Why TV Is Wrong For Tolkien

Go to www.squarespac... for 10% off your first purchase.
GET MY BOOK: amzn.to/3ymfQPV
PATREON: / nerdwriter
FACEBOOK: / the-nerdwriter-3141415...
TWITTER: / theenerdwriter
SOURCES
Mikhail Bakhtin, "Epic And Novel", from The Dialogic Imagination
books.google.e...
Hans Blumenberg, "Work On Myth"
mitpress.mit.e...
Ostaltsev, Alex (Oleksiy). “Tolkien and Bakhtin: Symphony of Time in The Lord of the Rings.” Mythlore, vol. 40, no. 2, 2022, pp. 121-38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/...
Greene, Deirdre. “Higher Argument: Tolkien and the Tradition of Vision, Epic and Prophecy.” Mallorn: The Journal of the Tolkien Society, no. 33, 1995, pp. 45-52. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/s...
Beach, Sarah. “‘A Myth for Angel-Land’: J.R.R. Tolkien and Creative Mythology.” Mythlore, vol. 15, no. 4 (58), 1989, pp. 31-36. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/s...
Hiley, Margaret. “STOLEN LANGUAGE, COSMIC MODELS: MYTH AND MYTHOLOGY IN TOLKIEN.” Modern Fiction Studies, vol. 50, no. 4, 2004, pp. 838-60. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/s...
St. Clair, Gloriana. “‘THE LORD OF THE RINGS’ AS SAGA.” Mythlore, vol. 6, no. 2 (20), 1979, pp. 11-16. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/s...
MUSIC (via Epidemic Sound)
Deskant "The King's Carpet"
Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen "A Highlander's Tale"
The Fly Guy Five "Gaze into the Mirror"
Helmut Schenker "The Secret Spring"
Sven Lindvall "I'll Go With You"

[@LeoAngora]

7:21 "Maybe popular IP doesn't have to be adapted and forced into every shape under the sun" makes me want a LOTR Muppets special.

[@paisleylad]

"Trying to dive into the psychology of Galadriel and Sauron for multiple seasons is a losing game." Exactly! As you pointed out earlier in the video, the epic figures in LotR (Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond, Saruman) were distinct from the ordinary, more relatable figures (the hobbits). You could only fantasize about being as powerful as Gandalf, but you could actually aspire to be as brave as Frodo or as loyal as Sam. Having characters be both epic and relatable is essentially impossible.

[@armelior4610]

I think Gandalf is both epic and relatable. As a kid (teenager ? that was a while ago) when I read the novel I remember not picking up on him being a demigod/archangel/whatever because he's as flawed as a human despite being a powerful wizard. He always forget things because he's old for example. Makes sense since Merlin was (very) flawed too

[@JuanRodriguez-tf7fh]

And now they're being turned into "Enemies become Lovers" storyline just to appease Gen Z How'd that turn out for Acolyte?😅

[@Ashbrash1998]

​@@armelior4610Wasn't it said that Gandalf acted old because it went with the firm he chose? Could it not go along with the act he was putting on?

[@armelior4610]

@@Ashbrash1998Even if it was an act, it made him relatable to me. I don't remember a last minute plot twist "Ah ! I've been pretending to be human all along" which would be par for the course now ^^

[@mrturbo84]

I think when you not go into both extremes you can have an epic and relatable character.

[@pokegnome2]

As much as anything, much of the problem lies in what they *didn't* pick up for adaptation. They literally cannot tell the story of the Second Age as portrayed in the Silmarillion, or as loosely resembles it, because that's not what they got the rights to - they got the rights to the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and most critically, the Appendices. So the studio essentially has the vague space of the Second Age to work in, through details referenced and remembered by the time of the Third Age - like Numenor being a place that existed, sank, and its descendants scattered all over - but they have very limited, abstracted details to actually work with, while a lot they have to avoid because they genuinely don't have the rights to it. This probably explains much of the depiction of Ar-Pharazon - he gets mentioned and some actions loosely summarised in the Appendices, but very little about his actual person is there. The Jackson films could re-arrange and reorder text, giving quotes from one character to another and changing whole arcs, but because other parts and icongraphy remained, there was still a foundation to work and that people might recognise the character they were meant to be. Rings of Power is having to invent things in a space shaped by Tolkien, rather than really *adapt* Tolkien, and that rather increases the immensity of the task. A touch self-inflicted? Very arguable, but I think drastically affects the question of whether or not 'Tolkien' - as opposed to Tolkien's cliffnotes - can work for TV.

[@BillKermanKSP]

Because they don't have the rights to the Silmarillion, just a few pages in LOTR referencing the 2nd age, I believe

[@pokegnome2]

@@BillKermanKSP This is something I specify further down in the comment - they've got LotR, the Hobbit, and the Appendices, which gives names and certain basic details to work with, but it is a very loose timeline coloured by the occasional reference.

[@TheGreatUnwashedThing]

Even if they had the Silmarillion rights, I don't think that would solve the fundamental issue that the creators didn't seem able to make decisions about the kind of show they wanted to make. You could (in my opinion) make a really brilliant TV show about Sauron's lost years in the early Second Age as he grapples with trying to fine-tune his master's methods and (at least initially) use them in a less self-destructive way. You could make a really brilliant TV show about the early years of the Hobbits and the founding of the Shire. You could make a really great TV show about Elendil and the Downfall of Numenor and how Elendil and his sons worked to rebuild civilization afterward. And so on. What you can't do, unless you are much, much better than the people making Rings of Power, is do all three and more at the same time.

[@JamesSimmons-d1t]

valid point of view. thanx. Hate/love for Jackson...see my analysis "Mikhail's polyglossia, the many voices, I found also to be a most telling analysis of many novels. The knowledge and intellect of your commenters bespeaks the mature reflections here demonstrated. But remember JRR only chose some books for publication...I found the Silmarillion too obviously derivative of many mythologies. Perhaps T's answer to query "Why couldn't the eagles fly Frodo to Mount Doom" also to be balanced. He rudely suggested, hey, this is my fantasy...don't like it...read something else. Implied. As for Peter Jackson's most egregious variations...no Bombadil, Sauron never reaching Shire...turns end to mush instead of bittersweet balance...and Théoden as simply Possessed...of course, I was translating the Hobbit into French age 13, mid '60s...Peter had not even READ The Hobbit. Please! danke."

[@drew2794]

I had been wondering why the show writers felt the need add their own stories and lore to the Rings of Power when the Lord of the Rings and associated literature already has sooo many good tales that could be adapted. Seems foolish to even attempt a show on the Second Age without rights to the Silmarillion.

[@LightningRaven42]

If only they dropped the JJ Abrams' "Mystery Box Storytelling" bullshit, they would go a long way. Trying to write narrative twists and "gotcha" moments in Tolkien is quite ridiculous. Specially when the idea that could best explore it isn't being focused on at all. Which would've been the audience following Sauron without knowing. But, then, it would require subtle and well-planned storytelling, which certainly is something beyond the writers and producers.

[@PeterDoughman]

This was exactly my take - I actually quite enjoyed the first season until the reveal of Sauron. It felt cheap, forced and entirely unnecessary.

