What Can We Expect from The Lord Of The Rings TV Show?
With Amazon recently securing the rights to a live action Lord of The Rings series it has left us here at LRM wondering what exactly we can expect from this huge deal. Initially, I think we were all thinking a remake of some kind, which seems far too soon, and shall we say needless?
A couple of things have made us reassess this view.
The Silmarillion Rights Issue
Firstly, this deal was being shopped around not only by Warner Bros, but the Tolkien Estate were also involved and this I feel is potentially important. Amazon also said that this series would be a prequel series to Fellowship of the Ring, however before we get too excited, it does seem from reports that Amazon does NOT have the rights to The Silmarillion.
For one, they would have surely mentioned this to generate excitement, and secondly the Tolkien Estate have always resisted the sale of rights to this historical record detailing the entire history of Midde-earth. Now, we think most fans of Tolkien would absolutely love to see a TV series dedicated to that massive tome. This could be a damn shame, because it seems to be the period most ripe for adaptation considering it is a collection of histories and myths, or partially completed tales rather than a full on narrative.
I guess what we are saying is that there is far more content for a writer to work with and not be locked down too much by the canon of events which are told in very broad strokes. Alas it is fairly clear that we should not be expecting anything from The First Age of Tolkien’s world, despite all our wishes and prayers to Illuvatar otherwise, unless there are some surprising future announcements.
So what in the hell does that actually leave Amazon to work with? We already had 3 movies (Far too many) detailing the events that precede LoTR in The Hobbit trilogy. These movies covered the re-emergence of Sauron from his guise of residing in Dol Guldur as the Necromancer, which is probably again the most fully detailed part of the story which leads eventually to The Lord of The Rings.
It’s certainly left us scratching our heads, and perhaps you as well. Well, I have been poring over the material and doing a lot of research for the last couple of weeks to try and shed some light on what we might expect from this show.
I have been reading the books since I was 11 years old, and I have managed to read The Silmarillion around four times. In this article, I originally planned to give readers who may not have managed to get through that history manual a bit of background on the events of the First Age and the Second Age of Tolkien’s universe.
Can’t do it. I failed. The content is just far too vast and detailed to succinctly summarize it in anything less than 3500 words or so (as I said, I really tried). So if you want to get some background on how all the main players we are going to discuss here came about? I’m afraid the only answer is to read the book for yourself or check some of the many good summaries you can find elsewhere on the net. It’s still a lot to read through, though.
Rights are complicated with a novel like this. You may think that without The Silmarillion rights, there would be no way they can go back any further than what we have already seen in cinema screens, however we must take the appendices of The Lord of the Rings into consideration.
Much of the events which lead towards LoTR can be found in these appendices, and whilst some of this is duplicated in The Silmarillion, that does not change the fact that it exists as part of the novel and therefore, should be able to be filmed…We think? Only Amazon, New Line, and the Tolkien Estate has any real insight into the restrictions of the rights deals, as you’d imagine.
The Second Age, after all, ends with the defeat of Sauron by the last alliance of Men and Elves, therefore we have already seen the Second Age depicted on film in the prologue before The Fellowship of the Ring. Actually, we even saw some small glimpses of the forging of the Rings of Power, which happened not long into the Second Age as well. Our thinking then, is that as long as the story is fundamentally tied to the Rings of Power and specifically mentioned in the appendices, then its viable. It’s a theory!
We also think that since the audience is already so familiar with the basic story of LoTR, that the prequel series would focus on the War of the Rings itself, because it’s familiar already. It would be perhaps too much to ask for a show detailing the forging of the Rings, because the further back we go into the history, the less things seem connected to The Lord of the Rings and the more they seem connected to The Silmarillion.
On Page 2 is our best guess for where the producers and writers could come at this project from. I should also point out that we think the success of Game of Thrones is the catalyst that prompted Amazon to spend $250M on just the rights alone. We are also thinking of a period which could contain some of the more adult drama and morally grey characters that GoT has, as opposed to the very black and white view of good and evil portrayed in the movies. Well, I think we have found a definite contender here, but perhaps Amazon has other ideas?
