His Bad Robot is now working on Amazon's Lord of the Rings series
what elemental changes or influences do you think Jar Jar Abrams will have on this adaptation?
shareWell, that depends how hands-on JJ is. If he is, we can expect mystery boxes, fun action, and a plot that likely won't make sense.
But I'm no more worried than I was just hearing about Amazon doing it in the first place. The franchise is getting more and more commercial all the time.
My biggest fear is probably that they'll go after Game of Thrones' (initial) appeal and sex the whole thing up. Or, if not that, then they'll start introducing a bunch of elements designed to undermine Tolkien's beautiful and artfully-crafted mythology; basically, they'll get nervous about how Christian/Catholic the thing's underpinnings are and they'll try to slot in messages like, "Oh, Eru Illuvatar can be a jerk, and his clergy suck, and here are these Wiccan analogues that are just as good or even better..."
My second biggest fear is that they'll go, "Ooh...this is too 'European'," and they'll annihilate Tolkien's deliberately British Isles-like world in favoure of something more "cosmopolitan". Or they'll figure out that they want "representation" and just woke-up the whole thing. Would I have a problem with more female characters? No. Do I think they can safely, respectfully introduce a little "colour" into the world? Sure. But if they do it, it won't be subtle, sensible, and justified in-world, it'll just be this hodgepodge maniacal bulldozing.
So, in brief, JJ Abrams/ Bad Robot is hardly the greatest of my concerns.
Actually, Tolkien's world wasn't all lily-white European at its core. The Hobbits were described in varying shapes and colors from pale white to ruddy brown. You have various descriptions of the Dunlendings (or as he called them Lesser Men) as well as Southrons, Easterlings, Wainriders, etc. Casting mixed-race people, Asians, Africans, or even East Indians wouldn't really ruin the sense of authenticity imho. I get your comment about commercialization though and the idea that they might sex-up the Second Age seems unnecessary as there's no source material to build that from, so if strays off the work then will result in a body of work that isn't Middle-Earth.
shareI don't think it needs to be all white people - that wasn't my understanding of his mythology. But it was British Isles-focused. The Rohirrim are Anglo Saxons, pretty clearly. I'm not against filtering in different races into Middle Earth, but to be really authentic, there would have to be more of a Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, even Danish vibe. But, some peoples of Middle Earth make sense to bend or break that rule. When they tried making a Lord of the Rings stage show (a debacle), the incarnation I saw had given Legolas Native American-type aesthetics. The actor looked Native American (I don't know if he *was*, just that he looked it). I thought that worked. Regardless of the sylvan elves' actual hair and skin colours (and there is debate, I know; I'm aware of it), to make the wood elves look like Native warriors works in terms of aesthetics and "vibe". It's not just there to check a box or to make the politically correct sated.
So, I'm on board if it works within the world. I didn't mind the Native-looking Strider in Bakshi's film, either, for similar reasons. But if they're checking boxes, it'll be a knock against the show. If they deliberately cast the bad guys as white men, it'll get an eye-roll. And if, as I have seen floated on these boards elsewhere, they gender-bend Gandalf or something like that, I'll shut it off.
I quite agree with you on all points. (And I would love to have seen that Elves-with-Native-American-aesthetics production, because I can imagine that aspect working very well, as it did with Bakshi's Aragorn.)
My biggest concern is the one you mention in an earlier post: "... they'll get nervous about how Christian/Catholic the thing's underpinnings are ..." That was missing to a large degree in Peter Jackson's films, as enjoyable as they were in many other ways. The spiritual aspect of LotR is at its foundations; everything is built on that. I may no longer be a churchgoer, or so much of a literal believer, but my childhood Catholicism shaped who I was & who I became as an adult. It belongs in the moral structure of Middle-Earth.
I'd feel the same way if the spiritual aspect of any literary work, regardless of the religion, were to be stripped out of it, just to make it more palatable to the general public. And I say this as someone whose worldview is definitely on the progressive side of things. But respect for the heart & soul of the work should be paramount in any book-to-film adaptation. I think of the deeply moving & powerful The Gospel According to St. Matthew, for example—Pasolini was a noted gay atheist Marxist, but he was an artist & faithful interpreter before all of that in this particular film. And because of that, his film remains one of the most beautiful & honest films about Jesus I've ever seen.
So, I'd like to see Tolkien's life work presented with as much respect. As you say, there are interesting aesthetic choices to be made that can work wonderfully, as long as they capture the essence of the work's spirit. I wouldn't mind that at all. But I don't want some version altered to suit the desires of someone who takes it upon himself to "improve" the original.
Yes. The philosophy of Middle Earth is a philosophy that isn't in vogue right now, and I worry that they'll miss the boat. Jackson's Rings missed that mark occasionally, but infrequently because the book was so fully-formed, so just in sticking with the books they got it by osmosis. Fleshing out the earlier, unfinished stories of Tolkien's legendarium, they have a high chance of bunking it up.
To ignore the cornerstones of Arda's theological ideas is to miss the point of the whole venture. They might as well give them sneakers and Game Boys at that point. It'd be like doing His Dark Materials and putting Catholicism into it, or doing a live-action Nausicaa (which I would totally watch) and making it a gung-ho action movie, ignoring the anti-war messaging (which I would not watch).
You're 100% right and I agree with you: you have to respect the source material, or you go get a different source material. They can't make a great Middle Earth series while ignoring the fundamental aspects of the work.