[@samfilmkid]

The two guys running the show worked as staff writers on Lost…and nothing else. They don’t even have Wikipedia pages. Something fishy’s going on…Somebody powerful’s kids probably. The show’s not terrible, but I find it very bland. I feel like it’s inspired more by television cliches than epic fantasy

@@samfilmkid it's terrible. gigantic plot holes, ridiculous contrivances and cringe dialogue.

[@JB-gj8pu]

It isn't a failure of the medium but a failure of the writers. The Second Age is a character study of entire civilizations. It is about building epic civilizations only to watch them come crashing down due to some moral flaw. You tell that larger story by making each episode it's own self-contained story with themes that play into the larger idea. It's how Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion.

[@eouveluz]

Which is a book they don't have the rights to. And this is another limitation for the show: they only have the appendices and in-text tales from The Lord of The Rings books to adapt the second age. They can't take their storylines from the Silmarillion. So, there is that also...

[@ponder421]

​​@@eouveluz The problem isn't the lack of rights. The Silmarillion chapter on the Second Age just adds details that the Appendices leave out. The writers still contradict what's in the Appendices! In them, the 3 Elven Rings are forged last, not first, and all the Rings of Power were forged by and for the Elves; giving them to other races was Sauron's backup plan. And the show decides to skip over the Civil War in Númenor that was in the Appendices! The writing decisions baffle me.

[@rottensquid]

I think also, what Evan sees as a fundamental constraint of television storytelling, to my mind, is just a habit. In fact, I'd say television's biggest weakness is this assumption, that no matter what happens, the story must go on. No final endings, no closure, just cliffhangers and "to be continued." And yet, some of the most celebrated television seems to be those rare occasions when long-running stories ended, and ended well. Or even when television shows dared to present a story with its ending built in. The series finale of Mash, or stand-alone shows like True Detective (season 1, of course) and The Queen's Gambit. So the failure of the writers you point out, to my mind, is their refusal to end stories, or trust that they can dream up new beginnings. There's no reason why The Rings of Power season 1 didn't present a single, epic story that ended with finality, picking up season two with a shift in focus to other characters, other stories. Evan is right to acknowledge that Tolkien's middle-earth is a poor setting for ongoing character drama typical of serialized TV. As you say, the story of the second age of Middle-Earth is the story of a civilization's rise and fall. So to get lost in the details of individual characters' ever-shifting emotional landscape loses the big picture, and misses the point. Epics aren't complex. But television is notorious for losing the big picture just trying to keep the audience glued from episode to episode. As far back as The X-Files, larger stories would spiral out of control as each episode added new, unnecessary details just to keep the audience interested. Ultimately, you can't have it both ways. You have to trust the larger story to retain audience interest. And the best way to do that is with a show-stopping climax that wraps up the larger story, rewarding their faith. When I get to the end of a season of Television telling a serialized story, and nothing is resolved, no plot thread is tied off, no character reaches the end of an arc, it's just the promise of more drama, more complication, etc, I usually lose interest. Too many times, I've seen stories spiral into meaninglessness like the X-Files did, or Game of Thrones, or dozens of other shows that didn't wrap up so much as peter out. They always focus on the wrong things, because they think serial television MUST be ongoing character drama, like a soap opera. But without an ending, there's really no story. Just a bunch of characters running around doing stuff, with no direction and no real story purpose.

[@eouveluz]

@@ponder421 I don't understand all of their decisions in altering some of the lore, but I feel like I understand a lot of it. It's like Evan said: an adaptation to a different medium creates some needs to keep the story flowing in a fluid way. For example, the decision to compress the timeline, because too many time jumps don't make for interesting TV. The decision to alter the order of the forging of the rings, for example, makes more sense (to me, at least) in an overall TV show arc. This decision is creating more tension among the elves and gives more decision-making power to the characters of the other races, which can keep the story going while the other rings are forged. I don't think they skipped over the Civil War. They're building up to it, changing the order for the same reasons mentioned above. The main focus of the show right now is the Elves and their journey, and the other arcs are still setting up elements (which is a decision I don't think is good, because some people might feel-as many have-that they are "interrupting" the flow of the more interesting plot). Some people might say they shouldn't alter the order because Tolkien already did it perfectly, but I tend to disagree. The events in the Second Age are not fleshed out by Tolkien as a narrative; they're just information. I'm certain that if he were writing an "epic novel" with them, he would probably change some things from what's in the appendices too. But we'll never know for sure.

[@eouveluz]

​@@rottensquid I'm kinda in the middle ground between you and Evan. I do think a shorter TV show can be the best way to tell a story. But also, if we enter this subject, we can't leave out the core thing here: they did it to make money for as long as possible. We all know that it's not (at least not only) about the story. These other shows you mentioned, like True Detective or The Queen's Gambit, are shows made to make money, of course, but primarily, they knew these would be niche. They didn't want Rings of Power to be niche, nor did they want it to be short. Also, I don't know if you're aware of how the process of making the show happened, but basically, every platform presented a pitch for the show. According to The Hollywood Reporter, HBO basically pitched a remake of the trilogy as a TV show, but the Tolkien Estate wasn’t interested because even though they DID NOT like Peter Jackson’s movies (Christopher Tolkien even said the movies eviscerated his father’s work), they weren’t interested in a remake of the trilogy. Netflix, on the other hand, wanted to create solo shows for the characters-an adventure series for Gandalf, a drama about Aragorn-pretty much a Marvel Cinematic Universe, but in Middle-earth. Tolkien Estate didn’t like that idea either. Enter JD Payne and Patrick McKay. After seven different pitches, they finally came up with one that pleased both Amazon and the Tolkien Estate. And it was basically this: “Chronicle the first five minutes of Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring - the Galadriel-narrated prologue that told the story of the rings of power - over the course of five seasons.” So this was the winning pitch for both Amazon and the Tolkien Estate (this and, of course, the money involved-most of that 1 billion went to acquiring the rights, not the actual production of the show, and the fact that Amazon offered a seat on the creative team to the Tolkien Estate). And last, but not least: Payne and McKay had spent most of their careers working as a type of script doctor for J.J. Abrams’ company, Bad Robot, so they came in and did a mystery box (JJ Abrams' way to write) in the first season, which I LIKED because mystery is my favorite genre, but it's NOT what most Tolkien fans are used to. Tolkien's work is mostly based on knowing exactly where the evil is, while in a mystery box, the evil is hidden and needs to be discovered. So, I feel like something that made a lot of people mad at the show was this genre shift.

[@joshualogan84]

I disagree. It's not format, it's content and adaptation from source material. I think an anothoogy series of short stories would work very well as a series for the LotR universe. Told in Jim Hinson's 'The Storyteller' type of episodic series. My dream scenario is that The Silmarillion is made into a series like this. Hopping around the myths, legends, creations, rise and fall and personal stories. I think it would allow a different type of episodic feel, not one of weekly television series but one of 'story of the week.' We'd get the epicness Amazon wants and ALL the fantastic world building without all the needless modern writers trying to fill gaps Tolkien didn't finish himself.

