• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

First Official Photo from Amazon's Lord of the Rings (Premieres Friday, September 2, 2022 on Prime Video)

ManaByte

Gold Member
E7zdJNXVkAIPchb


The highly anticipated, yet-to-be titled Amazon Original The Lord of the Rings television series will premiere Friday, September 2, 2022 on Prime Video in more than 240 countries and territories worldwide, with new episodes available weekly. Filming of Season One completed today in New Zealand.

The new epic drama brings to screens for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien’s fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. Beginning in a time of relative peace, thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth.
 

Corpsepyre

Banned
Really hoping they nail this and throw some money towards the writers too.

Fully expecting Twitter meltdowns at the sight of a Hispanic Elrond though.
 
Last edited:

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Looks Great.Now lets hope its story is about middle-earth and not about today's trendy topics and social notions.

Think this is a safe bet.

I don't mind colour/gender blind casting. More of that please. However, I do want it to be a Middle-earth story and not hints and nods and current social topics.

First picture looks promising. Looking forward to see the trailer.
 
The new epic drama brings to screens for the very first time J.R.R. Tolkien’s fabled Second Age of Middle-earth’s history. Beginning in a time of relative peace, thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books

That image shows Aman in the First Age. It's probably Galadriel overlooking the city of Tirion where she was born. Looks like they have access to more than what was initially revealed, which will help with building context.

Silmarillion's difficulty is overrated. It's not harder to read than the average book of tales and legends. The first pages are a pleb filter because LOTR fans go in expecting comfy action but it's some dudes singing and God's few lines are impenetrable at first glance.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
I like the glowing trees, and I remember there were 3 of them or something from the simirillian. I guess that may be Gondor in the second age but I can’t really remember.
It is a cool photo.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
That image shows Aman in the First Age. It's probably Galadriel overlooking the city of Tirion where she was born. Looks like they have access to more than what was initially revealed, which will help with building context.

Silmarillion's difficulty is overrated. It's not harder to read than the average book of tales and legends. The first pages are a pleb filter because LOTR fans go in expecting comfy action but it's some dudes singing and God's few lines are impenetrable at first glance.

TheOneRing.net says the Estate is fully, 100%, involved and in control and they've given them FULL access to everything in the SIlmarillion and Lost Tales.
 

Kev Kev

Member
duuuuuuuuude

the giant trees in the background gave me super chills. i remember them being in the Silmarillion (or something like it?). damn, this just got so real in my mind.

September 22 is a long way away, i hope it worth it.
 

NecrosaroIII

Ultimate DQ Fan
That image shows Aman in the First Age. It's probably Galadriel overlooking the city of Tirion where she was born. Looks like they have access to more than what was initially revealed, which will help with building context.

Silmarillion's difficulty is overrated. It's not harder to read than the average book of tales and legends. The first pages are a pleb filter because LOTR fans go in expecting comfy action but it's some dudes singing and God's few lines are impenetrable at first glance.

Did they say it was Aman? Looks like Numenorean architecture to me. Might be Armenelos.

Edit: Neverending. Just noticed Telperion and Laurelin in the background
 
Last edited:

BadBurger

Many “Whelps”! Handle It!
I am surprised to discover anyone at all spoke out against McKellan as Gandalf. I have been on the internet and social media for a long time and never saw a single person criticize the casting decision in the slightest - nor anyone bringing up the fact that he was gay in any kind of negative way. Who even are these people?
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I am surprised to discover anyone at all spoke out against McKellan as Gandalf. I have been on the internet and social media for a long time and never saw a single person criticize the casting decision in the slightest - nor anyone bringing up the fact that he was gay in any kind of negative way. Who even are these people?
I saw these films at the theaters and I never heard that before. I bet they’re a bunch of homophobic religious people who think they’re entitled to some religious odyssey that ties everything back to their belief system.
 

Kev Kev

Member
People come and go on projects all the time. Those people could have left or been asked to leave for a bunch of reasons. It’s okay dude, we are all skeptical about these kinds of things, we don’t need anymore concern. I think we are all just trying to enjoy the fact that this happening and hoping for the best. At the very least, let’s wait till we see some footage, or for the show to actually come out, before we start jumping to the doom and gloom conclusions.
 

reksveks

Member
Don't want to be a pain but LOTR is and was inherently political, it's kinda hard not to be after Tolkien wrote this in response to his experiences in the two world wars.

Back to TV show, I didn't find Silmarillion too hard but I need to probably need to some reading again.
 
