Why Hasn’t the Tolkien Estate Sold the Rights to Adapt the Silmarillion?

[@shrillchicken57varietychan66]

I completely agree about the children of Hurin, I would feel incomplete if I never saw one before I die

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

Thanks!

[@jjlambonscloudyproductions]

Remember when he said Tolkien needed the cash because of family? PJ faced the same situation with the Hobbit. He asked the studios for 6 to 8 weeks to fix the series. Studios said no. He had alot of people in new Zealand employed with families etc...Tolkien estates doesn't need big studios..go look at fan made films like Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope..the estate could help finance projects cheery picking stories to adapt. Give Tolkien fans what they want and make money.

[@jaytucker7873]

I agree they will never sell the rights to the full Silmarillion, but I think they will piece meal sell the rights to individual stories over the next few decades.

[@bjiornbjiorn]

If I'm honest, I think the real problem with adapting the Silmarillion is that, at its core, it is a mythology. What I mean by that is that it contains stories of vastly different lengths, intensities, subjects, themes, and scopes all working towards a common narrative. Since there's no point adapting the Silmarillion piece meal I don't think there is any corporate structure in the world today that would be able to adequately accomodate all of its facets. For example, as you suggest, I also think the Children of Hurin could be a great set of films. However, I think there are other stories that would be served much better by being long form television, animated shorts, 90 minute stand alone movies or limited series. I can also think of a number of places were having variable episode lengths ranging from, say, 30- 80 minutes would be beneficial. That means you can't have a unified distribution approach as modern audiences won't go to see a short at the cinema and releasing a fantasy epic straight to streaming isn't a fantastic idea. You would have to convince audiences to pay attention to multiple stories in multiple different places over a long time span. Under a capitalist system that disincentivises risk taking there is only one company I can think of that has tried to make anything with this much variability work and, unfortunately, that is Disney. Obviously the approach was a selfish one on their part to improve Disney Plus's prospects but, taking both their Star Wars and Marvel properties into account, in recent years you can see the development of a diverse set of formats similar to that required to properly adapt the silmarillion. You have limited series, genre pieces, shorts, event films, tentpole film series, etc. The problem is that, given their track record of late, I wouldn't trust Disney as far as I could throw a copyright lawyer and, given the diminishing returns we have seen from Disney managed IPs (Not wanting to make claims about quality but certainly in audience reception and retention) it demonstrates that the only corporate structure that could manage to adapt the Silmarillion is managed in a way that would actively harm said adaptation. The unfortunate truth is that, to properly adapt the Silmarillion, you would need to convince the estate to hand over the rights, find an individual willing to tie themselves to a vast multimedia project for decades as creative lead, give them funding equivalent to the GDP of a small country for production costs, fundamentally alter the way that the public interacts with media, and face the reality that by the end you may not have made any money. I'm just not sure there's anyone willing to do that in this day and age. It's not like the good old days where George Harrison could fund Monty Python's Life of Brian because "he wanted to see the film".

[@VeteranVandal]

I largely agree with this. And, if you wanted to try it in a series is the best that one could do. I think only Disney could really pull this off, but... Not within their current corporate structure.

[@andrewmiddleton5369]

Nailed it, it’s like putting the bible to film, it’s a mythology that has sweeping statements akin to ‘and then there was light’ which would be way too open to interpretation by a film maker that we’d be cursing their take on it. LOTR has a particular chronological narrative played out almost in real time so much easier to adapt to film.

[@Enerdhil]

Disney?!😱No!!!

[@Enerdhil]

Elon Musk would be able to pull it off. He far overpaid for Twitter. Maybe he could overpay for The Silmarillion.🤔🙏🏻

[@bjiornbjiorn]

@@Enerdhil Not a huge fan of Mr Musk personally. One minute it would be a faithful rendition of the story and the next, Beren would be prying an NFT from Morgoth's Iron Blockchain. However, to give him his due, if he was purely the money guy and remained at arm's length (like with Space X) it would probably be fine.

[@InkyMuste]

My dream would be if someone like Robert Eggers became a Tolkien nut and got to adapt the Silmarillion into a bunch of movies or a show with oldschool Tolkien experts on board. If you watch The Northman you can almost get a whiff of what something like that might look like.

[@MS-ho9wq]

Or The VVitch. I agree, Eggers' take would be fantastic. It's a nice thought, at least.

[@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726]

Except Eggars isn’t Christian so he’d almost certainly skip or change those themes, which might crater the entire work since Tolkien has famously described his corpus of mythology as being Catholic at its core.

[@brucealanwilson4121]

I would suggest doing "The War of the Jewels", "The Childrem of Hurin", and "The Fall of Gondolin."