[@timkinss]

A wonderful series from BBC Radio years ago was called "Tales of the Perilous Realm", a collection of adaptations of Tolkien's novellas like Leaf By Niggle, was the closest anyone's come

[@MrMonkeybat]

A strait adaptation of LOTR would be about 24 1hr episodes, 2 for The Hobbit. A lot of their adventures like Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Wrights are quite episodic. It would be easier for the writers than writing the films as they would not need to cut so much stuff. This video forgets that anthology series exist that would fit the Silmarillion too. Now that 50 inch HD TVs are common TV does epic fine , hell I remember being enthralled by epic films on VHS. Its not the medium its that the entire idea and thinking behind ROP was flawed from the start, but I did find the first season worked quite well as a comedy, the explanation of why rocks sink had me in stitches from the start, is the second season as funny?

[@alindsey4]

I agree with the original video in terms of "TV" *as season-long HBO/FX-style drama* being the wrong medium for Tolkien, but I think you have an excellent idea concerning *The Silmarillion* being told in an episodic *Storyteller* mode.

[@rachelgerlach5101]

I love this idea! I often daydream about becoming a filmmaker with the rights to the Silmarillion so I can make what The Rings of Power should have been! 😂

[@MicrophoneMichael]

100% The Rings of Power could have been written like good TV. Adventure Time is a good example of depth in brevity AND good sustained story telling over 10 seasons.

[@mofohasteheyelazors]

This is a tension you see in roleplaying games, like D&D, as well. The early, character-focused levels are drastically different from high-level, epic play and players have a hard time transitioning from a game about them to a game about the world.

[@huckberry17]

They said the same thing about the movie adaptations before they came out. Unadaptable. But Jackson did an excellent job of capturing at least the spirit and tone of Tolkien. It can be done, but you need exceptionally talented and dedicated people. The TV show doesn't have that. Most fundamentally, Jackson understood Tolkien, the writers of the show do not.

[@fobusas]

Strangely enough many of these crappy tv shows have self professed fans of the material. If asked those writers, they would swear up and down they are the biggest, most knowledgeable fans, who could give up anything to make a show in those universes.

[@cruzefx3652]

@@fobusas It may be true, but what most can't seem to understand is that being a fan doesn't qualify you for understanding and replicating what you love. A random person that never had contact with Tolkien could possibly understand it and create inspiring media based on it. A lot of fan films, shorts, adaptations, are at it's best, an homage to the original work, or are lackluster for not being able to progress the vision of the creator. You don't need a writer that knows the name of a janitor in Star Wars, you need someone that sees it as George Lucas once did. The same goes with every popular fiction work that is being adapted. But if studios try that, the raging fans will shill on it, asking for heads on spikes, so they don't even try.

[@fobusas]

@@cruzefx3652and how can a person that is not interested in for example Star Wars, see it the way Lucas did? Is it really that hard to find writers who are both competent and know source material? It's not either or. Deadpool proves that. And nobody's asking for Ryan Reynolds head, quite the opposite

[@cruzefx3652]

@@fobusas surface level interprets the concept and idea of a story, while diving deep gives you complexity, sometimes what makes that thing great gets lost in the middle. For me the sweet spot is what Denis did with dune, he only read 2 books, and managed to capture a lot of the essence in the movies, but if he went too deep I don't believe it would be nearly as good

[@fobusas]

@@cruzefx3652 We won't know. Maybe it would have been even better? I'm not advocating for supernerd. On'y against activists who ignore or invent new material, or worse, those who profess love for it, yet insist on updating it for modern audiences... If you twist it so something unrecognizable, why even use the name then?

[@acmulhern]

It's just a badly written show. It sometimes feels like it was written by AI because it really doesn't seem to understand true human emotions.

[@KrMees]

Or Elvish emotions for that matter

[@Moranah]

Amen! I just finished S02E02, and my girlfriend and I where thinking if it was written by AI, because the dialogue is just terrible. Especially the hobbits and sometimes the dwarves are a bit of a cringefest.

[@ScramblethinkJD]

There's only like.... 2 humans tbf

[@acmulhern]

@ScramblethinkJD all the characters are humanoid creatures and should therefore have human emotions. The LOTR trilogy did this so well. That's what made the hoobits so endearing, Golum so tragic, and all the characters so relatable in general. Human emotion or the intentional lack thereof is what all movies are about and what makes exceptional movies what they are.

AI would be better. These guys are no talent middle schoolers.

[@LordofBroccoli]

I really don't agree with this argument. I could absolutely imagine Jackson's LOTR trilogy as a long miniseries, even if you changed little to nothing about it. There's nothing inherent about TV that makes it unsuitable for any story, writers and directors have been breaking conventions and genres for decades. In many ways, I see The Rings of Power the same way as House of the Dragon - both are adaptations of something that wasn't meant to be told as a story. House of the Dragon is based off a part of Martin's dry history book, Rings of Power is based off some, what, appendices? Contrast this with LOTR and ASOIAF, both of which were written and structured as stories to be told and enjoyed.

[@Sotanath86q]

100%. It's probably the weakest/worst take I've seen from this channel.

[@misterscottintheway]

Mini series are just movies on a smaller box. He's talking about serial television

[@YourBlackLocal]

He’s very obviously talking about serialised television with seasons. But I do still agree.

[@yondie491]

@@YourBlackLocal If he had meant that, he should have said it. He had NUMEROUS opportunities to say it. He did not. I legit kept waiting for him to say it. He simply said television, so we have to take what he said at face value. And I also disagree. The Silmarillion could be an amazing anthology series with 10 episode seasons that could last a decade, for example. The key is "when done right" And sadly, Amazon is a great platform to do it right on. There aren't commercials (... well... you don't have to write your story around commercial breaks) and they can put out the season whenever they want (... in theory), thus giving the storytellers ample opportunity to hone their tales. ... they just... didn't do it right. And I don't think they will. The money is being spent by suits, not by creative artists, and you can tell. If they had spent even a tiny bit more on finding better writers and producers... we very well may be singing an entirely different tune.

[@YourBlackLocal]

@@yondie491 What are you talking about? The adaptation that the essay is about is a serialised TV show with seasons. literally all his examples he gives are of serialised television. He even says “seasons.” and “full series.” This is just a lack of social cues on your part.

[@FrameDevice]

Tolkien captured the feeling of older stories, which didn't constrain themselves to narrative formulas like we do today. Television is built around formulas-plotting, character, pacing, writing-it all has to be managed according to invisible rules and guard rails. But ancient stories just went with the flow and developed organically. They didn't force call backs or catch phrases, they didn't believe in the rigid enforcement of the "three-act structure", and they didn't try to make their stories conform to arbitrary rules about how long a scene should last, or how much a character should talk, or what should happen by the middle of the story, etc. Old storytelling was spontaneous, or had the feel of it, and Tolkien captured that essence in his writings in a time period where writers like Hemingway and others were reframing the conventions of "good writing" according to a modern ethos. Tolkien came in to remind people "yes, all this new writing is good, but don't forget the value of the old ways". And TV isn't built for that kind of spontaneity. It didn't work for Game of Thrones, it doesn't work for Tolkien.

[@CarloTeofilo]

Also, the show looks too cgi (mostly shot indoors…) and even though actors are good, they’re just doing exposition and you don’t really care for them

[@timkinss]

Wonderful point

[@josephfisher426]

I hadn't thought of the structure as being a new thing. Three-act plays have been a norm for centuries. I think they just don't devote enough time/effort to the writing. His Girl Friday had enough quippy content for 3 Marvel movies, but it was GOOD. Streaming is not fixed to a running time, so adhering to a schedule isn't an inherent issue with most new stuff.

