Amazon Prime heads to Middle Earth. https://t.co/QowUmf8t3S pic.twitter.com/YVciEX3u2t
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) November 13, 2017
When I first heard the news that Amazon was going to making a TV serious based on The Lord of the Rings, I honestly didn’t really paid much attention to it. Since my impression was of; oh look, another major entertainment outlet that’s jumping on the live action fantasy bandwagon. Just like with Netflix making a TV series based on the Witcher universe, effectively both to competing and trying to follow the incredible success that HBO is having with the Game of Thrones.
It wasn’t until I found a reddit post where someone indicated that Christopher Tolkien had resigned from his position in the Tolkien Estate that made me worried. Christopher Tolkien is almost 93 years old, so it was inevitable that he was going to step down as the guardian of the Tolkien Estate, however giving Christopher’s history and the timing of the announcement, I must say this is now a little concerning. We’re all thankful of the role Christopher Tolkien has had in editing and publishing his father’s work posthumously. But more importantly, I think we should more thankful that Christopher Tolkien kept a firm tight control of his father’s work. In fact, it is well known that Christopher was not fond of Peter Jackson’s LOTR/Hobbit films because these didn’t fully portrayed the stories the way the novels did.
George R. R. Martin on Christopher Tolkien
By reading Amazon’s official announcement, it looks like they only have the rights for the LOTR, and possibly The Hobbit. This doesn’t necessarily mean, that Amazon has the rights to all of Tolkien’s Legendarium. However the sentence “The deal includes a potential additional spin-off series.” makes me think that, it might be possible.
Set in Middle Earth, the television adaptation will explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring. The deal includes a potential additional spin-off series.
Perhaps the only silver lining here, is that if their were ever a live action adaptation of the stories that make up The Silmarillion, the only possible this could be done is if it had its own TV series and not a not through multiple movies.
It would be really tragic to see Middle-Earth based theme parks, or even worse, see Tolkien’s stories be adapted into never ending shitfests like those in the Star Wars universe.