Also, with the movies, at first there was a lot of worries that Peter Jackson – whose previous works didn’t really inspire a lot of confidence – would just mess it all up. My expectations walking into Fellowship were so low, I was just praying for the movie to not suck. Instead, I walked away amazing. I watched it again a few months ago and it is hard to believe the movie is almost 20 years old.
Stephen Colbert?
That’s pretty cool. Even though Aragorn wasn’t much of a character in the books, he really intrigued me in the movies, and I wanted to know more about him.
Bad sign for me. I hoped they were doing Silmarillion, not a rehash of the Rings trilogy right off the bat.
Makes sense to me. There’s a ton of stuff to cover where Aragorn travelled and rode with the Rohirrim, and went to Minas Tirith to serve the Stewards in disguise. There’s the whole of the romance with Arwen to experience as well. Lots of adventures with his band of Rangers defending the Shire and doing missions for Gandalf presumably, too. It’s a natural inroad to so many important locations in a naturally episodic format.
Is there any word on whether this will be GoT’ified (gore / nudity / ambiguous ethics / unexpected deaths) or kept to PG-13 high fantasy?
Yeah, I actually think this is a good choice for them. A recognizable character given a backstory. A familiar setting, but earlier, with some room to both use Tolkien’s material but also a bit of freedom. Hopefully they don’t sex it up too much, but if they can establish a viewer base with this, they could move on to meatier stuff.
I’d be surprised if it did.
GOT doesn’t have gore/nudity/ambiguous ethics because HBO insisted on that. It has those things because they’re consistent with the source material and writing–the SOIAF series is rife with sex, brutal violence, and moral shades of gray.
LOTR is at least fairly sex-less, and it’s hard to imagine them going there on language either. It just kind of doesn’t fit tonally with Tolkein. Violence though? Sure. That fits.
I agree, but GoT became such a ratings behemoth I can imagine the network execs trying to borrow these elements for any fantasy universe.
Any network that mis-reads that nudity and excessive violence were the reason for the success of GoT deserves the money pit ratings disaster they get. Pretty sure that Bastard Executioner should have set a clear example industry-wide that all the excessiveness in the world can’t overcome bad characters, lousy plotting and uninspired storytelling.
I hope they keep it pretty minimal. I don’t know the author would’ve appreciated anything too graphic. GoT’s source material was always pretty adult but LoTR really isn’t.
I would think the family probably put some restrictions on how LOTR is presented.
I’m not sure how you could do the Silmarillion without spending a season per story for the major chapters. Say one season setting the background, primarily following Feanor and ending with his death. Second season possibly following his sons or maybe Beren and Luthien. Third season Turambar. Anything else would be too chaotic for viewers to follow.
As tragic as that story is, as a lot of them are, they’d at least be stories we haven’t seen before. It would be pretty cool if they did that.
Exactly what I was hoping for - it’s a really cool story.
“Young Aragorn?”
Could have gone for the Fall of Arnor and the Witch King. And we get “Young Aragorn”?
Not impressed.
Lot’s of potential here.
Didn’t Aragorn and Gandalf hunt down Gollum after he was captured in Mordor and gave up the Baggins name? That would be a cool story.
How he got his name Strider, thin maybe, but potential for a good story.
Life in Rivendell. Life in Rohan. Patrolling the wilds. All sorts of material here.
Finding the hottest elf chick in all of Middle-earth.
You guys are misunderstanding the press release.
Amazon’s “The Adventures of Young Aragorn” will focus on an adolescent Aragorn in the court of Elrond at Rivendell. Sent to Rivendell as a young boy to foster under Elrond, the mischievous Aragon, last descendant of Elendil and Heir of Isildur, has grown up in the company of elves, getting into trouble with his best friends Haldir and Arwen, daughter of Elrond, Together they dream big, but know little of the world outside of Rivendell. That all changes abruptly one dark night when the mysterious wizard Gandalf appears to seek Elrond’s council and warn of a growing danger from the forces of evil. Aragorn and his friends overhear the conversation between Elrond and Gandalf, and decide to set out on their own to save Rivendell. During their adventures together they will encounter new friends, terrifying enemies, romance, intrigue and danger throughout the world of Middle Earth. Join Amazon Studios in 2019 for the premiere of the Young Adult series, “The Adventures of Young Aragorn”!