[@Enerdhil]

There are five Battles of Beleriand and the War of Wrath. Would that be one battle per year for six seasons?🤔

[@djohnston6856]

It just seems natural to me that the way the adapt the Silm would be as individual stories. A Turin limited series by a really creative director would be great.

[@Enerdhil]

I would be surprised if The Tolkien Estate sold the rights for single stories out of The Silmarillion.

[@gandalfolorin-kl3pj]

Melon Geek, your wisdom is showing once more. I can add nothing to this very thorough analysis of why the Silmarillion cannot be rendered in another art form. It is, as you say, only possible that some epic stories within that tome be remade for cinema. But which ones will be chosen, at this point, is anyone's guess. And again, as you point out, the Estate has nothing to gain by taking a risk on such productions. Keep up the good work. Namarie.

[@antonyreyn]

Fun fact the name Tolkien is contained within the name Thorkelin who was the first translator of Beowulf. Cheers from Mercia the original Shire

[@Crafty_Spirit]

Thorkell the Tall...

[@pwmiles56]

I'm guessing you are a man of the Eastfold (Østfold), where Thorkelin was a professor? I actually live in the Mark, in the land of the Middle Angles, near the town of the Hicce (Hitchin, Herts).

[@brovold72]

Pretty shrewd break-down of the various pitfalls of adaptation. I for one wouldn't mind seeing an animated version of, say, the Beren and Lúthien tale.

[@Enerdhil]

With Tevildo 🐈‍⬛or Sauron🦇? 😅

[@boufns8]

Because they knew the “Rings of Power” would happen, and BOY did it suck.

[@coreyander286]

I think the trick to adapting to the Silmarillion would be to make sure each installment can stand alone, while linking up into a longer story. Take the nature of the three great tales and extend them to other prominent figures of the Silmarillion who _didn't_ get one of the three great tales weaved around them. One might hope the unfortunate implications of the First Age Easterlings being swarthy are offset somewhat by their names being pseudo-Germanic Ulfang, Uldor, Ulfast, and Ulwarth. I wonder more about the gender aspects of the Silmarillion. On the one hand, you have women taking more active roles than elsewhere in the legendarium, like Luthien. But not so much in traditionally male roles, except a few notes about Galadriel... Oh, and Haleth and the women of the Haladin, but how much focus do they get? Otherwise, the big female characters just, I dunno, turn into seagulls or whatever. I feel like the existence of the Avari makes a good excuse for diverse Elves. We know the Penni migrating far enough to later mingle with the Nandor. It's not hard to imagine some Avari migrating to equatorial latitudes, adapting to that environment, then migrating north to the Westlands, mingling with the Nandor, and boom, you've got Arondir. Of course people can say, "Elves have such a long generation time, how could they evolve that much even if they migrated south?", but you already have the same problem with how Primitive Quendian evolved into languages as different as Quenya and Sindarin. Clearly Elves, and even Men if they awoke with the rising of the Sun just 310 years before they entered Beleriand, undergo generational change different from that of real anthropological history. Edit: Oh, and just so we're clear, I'm not knocking on Tolkien for having women turn into seagulls. I think that's based and tradpilled. In fact I'm worried a Silmarillion adaptation will Surrender To Woke and have women _not_ turn into seagulls. 🕊🗿

[@rikk319]

"Based" and "cringe" are so broadly defined as to just mean "I like this" and "I don't like this". "Tradpill" is definitely not a word Tolkien would have used, and probably would have physically cringed at the butchering of language that has come about in internet spaces and what goes for dialogue online these days. I doubt he'd smile on "woke", too--the nebulous usage of the word stands diametrically opposed to his philological roots. It's hard to consider someone who loves Tolkien's works so much but displays such wanton virtue signalling with coded language.

[@Enerdhil]

Ulmo gave Elwing the form of a great white bird. You think it is a seagull, but I've always thought it was a swan 🦢.🤔

[@Steven-op5zv]

I second the suggestion for an audio play ("radio show," most likely in serial episodes, perhaps of varying lengths). It would be far less expensive to do, would go through fewer political/ideological traps and would therefore require less reputational risk, the show time in serial episodes would reduce the pressure to reimagine stuff to fit both a screen and a time limit, etc. Tolkien populated Beleriand in a way that would allow all kinds of racial-ethnic voice types and regional/local accents.

[@christianmino3753]

I think Certain parts of it could be adapted wonderfully. The fall of numenor, angoliant and melkor and the two trees, the creation of the dwarves etc. It doesn't have to be an adaptation as a whole but some of the stories themselves being adapted could be really cool if done right.