Last edited:
This series will be what was meant to be, nothing more nothing less, no one can rewrite the stars, the celestial pen of Fate, Fortuna, the divine will is always done.

The ideas of different people are converging, fighting, the notions of what is right and what is wrong. Fundamentally all human stories obey a set of moral rules, as defined in the genes. But intelligence allows you to transcend a set of rules given, to break the game, this is in essence what unlimited information from the web does(hence the utter importance of the internet). Deviation from these rules and anything goes, absolutely anything. A world where anything is possible.

neo GIF


The stories of humans say they cannot handle true freedom, they break, I think there's a chance such might happen. But I want to see what happens, perhaps the evolution of the system, will result in novelty of human interaction.

Iluvatar is a symbol of God, and his song permeates all. It guides the path of history.

 
Last edited:

Gifmaker

Member
Am I the only one in here who only read about 40 pages of LOTR's and gave up?
Nope, me too. Just not my cup of tea, I think Tolkien's books are mostly... well, boring to read? I finished The Hobbit, although I skipped most of its songs, but I couldn't finish the first LOTR book. I also think the Jackson movies have that strange, alien presence to them and take themselves so overly seriously that I have a hard time enjoying them. I actually enjoyed the Hobbit movies more, because they're more "dumb fun" and also have protagonists that I can relate to. In LOTR, everything is serious and high and mighty. In Hobbit, dudes just crave a bunch of food and gold. That, I can relate to.
That being said, I am looking forward to the Prime series. Maybe it's more enjoyable to me when done in a more mainstreamlined fashion. Let's see, the picture looks good.
 
Nope, me too. Just not my cup of tea, I think Tolkien's books are mostly... well, boring to read? I finished The Hobbit, although I skipped most of its songs, but I couldn't finish the first LOTR book. I also think the Jackson movies have that strange, alien presence to them and take themselves so overly seriously that I have a hard time enjoying them. I actually enjoyed the Hobbit movies more, because they're more "dumb fun" and also have protagonists that I can relate to. In LOTR, everything is serious and high and mighty. In Hobbit, dudes just crave a bunch of food and gold. That, I can relate to.
That being said, I am looking forward to the Prime series. Maybe it's more enjoyable to me when done in a more mainstreamlined fashion. Let's see, the picture looks good.
One of the greatest things is the amount of compute per dollar continues to increase, price per dollar decreasing, every dollar buys you more. Thus even TV series can look ever better with less, and if given big budgets they blow away the imagination. Also lot of people want to be artists, and the number of artists reduces the salary per artist via competition. And this is before we get artificial artists, AI. Unlimited Beautiful Art lay ahead if the world is not destroyed.
 
Last edited:
Nah. Hopping on a soapbox about wokeness is unambiguously political.

Alright, a final reply then, I'm sorry if I can't just mindlessly fawn over a CGI picture. Feel free to hand out a reply ban if you deem it necessary.

I fail to realize how a Tolkin scholar parting ways, key actors leaving the show and the producer's guidelines are "political" and not tightly linked to the discussion of this show.
Wokeness transcends politics as it is injected into our entertainment.

As it becomes more and more encompassing, it's hard to keep avoiding it.
Speaking of which, I think there's a "gay Transformers" thread that requires your attention...
edit: nvm it got closed already

You've been on a crusade lately. GAF is not the place for it.

I've contributed enough to this forum, from insightful and lengthy threads, to give-aways and book reviews to silly memes and gifs for you to know that this is certainly not true. Is that how you see my contributions over the years? If so, it is duly noted the next time I might want to take an afternoon to make silly memes and shoops for this place. I know, you don't owe us, but such rhetoric is always mutual and seldom constructive so it's best to avoid it.

I think you're attributing an importance to my comments that just isn't there. I've participated in many threads and I just want to share my impressions and criticism, that's a far cry from "being on a crusade". Criticism of entertainment can hardly be considered as world changing rhetoric anyway. So describing it as a "crusade" is really not appropriate and needlessly hyperbolic.

I always thought this was a place for hobbyists to share their views, positive and negative ones. If this is now a forum solely for consumer drones and social media product advertisers, then be upfront about it. If you prefer astroturfers sharing twitter links instead of members producing their own content, just say so.

Is GAF now just there to mindlessly promote things and gush over Hollywood products?
I've accepted your drastic policy changes so far, but don't take things too far.

Don't want to be a pain but LOTR is and was inherently political, it's kinda hard to be after Tolkien wrote this in response to his experiences in the two world wars.

Indeed. Tolkien was a soldier in the first World War and was sent to the front shortly after his marriage.

