Three years ago, filming began in New Zealand for the first season of Rings of Power, a prequel to not only one of the most anticipated series of the year but also nearly the most expensive Lord of the Rings. History. Amazon spent about $465 million on just eight episodes of the first season (for comparison, one season of Game of Thrones cost about $100 million), the same amount is planned to be allocated for four more seasons of the show – just before its $1 billion premiere, out of the eyes of the audience. falling project. For example, the first trailer for The Rings has almost 15 times as many dislikes (1.9 million no likes and only 129,000 likes) in the main promo – five (461,000 versus 77,000). JRR Tolkien fans have been criticizing the series on all fronts, from the casting and carelessness to the showrunners’ lack of experience, but when Peter Jackson first received the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, it wasn’t particularly believed, and his trilogy is now considered exemplary.
Why are Rings of Power critiqued and is it worth a billion dollars and millions of dislikes?
Where in Middle-earth do dark-skinned hobbits, elves, and dwarves come from?
One of the most popular complaints about the series is that of dark-skinned hobbits, elves and dwarves (he described in great detail how the characters looked) and Peter Jackson, whose films became legendary, not included in JRR Tolkien’s original texts. The unofficial standard for the fantasy genre and even more for the Middle-earth universe. And if such characters appeared, then in a negative and secondary role: JRR Tolkien, for example, describes the Haradrim, a warrior people of the south, as “swarthy, black-haired and dark-eyed.”
If the books and their adaptations had appeared a few decades later, the absence of multinationality would not have stood by them – apparently, the authors of the Rings of Power also feared this and therefore followed the path of Anne Boleyn and hers. Bridgertons, who prefers the new morality to the historical laws.
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Withdrawn from the TV series “Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power” -
Withdrawn from the TV series “Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power”
And if it wasn’t for the racial diversity, the show would have missed an awards season that has become multicultural over the past few years, which Amazon simply can’t afford given the money it has invested in the project.
The performers Patrick McKay and John D. Payne are almost newcomers to society. How can a project of this level be entrusted to them?
Both have only four movies, but only one of them is significant – Star Trek: Infinity. And though he wasn’t even mentioned in the credits, Patrick McKay and John D. Payne met on the set of JJ Abrams, who would later recommend screenwriters for the producers of Rings of Power.
But how little does Hollywood know about the stories of the newcomers? As proof, there’s Jordan Peele’s Get Out, which stars in Quentin Tarantino’s self-starring Reservoir Dogs, which earned an Oscar for writing on a budget of four and a half and earned 255 million at the box office, and Spike Jones’ John Malkovich movie that hits theaters. career. , and many other movies and series.
The Peter Jackson trilogy is standard. Are “rings of power” trying to replicate this?
In an interview with Empire, Patrick McKay stressed that they avoid competition: “We are his (trilogy. Note. ed.) fans, so Rings of Power won’t compete with him.”
At the same time, according to the showrunners, his series is closer not to modern genre projects, but to The Lord of the Rings – therefore, he was entrusted to write Howard Shore, working on the title theme The Lord, and The Hobbit for stage props and special effects. Weta Workshop founded by Peter Jackson. and Weta Digital studios, sketches drawn by Lord’s cult illustrator John Howe and dialect coach Leith MacPherson. show of the trilogy, worked on the set.
A tribute to a full-length classic or an attempt to conform to the level set by Peter Jackson? Most likely, both – in the revised and rethought version of Patrick McKay and John D. Payne.
JRR Tolkien wrote very little about the Second Age. How can a series be made about him?
A little background on JRR Tolkien’s universe: The First Age covers the centuries-old wars in which the Elves battled Melkor, the first Dark Lord, followed by the rise of Sauron, Melkor’s disciple of the Second Age, while the human kingdom of Numenor fell. and the Rings of Power were created, and the Third, which was shown in feature films, complements them. And if enough has been said (i.e. written) about the latter, then there is little information in the books about the Second Age that the “Rings of Power” deals with, although the entertainers assure that sufficient material is available. The author left room for imagination and references to the Second Age, and the authors combined them to create “a novel that JRR Tolkien never wrote.”
In practice, this means that the “Rings of Power” are not based on any particular literary work from the Professor’s legendarium (a collection of works by JRR Tolkien) – plus the epic has iconic characters and, in principle, structure. The universe is familiar to fans, but there are also new characters and plot decisions that were not written in the books.
We’ve seen something similar in the case of Game of Thrones, where the showrunners filmed not by literary source (George Martin never finished it), but according to their own scripts – the righteous anger and criticism of the audience. haunted. Will the Rings repeat the fate of their colleagues? I’m not sure yet, but I hope not.
Okay, but the Second Age takes 3441 years. How does it fit into five seasons with no more than ten episodes each?
According to the books, the Second Age did indeed last more than three thousand years, but the series only touches on its most important parts. And while that requires the writers to cut a lot, they say Rings of Power isn’t a Middle-earth documentary – it’s more important to “put it all together”. Which of them, the audience has not yet learned – the plot details, as well as the details of the shooting, are kept in the strictest secrecy, but the showmen themselves are thinking ahead and are already aware of what is going to happen. the last episode of the fifth season. A few more years and we’ll see.
Source: People Talk