[@TheTolkienCurmudgeon]

Tolkien Lore man, I've been lurking for years, now making a comment. To my mind I have a feeling of gratitude to you for having the testicular wherewithal to take the bull by the horns and say what you needed to say. To talk about these issues is to walk across a minefield. You navigated it skillfully.

[@Leahi84]

I honestly would rather it just not get made and the estate hold onto it forever.

[@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726]

My brother in Christ, Arondir’s actor, emblematic of the race swapping you mentioned around @17:05, was ABSOLUTELY chosen in large part because he was non-white. As if they couldn’t find a single race-correct actor to play the part when literally thousands of would-be actors are chomping at the bits to get these spots. Orlando bloom’s FIRST ROLE was Legolas. Those people are out there. Their “crime”, such as it is, is their being white. I get that that may come off as obtuse or an overly simplistic explanation, but it’s also the truth. The people heading and bankrolling these studios are anti-white. I don’t get why people have no problem admitting that Hollywood in the 30’s and 40’s was racist towards blacks but now suddenly in 2024 it has to be murky and opaque when dealing with the question of anti-white racism. PS. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion” IS the agenda. Lol you admit DEI influences their decisions but then turn around say their casting choices were color-blind. DEI is the opposite of meritocratic casting.

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

I’m not saying the casting IS colorblind, since that would require mind-reading. I’m saying the show doesn’t make it obvious that they were doing something other than that.

[@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726]

@@TolkienLorePodcast I gotcha. Fair enough. I suppose I just respectfully disagree. To me, it was a fairly conscious, obvious effort to include non-whites for the sake of including non-whites, aka a quota. And while I agree they didn’t overtly change the story into a straight up ode against bigotry directed towards non-white people, they certainly changed several themes of Tolkien’s to give way to modern tropes such as “strong women don’t need no man” and “just because I look different than you doesn’t mean we can’t share values bro!”. I think changes to Galadriel, tar-Miriel (who in the show somehow isn’t the same race as Ar-pharazon despite being first cousins), female version of Frodo (forget her name lol), etc were all done very much in the service of an agenda.

[@PlanetEvans]

Indeed. One wonders why - if "Tolkien is for everyone" as they kept chanting incessantly on every SM site and press outlet at the start of RoP - Galadriel was still lily-white. And Gil-galad. And Elrond. And all the canon characters except Tar-Miriel who has maybe 2 or 3 sentences total devoted to her in a 1500-page legendarium.

[@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726]

@@PlanetEvans I guess they weren’t quite prepared to go the Romeo and Juliet route and just destroy all semblance of even pretending to care about the story they’re adapting by causing one of the main characters to become the wrong race within the story simply for the sake of hating Europeans.

[@PlanetEvans]

@@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726 Yes. Andy Jassy and the producers of the show know perfectly well that Tolkien is NOT for everyone, despite disingenuously promoting his stories that way.

[@EJ_Crough]

Poppi’s mother died. There’s some line in RoP that says her fathers current wife is her step mom

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that. That’s how forgettable that show was 😅

[@Enerdhil]

You are right .... Not that it matters in the end 😂

[@EJ_Crough]

I’m not a RoP defender but for some reason I remembered that detail lol

[@David.Bowman.]

I’d prefer to see it as some kind of animated production. Netflix did a Dark Crystal and He-Man reboot, and whether you consider them fluff or not, they really are a much better way to illustrate the kind of otherworldly qualities of a myth. Putting real people in wigs and fancy costumes before greenscreening them fighting bloated CGI monsters has been done to death and lost any kind of impact a long time ago.

[@HiHi-lt1cb]

I'd love a Silmarillon in anime style, like Castlevania on Netflix. It would add so much to the appeal, plus could you imagine the fight scenes animated??

[@David.Bowman.]

@@HiHi-lt1cb anime, puppetry, cartoon… even stop-motion! Anything different would be nice! Especially the chapters that are more fairytale-esque. Maybe that’d be an interesting way to go, a series where each chapter had a different medium depending on its content but features like actors’ faces, uniforms, buildings etc were kept similar… I dunno 😋

[@tominiowa2513]

@@HiHi-lt1cb Have crazy man* Hideaki Anno direct. *Anyone who doubts he is crazy has not watched NGE/EoE.

[@Enerdhil]

Is there any other way to recreate the Ainulindalë?

[@musvijajuzagrilariocara8583]

I think you’re right, an adaptation isn’t getting made until Silmarillion goes into the public domain.

[@Peak_Aussieman]

I do remember reading an article that Peter Jackson was keen to try and make an adaption of the Silmarillion, but who knows how accurate that is. You can't trust tabloidal rags.

[@istari0]

Amazon's DEI policy is basically quotas. So the casting choices in RoP were anything but color-blind.

