Thanks for that info. It's pretty comparable to the original Dune trilogy (Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune) which is roughly about 1,500 pages.

I read the books as a kid and loved them, Lion Witch and Wardrobe series and several other fantasy type books, Amtrak Wars series...which is probably more sci fi with fantasy elements. As i got older fantasy definitely dropped right off the list though. I blame my old mans more historical themed book cabinet

They basically hired blacks to play Northern European Elves. Hard pass.

Noldor please!

Why does this matter?

I agree this doesn't matter since we are talking about 100% fictional characters in a 100% fictional world. This is a far cry from a tv series having a black actress playing Anne Boleyn.

I also agree the colour of the actors don't matter - but IMO it has to still be consistent within the pseudo-medieval culture. So if elves can be black, then they should all be black. If Hobbits can be Asian, they should all be Asian. At least per-community.

I'd agree with that. It's the only thing that bothered me about the casting choices in Wheel of Time. You have a village that is supposedly isolated for 500 years (or some time, it's been a while since I read the books), but with a mix of people there.

The only reason it might bug me a little bit is more the reason why they cast it the way they did. If they did it because those actors gave the best performance for the characters, then great, but if it was just virtue signalling, that's a bit annoying, but not the end of the world. I saw something I thought made a good point, which was if you're OK with talking trees and wizards, having characters of difference races doesn't seem like much of a stretch.

What about beardless dwarves and an armor clad Galadriel?
Minor points? Probably. But, it does introduce doubts for people hoping they'll stick to the source material. Particularly after Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey left early in production.
Why spend $250 million to adapt source material if you don't want to actually use or stick to it? I think all they were after was the name recognition and get butts in theater seats (well, the streaming equivalent anyway).

This is exactly it and Hollywood does this all the time. There are countless examples but I'll just mention a couple of recent grievous offenses:

The Netflix adaptation of Tom Clancy's "Without Remorse".

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499097/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

The adaptation for Stephen King's "The Dark Tower"

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1648190/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

I'm mainly worried they'll change more, such as Gandalf suddenly having secret, under the veil of night interludes with Saruman where they "swap towers" with each other... That sort of stuff.

That's how these justice warriors start. First with something small, then they want more, and more... and more...

He mention the first trailer for Lord of the Rings #1.



I remember! People were cheering and I didn't know why. I didn't know anything about Lord of the Rings but I was excited by it because of the 3 movies announcement.

Release date is Friday 9/2. Season 1. 8 or 9 episodes weekly. Season 2 filming is underway. Amazon has committed to FIVE seasons.

That's a huge risk by Amazon but then again, New Line Cinema also took a huge gamble with the three films by Peter Jackson.

A billion dollars! Holey moley, I did not know they paid that huge amount for the license.

The trailers look half-good and half-bad to this viewer.

Well the licensing was only part of that total cost. The rest was for the actual production of the series and also most likely marketing.

I remember when the trailer for Fellowship was released. I had read the books, and I was so excited to see the movie I could hardly wait.
I love Tolkien’s entire universe, but I get an overwhelming sense of «meh» when I watch the trailer for this series. I hope I’m wrong.