[@RealUlrichLeland]

Game of thrones worked great as a TV show, the problem was that they ran out of source material and rushed a shoddy ending. Also loads of myths and legends have had very successful TV adaptations, but very few good film versions. Other than very loose adaptations like O' Brother where art thou there aren't really any good film versions of The Odyssey, but there's a million and one good TV adaptations.

[@MaskofPoesy]

TV isn't wrong for Tolkien. Profit driven writing is wrong for Tolkien.

[@tiagosantos5653]

That is not the worst part: this "profit wrighting" is not even profiting, just outraging Tolkien's fans.

[@MrThephonypope]

Okay so you disagree with the video, what kind of TV show do you think would work?

[@itsmeprasad1987]

You missed his point. He said movie has end drive. Tv is long form and when season end it’s hard to see the end.

[@alec187]

That’s a flowery statement. Let’s be real, money is always the driving force to making a tv show of this scale.

[@ryanpatrick1875]

Yes. Those notably free and public domain Tolkien works that he never made profit on and his family doesn't make billions on.

[@lincolnbrandt]

Nothing like a Nerdwriter video to showcase the sublime enjoyment of a concise, well written essay that’s 8 minutes instead of 3 hours

[@Picolettto]

Those 3-hour essays are barely essays. They are often just extended podcast episodes with some basic structuring and little editing.

[@LuisSierra42]

He's just promoting his book

[@TheAvizanski]

8 minutes to say nothing

[@MariWakocha]

He starts by explaining what a novel is and still keeps it under 10 minutes, that's good work

[@znie-1380]

I think alot of what contributes too is that Tolkien ultimately based his concepts and ideas in some form of reality, there is almost nothing in there that isn't our common myth as humanity coated in his paint, while this may seem lazy to some I think it's genius, I'm convinced it lends a subconscious layer of authenticity to the story, everything we are told spring from the same old stories that have been tried and tested through hundreds of years, and which have formed subsequent stories that we have heard. It resonates with us because every story we've been told derive in some manner from the same place as Tolkien, but Tolkien only filters his own writing and ideas through it. Less of the conventions and the modern world others would. He seemed annoyed people read into it that the ring was an analogy for the atom bomb, the ring was just the ring as described in the book.

[@mrturbo84]

Amen!

[@Turambar17]

First time I’ve never completely agreed with a Nerdwriter take.

[@cheekofnut]

what part do you not agree with?

[@sullenpuffin]

TV isn’t wrong for Tolkien, if anything it’s better placed to take on epic themes than even a trilogy of 3 hour films! The problem is the quality of the writing. If they had found either a fantastic original story to tell within the world, or a strong telling of an established Silmarillion tale, I think we’d be getting a “Why TV is perfect for Tolkien” essay instead!

[@AliceBowie]

They said that wanted to create a 2nd age series, and then went and contradicted the silmarillionb and appendices. If they just made sure not to change massive details it wouldn't have been so awful

[@thirdcoinedge]

I'd have to disagree with that. Even if the writing was strong, epic tales work best when they have enough screentime to tell the whole of a self-contained story, or at least a large part of one, without feeling like it has to explain the less-defined aspects of its world. Rings of Power is faced with having to use the elements of an epic yet ultimately somewhat vague tale and stretch it over several seasons and fill it with character arcs & explanations for things. TV kind of ruptures the pacing best utilized for these semi-abstract, almost mythological stories that go on for hundreds of pages. It's why House of the Dragon works in TV: the storytelling is historical, sequential and specific, which allows for individual episodes to have a big central events around which to focus & to have character evolve around. It's like the difference between if someone was trying to adapt Dark Souls or Elden Ring. While both are technically epic fantasy, one of them is deliberately more vague in its worldbuilding and storytelling, and so would arguably work better in a film, while the other has more defined characters & a slightly more clear-cut history, and so would arguably work better as a TV show. Granted, I don't expect them to surpass the original material or even match them in quality, but I think choosing those routes would be optimal for each respective adaptation.

[@sullenpuffin]

@@thirdcoinedge they certainly didn’t have to choose this story though. I’d have loved a story about the two wizards who went East, for example. There’s very little written of the east, or what happened to them, but people would have found it really interesting if they could have worked in elements that ultimately help in Sauron’s downfall. I feel like a story like that would have a lot more creative freedom, and could be well realised on TV.

[@nilspalmqvist9460]

Completely disagree with this. You do a good job here in bringing to light what of Tolkien they will have a hard time capturing, but you fail to consider what it is they, only in a TV show, can. There's a humbleness to Tolkien, his books can be so wonderfully meandering and often dwell in the small and skim through the big. I would argue that Peter Jackson failed to capture most of the best aspects of the book, but his choices made for very good films. He adapted in a way that plays to the mediums strengths, but I se no need in continuing to feed the notion that only he could do Tolkiens works justice. He both did and did not. This show does the same. And It will be wonderful to see it capture the things it can. No medium can ever be all the way right for a story sprung from another. Only the books will ever BE Tolkien, so let's get more people to read them.

[@glen1742]

This is a very good answer

[@michelfug]

I upvoted this comment twice!

[@CountDadLord]

Bravo, Sir.

[@majormajormajortom]

Well said.

[@MrMonkeybat]

A strait adaptation of LOTR would be about 24 1hr episodes, 2 for The Hobbit. A lot of their adventures like Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Wrights are quite episodic. It would be easier for the writers than writing the films as they would not need to cut so much stuff. The silmarillion would be a series of shorts stories which would fit episodic format too, anthology series exist. Now the 50 inch HD TVs are common TV does epic fine , hell I remember being enthralled by epic films on VHS. Its not the medium its that the entire idea and thinking was flawed from the start, but I did find the first season worked quite well as a comedy the explanation of why rocks sink had me in stitches from the start, I wonder if the second season is as funny?

[@patrickb.5863]

epilepsy warning !!!! 0:40

[@unconventional_health]

Thank you

[@Yvon-]

Thank you, that avoided a headache

[@kaguya6900]

I completely disagree. I think TV is a much better medium for long-form storytelling (like the adaptations of complicated stories, epic or not) than movies. There are problems with adaptation, but there are problems of adaptation when you go from any medium to any other medium. Game of Thrones had just as much of a set ending as the Lord of the Rings. It's just that we don't know where The Song of Ice and Fire is going yet. And since the show runners weren't as good at storytelling as George RR Martin, they screwed up when they didn't have any source material to adapt anymore. The problem with Rings of Power is not that they didn't have the right genre for TV, but rather they didn't have any more than the barest outline of events. If they wanted to adapt Tolkien and make it seem like Tolkien, they needed an actual Tolkien story to adapt. Either that or they need an intimate understanding of what made Tolkien's characters tick and how Tolkien interwove the present-day (for the time in which the story takes place) political landscape with the myths on which the present day is built. They need characters who navigate both the present-day politics and try (and fail) to live up to the expectations set by the myths.This seems to be one of the major themes of Lord of the Rings. Any adaptation will succeed if it understands its source, understands the medium they are working in, and can make the changes necessary for that new medium. The Rings of Power fell far short. But that doesn't mean that Tolkien can't be successfully adapted to TV. Just that it hasn't been so far.

[@cruzefx3652]

Movies are like songs, and TV shows are albums, you can have a generational song, top charts and all, but in an album you will have ups and downs, so it easily becomes not as rich, and pacing becomes a problem.