[@Enerdhil]

Yes. They play Intersectional bingo.🙄

[@kiwicoproductions2828]

Finally someone made a video on this. Haha. But an even better question: Why did Amazon decide to make a show centered around the 2nd age when they don’t have the rights to the Silmarrilion or Unfinished Tales? lol.

[@celtofcanaanesurix2245]

honestly I see the shift in hollywood right now where the supposed tried and true franchise movies like marvel / pixar are completely failing, and great scifi/ fantasy cinema, though still under appreciated, pops up more then five years ago, such as the northman, and the recent dune movies which have the same adaptive problems that the LOTR movies have (perhaps even slightly worse in some areas) but are still great movies that are raking in money. I could see a near future ten or so years from now where Turin could be on the big screen, and I'd be absolutely hyped to see it.

[@Enerdhil]

Maybe turn The Silmarillion into a manga, then an Anime series, finally an anime film.🤑🤑🤑🤑 It should work.🤞🏻

[@tominiowa2513]

With animation by GoHands (think of what they would do with elven hair)?

[@brennansmith6474]

It was not color blind casting

[@Enerdhil]

Who created "color blind casting?" It is a great way for actual racists to virtue signal to others that you are nobly pursuing your DEI, ESG policies without admitting it. I don't mean you Joshua.😅😅😅😅

[@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726]

“They were just following DEI policies that dictate their hiring practices guys, and that’s why it was actually color blind”. Make it make sense

[@nobodybutzach]

“Market it as a guy who kills a dragon.” I’m in.

[@shientienchig9815]

No one could do it justice

[@DennisCNolasco]

In today's age, I would much rather they produce a full voice cast audio play with a full orchestra, etc. There would be far less chance of butchering the story than a movie or series. However, that will never get done until it's in the public domain.

[@Enerdhil]

That would be 2078.😞

[@SunnyLovetts]

Hopefully someone competent! (-_o)

[@egoborder3203]

the only way I can see a Silmarillion adaptation working would be someone with the courage to make something like David Lynch's Twin Peaks: the Return. Obviously not in terms of tone or subject matter, but in terms of having long stretches of weirdness with no dialogue. You would have to forego commercial success in favor of being true to the material

[@fraserjackson]

The rights issue might be more complicated than this, but if you're adapting individual stories, wouldn't you start by getting the rights to the stories which have been published individually (eg 'The Children of Hurin').

[@Enerdhil]

You don't need any book except The Children of Hurin. It includes all the stuff in The Silmarillion and Quenta Silmarillion as well as the Annals of Beleriand, etc.

[@AndyMillerPhotoUK]

The 75 year rule comes to play soon.

[@jhibbitt1]

this might seem random, but what do you think of studio ghibli adapting it?

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

Well I love The Hobbit so I’d at least be interested lol

[@westower7898]

It would be better to purchase the rights of some of those last 'novels'. Fall of Gondolin, Lay of Beren & Luthien , and Children of Hurin.

[@everettdepangher6131]

Thanks for the commentary. I have never had a clear sense of what the Tolkien Estate's goals are. I assume that it exists under UK law, with which I am unfamiliar. I am curious to know more. For instance, who are the trustees? How do they pick their successors? To what extent are the trustees still operating from instructions in Tolkien's will (if he had one)? Who are the beneficiaries? How much are the estate's assets worth? If the estate sold rights, what would it do with the extra money?

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

You’d have to ask someone else those questions 😂

[@Enerdhil]

I would imagine that the Estate collects all royalties from books, movies, character goods, TV series, etc. They also clearly sell the rights to the highest bidders, but they can only do that once per genre.

[@everettdepangher6131]

​@@Enerdhil, yes, but I wonder to what end it is amassing that money. I'm not sure why Tolkien didn't bequeath the intellectual property to one or more actual people (perhaps his children or others) or to a trust. Instead, there is an "estate" that, weirdly, has still not completed its administration even though the decedent's own children have now all died. Maybe this is just how things work under UK law, but the arrangement is odd.

[@Enerdhil]

@@everettdepangher6131 I think everything was fine when Christopher was the Executor of the Estate, but now his son Simon seems to be calling the shots. He has no respect for his father or grandfather's work .

[@stephenbarrett8861]

Guy Gavriel Kay

[@yeahjustme3680]

I do think that the story of Luthien and Beren is actually the one that can be made into a movie or several movies even. It has adventure, love, big stakes and enough connections to what people might already know for some appeal to an audience. And it even features a prominent woman lol. 🤔

[@Enerdhil]

If you want to turn The Lay of Leithian" into a TV or movie series, Good luck!

