ONE SERIES TO RULE THEM ALL

A glimpse of Paradise from Amazon's LOTR: TROP

Well, the biggest screen news this week has to be the debut of Amazon Prime’s lush and outrageously expensive return to the fantasy world of Middle-earth with LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RINGS OF POWER. I’ve been a Tolkien fan since I read the LOTR trilogy for the first time at the age of 16. (I’ve re-read the books every couple of years or so since then.) I loved the LOTR films by Peter Jackson, and I regularly re-watch those, too.

So, I was anxiously awaiting this debut to see what newbie producers and creators J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay would come up with from the limited source material of, basically, Tolkien’s appendices. Jeff Bezos’s Amazon, despite extensive negotiation with the Tolkien estate and his own personal participation in the bidding war with Netflix for the rights to this series (which may or may not have helped), was not able to get the rights to the author’s detailed history of the early ages of his fantasy world, The Simarillion. (That book includes the tale of Beren and Luthien, the original human/Elf love affair of which Aragorn sings in FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and would have made great screen drama.)

On the other hand, obtaining even limited rights allowed the showrunners and writers to set their series in Tolkien’s familiar landscape of characters and places, with an overarching theme and premise around which to tell new stories. As the title suggests, their ultimate goal is to tell the tale of the forging of the rings of power (three for the Elves, seven for the Dwarves, nine for Men, and, of course, the One Ring to Rule Them All), but there is plenty of room for elaboration. (Why, for example, do the High Elves still wear their rings if they know Sauron had a hand in their making?) Think of it as a kind of fan fiction, but with a half-a-billion-dollar budget to work with. (And, yes, that’s billion, with a B. At the end of the planned five seasons, this will be the most expensive television series ever made.)

The new series, which debuted with two episodes on September 2, is set thousands of years before the time of Tolkien’s LOTR trilogy. During this so-called Second Age, the Elves and the Men of the great island kingdom of Numenor joined together to defeat the evil of that time, Morgoth. But in that war, his disciple, Sauron, escaped.

Young Elf warrior Galadriel (Morfydd Clark in the role that Cate Blanchett once owned) vows to take up the search on behalf of her brother Finrod (Will Fletcher), who died in its pursuit. She eventually becomes leader of the Northern Armies for Elf king Gil-Galad (Benjamin Walker), believing strongly that Sauron is still lurking in Middle-earth somewhere. But her quest finds only an abandoned forge at the top of the world, and, after many years, the king commands her to give it up. Even her friend Elrond Half-Elven (Robert Aramayo), a minor advisor in the court, suggests she’s taken her search too far. So when the king declares victory over Morgoth and Sauron and rewards his remaining troops (including Galadriel) with a trip to the Undying Lands in the West, she reluctantly agrees to go. At least until the very last minute, when she jumps ship to go back to the fight in Middle-earth.

Galadriel has always been one of the more interesting characters in Tolkien’s universe, and, in this prequel, we have a hint of the person she later becomes. As a young Elf she is impulsive, passionate, a fighter, someone who is willing to sacrifice herself and others for her cause. After she abandons her trip to Paradise, she encounters and overcomes one challenge after another in her pursuit of evil. It’s easy to understand the temptation the older Galadriel feels when presented with the One Ring, that she might be “more terrible than the dawn,” and that “all will love me and despair.” It will be fascinating to watch her grow during the series, as long as the writers, and the actor, can continue to clear that high bar.

The same is true of the character of Elrond, though I’m not as happy with the casting of Aramayo in the role. We do see hints of Elrond’s later caution and hesitation to do what is necessary to defend Middle-earth by allying with Men. Though I think it would be more helpful, particularly for Tolkien newbies, to address outright why Elrond is treated shabbily in the Elven High Court. (He’s only half-Elven, you see). Though maybe that will come later. His background could be his motivation for being reluctant to ally himself with Men. If so, we need to know it.

The benefits of prequel foreshadowing are much more obvious when we turn to the ancestors of the Hobbits, the migratory and secretive Harfoots. Though it is true the writers come uncomfortably close to stereotype territory in giving the Harfoots bad Irish accents and a tendency to vanish like legendary leprechauns, I confess I found them charming and fun to watch, much like their more playful descendants, Merry and Pippin.

And, just like the Hobbits Bilbo and Frodo, there is a Harfoot with an unusually curious and adventurous nature, Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Kavenagh), who isn’t content to gather berries and weave baskets with the rest of her folk. She wants to know what is beyond the range of their “wandering;” Who’s out there? What is there to see? Her elders tell her to mind her place, of course. The larger world is dangerous for their kind. Better to stay hidden.

