It is rather ironic that mere decades after his death, J.R.R. Tolkien’s worst fears about the unbridled evil of industrialization should come after his life’s work and set about the desolation of the impressive Arda legendarium, itself one of the greatest works of literary fiction in history and, dare we claim, the cornerstone of all modern speculative fiction.
While that statement might admittedly be a much too dramatic way of announcing a new Lord of the Rings adaptation is on the way, it perhaps underpins what most Tolkien fans fear these days after witnessing, over the past few years, the rapidly shifting landscape of entertainment, where the need for quantity to feed the furnace of the unruly content frenzy of the streaming age precedes quality and capitalizes on substance rather than value.
Perhaps that’s also the reason why most Lord of the Rings fans were too quick to cheer on the licensing deal between Amazon Studios and the Tolkien Estate back in 2017, oblivious to impending industry standards for most adaptations that would attempt to succeed Game of Thrones as the next big fantasy series. Now, more than five years after the deal was struck, Amazon is preparing to introduce the world to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which they refer to not only as their most ambitious undertaking but factually as the most expensive production in the history of television.
The only catch is that while at first, it seemed like a brilliant idea to resurrect Middle-earth nearly two decades after Peter Jackson’s highly acclaimed cinematic trilogy, fans are now showing an ill disposition towards The Rings of Power and anything it might have to say about their favorite work of genre fiction, even if they’ve seen far too little to leave them with an unbiased impression.
Right now, the overwhelming majority of comments under anything related to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power are negative and disparaging towards the company’s perceived half-hearted attempt at playing in the grown-ups’ league of streaming giants such as Netflix and Disney Plus, and there’s a good reason why.
Amazon is in this for the numbers and fans recognize that
Jeff Bezos might claim that this is a passion project for him, but the timing is way too convenient for anyone to believe that. It all goes back to what Tolkien intended with his creation and how it influenced speculative fiction, or more specifically, the high fantasy genre.
Tolkien is now widely regarded as the father of modern fantasy, influencing most of the works that succeeded it in the past several decades. The Linguist professor had sensed a lack of mythos in the British literary canon, and the only story that barely resembled anything of the sort he had in mind involved the Arthurian legend, which was largely developed in France when the two countries were at each other’s throats in the Middle Ages.
But Tolkien’s work, especially through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, blended mythology with the storytelling tropes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, spearheading a literary movement that would help define the entertainment industry as we know it today.
From the early days when dozens of creative writers tried to imitate the success of The Lord of the Rings by untastefully rehashing everything he had done in his story, to prominent Hollywood moguls cautiously dipping their toes into the untraveled waters of speculative fiction in search of gold, the world of Middle-earth has inspired artists and their patrons — as usual driven mad by the greed of filling their coffers even more — to take a crack at the seemingly impossible case of J.R.R. Tolkien.
I mean, if he could do it, if he could write one of the best-selling novels of all time and become a cultural sensation across the pond from where he lived, so could they, right? What’s more, Tolkien proved to the world that fantastical stories have the potential to be just as profound as what literary snobs refer to as “serious literature,” so there’s no reason it could suddenly stop working or not yield as many fruitful results in other mediums.
And so began the nerd era. While J.R.R. Tolkien definitely wasn’t the only creator to influence and inspire the rise of geekdom, he kickstarted the high fantasy movement, in whose shadow — the bespoke “Mount Tolkien” — many authors have risen to prominence and success, namely Robert Jordan with his Wheel of Time series and George R.R. Martin with A Song of Ice and Fire.
Of course, today’s fantasy landscape bears the name of many acclaimed writers besides the most obvious and popular contenders, each contributing a novel note to this ever-expanding orchestra of imaginative brilliance. (Brandon Sanderson with Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive, Patrick Rothfuss with The Kingkiller Chronicle, Joe Abercrombie with The First Law, Robin Hobb with The Realm of Elderlings, etc.)
But no two names have managed to become so embedded into the public psyche as J.R.R. Tolkien and George R.R. Martin have across the years, and that’s mostly thanks to the cinematic medium.
The release of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and its subsequent box office success and critical acclaim, not only reinforced interest in Tolkien’s work but also ruffled a few feathers in the speculative sphere of the entertainment industry. What predictably followed was a string of unsuccessful and half-hearted attempts at recapturing Jackson’s magic, but lightning would refuse to strike twice until the time came for an unassuming new high fantasy adaptation by HBO to take the world by storm.
Game of Thrones becoming the most popular television series in the world coincided with the golden age of television, a perfect prologue to the age of streaming, by the grace of which we’re constantly, and perhaps too incessantly, entertained. But as HBO’s hit fantasy series slowly crept up on an inevitable end — and in hindsight, an altogether controversial and middling one — industry moguls quickly got to work brainstorming about the next big fantasy series to take its place in the public psyche, and what better IP than the story that spawned this industry in the first place?
It might have taken them a long time to get here and make the series, but Amazon is in this for the numbers and people recognize it, or else they’d have tried their hand at adapting other novel fantasy stories floating on the edges of awareness, begging to be picked up by a producer.