[@thomasb.anderson8113]

silmarillion the documantary with great visuals and selected actors

[@PatriceBoivin]

I wonder how an adaption would include the Lays of Beleriand when they didn't even want to include Tom Bombadil in the LOTR movies. Plus now it seems Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro decided that orcs are Mexicans.

[@Nathaniel_Izdepski]

I would totally love it if an independent studio bought the rights that isn't mainstream Hollywood, but thats only a dream that will never happen, only big names studios will grab it cause thats where all the money is sadly, and there are some really good directors out there with a style that would fit Tolkien and do justice, it just seems in my opinion Hollywood doesn't always hire the right people for it, now Peter Jackson made great LOTR films, i love them as films in their own right, but at the same time they more action and less of really what Tolkien was writing i think.

[@aleksandrh.4251]

18:25 A colourblind casting... Is is possible that Amazon was sort of forced to pick diverse stuff? Yes. Is it plausible? I believe, it is not. Listen to what the actors of the show say in those promo videos. They talk more about representation and stuff like that than about anything else. Add here setting all-female directing team for the second season, that is being displayed as something very positive, and the picture of Amazon that is "not into politics" is quite complete.

[@Enerdhil]

Great. Season 2 will be about the Patriarchy. 🙄

[@saeedshahbazian9889]

I'm gonna make a full set of series of history of Arda lol

[@Enerdhil]

First buy all the books in the History of Middle Earth series.🤑🤑🤑😂

[@bintube5269]

Because they saw Rings of Power 😅

[@wompastompa3692]

All I want is _Guitar Hero: Ainulindalë_

[@kirtmanwaring3629]

I get this and you are not wrong … but imagine how much better even a Beezos-mangled ROP could have been had they been able to actually use the full Second Age lore. Finrod wouldn't have needed to give that awful speech about darkness being light or whatever that was, they wouldn't have needed to make up that whole Earth blight Mithril story, they could have used Anatar …

[@Enerdhil]

Bezos never intended to follow the lore as it is presented in The Silmarillion. He is making the TV series he wanted to make and he won't let Tolkien get in his way. 🙄

[@InkyMuste]

Wouldn't really change the fact that the show's writing is just bad even when separated completely from Tolkien's works.

[@kirtmanwaring3629]

@@InkyMuste See I think that's exactly what it would likely change. The really bad writing is almost all their own filler stuff, there would be a lot less of it and it would be channeled more positively with the full source material I think. And I’d call ROP’S original stuff just forgetably average not straight up bad … on the whole.

[@53puskas53]

I think the major problèm is it isn't much of a book.

[@Enerdhil]

Good point. No story is really "fleshed out."

[@tonyajm8289]

Beren and Luthien for me would be the movie to go for. General audiences want an epic adventure love story, rather than the ,ahem, love story in C.O.H. ha ha

[@tarzan8575]

The Ring's of power is a garbage show and not at all representative of Tolkien's work.

[@ace9924]

Thank God they cant touch it. I prefer the children of hurin as i imagine it in my head.

[@PrometheanRising]

I don't particularly have a problem with there being a 'black' elf in RoP, but it is laughable to think, given their self-congratulatory DEI propaganda campaign, that that wasn't a consciously DEI decision.

[@Enerdhil]

Joshua's a nice guy. That is why he is giving them the benefit of the doubt.

[@PlanetEvans]

*Black Elves, black hobbits, black Dwarves, black Tar-Miriel and so on. The objective is to take our tales from us, and us alone. If that was not the objective, then you'd see an on-screen adaptation of the Ten Commandments with a black Moses, or The Romance of the Three Kingdoms with non-Chinese actors, or the Mahabharata with something other than Asian Indians playing every role. It's just us and our stories that people like Andy Jassy are after.

[@dupplinmuir113]

As people have pointed out, it's impossible to put the Silmarillion on screen without it looking pathetic, because the grandeur of the stories would be diminished by trying to film them. I know the cliche 'Show don't tell' but sometimes telling is better. To take a small example you can easily write in a book "He/She was the most beautiful man/woman I'd ever seen" and the reader will obligingly substitute someone they personally find attractive, but when you film it the actor/actress can't possibly appeal to everyone.

[@rikk319]

That's part of doing visual art and visual mediums. It's common knowledge that any adaptation of, say, a Shakespeare play is going to be influenced by the director as far as who is chosen to play roles, stage decoration, etc. For God's sake, I don't go to a Shakespeare play with the arrogant attitude that "these characters better fit MY imagination of what they look like!" It's no different with movies and television adaptations.

[@pwmiles56]

Surely the Estate completely fumbled the sale to Amazon -- not financially but in terms of curating Tolkien's legacy. They are supposed to have creative oversight, but this they have signally failed to exercise. Personally I'm far more interested in the Unfinished Tales material than the Silmarillion. I so, so, hope Jackson has the vision and clout to work out a deal to access the stuff he needs for current projects. A fool's hope, no doubt!