[@hadisoufi7752]

I think you've conflated the genre with the medium. I agree that Tolkien is a poor fit for a standard TV drama- but that's a bad adaptational choice, not inherent to the medium. There are plenty of other ways to make TV shows, it demonstrates a poverty of imagination on whoever's responsible for Rings of Power and, frankly, you, if you can't come up with something better. His Dark Materials is also a series of epic high fantasy novels, and the HBO adaptation is pretty good. Redwall had a solid 3 season cartoon adaptation. Avatar The Last Airbender and Adventure Time are made for TV high epics, shit, anime has been doing them for decades. Even outside of fantasy and cartoons you can still find TV epics like Babylon 5 and True Detective. In point of fact, I'll bet you there is at least one fan edit of the Jackson films that rework them into a TV series. I'm not saying it'd be an easy thing to do, but RoP was definitely not inevitable. It's a product of shitty decision making and bad creative choices, plain and simple.

[@developingtank]

After years of watching your videos I think this is the first one I’ve gotten nothing out of. Sad.

[@fallfrom2732]

Ah yes it's a TV format that is the problem here. Not creators openly disrespectful to original works and the author. Not an absolute lack of understanding or care to understand the material. Not bad writing and acting. No. Long form is better to explore character? Yes sure. Movies are usually better for epic? Maybe? But this is like 99th reason for why it sucks. If that would be the only problem modern hollywood tv slop have this video would not exist.

[@Hiphop618]

I was looking for this type of comment, yes! Agreed!

[@MuppetsSh0w]

Not once the video stated it's the singular reason so save yourself this childish and bitchy comment.

[@thetroyzernator]

The problem is that Middle Earth doesn't really have characters or relationships in any complex way. It never did. As Nerdwriter says, it was written with archetypes in mind. The closest you get would be Frodo and Sam and Denethor and Faramir.

[@mechajay3358]

TV isn't wrong for Tolkien. Its the people who are involved with Rings of Power who are wrong for Tolkien. They have done a huge disservice to his work.

the show they were aiming for required top tier writing talent and lots of it. I don't know what they did with their billion $ but it wasn't that.

[@redmo11]

"What makes Tokien truly special was his ability to incorporate the qualities of epic and myth into a modern novel, to let his readers feel again the power of long dormant genres." Very well put, I agree!

[@benjaminbjrklund743]

I believe TOlkien can work on Tv. i Believe all stories can, but it all depends on the quality of writing. the Rings of power creators just didnt respect the task ahead of them

[@BakingAndGhibli]

Making the second age into a tv series is crazy, it’s as bad as if someone tried to take The Hobbit and turn it into a three movie epic instead of a fun lite story

[@TheLyricalCleric]

Ehhh, actually gonna have to disagree with this. There were some good opportunities for a complex series here-fallible elves seeking perfection and turning to a too good to be true option for power, humans getting caught in the crossfire of epic fantasy figures and devolving into cannibalistic shells of their former selves, it’s actually got GRRM all over it. Much of Tolkien’s legendarium is a series of long defeats and fruitless victories, like the rise of the Witch-King and the fall of Arnor or the wars of the elves against Morgoth. Even Tolkien’s 12 page scrapped opening of a sequel to LotR showed that Aragorn’s golden age was short-lived, his son was an ineffectual ruler, and that children ran through the streets wearing orc-masks as violent little thugs in a darkening Gondor with a new shadow rising. (My head canon is that Saruman succeeded at some horrible necromantic version of ring-making and became a new kind of wraith to ruin mankind.) In other words, no-I think the show could have been amazing. Was Galadriel the right character? No-we needed a scrappy pov character, not a ring bearer. Make her Galadriel's hotheaded daughter Celebrian, give her a romance arc with young Elrond, a love triangle with a sexy smart elf Annatar, and you have the makings of a great show that we all know has an epic ending but we don’t know how things will go (spoiler alert-Celebrian gets treated HORRIBLY in the story, like GoT level) for our POV person. Also, instead of just one truncated Numenor story, make a cool storytelling decision and have new generations of Numenorians every few episodes. Make it clear that elves are not aging, everybody else is, and stretch the timespan out to show hundreds of years of human expansion into elven lands while elves seem at a standstill. We begin to see the humans the way elves do, as mere background characters that suddenly appear and disappear and make noise and change things for the worse. We should see Numenor as the flawed imperialists and graspers for power they really were. Some of them, in the later episodes or seasons, can stand out for generations as loyalists to our main elven characters. It’s not hard to make a good show, you just have to be willing to lean into Tolkien’s ACTUAL writing, not just the Peter Jackson epicness. That’s part of the reason why Tolkien’s estate didn’t want Jackson to return as show runner for RoP. Not the right vibe. Of course, I think they chose even more poorly in the end, but that’s part of the muck.

[@MrJdecoy]

This isn’t a great take in today’s TV landscape. 20 years ago? Sure, you’d have a point. All the examples you gave of TV shows (Breaking Bad, GoT, Sopranos) all had solid closed storytelling… The greatest shows today all have set seasons. Long form storytelling at its finest. This is an old take.

[@juanss9383]

"Well... that's like... your opinion, man"

[@nothajzl]

Gotta disagree on this one. This failure is completely on the writers of the show. They have no idea what they're doing, and it shows.

[@dannywoods17]

Huh, first time I'd disagree with your videos. Any story can be modified well and told in either TV or film. It's up to the writers to properly adapt and tell the story in that medium. Perhaps you're just being hyperbolic for the algorithm, so I'll come to disagree and what you meant was that epic novels can be difficult to adapt to TV? What would be more interesting to see in a future video is how the best epics are well adapted to TV. Sadly in the case of the Rings of Power, it just seems to be clear storytelling problems, detached from whatever medium it happens in.

[@superhenkable]

If you just cut the 3 extended films into 10 x 1 hour episodes of a TV series it'd still be epic. Don't think it's a problem with the medium.

[@thetroyzernator]

I don't think it'd be that straight forward. Each movie was written with a traditional three act structure to fit it to a feature length presentation. It's really hard to adapt that to TV, the tone and pacing would be all over the place from episode to episode.

[@superhenkable]

@@thetroyzernator Yeah fair enough, like the first episode being just the shire with no action might feel a bit weird for you're average viewer. I mean personally I think that'd be cool, could just end on the cliffhanger of them leaving. But yeah amazon might not be a fan. Either way would still be better than rings of power haha.

[@thetroyzernator]

@superhenkable I think one of the bidders for the rights actually proposed a straight up TV remake. Maybe HBO? I can't remember, it was definitely one of the ideas. I'm glad they didn't do that. I think Nerdwriter is right that it's really challenging to adapt epic narratives to a serialised, character focused format. But it wouldn't have been impossible. But everything about the show is wrong.

[@superhenkable]

@@thetroyzernator True haha, yeah hard to imagine it having anything against the films. Maybe if they focused on different elements of the story could potentially have some value but seems unlikely.

[@benwasserman8223]

Any medium can fit a genre if you find the right approach. Gaming, for example, was largely so-so with Tolkien adaptations. Then came Shadow of Mordor and everyone lost their minds over how good it was. And how many times an Orc remembered defeating you.

