The Law and novella

[Conspiracy Theorist]

I think it will be Jim’s new ringtone.

[Snark Knight]

I am going to go with the positive: maybe it is because there are negotiatings for a high quality series on Amazon prime (if that is the name of their streaming service). And this is part of those negotiations. I have not followed the news about the lord of the rings series, but it sounds like they take it serious.

Their adaptation of Wheel of Time wasn't exactly confidence-inspiring (sure, a lot of the source material aged poorly as modern values are concerned, but a lot of the changes that had nothing to do with that aspect were for the worse).  I hope they don't get Dresden Files.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

Living author helps, Lee Child’s was an Executive Producer on Reacher, and was happy with the adaption whereas unhappy with the films.

This doesn’t bear well for the Tolkien series.

[Mira]

They have done well with The Expanse, but have diverted some from the novels.. However that might be because one of the actors wanted to leave.

[Dina]

The Tolkien series looks amazing, but I am quite intrigued about the plot, as, as far as I know, it is not based in any book. So it is like one of us playing a LOTR RPG. That could go wrong, but also it could be amazing (especially because there are not so many doors in LOTR  )

The Wheel of time series looked great too but I have not read the books. I liked the show in general but found the season finale lacking.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

They have done well with The Expanse, but have diverted some from the novels.. However that might be because one of the actors wanted to leave.

He got fired.

[vincentric]

The Tolkien series looks amazing, but I am quite intrigued about the plot, as, as far as I know, it is not based in any book. So it is like one of us playing a LOTR RPG. That could go wrong, but also it could be amazing (especially because there are not so many doors in LOTR  )

The Wheel of time series looked great too but I have not read the books. I liked the show in general but found the season finale lacking.

Be glad you were not a book reader, they messed up Wheel of Time worse in the first book than the final season of Game of Thrones. But it was passable but weak to every non-book reader I've talked to.

[Snark Knight]

They have done well with The Expanse, but have diverted some from the novels.. However that might be because one of the actors wanted to leave.

That was picking up an existing show that already had three seasons of faithful book adaptation on another network, though, not original.

And specifically, he got fired for metoo stuff.

[Dina]

uh, is he an actor known outside the Expanse (I watched the first 3 episodes of that show and left it)

[Mira]

The Tolkien series looks amazing, but I am quite intrigued about the plot, as, as far as I know, it is not based in any book. So it is like one of us playing a LOTR RPG. That could go wrong, but also it could be amazing (especially because there are not so many doors in LOTR  )

The Wheel of time series looked great too but I have not read the books. I liked the show in general but found the season finale lacking.

The series follows what happened before the Lord of the Rings.. Tolkien wrote another book and other tales about the history of Middle Earth before he wrote The Hobbit, but they are a bit of a slog to read.  The series is based on those stories.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

That would be the history of Middle Earth published posthumously in about 10 volumes and edited by Christopher Tolkien. They are very very heavy reading.

[Dina]

I liked the Silmarillion, but apparently the series is not based in it. I do not if it is based in Tolkien's son works. And I've never read any of them.

[Conspiracy Theorist]

I have, it is basically an editing of JRR’s extremely extensive research notes by his son, effectively the show runners bible. It lacks any of the characterisation or narrative drama of the Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.

To a large extent it will be dependent upon the skill of the writers to inject that into the source material, turning a history into a novel. JRR had it, Christopher didn’t.

[vincentric]

The new series is covering the period after the Fifth Battle through Sauron's rise to power. Done well it could be epic, as we'd get the rise and fall of Numenor, the corruption of the Nazgul and to a lesser extent, the Dwarves, and  perhaps even the last battle in Mordor with all the heroic sacrifices. 

But what I've seen of the preview material looks pretty but came off as bad Tolkien fan-fic. I'll watch in hope of being wrong but I don't have much expectation for this. Until Hollywood learns to respect thje source material, we won't get any more LotR level movies or GoT level miniseries.

[Mira]

The new series is covering the period after the Fifth Battle through Sauron's rise to power. Done well it could be epic, as we'd get the rise and fall of Numenor, the corruption of the Nazgul and to a lesser extent, the Dwarves, and  perhaps even the last battle in Mordor with all the heroic sacrifices. 

But what I've seen of the preview material looks pretty but came off as bad Tolkien fan-fic. I'll watch in hope of being wrong but I don't have much expectation for this. Until Hollywood learns to respect thje source material, we won't get any more LotR level movies or GoT level miniseries.

That is why I preferred the extended version of the movies, there were more moments from the books that I loved.

Unfortunately they really blew the last two or three seasons of GoTs.