Friday offtopic: JRRT trilogy?

[airiefairie]

Just a small survey. Now that they've announced they're going to make a new trilogy after JRRTolkien's works, which epoch or story in particular would you prefer to be filmed? Say, from the Silmarillion? Many are citing the saga of Beren and Luthien as an obvious candidate plot, others are saying the saga of the Children of Hurin, or Feanor and the Silmarils... or why not Acalabeth, the fall of Numenor. All in all, there's lots of material out there. So... any ideas?

And what titles would you give to these films?

Comments

[kiaa]

They'll also make a TV series, but it'll be about Aragorn's adventures during the 60 years between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring.

[johnny9fingers]

WTF!

I hope they do a better job than Jackson. Beren and Luthien is the obvious story, but Turin's story is human, epic, and tragic beyond anything in that book this side of the death of the two trees.

The Fall of Gondolin could be a series in itself.

Game of Thrones without the swearing and sex. Maybe a bit too C20th for now, but who knows?

[halialkers]

The War of the Jewels.

The first installment would be War of the Jewels: Age of War.

It would feature a kind of LOTR-style prologue narrated by Melian the Maia depicting the Ainulindalie and Melkor descending from the skies, followed by a depiction of Melkor's transformation into Morgoth. The Oath of Feanor is seen in regular flashback sequences through the film series in different contexts, with the first film depicting the first Battles of Beleriand, and the onset of the Siege.

The second would be Age of Siege, featuring the dawn of the age of Glaurung, the Breaking of the Siege, and ending with the adventures of Beren and Luthien. Sauron would be a minor character in the first film but an ever-present menace in this one, combining the absolute power of his War of the Ring incarnation with the treacherous shapeshifting of his First Age counterpart.

The last would be Age of Wrath, starting with the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and ending in the actual War of Wrath. The ending would feature Sauron repentant, closing his terrifyingly blue gaze through the first few films and opening them for the glowing red cat-eyed appearance of his Lord of the Rings self with the LOTR motif playing in the last few minutes of the series.....

[halialkers]

I would do the Alkallabeth as its own film, with a more self-contained narrative featuring the reign of Ar-Pharazon the Golden. I'd also out-GW GW by making him literally The GoldenTM and a blatant ripoff of this guy:

https://1d4chan.org/images/thumb/f/f1/Emperor_of_mankind_flaming_sword_armor.jpg/500px-Emperor_of_mankind_flaming_sword_armor.jpg

As much as possible within copyrights.

He lands with an army of equally golden clad opulent Numenoreans and it's a unique perspective flip of these films from the perspective of the villains culminating in his desperate last war against the Valar and the Breaking of the World and the Downfall of Numenor. Isildur would be played by Viggo Mortensen in this film and the last scene is a bookend to the War of the Jewels trilogy by showing Isildur meeting with Elrond and he and his survivors of Numenor joining the War of the Last Alliance.

[telemann]

The Fall of Gondolin [edited by Christopher Tolkein, illustrated by Alan Lee] will be published and released later this month, an expected surprise and delight.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/76594-hmh-to-release-new-tolkien.html

[johnny9fingers]

I wish I had bought more volumes of the History of Middle Earth in first edition when it came out. I stopped at Vol three: "The Lays of Beleriand". The full twelve volumes in first command silly prices now. I assume this version of "The Fall of Gondolin" will take from all the sources and give us a definitive version of the narrative.

I'll have to buy it. It will be a huge print run and essentially worthless excepting for the content. My favourite sort of book-buying is for content, because content is about reading. :)

It will be good to see how Christopher Tolkien reconciles the anomalies in the various versions of the narrative.

[abomvubuso]

I want a mega-multi-super-duper-logy of two-dozen movies, covering everything from the creation of Eä to the 4th epoch and beyond, but yeah. I'd settle for Hurin's saga maybe.

[johnny9fingers]

I think the long-form narrative is more suited to telly. GoT springs to mind.

We have enough text to make a series longer than the Mahabharata and the Water Margin put together. :)

[asthfghl]

And now there'll be a new GOT series, covering some epoch during the reign of the Targaryens.

[johnny9fingers]

Indeed. Mind you, I find it more difficult to read George R. R. than John R. R. But I prefer the adaptation of GoT to LOTR or The Hobbit.

I rewatched the Hobbit trilogy recently because I have a young son. It was certainly better than I remembered but really not quite worth the effort.

When it comes to Tolkien I think the books are where it's at. Same with DC, the comics are where they excel, the movies mostly suck with maybe two honourable exceptions. The problem is, the movies could have been so good with better editing; and in the case of LOTR, better and more accurate storyboarding and scripting.

The problem I have is that though the Tolkien movies bear a closer relationship to the text than, for example, Thor: Ragnarok does to the Eddas, it's not quite close enough for some of us. And Thor: Ragnarok was at least funny.