[@6553-t2m]

Not a bad game, but i never thought it captured the essence of the movies and books.

[@GeorgeThoughts]

I think most people would agree that Shadow of Mordor was a very well made game which is why it was so popular, but that by definition a combat action game cannot be inherently Tolkien. SoM is gory, gritty, morally grey, focused around assassinations and has kill-moves and such that offer boons whilst glorifying incredible levels of violence on a mass scale. You might say that Tolkien had battles in his series, and he did (although he famously skipped Helms Deep) but his battles had that mythical epic nature to them and the good guys are wholly, inherently righteous. SoM isn't celebrating this, it's celebrating violence for violence's sake, or because slaughtering hundreds of orcs is "cool", to create "wow" moments. I don't think Tolkien thought slaughter was cool.

[@saladinbob]

I 100% disagree. TV, if we lived in normal times, is the perfect format for things like the Silmarillion, or compiling some of the unpublished works into a single story (like the fall of Gondolin). The issue is we don't live in normal times because it comes down to a very simple quote regarding a belief that is now absent, even within Weta: "We didn't want to put any of our own themes in".

[@dimitreze]

nah, is not the media Andor is the proof that you can make anything good, if you write good enough

[@Bargadiel]

With TV and an episodic nature, you can explore really interesting thematic things, but Nerdwriter is right that it's more suited to characters and their struggles vs trying to tailor to an overarching epic narrative. There's only so much you can explore with Middle Earth characters on TV. I think the Magicians is a good example of a series that strayed from the books but ended up creating something completely different that was still really enjoyable for fans of the characters. At the end of the day, because it's migrating from one medium to another, an adaptation is an interpretation, a parody: better to play to those strengths and have fun with it vs trying to make it into something it can never be. All that said, the writing still needs to be engaging, dynamic, and meaningful, though.

[@angela_merkeI]

THE SEA IS ALWAYS RIGHT!

[@redcoffeemug7537]

Think it being a TV Show has nothing to do with it being bad, i think it being badly written has more to do with it. Hell, TV shows nowadays aren't really even the same anymore as TV shows 10-20 years ago. Feeling more like 6 hour long movies then a truly episodic focused story. Most people don't watch TV shows 30 minutes every week, they watch it in hours long weekend binge sessions.

[@benwasserman8223]

Because people were getting tired of episode-focused stories. They wanted something more streamlined and less bully in the episode department so rewatching could be easier. And it worked for a while.

[@guyinthewhiteT]

Honestly a good story about flawed characters could focus on the 9 human ring bearers and how they became ring wraiths.

[@richardlehoux]

If the « novel » elements was perfectly executed there would be a nerdwriter video admiring how they managed to successfully drop the « Epic » element. When it’s good, it’s good. Period.

[@henatwork]

Probably the first video from Nerdwriter that I fully disagree. TROP sucks because of bad writing, bad acting, activism, flawed logic, etc. There is a massive audience that will happily watch a epic high fantasy in TV format. However, the characters need to be likeable which clearly the writers of TROP cannot do. They said they stuck to Tolkien's lore but they invented their own stuff and could not make believable, interesting characters for us to watch.

[@DvMorais]

The problem is simply the script, production and acting... That's all. Not the series format.

[@wasimshaikh1665]

Disagreed. The Hindu epic Mahabharata that you mentioned was adopted as TV show and it was one of the greatest tv show in the Indian history. Even Muslims like me grew up watching that show. Rings of power is an absolute disgrace on writing. It's made with malice. Also if a fiction like GoT and three body problems can be adopted for tv, I see no reason why Tolkien's work can not be.

[@bobbeckman3735]

This theory fails when you consider that you can simply binge watch the whole thing when all are published.

[@hank9th]

I thought The Hobbit had the opposite problem, and would have made a much better television show than movie.

[@ethancoster1324]

Nah, they just stretched the source material and filled in moments of space with contrived padding and love interests. Should've been a couple of movies tops.

[@lukesmith1818]

One thing I'm surprised to not see mentioned much is that the original lotr ends just like King Arthur. Arthur has a mortal wound and leaves for Avalon. It's symbolic of the passing of a heroic age and I think Tolkien set out to mirror

[@saelind73]

I agree with your take, up to a certain point. I do believe that whether is a movie or a TV show, when it comes to adaptations, the first rule should be that you really know, respect and love the source material. I have various issues with LOTR trilogy, but it remains the best trilogy and adaptation nonetheless, because you can see all the love for the source material. In every aspect of the movie, be that costumes, music, photography, acting, directing, and above all writing, you can see they have given their absolute best in order to adapt Tolkien's trilogy, not their fan faction version of it, and insert their "message".

[@HibHab69]

No it ain't just get good writers.

[@Zyhmet]

yeah, bad take on that one. 1.) I think you are too focused on western shows. Anime have plenty of non character focused ones. Stuff like made in abyss is a show about the world. Attack on titan too. (show me one grain of character development in there :P) Or shows that are meant to end and not just continue (Code;Geass, Steins;Gate, CLANNAD) 2.) I dont think "high" fantasy is about being in another world. It is about the feeling. Is magical stuff normal? Dwarfs, Elves, Spells, Items? Or is that something of legends, something rare to uncover? If so, it becomes low fantasy. And if it has a ton of magic stuff, but deviates from the idea of an epic world, it turns into dark fantasy (warhammer), or sci-fi (shadowrun)

[@caitlinalb]

I watch tv for vibes anyway

[@tomasmaniago5832]

Aot has character developement wdym? Armin, Jean, Historia, Ymir, Gabi, just to name a few.

[@Zyhmet]

@@tomasmaniago5832 Talking about the main chars, and I wonder if Armin has any development. I will give you that he has 100x the amount Eren and Mikasa get ;)

[@gaalbenedek95]

I think something could work like a TV show. I was desperately looking for the best fan edit of the Hobbit. I ended up watching some 4 hour "extended" one movie cuts, which are the closest, but the pacing becomes too hasty. Every time they end a bit of adventure, the next one seems to come right after. It made me think that the Hobbit could be told as a limited series, with 20 minutes of adventure in each episode.

[@RussellB]

I wish they weren't live action tv or movies. I think Rankin/Bass had it right and seeing that 70's fantasy style rendered in a higher quality for further adaptations would have been beautiful.

[@okaykatieokay]

I think finality storytelling can work on tv, but it is a lot harder. This video made me think of Merlin (a BBC show that ran from 2008-2012). It captured the legend/myth pretty well, and while the story was shaped by decisions the characters made, it was always going to end the way it did (ignoring the weird time jump - we pretend that doesn't exist)

[@timkinss]

Not convinced in your trying to square these two things in Tolkien. Even if it's true, it can't help but sound like looking down on the mythical because of the ingrained biases of what will be most of your viewership. And RoP doesn't fail because of putting psychologically "complex" characters into myth, but because RoP's characters are so appallingly bad, and so hideously limited by the worldview of a writer's room in Los Angeles that they spit on every principle Tolkien had.

[@IamKnucks]

I don't know man. I'm enjoying the series. I love examining stories and I love writing, but I'm just not upset about people trying new things. I'm just enjoying the ride. People are way too triggered by things that have no impact on their lives and people always seem to gravitate towards the things they didn't like. Life is so much easier if you just focus on the things you did like.