But then, as will happen many thousands of years later, the larger world comes to them, in the form of what appears to be a meteor crash-landing in a nearby field. Nori and a friend go to explore, and find an unconscious, naked “giant” in the center of the impact crater (the unnamed “Stranger” played by Daniel Weyman). So far, the Stranger is incapable of speech, but his attempts to communicate create energetic chaos. Except when he whispers to fireflies in, um, firefly language. Hmm. Somewhat reminiscent of a certain wizard who murmurs to moths to call up a ride on a giant eagle.

In the first episode, we are also introduced to Arondir (Ismael Cruz Cordova), an Elf warrior posted in a remote village of Humans in the South of Middle-earth. His outpost was established to maintain watch over a cohort of Humans who were once allied with Morgoth and thus are considered unreliable. Arondir has been pining for a local healer, Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi), for years, though it is a forbidden relationship, and he has done little but speak a few words to her at the village well. Elf king Gil-Galad has declared the long war with the forces of evil over now, though, and the outpost is about to be withdrawn when mysterious poisonings occur, and an unknown terror burns a nearby village to the ground. Arondir goes to investigate and, well, things don’t end happily. Then there is the evil artifact that Bronwyn’s son Theo (Tyroe Muhafidin) has stolen from a nearby barn, bearing the sign of Sauron.

Most of the first episode introduces us to the main characters and sets up the premise. We don’t meet some major players until Episode Two, however. That would be the Dwarf prince Durin IV (Owain Arthur), heir to the throne of King Durin III, and his wife Princess Disa (Sophia Nomvete), in Khazad-Dum, an under-mountain stronghold previously seen only as a haunted, Orc-infested ruin in Jackson’s FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. If there was nothing else worthy of watching in these two episodes (and, trust me, there is plenty), the scenes of Khazad-Dum in all its glory would make them worthwhile. In Jackson’s film, Gimli asks us to use our imaginations to think of the dank caverns as they once were in their heyday, but now we don’t have to imagine them; we can see them. And they are fabulous.

The excuse we have for visiting is a diplomatic mission to the Dwarf kingdom by Elrond on behalf of Gil-Galad’s celebrated smith, Celebrimbor (Charles Edwards), seeking technical assistance in building a new forge that will generate the “heat of a dragon’s tongue.” Just an aside here—we know that such a forge was used to create weaponry like the sword Narsil (which was shattered taking the Ring from Sauron’s finger and re-forged for Aragorn’s use). The question remains as to whether this forge was used to create any Ring of Power.

Elrond and the prince once were friends, but Elrond (as the long-lived Elves are wont to do) neglected the friendship, and he must first overcome Durin’s hurt feelings. (Those Dwarves are so sensitive!) We have hints of the roots of the falling-out between Dwarves and Elves, here, too, an enmity that Gimli and Legolas eventually healed.

While we’re on the subject of the Dwarves, we might as well talk about trolls, too. That is, the trolls that have stalked this production of the fantasy series practically from the beginning. There is a certain element of the fantasy fan base (and we might as well own it, of the science fiction fan base, too) that is openly racist and sexist when it comes to their beloved content. “Elves” (or Dwarves, or Hobbits, or aliens or captains of starships) can’t be Black! they say. Only Orcs (or bad guys) can be Black! And what’s with all these female lead characters? The heroes of fantasy and science fiction are supposed to be heroes! That is, males (and preferably young, white males). The casting of Black actors as a lead Elf and a lead Dwarf (as well as several Harfoots) drew howls of rage from the usual suspects online. Okay, and I’m only going to say this once, it’s fantasy, people. Elves and Dwarves and Harfoots aren’t real. They can be purple if we imagine them so. And the folk who carry the story can be any sex at all. Or no sex. Or all sexes. Just ask Ursula LeGuin, for one, and she was writing 60 years ago.

Fantasy (and science fiction) is for everyone, no matter your race, color, gender or any other sort of definition. Now, can we all relax and enjoy the show?

Cheers, Donna

AN EXPANSIVE NEW VISION OF LOTR

Sophia Nomvete, Ismael Cruz Cordova in LOTR:TROP

 

As a huge Lord of the Rings fan I can’t wait for the debut of the new television series “Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power” on Amazon Prime September 2. A return to that intricately drawn world of elves, dwarves, long-lived men and mythical creatures is just the antidote I need to escape this drab world of plague and war.

