite easily write a hundred manuscript pages on the production development, the first season marketing blunders, perceived target group(s), the streaming war(s), the Big A as one of the most evil companies in the world, why are we being lied to by either the Big A and/ or the Estate on access to Legendarium storylines beyond LotR (+ App.) and Hobbit (excluding all major film references), directing choices for s01 and s02, cast in general, characters (invented) vs. characters (existant)... The list goes on forever.
By the way - I am a major Arondir (only true elf in the series) and Disa (Sophie Nomvete is bringing an energy to the screen nobody else can match yet) fanboi.
Why do I not write it? Because - again thanks to the circumstances we live in, that is, a social-media-ruled world with a virtually non-existing level of appropriate communication - if I write stuff like this I will either get a) lumped in with the neo-fascist, hate-spreading, incel-toting ****er crowd because I seemingly support their case or b) get lumped in with the liberal, wokist, Tolkien-destroying, real-men-fantasy-despising bunch that obviously have nothing better to do than destroy Tolkien (did I mention that)?
At the moment, having seen all episodes so far, my initial judgment still holds true:
Moments of brilliance mired in a sea of mediocrity.
I am hoping things will get better.
P.S. I have fewer issues watching the series after dropping the 'adaptation' pretence built by Amazon marketing for s01 in favour of fan fiction. Please note this is not a derogatory term for me as there are fan fiction stories way better than the original. The reasoning behind this is my definition of adaptation: a 'translation of a stand-alone published work into another'.
I could quite easily write a hundred manuscript pages on the production development, the first season marketing blunders, perceived target group(s), the streaming war(s), the Big A as one of the most evil companies in the world, why are we being lied to by either the Big A and/ or the Estate on access to Legendarium storylines beyond LotR (+ App.) and Hobbit (excluding all major film references), directing choices for s01 and s02, cast in general, characters (invented) vs. characters (existant)... The list goes on forever.
By the way - I am a major Arondir (only true elf in the series) and Disa (Sophie Nomvete is bringing an energy to the screen nobody else can match yet) fanboi.
Why do I not write it? Because - again thanks to the circumstances we live in, that is, a social-media-ruled world with a virtually non-existing level of appropriate communication - if I write stuff like this I will either get a) lumped in with the neo-fascist, hate-spreading, incel-toting ****er crowd because I seemingly support their case or b) get lumped in with the liberal, wokist, Tolkien-destroying, real-men-fantasy-despising bunch that obviously have nothing better to do than destroy Tolkien (did I mention that)?
At the moment, having seen all episodes so far, my initial judgment still holds true:
Moments of brilliance mired in a sea of mediocrity.
I am hoping things will get better.
P.S. I have fewer issues watching the series after dropping the 'adaptation' pretence built by Amazon marketing for s01 in favour of fan fiction. Please note this is not a derogatory term for me as there are fan fiction stories way better than the original. The reasoning behind this is my definition of adaptation: a 'translation of a stand-alone published work into another'.
Olwe wrote:
The main reason why I have not written a substantial critique of the series are the circumstances we live in - the wider Tolkien community but also many other fantasy and science fiction fandoms are subject to what some people term the 'culture wars' and the simple yet lovingly capitalist development that you can live off online 'hate' with certain Youtubers over the 1m followers mark.
I could quite easily write a hundred manuscript pages on the production development, the first season marketing blunders, perceived target group(s), the streaming war(s), the Big A as one of the most evil companies in the world, why are we being lied to by either the Big A and/ or the Estate on access to Legendarium storylines beyond LotR (+ App.) and Hobbit (excluding all major film references), directing choices for s01 and s02, cast in general, characters (invented) vs. characters (existant)... The list goes on forever.
By the way - I am a major Arondir (only true elf in the series) and Disa (Sophie Nomvete is bringing an energy to the screen nobody else can match yet) fanboi.
Why do I not write it? Because - again thanks to the circumstances we live in, that is, a social-media-ruled world with a virtually non-existing level of appropriate communication - if I write stuff like this I will either get a) lumped in with the neo-fascist, hate-spreading, incel-toting ****er crowd because I seemingly support their case or b) get lumped in with the liberal, wokist, Tolkien-destroying, real-men-fantasy-despising bunch that obviously have nothing better to do than destroy Tolkien (did I mention that)?
At the moment, having seen all episodes so far, my initial judgment still holds true:
Moments of brilliance mired in a sea of mediocrity.
I am hoping things will get better.
