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Hasuwandil
Lorien
Apr 12 2019, 8:33pm
Post #1 of 11
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Number of series
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Summing up what we know so far, Amazon is making a five-season series (assuming it is not canceled early) set in the Second Age. If the series is a success, which is by no means assured, they may be able to produce additional series. If I understand correctly, Amazon's rights are to the Second and Third Ages up to before The Hobbit begins.
If you were Amazon, would you try to cover the whole Second Age in one series, and hope to cover the Third Age in a second series? Or would you start with a smaller time span, try to depict it well, and hope it's successful enough to merit further series? The former makes sense if Amazon only has the rights to produce one or two series. However, if the agreement allows for an undetermined number of future series, I think I would start with a story early in the Second Age, flesh it out thoroughly, and go on from there. I think you could get at least three series from the Second Age, and maybe more from the Third Age.
On the other hand, would you try to fit it all in one series? Two seasons from one age, and three from the other?
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Solicitr
Gondor
Apr 12 2019, 9:30pm
Post #2 of 11
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But if I were running it, I'd use all five seasons to do the history of the Second Age, from the first signs of the Shadow in Aldarion's time (i.e. I'd base the first season primarily on Aldarion and Erendis) through to the Downfall of Numenor.
1) Establish Numenor; Aldarion; introduce Gil-Galad and Celebrimbor
2) Eregion, the Gwaith, Celebrimbor and "Annatar"
3) The First War of the Rings
4) Numenor's descent into imperialism and arrogance (Tal-Elmar?)
5) Ar-Pharazon and the Downfall
If it's picked up for another season, then
6) Elendil and the Last Alliance
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Hasuwandil
Lorien
Apr 13 2019, 5:05am
Post #3 of 11
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My preferences lean toward the extremes: either one contiguous time period per season, or one per series. Probably the former, unless the writers are really good at both capturing Tolkien's tone and holding the audience's interest. I realize some people get really attached to certain characters, but to me the whole setting and tone is more important than any particular character. I wouldn't mind if the focus was on one set of characters in one season, and then the next season switched to a different set of characters, perhaps with one or two characters continuing on from the previous season, but with a reduced role.
I hadn't thought about the series being extended beyond five seasons. For some reason I thought five seasons was the maximum. Extending it beyond five seasons would certainly give Amazon some flexibility in what they could include. However, I think it's probably best if they don't go over seven seasons per Age.
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Wainrider
Rivendell
Apr 27 2019, 1:45am
Post #4 of 11
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I doubt they are going to stretch it out over the whole age, it would be boring. Most likely they will have a bunch of flashbacks, and then start towards the end of the age. Most likely with the ruler before Al Pharazon (I think it was his Aunt), or maybe the one before that at the most.
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Solicitr
Gondor
Apr 27 2019, 12:31pm
Post #5 of 11
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then why does the released map include Ost-in-Edhil? It was destroyed ca. SA 1700.
Given the tile of the series, they can't very well skip over the Rings!
So, again, I'm seeing five season-long story arcs, each separated by a significant time skip, covering the period from the Rings' forging or somewhat before, to the Fall of Numenor or the Fall of Sauron.
Trying to get 50 episodes of television out of just the Downfall would in fact be much more boring, because the story would have to advance painfully slowly (ands involve a ton of invented filler)
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kzer_za
Lorien
Apr 27 2019, 12:56pm
Post #6 of 11
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The most fully developed story in the Second Age is Aldarion and Erendis
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Which really couldn't be transposed into late Numenor; the tone and themes wouldn't fit. Starting with Gimilkhad/Palantir/Pharazon also leaves out most of the elf material, which provide a lot of things to work with.
I would be okay with a moderate amount of compression for the timeline, but it needs to still span generations or the decline of Numenor (where aging and mortality are so central) won't be done justice.
(This post was edited by kzer_za on Apr 27 2019, 12:57pm)
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Apr 27 2019, 2:26pm
Post #7 of 11
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I doubt they are going to stretch it out over the whole age, it would be boring. Most likely they will have a bunch of flashbacks, and then start towards the end of the age. Most likely with the ruler before Al Pharazon (I think it was his Aunt), or maybe the one before that at the most.
It seems to me that the main story has to begin no later than the time of the forging of the Rings of Power (c. year 1500 of the Second Age), though even then we would likely get either flashbacks or a summary of what has gone before.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own." - Adam Savage
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Althoun
Lorien
Apr 27 2019, 2:44pm
Post #8 of 11
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They go for the time-compression approach justified by the imprecise nature of S A. chronology and make Aldarion the monarch when Annatar enters Eregion and befriends Celebrimbor, rather than his daughter as in the Tale of Years. It makes sense that the threat he is defending against slips in under his watch, undetected.
His daughter is then monarch after he resigns the sceptre (but is still alive) when the rings are forged and the war in Eriador breaks out, and as per canon she refuses to help Gil-galad as her father desired, following her mother's ideals.
Her son is now made Tar-Minastir and as per canon (when he sends the fleet under the isolationist queen Tar-Telperion, his aunt, who is now joined with Ancalime since they are really indistinguishable as personalities) he, as Aldarion's grandson, launches the successful navy to relieve their allies under her reign and against her express wishes - which creates discord between the ruling monarch and her son.
