They don’t have the rights to Hurin. They might have some access to Beren and Luthien because of references in LOTR. But not rights to the Lay of Luthien, or that specific book.
Both those are also earlier than the show is set.
It’s purportedly set in 2nd age Numenor and deals with Sauron, the rings and the fall of Numenor. They supposedly have a pretty restricted amount of source material they can use. Between the Estate still being very guarded on the other works, and their license coming via the LOTR rights that were already out there. The Estate supposedly won’t let them directly repeat anything Jackson covered, so they couldn’t just go with adapting LOTR again.
There was a leak or rumor a bit back that they had licensed at least parts of the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. But that came pretty late in production, hasn’t been confirmed and seems to clash with the complaints of those actually working on the show.
I’m waiting for some enterprising fan and burgeoning director to make the “Phantom Hobbit” version, as was supposedly done with the Star Wars prequels(?), cutting all the BS and getting down to a single good film. [Full Disclosure: never seen, wish I’d found a copy back when I was looking]
ETA: Rankin/Bass, VHS, in media cabinet. I have a VCR still in my home theater stack for this film, “Nice Girls Don’t Explode” [local connection], and a small handful more.
With a handful of exceptions the additions to LOTR were the worst part. And with more of that the Hobbit became a shit show. Though there were bigger issues with that production.
And the whole conception on this is a bit, not encouraging. They supposedly picked the 2nd age because it has the least amount of coverage in the Middle Earth Cannon. Then narrowed in on Numenor and “Rings prequel” because references to that are clear in LOTR.
So least chance of over stepping the license, most room to create a bunch of new stuff. Clearly allowed to use it.
Casting announcements have mostly name dropped totally new characters, and the character descriptions don’t sound great.
The production apparently has Tolkien scholars on staff, and the Estate has staff on set. Both to unpack what they can and can’t use, and to make sure nothing contradicts the written works. Even the ones they can’t use. So they can’t reference a shit ton of stuff, but they can’t change or contradict it either.
It sounds messy.
That said they’re taking their time. And certain throwing money at it. The pilot apparently cost Avengers level money.
@Ryuthrowsstuff A series set in the aftermath of the War of the Ring; following the Rangers of Gondor as they hunt Orcs along the border with Mordor could be fun. Lower stakes than LotR.
I have to say, my level of excitement for this would be the same if it was based on the completely unknown-to-me works of an author I’d never heard of. I’m guessing very little of this will be based on his texts, and all Tolkien’s stuff outside Hobbit/LotR is completely unknown to me (and, I confess, I’m not that huge a fan of Hobbit/LotR). My impression was that his other Middle Earth writings were incredibly dry/unfinished. The tv whole venture based on it just seems very strange to me.
So… a tv series based on footnotes? Oh, the excitement!
Ok, but they really didn’t need to spend so much of their precious time in their otherwise slightly rushed last season dealing with events beyond the ring that a) went unexplained and b) left us with a whole lot of dangling plot threads. Such a weird way to end that show, even if they’re intending (ha, for all “intentions” matter) to make another series/movie/whatever at some point.
Interesting. Makes me think about a maybe legal method to distribute re-cuts (without altering the imagery) by using a programmable player for streaming services.
At least in many countries, I think you could buffer the streams legally, and re-buffering a timecode-based replay might be possible, conceptually.
Another bit of fan speculation was potentially covering the War in East and the Blue Wizards. Since there’s almost nothing in the Middle Earth material about it. Other than that there was a War in the East and there’s 2 more wizards who wear blue.
It seems like they weren’t allowed to go that route.
Again, depends on the story. Some of the newer books completed by Christopher Tolkien, like Children of Hurin is a moving and much more personal story than LotR. The three “Great Tales” (of which Children is one) are very compelling stories.
Also a lot of the remaining work is less unfinished and dry. Than sort of piece meal or epistolary.
Even the Silmarillion isn’t a novel. It’s a collection of mythic tales and prose retellings of his poems.
The catalog is full of epic poems, loose songs, faux folk tales. Many in multiple versions, deliberately in multiple versions.
So it’s very much down to how into that sort of thing you are. There’s not a ton in it that’s meant as a straight forward, narrative novel. Even as there plenty of self contained stories in it.
I really enjoyed the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and couldn’t believe the absolute disaster that was The Hobbit. All the obnoxious humor, the padding, the needless additions to the story- someone saw a giant pile of gold and was overwhelmed with greed, and I don’t mean Thorin Oakenshield. It was a lazy, horribly executed cash-in on the earlier trilogy’s success, made without any love or respect for the source material. I wouldn’t trust them to handle anything Tolkien-related ever again after that level of fuck-up.
Fan editors often use several sources, some not easily available (a good example might be Lynch’s Dune where there’s a heavily cut theatrical version, an extended TV version and deleted scenes). The sources might have different quality, and some need adjustments/filters to fit back in with the rest. Then, the audio needs to be fixed over the cuts. Otherwise, you’d get, e.g., the music skipping around. Etc. Etc.
All that said, it’s a very cool idea … but even if technically possible, it would restrict the art of re-cutting quite a bit compared to what they are doing now