If you want more detail about how Tolkien’s story got to this point and the events covered in The First Age (Literally from back as far as the world being ‘sung’ into existence), then as said above, please feel free to research into it. Of course you may already be familiar with Tolkien’s works. If so, a little reminder won’t hurt. It’s a fascinating and detailed story and though a hard read at times. I would recommend The Silmarillion to anyone with an interest in the writings of Tolkien.
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The Corruption Of Numenor
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Essential Background
Some small things that are good to know before you look at our idea.
The end of the Second Age leading up to the eventual battle against Sauron that began the Third Age is a potential period we feel they could cover here. It is possible some of these events are tied in with the rights to The Silmarillion, but after all, this is just a guess, right? And it’s certainly one of the periods we here at LRM would like to see filmed as a TV show.
There are effectively four separate Wars of the Rings, the last and final one being detailed in Lord of the Rings of course. When Sauron first tried to use the One Ring to take over Middle-earth he was twice defeated by the super power of the world at this time. The Land of Numenor.
Numenor is basically Tolkien’s version of Atlantis, a land created specifically for Mortal Men who aided the Elves and stayed loyal to the Valar (Demigods) in the First Age as they battled Morgoth (think the Emperor to Sauron’s Darth Vader, but times 10). Morgoth is basically Satan/Lucifer in this story, and after Morgoth is imprisoned forever by the Valar, they also reward the faithful houses of Men, by creating a land in between Middle-earth and Valinor called Numenor.
Their King Elros, the twin brother of Elrond, who chose to be mortal, while his brother chose the Elven life, is the ruler of this new Kingdom. Elros takes command of the three loyal houses of Men of which he has ancestry in all and they are both given the gift of Numenor itself and also granted an especially long life for mortal Man also. Elros himself lived for around 500 years and ruled as King for well over 400 years. All people of Numenor had long life granted, but the direct descendants of Elros himself longer still, (Aragorn is a descendant of Elros).
Numenor advances into the greatest super power of the known world (save the Valar in Valinor themselves). Even Sauron, with the One Ring in his possession, is soundly defeated by the Numenorean’s in his first War of the Ring.
The Corruption of Numenor by Sauron
The show could begin with Sauron’s second attempt to conquer Middle-earth. The Numenoreans have been staying away from Middle-earth for many years and sensing an opportunity, Sauron has been advancing once more and taking over their former strongholds. The people of Numenor have grown restless with their gifts, many, despite their long life have become fearful of death, which has in turn shortened their life span and they have grown reclusive and distrustful of Elves.
However, they are far stronger than ever before as a military force, and a new King has just been crowned, Ar-Pharazon, who usurped the throne from his cousin the rightful heir. Hearing of Sauron’s exploits, Ar-Pharazon decides to take him down a peg or two, and sends a massive show of force to Middle-earth. Seeing the futility of fighting this battle, Sauron then does something unexpected. He surrenders personally and pledges fealty to Ar-Pharazon, appearing to him in a fair guise as a kind and knowledgeable man. Ar-Pharazon in his arrogance decides to accept, and takes Sauron to Numenor as his servant, a stupid move as he forgets that Sauron is not Mannish or Elven, he is a powerful Maiar from Valinor. Only the Valar themselves are more powerful than Sauron, who was the chief Lieutenant of Morgoth in the First Age.
This is as Sauron planned, if you cannot beat Numenor by force, then corrupt it from within. The show could follow Ar-Pharazon as he is slowly corrupted by Sauron along with the other people of Numenor, partly by their own insecurities and arrogance and partly due to Sauron’s use of the One Ring to sway them to his way of thinking.