71J0P159hRL.jpg


I can highly recommend this book as it draws many parallels between Tolkien's experiences and LOTR.
The Dead Marshes of Mordor for example are an allusion to trench warfare. The themes of companionship are derived from his brothers of war, many of which left their lives in the trenches.
 
Last edited:
Fuck a TV series, I want an open world video-game that looks like that.

I'm nervous about the series, not because of Amazon, but because even Peter Jackson failed to recapture what made the original trilogy great when making the pile of shite that we call The Hobbit movies. If he couldn't capture lightning in a bottle a second time, i don't have much faith that anybody else can either. I now think that LoTR was just a case of the right place, at the right time, with the right people.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Fuck a TV series, I want an open world video-game that looks like that.

I'm nervous about the series, not because of Amazon, but because even Peter Jackson failed to recapture what made the original trilogy great when making the pile of shite that we call The Hobbit movies. If he couldn't capture lightning in a bottle a second time, i don't have much faith that anybody else can either. I now think that LoTR was just a case of the right place, at the right time, with the right people.

One of the reasons LotR film trilogy worked so well IMO is because it's three parts of a book made into three films. Made perfect sense and worked well from a story telling perspective. It also helped that there were great, practical effects mixed with cutting edge CGI.

The Hobbit movies were a mess because they changed a short children novel into a bloated, three film series with too much made up content (the love triangle was a mess). Also, oddly the special effects actually looked worse than the LOTR trilogy.

This leads me to a concern with this series. It's based on original material, but a lot of the story is going to be original with original characters. We'll wait and see from the trailer, but I'm not 100% convinced as of yet.
 

VulcanRaven

Member
That pic looks great. I wish they didn't call it Lord of the Rings because its a bit misleading.

Is this set in the same universe as the movies or is it its own thing?
 
Last edited:

Kev Kev

Member
That pic looks great. I wish they didn't call it Lord of the Rings because its a bit misleading.

Is this set in the same universe as the movies or is it its own thing?
it hasnt been given an official name. its more accurately referred to as amazons "middle earth" tv series, not lord of the rings series which was thrown out there just to help garner attention for the show.

it will be set in the same exact universe as the lord of the rings movies, but thousands of years before in an era called the second age from the book "the silmarillion" (LOTR was the end of the third age, i believe). it will be a step up in terms of epicness tho, as everything was much more big and epic the further you go back in the middle earth timeline.
 
Last edited:

ManaByte

Gold Member
This series will be what was meant to be, nothing more nothing less, no one can rewrite the stars, the celestial pen of Fate, Fortuna, the divine will is always done.

The ideas of different people are converging, fighting, the notions of what is right and what is wrong. Fundamentally all human stories obey a set of moral rules, as defined in the genes. But intelligence allows you to transcend a set of rules given, to break the game, this is in essence what unlimited information from the web does(hence the utter importance of the internet). Deviation from these rules and anything goes, absolutely anything. A world where anything is possible.

neo GIF


The stories of humans say they cannot handle true freedom, they break, I think there's a chance such might happen. But I want to see what happens, perhaps the evolution of the system, will result in novelty of human interaction.

Iluvatar is a symbol of God, and his song permeates all. It guides the path of history.


Comedy Reaction GIF by Jo Koy
 
Fuck a TV series, I want an open world video-game that looks like that.

I'm nervous about the series, not because of Amazon, but because even Peter Jackson failed to recapture what made the original trilogy great when making the pile of shite that we call The Hobbit movies. If he couldn't capture lightning in a bottle a second time, i don't have much faith that anybody else can either. I now think that LoTR was just a case of the right place, at the right time, with the right people.

theres actually legit reasons why the hobbit production was such a failure. its documented too with jackson on record about it all.

and no i'm not going to discuss it. you can look it up.

Foundation in September, Wheel of Time in November, and hopefully season 2's of these next year when LoTR drops. Finally some of the best non-comic book IPs dropping!

I'm pretty sure theyve confirmed season 2 already for WoT...and filming has begun even
 
Last edited:

FunkMiller

Member
Really looking forward to this, and delighted it's a project championed by the Tolkien estate. Should be a decent adaptation, rather than another excuse for some Hollywood wokery.

Amazon don't really give two shits about the woke agenda, to be honest. Otherwise it wouldn't continue to throw cash at Jeremy Clarkson.

This show certainly has the budget and the talent behind it to be a worthy show - certainly better than those awful Hobbit movies, anyway.
 
Top Bottom