Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings series was announced in November of 2017, the first adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work since the last of The Hobbit movies was released in 2014. Since then, it’s been confirmed that the show is going to take place in Middle-Earth’s Second Age, thousands of years before the events of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It’s an exciting opportunity to explore all the parts of Tolkien’s world that haven’t been depicted yet — but it’s also going to be very tricky to get right.
As a fan who watched Peter Jackson’s films before reading Tolkien’s books, I’m not averse to screen adaptations, and I welcome divergence from the book (or legendarium, in this case) wherever it is necessary to tell the story better. However, there is one aspect of The Lord of the Rings that I believe is crucial to making any depiction of it feel authentic, and it has nothing to do with being “faithful” to the source material simply for the sake of it. It’s that Middle-Earth has a very different tone from other fantasy stories of its kind: it purposefully does not try to give a “realist” view of humanity or the world. The protagonists are multi-dimensional, but not morally gray, and they only engage in noble behavior; the villains are pure evil and greater than life. The stories take place in a world that is not supposed to be like ours at all. Tolkien’s own words describe it best: “high,” “purged of the gross,” “steeped in poetry,” and “linked to a majestic whole” are all phrases he used in a letter to his publisher (Letter 131, written sometime around 1951). This, I believe, is the part of Tolkien’s work that defines it from so many other fantasy inventions, and something that showrunners could be in danger of overlooking.
I do not need to explain how many other fantasy shows, most notably Game of Thrones, is the exact opposite of all the qualities listed above - much of the “adult” appeal consists of gratuitous violence, sex, nudity, and moral grayness. Led by George R.R. Martin and the screen adaptation of his work, the shift towards this “gritty” subgenre of fantasy has caused many shows to mimic it. But while this kind of gratuity may be good for shows that make a point of being ultra-realist with an emphasis on the darker aspects of humanity, it certainly isn’t fitting for Lord of the Rings.
Let me clarify one thing: the Second Age of Middle-Earth is much darker than what we see in The Lord of the Rings. This is the time when Sauron, the main villain of the trilogy, is on the rise towards the peak of his power, and the show will likely tell the stories of the corruption and violence that occurred with it. In other words, it will delve more into those “darker aspects of humanity.” This means that it inherently cannot be the same as the Middle-Earth portrayals we’ve seen before, which had many elements of lightness. But what it doesn’t need to achieve this darker mood is the gratuity. It is very possible to reach a depiction of Middle-Earth that is dark and cutthroat, but not crude. It requires the showrunners to be just as deliberate with the meaning of every choice made for the show as Tolkien was for his books. This isn’t because being true to the source material is inherently necessary to telling the story — it’s because this is the backbone of the fictional world the stories are set in.
The show, still in production, has shown some signs of trying to mimic Game of Thrones. They hired an “Intimacy Coordinator” and released casting calls for extras that are “comfortable with” background nudity. They also brought on a Game of Thrones writer that was allegedly one of the masterminds behind some of the most grotesque storylines in the series. But it may be a reach for me to say that this means the show is doomed to become one great, expensive miscalculation of Tolkien’s stories; if it’s only in the background, after all, it can be overlooked. And there are other signs of the show actively looking for Tolkien’s touch, my favorite of which being the casting: a good number of the actors brought on to have significant backgrounds in theater. This may seem trivial, but professional theater experience may lend more to that “poetic” and “majestic” ambiance of Middle-Earth than what more mainstream actors can offer, and it has the potential to emphasize that part of The Lord of the Rings.
Overall, I am nervous about the hard balance Amazon’s upcoming show will have to strike, but I’m excited to see it nonetheless. Lord of the Rings is in the midst of writing its first season and is already committed to five more, which means something good must be coming for that big of an investment to be made by Amazon. The release date has not been set, but it’s expected to be sometime in late 2021.
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