This retains all the dynamics of the canon without extending it over multiple Numenorean lifetimes.
So we have isolationist queens in one corner (Erendis and her daughter Ancalime) and interventionist, proto-imperialist kings, albeit with good intent, on the other (Aldarion and Tar-Minastir) all within the one ruling family.
And overshadowing everything is Tar-Meneldur's warning and existential dilemma when he passed the sceptre to his son Aldarion at the beginning, after failing to make this decision himself, between two apparent evils, and so abdicated responsibility to his heirs/successors, whom the decision would come to haunt and divide each of them, and eventually all of Numenor.
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Althoun
Lorien
Apr 27 2019, 3:06pm
Post #9 of 11
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I mean this, of course, which compelled him to abdicate the sceptre early to his son Aldarion:
Meneldur let the parchment fall into his lap. Great clouds borne upon a wind out of the East brought darkness early, and the tall candles at his side seemed to dwindle in the gloom that filled his chamber. "May Eru call me before such a time comes!" he cried aloud.
"When the Valar gave to us the Land of Gift they did not make us their vice-regents; we were given the Kingdom of Númenor, not of the world. They are the Lords. Here we were to put away hatred and war; for war was ended, and Morgoth thrust forth from Arda. So I deemed, and so was taught.
"Yet if the world grows again dark, the Lords must know; and they have sent me no sign. Unless this be the sign. What then? Our fathers were rewarded for the aid they gave in the defeat of the Great Shadow. Shall their sons stand aloof, if evil finds a new head?
"I am in too great doubt to rule. To prepare or to let be? To prepare for war, which is yet only guessed: train craftsmen and tillers in the midst of peace for bloodspilling and battle: put iron in the hands of greedy captains who will love only conquest, and count the slain as their glory? Will they say to Eru: At least your enemies were amongst them? Or to fold hands, while friends die unjustly: let men live in blind peace, until the ravisher is at the gate? What then will they do: match naked hands against iron and die in vain, or flee leaving the cries of women behind them? Will they say to Eru: At least I spilled no blood?
"When either way may lead to evil, of what worth is choice? Let the Valar rule under Eru! I will resign the Sceptre to Aldarion. Yet that also is a choice, for I know well which road he will take. Unless Erendis..."
(Unfinished Tales, Part 2, Ch 2, Aldarion and Erendis)
In many respects, I think the above quotation could provide the central thematic leitmotif for the entire Numenorean arc of the series, right up to it's Downfall.
(This post was edited by Althoun on Apr 27 2019, 3:08pm)
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squire
Half-elven
Apr 28 2019, 12:52am
Post #10 of 11
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I think I get your drift, but, really
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Which sequence of fifty one-hour scripts about Tolkien's Second Age - or any Age, really, but we'll stick to this project - isn't going to be "a ton of invented filler"?
Tolkien's colorful and annalistic summaries are basically outlines for dozens of stories, if actual characters are created to flesh out the outlines. But we see in HoME how his early outlines for LotR, usually less than a page long, exploded to his own surprise into three to twelve chapters of intensive action and dialogue and new characters and legends and major changes in the projected plot, almost all of it completely unanticipated in those preliminary outlines.
Of course, the Second Age stories were never written down, much less with plenty of dialogue to help create new characters and unanticipated but emotionally-involving action; the exception is "The Mariner's Wife" with its roughly 1-hour's worth of paddable dialogue. That leaves 49 to go, whether spread across three thousand years of annalistic history or two hundred. The writers have their work, which by definition is 'inventing filler', cut out for them without even asking how well they might capture Tolkien's peculiar voice, academic/poetic worldview, and increasingly antiquated morality and cultural baggage.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Archive: All the TORn Reading Room Book Discussions (including the 1st BotR Discussion!) and Footerama: "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
Dr. Squire introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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Solicitr
Gondor
Apr 28 2019, 1:34pm
Post #11 of 11
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Which sequence of fifty one-hour scripts about Tolkien's Second Age - or any Age, really, but we'll stick to this project - isn't going to be "a ton of invented filler"?
Tolkien's colorful and annalistic summaries are basically outlines for dozens of stories, if actual characters are created to flesh out the outlines. But we see in HoME how his early outlines for LotR, usually less than a page long, exploded to his own surprise into three to twelve chapters of intensive action and dialogue and new characters and legends and major changes in the projected plot, almost all of it completely unanticipated in those preliminary outlines.
Of course, the Second Age stories were never written down, much less with plenty of dialogue to help create new characters and unanticipated but emotionally-involving action; the exception is "The Mariner's Wife" with its roughly 1-hour's worth of paddable dialogue. That leaves 49 to go, whether spread across three thousand years of annalistic history or two hundred. The writers have their work, which by definition is 'inventing filler', cut out for them without even asking how well they might capture Tolkien's peculiar voice, academic/poetic worldview, and increasingly antiquated morality and cultural baggage.
but focusing exclusively on the Downfall means that you have left out most of the sketched story framework that exists, and so your 50 hors are going to be a much more dilute solution.
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