The fantasy series is set in Middle Earth’s Second Age, thousands of years before the events we’re all familiar with from J.R.R.Tolkien’s books and Peter Jackson’s films involving the Fellowship of the Ring and their fight against the evil Sauron. In fact, this story is all about how the trouble began, with the forging of the rings of power, some of which, you’ll remember, were gifted to the elves, some to the dwarves and some to the kings of men. The One Ring, however, was forged in secret to rule them all, which came back to bite everyone in the proverbial butt in the Third Age. Some of this Second Age world we’ve only seen previously in ruins—like the caverns of Khazad-Dum—and some beloved characters only exist in this age in ancestral form (hobbits were “harfoots,” for example).

Most of this tale is only set out in the detailed backstory author Tolkien developed for his LOTR trilogy. When the first book came out, readers were so fascinated, they demanded to know more about his world. They wanted maps, histories, languages, genealogies. Fortunately, he had a lot of that in his notes, so he added appendices to the last book, some of which were drawn from a longer history of Middle Earth called The Simarillion that his publisher had rejected. (Peter Jackson’s co-writers on the film trilogy, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, used one such appendix to create the love story subplot for Aragorn and Arwen. Some of the lines in the film are taken word-for-word from the book.)

In 2017, the Tolkien estate decided to release much of this historical material in a separate auction. Though HBO and Netflix were in on the bidding, Jeff Bezos, himself a huge LOTR fan (are we surprised?), and Amazon won out with a $250 million bid. Production costs for the first season of the series on location in New Zealand have been estimated at $462 million. Eventually the series is slated to run 50 hours. So this is on track to be one of the most expensive television projects ever.

Showrunning duties have been handed off to two relative newbies, Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne. They got the job partially on the recommendation of industry star J.J. Abrams, who had worked with them as writers on one of the Star Trek films. McKay and Payne are longtime fans of both Tolkien and Jackson and are feeling the pressure here. “We felt like hobbits,” Payne told Vanity Fair. “We felt like two very small people in a very big world who had just been entrusted with something that meant so much to so many different people. Patrick and I will often look at each other in challenging moments of the show and say, ‘I’m glad you’re with me, Sam.’”

The creative team behind LOTR: TROP has worked hard to be true to Tolkien’s vision, while expanding on the world he only outlined in the appendices. Stories need characters and plotlines and themes, after all. And writers have had to condense the events of thousands of years down to a contiguous timeframe so things make storytelling sense.

Middle Earth might also look a little more like the world we know. This was a conscious choice. “It felt only natural to us that an adaptation of Tolkien’s work would reflect what the world actually looks like,” says Lindsey Weber, executive producer of the series. “Tolkien is for everyone. His stories are about his fictional races doing their best work when they leave the isolation of their own cultures and come together.”

Of course, when the news hit the Internet that a Black woman (Sophia Nomvete) had been cast as a Dwarf princess and a Black man (Ismael Cruz Cordova) as an Elf, not to mention various other people of color in other major roles, the trolls (and I don’t mean the kind you find in The Hobbit) came out to spew all manner of racist and sexist vitriol about how there are no POC in LOTR or fantasy. (I say sexist because the worst of the criticism was apparently aimed at Nomvete and other female actors of color.)

As a lifelong fan of Tolkien and LOTR I call bullshit. First of all, as Weber so clearly points out, the whole concept of the Fellowship of the Ring is that five (if you count wizards) diverse peoples come together to fight a common enemy. They overcome their differences (which are significant and longstanding—remember Legolas and Gimli) to destroy a greater evil.

Secondly, this is fantasy we’re talking about. When you’re writing or filming fantasy you can make your characters white, black, green, blue or any color of the rainbow. Tolkien was writing in the first half of the 20^th Century in a generally white-and-male-centric British upperclass world; he was very creative with just about everything else in his world of Middle Earth. I’ll give him a pass for not consciously including any characters of color. But he did say he expected to “leave scope for other minds and hands” to expand his work, according to a letter to Milton Waldman. So, okay, the Amazon LOTR: TROP creative team is expanding on his work to reflect a more multicultural, open-minded consciousness.  I say good on them. The rest of us should follow their example and populate our spaceships and alien planets and castles and forest glens with characters of all colors and cultures (and of all sexual orientations and gender designations, too).

Cheers, Donna

*Information for this post provided by:

“Amazon’s Lord of the Rings Series Rises: Inside The Rings of Power,” by Anthony Breznican and Joanna Robinson, Vanity Fair, February 10, 2022. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/02/amazon-the-rings-of-power-series-first-look

“The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power Has People Of Colour, Get Over It,” by Ben Sledge, TheGamer.com, February 12, 2022. 

https://www.thegamer.com/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-has-people-of-colour-get-over-it/