P.S. I have fewer issues watching the series after dropping the 'adaptation' pretence built by Amazon marketing for s01 in favour of fan fiction. Please note this is not a derogatory term for me as there are fan fiction stories way better than the original. The reasoning behind this is my definition of adaptation: a 'translation of a stand-alone published work into another'.
If you ever do write it, it would be an interesting read. I'm not sure you would get the woke vs non-woke nonsense quite so much as you would have two years ago. Well, I'd hope not -- I'd like to think that more people can now see that there was rather more nuance to the flawed creation of RoP than those two rather arbitrary positions. Like you say, that aspect drove a good deal of the YouTube woke-hate-porn videos (Nerdrotic - I'm looking at you).
An actual sensible assessment of what they created and why would be genuinely interesting. I don't claim to understand why they made a lot of the decisions they made, but I strongly suspect it was the classic "start filming before having an actual script" problem. I've always felt that was why the characters never changed their clothes - it allowed scenes to be assembled in almost any order once they had an idea of what story they were trying to cobble together.
I'll never be able to understand the absolutely awful hairstyles...
Mr. Underhill wrote:
Scarlet_Sorcerer wrote:
No adaptation will alter the source material.
Not entirely true. While the words on the page will not be altered, perceptions of cannon and source material can be altered by adaptations. Especially to novice readers/fans. Misunderstandings about fundamental laws and values of Tolkien’s writing can form without realizing. I’ve heard others make this argument too and I don’t buy it.
Regarding this viewpoint, doesn’t it apply to ALL adaptations of ALL forms of media? Does this mean there should be no adaptations of any kind at all? (Rhetorical question).
For example, a friend of mine who has never read the books but had apparently seen one of the three famous Tolkien illustrators’ art dismissed Tolkien’s works as “kiddie stuff” based on those illustrations.
Another friend who I dragged to watch The Two Towers literally laughed and walked out of the cinema during the Last March of the Ents. And that was peak Tolkien! 🙁
And back in the day when I heard some of Tolkien’s songs adapted for CD, I found them weird and random, and honestly, silly.
Heck, at the risk of sounding blasphemous, even one of Tolkien’s own recitations doesn’t really jibe with how I envision the song being sung myself. I simply see it as a “nice to have” extra bit of Tolkien’s work.
Maybe my view is too simplistic, but I believe no adaptation done in any medium, be it film, music, art, tapestry, stage or whatever, can ever be “true to Tolkien”, no matter by who it is done. And no matter how much one studies Tolkien, they can only come near to (educated) guessing his real vision and intent (which also kept changing in many instances). The secondary artist’s perspective will always imprint upon their adaptation, and by extension, influence the audience and their potential perception of Tolkien and his works.
For my part, I don’t really concern myself with “what Tolkien intended” because I’m a wholly different person from him, with own outlook and viewpoints, and when I read his books, or any other author’s books for that matter, they become “mine”. And I respect that others are free to have “theirs”.
P.S.: Just chiming in at a point in this conversation where I think my own views might be best contextualised. 😀
https://deadline.com/2024/09/rings-of-power-season-2-premiere-ratings-nielsen-streaming-amazon-1236100849/
Here in norway it made it to #2 space for Prime behind 'born to run'. As for alot of viewers not finishing episodes or finishing the series i thought this was a 'tolkien effect' in season one meaning ppl like me with certain allergies towards adaptations of this kind, but its happening again so I wonder if fantasy series are vulnerable to 'Windows shopping'? Would be interesting to see how WoT compared with regards to retaining viewership. I saw some comparisons for season one with HotD and House of the Dragon did much better but I think it's not a good comparison.
Here in norway it made it to #2 space for Prime behind 'born to run'. As for alot of viewers not finishing episodes or finishing the series i thought this was a 'tolkien effect' in season one meaning ppl like me with certain allergies towards adaptations of this kind, but its happening again so I wonder if fantasy series are vulnerable to 'Windows shopping'? Would be interesting to see how WoT compared with regards to retaining viewership. I saw some comparisons for season one with HotD and House of the Dragon did much better but I think it's not a good comparison.
‘The Rings of Power’ Creators on That Big Season 2 Finale Reveal and Sauron’s Mistake
From The Stranger's identity reveal to Galadriel's fight and whether Sauron and Celebrimbor were lovers, 'The Rings of Power' showrunners break down the ending and look ahead to season three.
Contains Spoilers
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/t ... ason-2-finale-1236018870/
‘The Rings of Power’ on Verge of Season 3 Renewal by Amazon
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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/t ... enewal-amazon-1236024428/
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