[@Enerdhil]

Erendis and Aldarion?🙄

[@pwmiles56]

​@@Enerdhil Yes that is a possibility but man, it would take some careful handling. There are potentially feminist themes in the dynamic of Erendis and Ancalime but I'm not sure I want modern writers let loose on that. What I actually meant was the detail in, for example, "The Hunt for the Ring". The Nazgul's call on Saruman -- Saruman's entryphone -- their questioning of Wormtongue -- these are all fantastic scenes which would add so much to a dramatisation, if only they could be used.

[@Enerdhil]

@@pwmiles56 Yes, I know what you mean. There is a very detailed account of Isildur and his people getting way-laid by Orcs on the way to Imladris. That is when he loses the One Ring and gets killed, along with 4 (?) of his sons and all but one of his men. That would be very cool to see in a theater, but no one will pay to just see that fight scene.

[@pwmiles56]

Yes good example. Actually three of the sons are killed, the fourth (Valandil) is still in Rivendell. The larger point is, it's a story-draft, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields. Rather a depressing story but it could still be a great episode in a TV series -- not the Amazon one I fancy.

[@Enerdhil]

@@pwmiles56 If I remember correctly, there is a whole chapter on Galadriel and Celeborn that had Tolkien's latest thoughts on Galadriel's development. He really wasn't satisfied with her story arc.

[@genius2005]

Why would anyone sell the rights to Tolkein's works anymore after the atrocity perpetrated by Jeff Bozos with the Rings of Gargabe.

[@PlanetEvans]

Agreed, but just to pick an important nit that nearly everyone gets wrong... Andy Jassy has been CEO of Amazon through all but a few early months of the Rings of Pewter nightmare.

[@DenofLore]

lol adapting the Silmarillion - or how to have your entire audience who isn’t intimately familiar with the work completely confused for 6 hours.

[@jaredmarkham7300]

You're given too much credit to any of the studios the way they How do you have DEI and put it into their stuff? Stuff works one way.

[@YamiSpyroX]

Its pretty much how I'd love to see an accurate adaption of the How to Train Your Dragon books but I know full modern Hollywood (Its not just cause of the DreamWorks versions. Their own Live-action remake un-withstanding.) would never let it happen. First they'll sneer at it being a 'kids series' second they'll complain its 'too violent' (Amazon is doing Wings of Fire though.) and 3rd every character in the story is a white European and or a Talking dragon. Not going to pull the woke card cause I dislike that stick but its a massive crying shame like with The Silmarillion; myself agreeing that Children of Hurin should be put on-screen cause it really is phenomenal fantasy fiction, that I think deserves a wider audience. I just feel that How to Train Your Dragon as a book series hits many of the same cords that Tolkien hits with the themes of brotherly kinship, little people living in a brutal world yet continuing to fight anyway, not even mentioning what I'd view as some of the most Magnificent Dragons I've ever read in any story. I hear that there's supposed to be a Dragon Lance tv series along with a Elf-Quest animated show in the works but like with Narnia I'm just fretful to no-end how these studios could screw-up what I already think is progressive. Looking at you Dark- skinned Elf Quest Elves! (Love those comics.)

[@PatriceBoivin]

Hollywood doesn't want to take risks but they are ok with gutting franchises to make them fit new social movements. Amazon Prime does have a corporate policy on diversity, they definitely used it while casting. The actors came out swinging against having actors which would fit the norse, anglo-saxon, celtic history.

[@danguillou713]

It’s actually kinda weird that they took a quarter billion from Amazon without selling the Silmarillion rights. Are they waiting for a bigger offer? How is that going to happen when Amazon didn’t get the material they’d have needed to do a good job of it. Don’t get me wrong, RoP has worse problems, but it’s easy to make an argument that they never had a chance to make something good to begin with.

[@Enerdhil]

Yes. You are right. That was Jeff Bezos's plan from the beginning: buy a skeletal outline of events in the Second Age and use it to tell any story you want to, especially ones that raise your ESG and DEI scores. The dude is a genius.

[@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726]

You’re acting as if the same idiots that made ROP would’ve suddenly found talent and creativity if only silmarillion had been granted them.

[@danguillou713]

@@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726 Hey, no. We know that. Now. But the Tolkien estate can’t have known what a pair of talentless, unqualified hacks they helped put at the helm of the project. Their plan to sell more rights later needed the Amazon show to be reasonably successful. Right?

