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[A Thing]

Apart from that, if they are doing the Silmarillion, I am genuinely curious what Morgoth/Melkor would look like, considering they already gave the towering, armoured giant look to Sauron.

I always thought he was about the same thing because of the Ted Nasmith illustrations I have in my copy of the Silmarillion.

http://www.tednasmith.com/tolkien/morgoth-and-the-high-king-of-noldor/
http://www.tednasmith.com/tolkien/morgoth-punishes-hurin/

That being said I hope they go with something slightly different for the show just to prevent him from being "Sauron but bigger though."

[SalmonGod]

Apart from that, if they are doing the Silmarillion, I am genuinely curious what Morgoth/Melkor would look like, considering they already gave the towering, armoured giant look to Sauron.

I always thought he was about the same thing because of the Ted Nasmith illustrations I have in my copy of the Silmarillion.

http://www.tednasmith.com/tolkien/morgoth-and-the-high-king-of-noldor/
http://www.tednasmith.com/tolkien/morgoth-punishes-hurin/

That being said I hope they go with something slightly different for the show just to prevent him from being "Sauron but bigger though."

They have to somehow make the audience understand how Morgoth became that.  It's ok for him to be Sauron-But-Bigger if it's understood that he was literally a god with no permanent form until he permanently trapped himself in a vulnerable body in the process of infusing his corrupting will into all of Arda.  How he came to be in that form and what that means for his character and the entire setting is more interesting than the visage itself.

If they're going to do Silmarillion content, Children of Hurin, Ley of Luthien, and the Fall of Gondolin would be the lowest hanging fruit.  Outside of those 3 fairly well-developed stories, they would be filling in a lot of space.  Which might be for the best, because then they can't fuck up canon.

[RedKing]

Meh, they could do something with the rise of Angmar and the fall of Arthedain and Cardolan. Could start with the death of Isildur (to tie into the movies) and move forward from there.

Or the Kin-strife War that created the Corsairs.

Or even something Second Age with the expansion of Numenor, its corruption and eventual downfall. Plenty of room there to create original characters and storylines, with Numenorean history as the backdrop.

Or, maybe they'll take inspiration from Man in the High Castle, and it'll be an alternate history Middle-Earth where Sauron wasn't defeated and follows the brave members of a resistance cell, with some humans, an elf, a dwarf, a halfling, and hell...let's throw a wose in there while we're at it.

[i2amroy]

Which might be for the best, because then they can't fuck up canon.

I long ago came to the conclusion and acceptance that any film adaptation is really just a closely parallel universe to the adapted book series. Some of them (like LotR) are fairly close, some of them (like that terrible Eragon film) aren't even close, and some of them (such as GoT) start close and then branch off. This has very little bearing on how much I enjoy the film though. Personally I loved all the hobbit films, despite the fact that they were a far cry from exact canon they were still definitely enjoyable in most aspects (significant amounts of dragon voice overlays notwithstanding).

Personally I look forward to the series, even if it turns out that it's conflicting with preexisting cannon in some aspects.

[Teneb]

(like that terrible Eragon film)

But the books are also terrible, wouldn't that make the movie a faithful adaptation to the experience of reading them?

At any rate, I won't judge either way until we got some actual info to go on.

[scriver]

I wonder if they will jam in the rangers and the original wall, and if so if they will be declared rip offs of Game of Thrones

[SalmonGod]

There are core aspects of a story that make it what it is, though, and I think that failing to retain those things is what makes a bad adaptation.   I don't think I'm an unreasonable level of purist.  But if a story has important themes or messages or central characters have certain elements that define those characters, it's butchery and shameless cashing in to call your work an adaptation without trying to identify and adapt those core aspects of the story.  Or you better be making a strong artistic statement of another sort, such as Stanley Kubrick did by leaving out the book ending to Clockwork Orange.

[Yoink]

One thing I'm sure we can all agree on is that it can't possibly be worse than the Hobbit films.

(like that terrible Eragon film)

But the books are also terrible, wouldn't that make the movie a faithful adaptation to the experience of reading them?

Hey now. The Inheritance Series (or whatever it was called) may have been... pretty paint-by-numbers and filled with Sues, looking back, but it was enjoyable enough for high fantasy.
Even if it was worthy of being called "terrible", that horrific movie would have to have been a whole order of magnitude moreso.

[Teneb]

(like that terrible Eragon film)

But the books are also terrible, wouldn't that make the movie a faithful adaptation to the experience of reading them?

At any rate, I won't judge either way until we got some actual info to go on.

Y'know, I actually read those books as a kid (never finished the total of them). Also watched the movie... and got the game. Never got particularly far in the game due to being actually stuck and unable to proceed around the beginning. Did not like the movie at all. Grew out of the books after watching the movie (more of a coincidence of timing than anything else).

Can concur, all were terrible. However, I'd say that the game was the worst of the 3, by virtue of being a game adaptation of a movie adaptation of a book, as well as just flat-out not working.

I managed to make it through all the books, so there's that. Didn't know they made a game.

[scriver]

I heard he's making a science fiction booktriologycycle next.

On the other hand it's been like a decade since the fourth book came out. Or something.

[MachinaMandala]

Hey now. The Inheritance Series (or whatever it was called) may have been... pretty paint-by-numbers and filled with Sues, looking back, but it was enjoyable enough for high fantasy.
Even if it was worthy of being called "terrible", that horrific movie would have to have been a whole order of magnitude moreso.

They were pretty atrocious when you consider how much of it was randomly ripped from other books / movies ("We don't need no stinkin' barges" / that dude getting whipped like Starship Troopers).

[Arx]

If they play it right, they might be able to do something interesting revolving around the Doom of the Noldor. Politics! Intrigue! Dramatic burning ships! Hardbitten, hardcore elves hiking across the grinding ice!

But again, there's so much backstory I don't know how they'd fit it together without handwaving the importance of the Silmarils.

[Reelya]

Put the fall of Numenor in there, that would make for some good TV.

[RedKing]

Put the fall of Numenor in there, that would make for some good TV.

That's what I said earlier. The whole steady corruption and fall of Numenor could be a rich milieu to mine (and allow for some analogy to modern events if they're feeling political), though the problem is one of timescale -- the corruption of Numenor took about 1000 years and a dozen rulers, depending on where you mark the beginning of it.

(I'd say it started in the reign of Tar-Ancalimon, and slowly accelerates as later rulers drop Quenya in favor of Adunaic, abandon the worship of the Valar for the worship of Morgoth, and start wearing red helmets saying "Make Numenor Great Again".)

[MachinaMandala]

I'm in a Lord of the Rings Discord if any of you are interested: https://discord.gg/Wt4vAFc