Why TV Is Wrong For Tolkien

SOURCES

Mikhail Bakhtin, "Epic And Novel", from The Dialogic Imagination

Hans Blumenberg, "Work On Myth"

MUSIC (via Epidemic Sound)

Deskant "The King's Carpet"
Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen "A Highlander's Tale"
The Fly Guy Five "Gaze into the Mirror"
Helmut Schenker "The Secret Spring"
Sven Lindvall "I'll Go With You"

[LeoAngora]

7:21 "Maybe popular IP doesn't have to be adapted and forced into every shape under the sun" makes me want a LOTR Muppets special.

[pokegnome]

As much as anything, much of the problem lies in what they *didn't* pick up for adaptation. They literally cannot tell the story of the Second Age as portrayed in the Silmarillion, or as loosely resembles it, because that's not what they got the rights to - they got the rights to the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and most critically, the Appendices. So the studio essentially has the vague space of the Second Age to work in, through details referenced and remembered by the time of the Third Age - like Numenor being a place that existed, sank, and its descendants scattered all over - but they have very limited, abstracted details to actually work with, while a lot they have to avoid because they genuinely don't have the rights to it. This probably explains much of the depiction of Ar-Pharazon - he gets mentioned and some actions loosely summarised in the Appendices, but very little about his actual person is there. The Jackson films could re-arrange and reorder text, giving quotes from one character to another and changing whole arcs, but because other parts and icongraphy remained, there was still a foundation to work and that people might recognise the character they were meant to be. Rings of Power is having to invent things in a space shaped by Tolkien, rather than really *adapt* Tolkien, and that rather increases the immensity of the task. A touch self-inflicted? Very arguable, but I think drastically affects the question of whether or not 'Tolkien' - as opposed to Tolkien's cliffnotes - can work for TV.

[paisleylad]

"Trying to dive into the psychology of Galadriel and Sauron for multiple seasons is a losing game." Exactly! As you pointed out earlier in the video, the epic figures in LotR (Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond, Saruman) were distinct from the ordinary, more relatable figures (the hobbits). You could only fantasize about being as powerful as Gandalf, but you could actually aspire to be as brave as Frodo or as loyal as Sam. Having characters be both epic and relatable is essentially impossible.

[MaskofPoesy]

TV isn't wrong for Tolkien. Profit driven writing is wrong for Tolkien.

[LightningRaven]

If only they dropped the JJ Abrams' "Mystery Box Storytelling" bullshit, they would go a long way. Trying to write narrative twists and "gotcha" moments in Tolkien is quite ridiculous.

Specially when the idea that could best explore it isn't being focused on at all. Which would've been the audience following Sauron without knowing. But, then, it would require subtle and well-planned storytelling, which certainly is something beyond the writers and producers.

[JB-gjpu]

It isn't a failure of the medium but a failure of the writers. The Second Age is a character study of entire civilizations. It is about building epic civilizations only to watch them come crashing down due to some moral flaw. You tell that larger story by making each episode it's own self-contained story with themes that play into the larger idea. It's how Tolkien wrote the Silmarillion.

[joshualogan]

I disagree. It's not format, it's content and adaptation from source material.

I think an anothoogy series of short stories would work very well as a series for the LotR universe. Told in Jim Hinson's 'The Storyteller' type of episodic series. My dream scenario is that The Silmarillion is made into a series like this. Hopping around the myths, legends, creations, rise and fall and personal stories. I think it would allow a different type of episodic feel, not one of weekly television series but one of 'story of the week.' We'd get the epicness Amazon wants and ALL the fantastic world building without all the needless modern writers trying to fill gaps Tolkien didn't finish himself.

[huckberry]

They said the same thing about the movie adaptations before they came out. Unadaptable. But Jackson did an excellent job of capturing at least the spirit and tone of Tolkien. It can be done, but you need exceptionally talented and dedicated people. The TV show doesn't have that. Most fundamentally, Jackson understood Tolkien, the writers of the show do not.

[mofohasteheyelazors]

This is a tension you see in roleplaying games, like D&D, as well. The early, character-focused levels are drastically different from high-level, epic play and players have a hard time transitioning from a game about them to a game about the world.

[mechajay]

TV isn't wrong for Tolkien. Its the people who are involved with Rings of Power who are wrong for Tolkien. They have done a huge disservice to his work.

[acmulhern]

It's just a badly written show. It sometimes feels like it was written by AI because it really doesn't seem to understand true human emotions.