[@StephySon]

I know it’s unrelated to the video but I’m so glad you showed a shot from I May Destroy You. When I tell people that show emotionally hit me like a sledgehammer and left me crying at moments that weren’t even supposed to be tear inducing

[@Spectacurl]

It would have been amazing to have a tv show called “Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth” and to tell all this epic stories in one, two or at most three episodes and double down in the the epic poem idea. Plus, having a rotating cast that could include many talented people showing off in this more “classical” setting. But of course, producers would hate that idea

[@banehog]

I respectfully disagree.

[@JoeArant]

Sauron was always larger than life in Tolkiens writing; an evil felt more than seen. Writing Sauron as human will always be a failing game. Furthermore, I feel the writers of this series were good intentioned, but do not have a strong enough grasp on mythology, deity, or religion to write a compelling narrative which honors Tolkiens archetypes. I have low level anxiety about Netflix and Narnia…

[@rexstuff4655]

"Maybe they'll find a way to square the circle in season 2" Narrator: They did not.

[@stuartcraig6722]

Maybe what would work is a show in which episodes are adjacent to the main plot of Tolkien’s books, featuring new or background characters (like Halbarad who appears briefly in TRotK and whose interaction with Aragorn hints at a rich back story) and don’t so much drive the epic plot forward but intersect with it, and because it doesn’t interfere with the stories in the books it gives the lore purists less to worry about. Kind of the thing that my pals and I had great fun doing a couple of decades ago when we played Middle Earth Role Playing.

[@robertszynal4745]

I feel that you've completely overlooked the miniseries. This is the perfect format as it allows taking time and calm where film rushes things to fit the limited run time. Of course, it can be a series of films but that often draws the story out over years and still limits time.

[@johnabell861]

To me, just the wildest and strangest oversight in the whole rings of power experiment is that at its core, (in my opinion, and I’ve been very wrong on many things before, and I’ll be very wrong about many more things, as will we all) I find the inspiration behind the Lord of the Rings to be anti industrialization, most people kinda gloss over the fact that Bilbo and by extension Frodo were EXTREMELY WELL OFF, even despite being unaware of these values of the ring, and the mithril coat. The real villain wasn’t Sauron, it was greed and the desire for more power and control, that’s why it was significant for Bilbo to leave the ring, he was comfortably wealthy enough to do whatever he wanted, but essentially left that behind, that’s what was significant about Gandalf acknowledging that even as good spirited as his intentions were, could not trust himself with the power, even being one of the oldest, most influential, and most powerful beings in that world, would be corrupted by the absolute power he could exercise given the chance. Boromir is there as an example of the failings of good hearted but selfish grabs for power, but mister “I’m a huge fan of lord of the rings, I have a bunch of employees that I could simply objectively treat better, but I’d rather take Bill Shatner to space in a blue penis, and then brag about it is just throwing a “I want a game of thrones of my own” fit, making a show based off of some scrap intellectual property from a story that was fundamentally against what kind of person he is, and the Tolkien estate won’t sell Mr spaceship the rights to the story about just admitting that you have enough at some point and being a better person.

[@Richard_Nickerson]

Hard disagree. A properly done TV show is probably the ONLY way to do The Silmarillion. It would have to be like 9 RotK-length movies otherwise.

[@MrThephonypope]

A silmarillion tv show would be awful, it would almost be like making the Bible into a TV series

[@50ftGuerrilla]

Except Amazon doesn't have the rights to do The Silmarillion, which is why this show is only adapting the appendices from the end of LOTR

[@LightningRaven42]

Silmarillion only really has a few chunks that might be adaptable. Mostly, it's a bunch of world-building material that work as elements to enrich Middle Earth, rather than good stories to be seen.

[@falahati]

The issue he is trying to communicate is not about the length, but about the format. I would agree that a packed single-season show might be useful for some stories. but the TV Show format as general is not very compatible with epic stories. A few shows that I know were partially successful with these all used to add a lot of drama and details to the source material making characters smaller as they appeared in the source. they were successful but I can imagine for every one of them a lot other failed.

[@docflights]

I don't think you watched the video

[@magavtelanata]

How can you claim that Rings of Power is open-ended? How can that be since we know how things will turn out at the end?

[@tomboysquirrel]

When classic novels were published they were often broken up into serial volumes. I'm not convinced that a serialized format is ill-fitted to show the unfolding of an epic story from Tolkien. The serialized medium of streaming "tv" with hour-long episodes is starkly different from the conventional 20 or 45-minute cable tv series where the writers may not even have a full plan and are making the show up as they go along. I don't at all see how RoP falls flat when it leans into epic moments, or how it stops feeling like Tolkien when it leans into psychodrama. I also disagree that the 2nd Age is less epic than the events of The Lord of the Rings - the destruction of Númenor and the War of the Last Alliance are prime examples.

[@davidrojas6457]

Your points about the medium differences are strictly true and valid, but as most have said here, I still disagree with your take for this specific example. Many of us who have read and loved the Silmarillion and Tolkien's other supplemental works have always said that a serialized medium would be THE BEST and most complete way of adapting those stories (primarily because of the sheer volume). RoP is just very poorly cast, written and edited. (Also, they had to make a bunch of stuff up because of how little they had rights to from Tolkien's work.)

[@lphenry1]

You clearly identified what I was feeling about the show, without being able to pinpoint it myself. Thanks!

[@fireaza]

I get what you're saying, but my counter-argument is this: the extended cuts. I think most LotR fans agree that the extended cuts are the definitive version of the films, and they're simply the theatrical cut but with more scenes. A TV series, likewise, is longer than the runtime of your typical movie. If you treated a LotR TV series as more like a really really really extended movie, rather than following the normal structure of a TV series, I'd say it could work quite well.

[@tisucitisin1]

Make a 10-episode mini-series about Beren and Luthien. Put showrunners who are not Hollywood shills and you'll have an amazing tv show on your hands.

[@HarrisonTheGrey]

Just got home from watching The Fellowship of the Ring re-release in theaters. Really drove home the fact of how much of a bland soulless husk Rings of Amazon is. Bilbo’s birthday scene in the shire had more heart, energy and authenticity than the entire season.

[@lukeh567]

The only way to do it would be by making a limited series. You close the circle that way, but of course large companies who bid for rights in the hundreds of millions can't leverage the IP for attention grabs that way...

[@RialVestro]

I always thought of a novel as just any book that is thick enough that it needs to be seperated in chapters that are all part of one continous story from front to back. They also usually tend to be more adult or at least teen oriented not because of the nature of the content but just because of the amount of content tends to be a little intimidating for little kids who are just learning how to read so stories specifically targeted at young kids tend to mostly be short stories not long novels. There are some exceptions but generally childrens novels are meant more for older kids so kids books that could also be considered novels are quite rare.

[@vincentmorot5124]

This show being a prequel also takes away from the Epic aspect. You can't see it as a myth when it's happening before your very eyes, and you know where it is going and exactly what the end result will be. Also the show makes Sauron the most interesting characters, so that feels weird

[@BitterTast3]

Oh come on now, don't put the blame on the medium!

[@kyle2930]

if it was intentional, focusing on Don Draper for "the next thing, not the last thing" was a great choice

[@devilmay]

streaming isnt tv. you can have 1.5 hour "episodes". thats kind of the point. by pushing this "tv" closed form factor 30min or 45min or 65min. it creates limitations. streaming you can stop and start whenever. thats the problem. not the medium.