[@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726]

@@danguillou713 hey, no. I think they weren’t planning on selling until Bezos offered them $250 million just to buy rights to the appendices and they felt it was an offer too good to refuse

[@grossepointemichigan]

If I could have the rights to only one portion of it, I would choose the downfall of Númenor.

[@Enerdhil]

Amazon should cover the Akallabêth in Season 3 or 4.

[@grossepointemichigan]

@@Enerdhil I'm not watching Amazon's mess, thankfully. The few clips I've seen are the utter antithesis of Tolkien, in my opinion.

[@Enerdhil]

@@grossepointemichigan I watched all of Season 1 and you are right. It has virtually nothing to do with the Legendarium.

[@thedarkmasterthedarkmaster]

I hope they never do

[@virgtheastrologer8233]

Remember that “black” is a color not an actual race or ethnicity and it was made up by Europeans…. Ismael is Puerto Rican like myself. He may or may not have African DNA and almost certainly has Spaniard DNA (white) and Taino DNA but what they don’t tell yall is the Tainos were already mixed with Africans long before Columbus…. The Taino language is very clearly related to Hebrew and Phonetian. Brown people mapped the seas long before Europeans. That’s why Columbus needed Moorish navigators in the first place. The moors were already here. Mansa Musa was here. The Greeks were here. Romans. Sithians. Mongols. Egyptians. Vikings. America was already a melting pot…. But history is revised by the victor. Long story short we are not a color… we are a people whose name and identify has been stolen. Very much like the Phomorians of ancient Ireland who the orcs are likely modeled after. Black Sea faring pirates who engaged in “witchcraft” Witchcraft being anything not Christianity at that time…. There’s lots of racism in Tolkiens work but that’s simply a product of the time and his culture so it doesn’t diminish what is otherwise a masterpiece of a body of work.

[@blake_ridarion]

I disagree pretty much with everything you said and I don't think you backed up your claims either... Fall of Gondolin, Children of Hurin would both make EPIC trilogies/TV-Shows Regarding silmarillion background issues for a movie: remember the prologue of Fellowship of the Ring by Peter Jackson?.... forget about the prologue in the silmarillion. I mean the prologue for the story of morgoth and the elves

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

You obviously didn’t disagree with everything, since I also said I thought Turin’s story would be great to see on screen. So what exactly DO you disagree with and what claims did I not back up?

[@blake_ridarion]

@@TolkienLorePodcast That's what I get for writing a comment mid-video! I guess you talked about what people want, when it comes to movies. I don't agree, I think general fantasy audiences would very much love Silmarillion movies. My claim is just as much without proof, though! Studio execs, sure.

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

@blake_ridarion lol it’s a bad habit I have to fight too. 😂

[@Arganoid]

If it gets adapted, I'm happy for them to merge some of the more obscure characters. Feanor doesn't need that many sons.

[@zack_feldman]

I think doing it like a historical documentary would be ideal. Don’t give it a story…just pretend like Tolkien did, that this is real, it’s been unearthed, and they are bringing the history to the world.

[@Enerdhil]

Easier said than done.😞

[@ir8free]

until it becomes PD in 2043 in the U.S.

[@NiallMor]

As other commenters have pointed out, the main problem with adapting The Silmarillion to film is that the book is a cycle of tales and legends rather than a unified narrative as is The Lord of the Rings. You’d have to pick one story and adapt that. Another problem is that all the principal characters are elves and humans-no hobbits. I think the hobbits really boosted the appeal of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Hobbits are cute and lovable. Elves, not so much.

[@Enerdhil]

I guess you haven't read The Children of Hurin published as a stand-alone story. It is as complete a story as you will find anywhere.👍😁

[@Crafty_Spirit]

I wonder how Mel Gibson would adapt the Silmarillion... I mean this man has a knack for themes of self-sacrifice and doomed endeavours

[@Enerdhil]

I would assume that Mel would stay as close to the book(s) as he could. He did a fabulous job with the Passion of the Christ😁👍✝️

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

@Enerdhil eh, he took a fair number of liberties even with that lol

[@Crafty_Spirit]

@@TolkienLorePodcast I think he would at first glorify than villify Fëanor, Gibson is not a man of subtle notes

[@Enerdhil]

@@Crafty_Spirit As long as he starts vilifying Fëanor from the Kinslaying, that would be perfect.😁👍

[@Enerdhil]

@@TolkienLorePodcast Liberties? I haven't seen the Passion in twenty years, so I've forgotten most of the details, but what "liberties" did he take? I don't recall seeing anything that was not Scriptural.🤔

[@robbruss8506]

Me, plz? ! Can we start a go fund me? I've got ideas...