[LordofBroccoli]

I really don't agree with this argument. I could absolutely imagine Jackson's LOTR trilogy as a long miniseries, even if you changed little to nothing about it. There's nothing inherent about TV that makes it unsuitable for any story, writers and directors have been breaking conventions and genres for decades. In many ways, I see The Rings of Power the same way as House of the Dragon - both are adaptations of something that wasn't meant to be told as a story. House of the Dragon is based off a part of Martin's dry history book, Rings of Power is based off some, what, appendices? Contrast this with LOTR and ASOIAF, both of which were written and structured as stories to be told and enjoyed.

[FrameDevice]

Tolkien captured the feeling of older stories, which didn't constrain themselves to narrative formulas like we do today. Television is built around formulas—plotting, character, pacing, writing—it all has to be managed according to invisible rules and guard rails. But ancient stories just went with the flow and developed organically. They didn't force call backs or catch phrases, they didn't believe in the rigid enforcement of the "three-act structure", and they didn't try to make their stories conform to arbitrary rules about how long a scene should last, or how much a character should talk, or what should happen by the middle of the story, etc. Old storytelling was spontaneous, or had the feel of it, and Tolkien captured that essence in his writings in a time period where writers like Hemingway and others were reframing the conventions of "good writing" according to a modern ethos. Tolkien came in to remind people "yes, all this new writing is good, but don't forget the value of the old ways". And TV isn't built for that kind of spontaneity. It didn't work for Game of Thrones, it doesn't work for Tolkien.

[Turambar]

First time I’ve never completely agreed with a Nerdwriter take.

[lincolnbrandt]

Nothing like a Nerdwriter video to showcase the sublime enjoyment of a concise, well written essay that’s 8 minutes instead of 3 hours

[sullenpuffin]

TV isn’t wrong for Tolkien, if anything it’s better placed to take on epic themes than even a trilogy of 3 hour films! The problem is the quality of the writing. If they had found either a fantastic original story to tell within the world, or a strong telling of an established Silmarillion tale, I think we’d be getting a “Why TV is perfect for Tolkien” essay instead!

[kaguya]

I completely disagree. I think TV is a much better medium for long-form storytelling (like the adaptations of complicated stories, epic or not) than movies. There are problems with adaptation, but there are problems of adaptation when you go from any medium to any other medium.

Game of Thrones had just as much of a set ending as the Lord of the Rings. It's just that we don't know where The Song of Ice and Fire is going yet. And since the show runners weren't as good at storytelling as George RR Martin, they screwed up when they didn't have any source material to adapt anymore.

The problem with Rings of Power is not that they didn't have the right genre for TV, but rather they didn't have any more than the barest outline of events. If they wanted to adapt Tolkien and make it seem like Tolkien, they needed an actual Tolkien story to adapt. Either that or they need an intimate understanding of what made Tolkien's characters tick and how Tolkien interwove the present-day (for the time in which the story takes place) political landscape with the myths on which the present day is built. They need characters who navigate both the present-day politics and try (and fail) to live up to the expectations set by the myths.This seems to be one of the major themes of Lord of the Rings.

Any adaptation will succeed if it understands its source, understands the medium they are working in, and can make the changes necessary for that new medium. The Rings of Power fell far short. But that doesn't mean that Tolkien can't be successfully adapted to TV. Just that it hasn't been so far.

[nilspalmqvist]

Completely disagree with this. You do a good job here in bringing to light what of Tolkien they will have a hard time capturing, but you fail to consider what it is they, only in a TV show, can. There's a humbleness to Tolkien, his books can be so wonderfully meandering and often dwell in the small and skim through the big. I would argue that Peter Jackson failed to capture most of the best aspects of the book, but his choices made for very good films. He adapted in a way that plays to the mediums strengths, but I se no need in continuing to feed the notion that only he could do Tolkiens works justice. He both did and did not. This show does the same. And It will be wonderful to see it capture the things it can. No medium can ever be all the way right for a story sprung from another. Only the books will ever BE Tolkien, so let's get more people to read them.

[redmo]

"What makes Tokien truly special was his ability to incorporate the qualities of epic and myth into a modern novel, to let his readers feel again the power of long dormant genres." Very well put, I agree!

[znie-]

I think alot of what contributes too is that Tolkien ultimately based his concepts and ideas in some form of reality, there is almost nothing in there that isn't our common myth as humanity coated in his paint, while this may seem lazy to some I think it's genius, I'm convinced it lends a subconscious layer of authenticity to the story, everything we are told spring from the same old stories that have been tried and tested through hundreds of years, and which have formed subsequent stories that we have heard. It resonates with us because every story we've been told derive in some manner from the same place as Tolkien, but Tolkien only filters his own writing and ideas through it. Less of the conventions and the modern world others would. He seemed annoyed people read into it that the ring was an analogy for the atom bomb, the ring was just the ring as described in the book.