A valid concern. If I recall correctly, Sauron had little to no involvement in making the Rings. The Elves made their three. Sauron had a hand in making the Dwarf rings and the men (aka homo sapien) rings. Sauron made the one to "control" the other ring holders and met with mixed results. I think Sauron with or without the rings was very much tied to corrupting the humans of Numenor. So I would surmise the story would revolve around Numenor with the Elves and the eventual alliance with men on the sidelines of the story? I have no doubt though they will milk the last alliance thing too and Gil-Galad and Isildur for all it's worth. Battling Sauron might end up sounding like a rehash but just from the writings alone Sauron was very much a physical being in the Second Age and interacting with people so it can be quite a different story I think. Now if they go so far as to show how Gollum found the ring and spend episodes going through his transition, well forget that junk. That would be a waste. And yes I hope they don't pull a lot of lip service type stuff too. I think the only significant characters that actually truly bridge the Second Age and The Hobbit/LOTR are Sauron, Shelob, Galadriel and Elrond. If a sapling Treebeard or Tom Bombadil shows up then your fears will be realized.
No. Gandalf and the other wizards were sent over from Valinor by the gods to Middle Earth in the Third Age to aid in the coming battle against Sauron as detailed in Lord Of The Rings. They're basically sub-gods of the main gods from god land (Valinor) in the west and across the ocean. They are known as the Maiar. If Gandalf appears in this series it would be a significant faux-pas as he's just a spirit chilling out in Valinor which is mostly inaccessible at this time by the peoples in the Second Age. Sauron is actually a Maia too. So are all the balrogs.
By the way, just do avoid total geek-out status. . . I had read all the Tolkien books years ago. I've been recently re-immersing myself in all his writings in preparation for this show. I assure you I do not have all this detail committed to memory. I'm delving through books to get a lot of the finer points when I write some of this stuff.
To add to this point from @omikron and give those who are film-only fans some idea of the time between these events here are some key points: Gandalf arrives around 1000 of the Third Age, which is around 1000 years before the Last Alliance that is seen in The Lord of the Rings movies with Elrond's flashback and the opening of the trilogy. The War of the Last Alliance is essentially the last action of the Second Age between 3429 and 3441. The One Ring was forged around 2800 years before the War of the Last Alliance in 1600 of the Second Age with the Rings of Power being created in the 100 years before that by the Elves. The Downfall of Númenor happens in 3319 of the Second Age.
Sorry, technically not a trailer, but a "title reveal." Cheap, crummy-looking CGI, no-name cast and non-canonical to boot.
I didn't like it especially but it didn't look cheap, it looked technically very clever, I just felt it looked like CGI, until I saw the making of video. It has some cool themes in there too that may signal plots from the series. The voice-over was pretty lazy in my opinion but others really enjoyed it. I just felt it was too relaxed for the most reviled phrase spoken in Middle-earth. But it won't ever be 'canonical', we all knew this off the bat I thought. Maybe you were expecting this to be something that sits canonically with Tolkien's The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Bilbo's Last Song? They are the only canonical texts set in Middle-earth and no adaptation is canonical.
Statement of opinion only, not intended to influence... Nope. From the moment I first saw reference to it, I was expecting another money-grab, and I'm not disappointed. ... and although Star Wars is based on no literary canon, I don't like all that after-the-fact stuff either, with the grudging exception of Lucas's prequel "episodes" I-III.
That bad? Hope there aren’t a load of daft British actors in it this time. LOTR was gold in comparison.
So hang on for one sec. We have zero real info on this show and have seen one still shot from the series. This teaser has zilch to do with the show and is not even show footage. Holster your sidearm there, pal until we officially have something to complain about! And to tie back to a couple comments regarding canon, Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion. It's his words and vision. His son just edited and compiled it and published it posthumously. It is Tolkien's story of the first and second age. With all the archival works Christopher put out, there is nothing left in the bag and no misconception on what Tolkien envisioned for these first two ages. All that is left is to see how faithful the show runners are to those writings.
But is material coming from The Silmarillion or is it from the appendices from the LOTR? I ask because I thought I remember hearing that the Tolkien family never sold the film or TV rights for anything other than The Hobbit and LOTR. I hope I'm wrong though, would love adaptations based on The Silmarillion.
It's fuzzy but you are correct in that originally it was LOTR Appendices material that they only had access to. But at some point they did get access to Silmarillion material. I have yet to see or hear the low down on those details. It's another layer of mystery to this onion here.
... it was not a still shot. It was a bunch of crapphy CGI. The "teaser" has everything to do with the show; it is what they're using to entice us into watching it. Not biting.[/QUOTE] I already have something: It's a crappy CGI, and a no-name cast, and an obvious money grab. This nonsense makes no reference, expressed or implied, to The Silmarillion, with which, BTW, I am already familiar, having a copy of the book.
It seems you're right that Amazon obtained the rights to at least some Silmarillion material. That's awesome, hopefully it's more like the LOTR movies and less like The Hobbit films.
I can think of better ways to grab money than spending over $500M on the production. As for source material, it has been years since I read it but isn't "Unfinished Tales" focused on the Second Age? Then you have twelve volumes of The History of Middle Earth which will likely be mined by the faithful if the new series deviates from Tolkien's vision.
"Unfinished Tales" is substantially written by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by his son, Christopher. You can easily discern who wrote which words by the font size (and content, of course). The History of Middle Earth has more editorial content from what I recall but there are still significant writings by J.R.R. Tolkien throughout, some volumes have more than others. Indeed, each of these books is credited to J.R.R. Tolkien. It is his writings that are the basis for each posthumous book. The compilation of these works is of both literary and scholarly value, utterly faithful to the source and amazing reads.
Sauron made all the rings but 3. He forged the 9 to men, the 7 to dwarves, but before he forged the elven rings, his deception was found out by Celebrimbor who forged the rings with him. Once the deception was found out Sauron (who was in his fair form at the time to trick the elves), he fled to Mordor. Celebrimbor then made 3 rings. Two were given to Gil Galad, and the third to Galadriel. The two with Gil Galad were eventually passed to Elrond (the one that Gil Galad kept and passed onto him when he went to the "battle of the last alliance" that was the prelude to LOTR and technically the end of the second age where Isildor took the one ring), and the third to Gandalf (by Cirdan whom Gil Galad gave to him) when he appears in the third age. When Sauron returned with the one ring after its forging, he killed Celebrimbor and took possession of the 16 rings and distributed them to the 9 kings of men (who eventually turned into wraiths called the Nazgul) and 7 to the dwarves who, by their racial attributes were able to resist corruption. After seeing the teaser that was released yesterday, it appears that the entire series is going to be the story I just summarized above. There was also hints that we would see some of the fall of Numinor. It is unknown how much farther they are going to go back in the second age though. So.. perhaps we will see the two trees in Valar? Lots of unknowns still.
I already have something: It's a crappy CGI, and a no-name cast, and an obvious money grab. This nonsense makes no reference, expressed or implied, to The Silmarillion, with which, BTW, I am already familiar, having a copy of the book.[/QUOTE] Just watched the trailer. Yep, looks crap. What a shame.
Quick poll, Does anyone actually think that this teaser video is footage from the show? It's just the show name reveal. Not show footage. And it wasn't all CGI.