[@frankvandorp2059]

I don't think I would want to see the stories of the Silmarillion adapted. They're way too grand and mythical, no matter how they made it look it would feel underwhelming. And then there's the fact that they're simply too tragic to appeal to the movie-going public. So either they would be disliked, or they would be degraded and turned into a product for the popcorn inhaling masses.

[@Enerdhil]

True. It would be a very risky investment. Perhaps Elon Musk is the only one rich and bold enough to pull it off

[@Peak_Aussieman]

Because if they did that, it'd be the end of the Estate, there's no reason to really keep Tolkien, or his legacy around anymore when some random company in California where all the media moguls live can bastardise whatever they feel like from the Tolkien repertoire. That's why I refuse to see the new Hunt for Gollum movie or the Rohirrim Cartoon coming out with anything other then the utmost contempt. A butchering is still a butchering no matter who it's done by.

[@mathijnd]

Womp Womp

[@NotThatJonesShow]

I can understand not wanting to see the gollum movie but the Rohirrim anime is looking to be really good

[@Peak_Aussieman]

@@NotThatJonesShow I'll probably give aa watch at some point but it doesn't mean I have to like what it represents, what it symbolises. It's the principle of the thing.

[@insanum666]

It's a gamble, and the more you take that gamble, the more likely you create something not great. Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy could easily have awful. But they took the risk with Peter Jackson and it ends up being one of the best adaptations possible

[@BanazirGalpsi1968]

What about a full voice cast recording ofthe text of the book. I know there have been radio shows of it but I'm not talking about that, well not exactly. There would be a narrator just like on a regular audiobook and he would literally read all of the text that the narrator would read. But for dialogue they would have a full voice cast as well as full sound effects and cinematic style music. Unlike a radio show they wouldn't cut any of the words

[@ShmuelSch]

You don't have to not hire black people to not be 'woke', you just have to have it make sense. As you said, some of the Easterlings were good guys. You can have more focus on them, give them a bigger role and dramatic defeat. You can have people from Harad coming to Beleriand for some reason (like Baranor from Shadow of War) and are good guys. But having black people playing, as you describe it, white people's roles, doesn't work in a movie, just like your example of men playing women's roles wouldn't work in a movie. People want it to look real. That's why they have to work so hard on perspective with the Hobbits and the Dwarves and not just say 'this actor is playing a character half his size'. So I wasn't bothered by having black elves because it's fine, you don't have to have everyone just as Tolkien described them, as long as we don't meet his parents and see they are white. But having a small group of Harfoots (Harfeet!) travelling together for a thousand years and somehow having that variety of skin color is just bad movie making.

[@Enerdhil]

When DEI and ESG are ends unto themselves, then you have a quota to meet. You are just checking boxes on your Intersectionality Bingo Card.😔 Still, I really thought Arondir was the best Elf in Season 1 and Dísa was great as Durin IV's wife.

[@fifi-trixibell1888]

God you are naive; of course they have an agenda.

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

I didn’t say they didn’t. I said there’s not an obvious agenda just based on the casting itself.

[@Enerdhil]

​@@TolkienLorePodcast Prime Video has a very strict DEI policy. It was released in the summer before Season 1 aired.

[@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726]

@@TolkienLorePodcast yeah but I think their point is that DEI IS the agenda. When the race of major characters in the story is straight up non-sensical (tar-miriel, Nori’s “mom”, etc) with relation to other characters, it’s an extremely obvious agenda that becomes very apparent each time you see the character in the show. You can’t convince me that the first thing you notice about say Arondir or any other character for that matter ISN’T their race. You may sublimate it, you may immediately dismiss it as trivial, but your mind certainly makes note of it and any deviation from the source material for those that know, or possesses eyeballs, becomes readily apparent. If company mandated DEI hiring isn’t an obvious agenda then idk what would count as obvious. I guess anything short of the non-white actor turning to the camera, breaking the fourth wall, and just straight up lecturing the audience about DEI prior to the show starting?

[@TolkienLorePodcast]

@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726 that agenda is only obvious if you know it’s the policy. If all you know is what you see in the show itself, how would you know?

[@nevilleslightlylargerbotto1726]

@@TolkienLorePodcast uh, because in a fantasy quite obviously written out of love for European folklore, and with any knowledge of the source material and/or its author whatsoever, I don’t know how you WOULDN’T know. It’d be like me casting Leo DiCaprio as Shaft and pretending to not understand why people are so up in arms by my quite obviously ridiculous casting choice. Sometimes things are so transparent they need no explanation. This is one of those times. I don’t need to be a mindreader to understand the point of changing those characters’ race in the ROP. It’s so, so obvious.

[@Pa1ad1no]

It would be like selling the rights to rewrite the bible. Except that the Silmarillion is better.

[@christophercanadatheist]

First