It does not take long for Sauron to corrupt them. He becomes advisor to Ar-Pharazon, and with his knowledge he helps to make them even more powerful than they were before. Numenor starts to raid Middle-earth for gold and supplies and eventually Men. Eventually Sauron undermines the religion and spreads lies about the history of the world and their forefathers, beginning to get the Numenoreans to worship Melkor (The old original name of Morgoth) with human sacrifices captured in Middle-earth.
As such, Ar-Pharazon becomes the greatest tyrant the world has seen since Morgoth himself, with Sauron orchestrating everything from his new place as High Priest of Numenor. But there are loyal men of Numenor who resist and refuse to worship Melkor. The group are few compared to the many who have turned and are led by Elendil himself (first King of Gondor). Sauron plays his endgame when he has completely taken over Numenor by convincing the aging King Ar-Pharazon to attack Valinor itself. Sauron has convinced the King that they key to immortality lies in Valinor, and that even the Valar will fall against the power of Numenor, and be forced to allow the Numenoreans access to the immortality of that realm.
In reality, Sauron is well aware of the power of the Valar, as one of Morgoth’s servants he witnessed this power first hand. Sauron wants the Valar to crush the Numenoreans completely, so that they cannot again thwart his plans to rule Middle-earth.
The show could lead up to this point across several seasons showing the slow fall from grace of Numenor and the struggles of the few who remained loyal to the Valar, the end point being the invasion of Valinor, the result of which causes the Valar, who (unknown to Sauron) have no dominion over Man, to give up their rule of Arda (Earth) and ask Illuvatar (God) to provide judgement, and take action for the first time since the world was made.
Illuvatar does indeed destroy the fleet of Numenor in a watery grave, but he also sinks the land of Numenor completely and removes Valinor so that mortal Men cannot ever again go directly to it by ship. The faithful, led by Elendil, have been forewarned and they escape the destruction of Numenor in ships set sail for Middle-earth. Sauron himself is in Numenor during the cataclysm, and as such, his body is destroyed utterly, leaving his spirit alone to cling to the One Ring. Sauron’s spirit returns to Mordor where his servants have been awaiting his return. Though with the power of the One he can again take shape, he can never again take on a fair and kind looking guise, always he looks now like the misshapen evil thing he has become.
As Sauron begins his third War of the Rings on Middle-earth, the surviving Numenorean’s arrive in Middle-earth and begin the Kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor, with Elendil ruling in Gondor as high King and his son Isildur ruling in Arnor. The events from this point then lead up to the last alliance of Men and Elves as depicted in the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring. After battling both Gil-Galad and Elendil until all three were spent, Isildur uses his Father’s broken sword to cut the One Ring from Sauron’s finger. The trauma of this destroys the body of Sauron once more and his weakened spirit goes off to hide far away, but this time, the One Ring is not with him. We know the story of Isildur from here, of course, as it is told in the movie.
This entire chain of events takes place roughly within the period of 100-200 years. Yes, there would be some gaps at times, but the only other time so many famous events happen in such a short timescale is the last 150 years of the First Age or The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings stories.
The other advantage of a show set in this period would be the ability to have Sauron as one of the main characters, he takes on the guise of a man throughout this time until Numenor is destroyed. What a part that would be for an actor out there. Ar-Pharazon as the power mad tyrant King with Sauron bending his ear and Elendil leading the persecuted faithful heirs of Elros.
Sounds like perfect TV material to me, and the budget wouldn’t be crazy other than the beginning and end of the story. They could also explore the First Age of Tolkien as Sauron perverts the facts to his own cause and initiates the worship of Melkor.
To add to the possibility of this time period being explored, it falls in line with the original report that this series would explore new storylines preceding The Fellowship of the Ring.
Tolkienists and other readers, what do you think? Are there other periods you think could be covered without the rights to The Silmarillion that I have missed. Is there something you would rather see from another time period in Middle-earth? Let us know below. We will of course update you with anything we hear about this new show, but it may well be some time before we get any concrete information to share.
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The Silmarillion Rights Issue
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