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What I Want To See From The Lord Of The Rings Show
A few months back, Amazon announced that it had acquired the rights to The Lord of the Rings and that they were planning to turn it into a show. This announcement immediately garnered some split reactions. Some people (myself included, initially) thought it was a terrible idea to try to remake these movies that were so well-received about a decade and a half ago. Others thought that it could be interesting to see a new take on it.
I was on the skeptical side until a few days ago when I saw a video by WatchMojo on YouTube titled, “Top 10 Things We Want to See in Amazon's Lord of the Rings Series.” Some of the things that were proposed in that video really piqued my interest in what the possibilities could be for this show, so I’m going to go through some of what they said and add some of my own insight.
One of the main reasons Amazon acquired these rights is because they want to have a show to compete with Game of Thrones. Now, that would be difficult for any show to do in the first place. GoT is one of the most popular shows on the planet. And in a way, the LotR movies paved the way for it to be popular in the first place. So what they should be looking to do is to make a show that holds up on its own and is good for what it is.
The currently untitled show is already planning five seasons and a spinoff. I say ditch the spinoff, because that opens the door for too many scary opportunities. That would just look like what Star Wars is doing. It’s awesome to get more episodes in the Skywalker Saga, but it’s already becoming a little much with the spinoff movies – there are new Star Wars projects being released at least once a year. It’s becoming too much. You don’t want the same thing to happen with Rings. The safest bet would be to put all your eggs in one basket with this show and make it the best that you can. Don’t turn it into an obvious cash grab, like The Hobbit was.
Now the next thing I want to see is the best idea that I saw in the WatchMojo video. They suggested having Peter Jackson direct and for the show to be shot in New Zealand, like LotR and The Hobbit were. To go back to the Star Wars example, that is something where all of the different projects are going to look different stylistically. But this – with just the movies, the show, and one spinoff – should have one unified look or feel. Peter Jackson did a great job with LotR and he knows this world cinematically better than probably anyone. So have him direct the pilot and maybe oversee some of the show as a producer. As for the setting, since 2001, moviegoers have seen what Middle Earth looks like onscreen. You don’t want to change that all up now and say, “Remember that great trilogy and that okay looking trilogy that showed you how freaking awesome Middle Earth looks? Well, yeah, we’re gonna scratch that and make it look different now.” That just won’t work.
To go along with this, this show would do well to go in the same continuity as the already released Middle Earth films. You do not want to remake The Lord of the Rings. But if done well, there is so much stuff that can be added on. And with the expansiveness of Tolkien’s writing and lore, there are a lot of different places you can mine from (dwarf pun intended) to add new stories to this world.
So page through The Silmarillion, adapt something like The Children of Húrin, or even find something in Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth. Something that could be really cool would be to do an anthology series or a quasi-anthology series where each season or a group of episodes told one of these stories. Maybe if a LotR alum like Viggo Mortensen or Sean Bean wanted to or was available, they could do a multi-episode arc about a part of their character’s backstory. We got a glimpse of Boromir’s backstory in The Two Towers and The Return of the King, so it could be cool to explore something like that a little more.
It’s just important that this show is not a remake of the movies. Make it something new. There are so many new and exciting directions that this could go if it is done well and I’m actually pretty excited to see what happens. Let’s just hope that Amazon respects the source material and does a good job with these rights that they’ve acquired.