Now, you might say that the entertainment industry isn’t here for the sake of making great art — at least not solely — and you’d be completely right. In any business, the idea is to always capitalize on returns, and Amazon is an absolute powerhouse in this regard. Things become problematic, however, when you factor in the company’s track record and the overall trend of adaptations over the past several years, which brings us to our next point.
A timeline of weak adaptations
The Lord of the Rings took many years of Peter Jackson’s life because it was an absolute behemoth of a story to spin into existence. But what you ever so subtly discern when watching those movies is the fact that a lot of effort and passion went into making sure that they would become timeless masterpieces. And even if you don’t find the creative footprint of that effort tangible, the extensive behind-the-scenes footage left of the work on that trilogy will put any such doubt to rest.
That dedication and passion is something that a lot of adaptations are missing out on today. Because nowadays, when it comes to producing movies and TV shows, you’re confronted with a checklist of ideas that come directly out of out-of-touch focus groups that care nothing more than to cater to the whims of their demographics or the so-called genre tropes that they’re certain will work.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not talking about political correctness and the warring cultural fronts that have divided audiences right down the middle. The problem occurs when these established narratives and character tropes — that must have no doubt yielded great results in the past — become the golden foundation on which almost every studio builds its stories, resulting in a long list of adaptations that not only fail to capture the essence of their source material but fail to even work in their own mediums as decent works of entertainment art, being neither entertaining nor artistic.
Netflix’s The Witcher, HBO’s His Dark Materials, Amazon’s own The Wheel of Time, Apple TV’s Foundation, and even inspired stories like Cursed are but a few contenders in this category. Some of these adaptations are decent enough, mind you, but when all is said and all is done, none have managed to highlight what makes their source material such a lasting work of art, not like The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones have.
And who is to blame them? For streaming giants, the most important thing is to pick up a culturally relevant and adequately popular story and churn it into content. More and more content, that’s what we need. It’s all about filling up that watchlist and keeping audiences engaged. You’re done with this fantasy series? Well, don’t you worry, you can just hop into another world with a few clicks of your TV remote. And if that doesn’t hook you, it’s no bother whatsoever, because there are dozens more to take its place. You’re eventually going to find what you’re looking for, contented, and spend even more time on the platform, if for nothing else than the sheer frustration of going through those endless lists.
Suffice it to say, audiences have slowly recognized a pattern here, so it’s no wonder that they’re on the fence when it comes to The Lord of the Rings, a story that deeply resonates with them and brings to mind memories of much simpler times.
Not all those who wander are lost?
Consequently, there are many reasons why folks simply don’t want to have anything to do with The Rings of Power, or even remotely acknowledge it at the edges of their conscious awareness, despite not having seen a single episode of the new series.
But what if there was a small chance, perhaps barely there, that could turn this reception narrative around on its head?
Because unlike all those other adaptations we talked about, and the general trend of the industry, Amazon’s adaptation has managed to get a few things right, things that actually go a long way in putting fan concerns to rest.
Perhaps chiefly among them, despite having every reason to not do so, Amazon decided to take their time with this adaption and do it justice. Instead of rushing a television production after acquiring the rights in November 2017, as any company would do — especially if theirs was to spearhead a replacement for Game of Thrones — Amazon took its time and realized that one does not simply make a Lord of the Rings television series.
It’s been almost five years since the Tolkien Estate struck that deal, which means that the crew of The Rings of Power has spent years in pre-production, as Peter Jackson had done, to make sure that every piece of the puzzle falls seamlessly into place. Did they have to spend so much time? We know that a company of HBO’s standing is perfectly capable of making a season of television in less than two years, so why take all of that time if all you care about is profit?
Another instance of this proposed hopeful outlook comes courtesy of several creatives whom Amazon has consulted or even contracted from The Lord of the Rings trilogy to help them realize this vision. The inclusion of Howard Shore as the composer for the main theme, and John Howe as the graphic artist for world building purposes, sends across a clear signal: “We know how much the trilogy means to you. So, we’re going to make sure that the language of our world is synonymous with the Middle-earth you’ve grown to love.”
And ultimately, we’d be remiss to not mention the elephant in the room. Amazon has already spent something close to $500 million on the first season of The Rings of Power, making it, effectively, the most expensive television production in the history of this medium. While we all know that dedicating these egregious sums isn’t necessarily going to put a dent in Amazon’s deepless purse, this pattern of behavior once again fails to correspond to the trend of the industry.
As stated earlier, the goal of this business is to capitalize on profits, which means that Amazon didn’t have to go this big. Whether we’d want to admit it or not, the company is taking a gamble here, one that they know won’t pay off if the series is anything other than spectacular and immediately popular.
It would also do to note all the reassuring things showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay have repeatedly said over the past few months, but if you’re already feeling skeptical of the series, nothing that they have to say is going to change your mind, which is why we decided to stick with an otherwise outside perspective for this piece.
Ultimately, The Lord of the Rings fans have every right to their misgivings about The Rings of Power. But at the same time, I don’t think the franchise as a whole would benefit from any of us auguring its doom before the time has come.
I might live to regret these words, but perhaps, and against my better judgment, I should like to give the series a chance to prove its merit.
Published: Aug 2, 2022 09:35 am