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coolbeans said:
Given how Amazon has ritualistically sodomized Tolkien, hopefully they include some clauses in there about creative control and whatnot. |
It depends on who the writer/showrunner is, alongside that the rights for Middle-Earth are a complete mess shared between multiple entities and multiple stipulations, Amazon only has the TV Show rights to Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit books including what is written in the appendices in those books hence how they've been able to make a 2nd age show, it can only be based on the appendices written inside LOTR/Hobbit.
So if for example there's a character who existed in the 2nd age but not written about in the appendices of Lord of the Rings/Hobbit then Amazon can't use it. They also don't own any merchandising rights, Lol. The Tolkien Estate has not leased nor sold the rights to The Silmarillion (or any of the other works related to Middle-earth). So we end up with situations where Amazon has to fill in gaps of the story with their own interpretation.
The quality of those gaps is another debate and yes could be done better but Middle-Earth rights are such a restrictive mess aside from retelling Lord of the Rings again that these same issues likely wouldn't apply to a videogame wholly owned by a publisher and also, Tolkien Estate should share some blame for getting a quick cash grab and not caring about the end result.
Amazon, Imo, has undeserved negative reputation of being trash because of a single show when they have plenty of great shows, many based on source material such as The Boys (Comic Book), Good Omens (Book), Invincible (Comic Book), Reacher (Book), The Expanse (Halfway Book), Fallout (Game) and other great originals like Upload, Gen V, The Legend of Vox Machina, The English, etc.
I hate when someone sees a network operator and automatically assumes whatever they're making will be trash, as if the network operator is cursed or something, it isn't Amazon or Netflix writing the shows or directing them, as always it comes down to having a quality writer/showrunner and someone who actually cares about the source material, all the network operators have bad shows, and also good shows. Just take their time, find someone who cares for the IP and is actually a quality writer and we're golden, The Boys changes things from its comic book which are widely regarded as good changes because the comic book is full of edge lord trash, Lol.
It's like, before Fallout show came out people were like "Lul Amazon, shit confirmed" and I never looked at it that way, I always looked at it as "Jonathan Nolan...Okay...I have some faith, Todd Howard is involved too" and then I see the trailers and I'm like "Okay, this looks great" and never popped into my head "but Lord of the Rings!" Lol. Likewise, heavy rumours Mike Flanagan is going to adapt The Dark Tower for Amazon Prime, I'm not going to worry about it being Amazon, that feels crazy to me, Mike Flanagan is one of my favourite horror creators right now and I trust him.
Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 25 April 2024
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