[@spartansniper619]

A tv show wich started as a classic tv drama '' novelistic'' then deeply and smoothly morphed more and more into an epic/myth type storytelling while never losing the amazing characters and their rich complexity is LOST. Maybe that's why it's the best piece of media ever created 🤷

[@SteMail926]

One thing the Jackson films have is difficulty capturing is the meandering and occasionally bumbling quality of tolkien's writing. Given the BBC radio series captured this in an episodic format, theres no reason a TV series couldnt do the same thing.

[@geng6443]

Half the comments are responding to the title instead of the video

[@apstrike]

There's a middle ground here, which gets missed. The miniseries allows for depth of character exploration and the scope tell a larger and more complex story. But it's still bounded and doesn't allow for subplots that don't advance the overall narrative. One could retort that miniseries don't make money, series do. But the counter to that is that each season of a TV show can be a miniseries when properly structured. It's in no way of perfect example, but The Wire had the right idea with each of its four seasons focused on a single aspect of modern urban life.

[@SmoggySandwich]

Main problem is they don't have the rights to Silmarillion but decided to try to tell that story anyways. The way the book breaks up chapters into smaller stories that tell a whole piece would have been perfect for TV. It's like they started working on the show expecting to get the rights, and then they didn't, but it was too late to turn back so they had to change things just enough and it just made it a meh show.

[@billusher2265]

This makes no sense, his novel is told in chapters, a tv show can be too?

[@BillNyeGuy]

If GOT can do it successfully I don’t see why LOTR can’t. What really separates them? In fact GOT had to jump to many different characters in even different locations as ROP has to. ROP problem is the writers, who were new, tried to add stuff like Sauron being betrayed, Sauron helping the elves make 3 rings and leaving to only later come back to help make the rest, explaining why Mount Doom became active again, etc etc.

[@DrewBoivie]

A lot of things are impossible (or super difficult) to adapt correctly... Then a project gets enough resources, talent, and care...and it just gets done. Lord of the Rings (original trilogy only) and the recent Dune were examples of this. I only watched the first half of the first season of Rings of Power. Its issues were not at all with any kind of square peg / round hole situation. The acting was mediocre. Many of the characters and scenes seemed irrelevant. It was taking too long to establish where the main plot was headed. All of these issues are manageable, and they are the main things preventing RoP from succeeding.

[@Birmanncat]

The tv format gave us the orc family.

[@peko1967]

yeah...blech

[@robsolf]

I think the EPIC Tolkien, like you said, doesn't really work for TV. But they don't have to make TV shows about epic events in Tolkien books. You could have a show just about the Shire and Bree, and have bandits moving in; an event that was occurring while the LOTR events were occurring... or make them completely unrelated. Have a series about Bree and the Shire. Then have another series about the elves and the dwarves. Then create a series to culminate those 2 series. Because it's wrong to think that Tolkien books were all about big armies and certain catastrophic doom. The scalability of Tolkien's world is rich with material that could work for a great TV show.

[@DaneDavenport]

People like to complain about new versions of stories they feel ownership over and use subjective biases to create "imperial" excuses for why they don't work. But the only stories that last are the ones that get retold over and over in new ways and mediums. That is how and why, "the great tales never end" (to paraphrase The Two Towers). I am a Tolkien fan and like the show, as do (most of) the many Tolkien fans I know and we have loved digging into the show's takes on the lore and histories. But most importantly, the heart and message of Tolkien's work shines through, which is (subjectively) more important than the mythology.

[@ghostlightinthegreenroom]

In Canada we had a multi part docuseries called Canada: A People's History which explored the countries history in chronological segments and I always thought The Silmirillion would be best brought to film/tv in that way. Sure it's not narratively engaging because there's no real ongoing episodic through line, but Silmarillion never was that anyways, and an interesting docuseries showing depictions of the first and second age wouldve served those stories nicely than trying to be Game of Thrones.

[@dragatus]

I can agree with the premise to some extent, but TV would actually be the perfect medium for adapting the Hobbit, which is a lot more down to earth than the Lord of the Rings and neatly divided into nicely rounded chapters that can be made into individually episodes.

[@Corncorncorncorncorncorncorn]

I think the “closed loop” effect you’re describing is still attainable here in the same way it was for the trilogy of movies. It’s just a longer loop. The show runners have a direction and end in mind.

[@claudesigma3784]

Netflix, Amazon and the like is not "TV", they can do whatever they want, as long or as short as they want.

[@7hird3ye]

It comes down to passion. Those helming the show are not passionate about Tolkien in any way. They know nothing of his works, simply using the LotR namesake to tell their own story, bereft of any of the soul that Tolkien's works have.

[@wingedhussar2909]

I feel most TV series today are stretched out because they want 9 seasons of content. You can't give away too much then suddenly things happen too fast because a new season is around the corner.

[@thetroyzernator]

It's interesting to think if it might have worked better in an episodic style. Rather than serialised. Each episode being a myth or legend told from start to finish in one episode. You could get a lot of Tolkien vibes from that. You could even use a fan service narrative framing, like it's Gandalf telling tales over a pipe at the Green Dragon. But apparently we're not allowed to have well crafted episodic story telling anymore.

[@HdRfreak21]

Parts of the Silmarillion would be very well suited to be adapted for TV, especially the exodus of Feanor, the story of Beren and Luthien, of the Children of Hurin, and of Maeglin, Tuor and the fall of Gondolin. These parts of the book do contain epic characters, but also many that are morally ambiguous, flawed and conflicted - envious and hateful elves, depressed humans, tortured souls etc etc. You would have to give the showrunners liberties with the format - allow them longer episodes, irregular numbers of episodes per season, some degree of non-linear storytelling - but it could, potentially, work really well. Meanwhile, adapting The Silmarillion or any of its stories for film would be a lost cause because of the immensity of the material and the backstory. So I think the fundamental problem with Rings of Power (as it was with The Hobbit for that matter) remains that the script is a half-baked mess, probably due to studio profit interests for the most part. And also, as others mentioned, the fact that they do not actually have the rights to a lot of the lore is important.

[@RealUlrichLeland]

I don't think TV is the problem. There have been more good adaptations of The Odyssey for TV than there have for film, and that's a fantasy story of similar scope and scale.

[@yay-cat]

I watched fellowship of the ring last weekend and kept thinking ok cool this is the end of the movie. Like after the council meeting in rivendell, of after everyone except gandalf makes it out the mines, then the forest elves bit and being chased by orcs and Frodo and sam leaving on their own. Basically what i’m getting at is just make a 12 hour long movie and chop it abruptly but then maybe release episodes in batches that make sense

[@MaxIronsThird]

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense, the original trilogy could easily have been a show with three 6 episode seasons.

[@ethancoster1324]

Especially with all that Old Forest Bombadillo content included.

[@CMFrey-ii5tx]

You could pretty much just make every chapter its own episode and every book (Book I, Book II....Book VI) into its own season.

[@WHlSKYtx]

I’m glad Twitter and KZbin weren’t popular when the films came out. Impossible for people to enjoy anything

[@KajiCarson]

There's nothing wrong with the format per se. A Tolkien TV series could work. But it needs good writing, good acting, good production.