Is The Lord of the Rings on Prime doomed to be a horrible series? Will it be ruined by
inexperienced showrunners and actors? Explicit content? Perhaps being political?
What you see on the screen are mostly doubtful, suspicious, or gloomy comments I have received
about the show. Proportionally, most people are worried about the show rather than hopeful,
at least on this channel. Now, I actually agree with some of these comments, especially
the ones I’ve hearted, and I have not made this video to spite or make fun of anyone;
rather, to correct all false information out there and, ideally, raise hopes. Also, thanks
to all of these people for commenting, and especially the public subscribers. If you’re
not already subscribed, please be sure to do that, and also leave a comment and like
the video.
Most of the complaints about the show are as follows:
It might include nudity and adult content. It might not be faithful to the canon.
Its cast and crew members are inexperienced. A few members of the show like Tom Budge and
Thomas Shippey have left And lastly, the very, very big one. Will it
be political? Such a thing certainly could ruin it.
First off, with the show having nudity and adult content in it. Well, a while ago there
was a call for nude actors as well as a call for an intimacy coordinator in New Zealand,
where the show is being filmed. Obviously, this was a little bit worrying, but we soon
learned that the call for nude actors was for another film. There is still the intimacy
coordinator issue, but, just because there is an intimacy coordinator doesn’t mean
there will be anything bad in the show. Nowadays, if the actors do so little as kiss, an intimacy
coordinator is required similarly, so to say that there will be anything truly bad in the
show is making a mountain out of a molehill. Additionally, the Tolkien Estate has the power
to veto anything they don’t like about the show, so naturally, being a Catholic family,
they would veto any such content.
Next, the show might not be faithful to the canon. On this topic, Thomas Shippey has revealed
the most, with his following statement:
“Amazon has a relatively free hand when it comes to adding something, since, as I
said, very few details are known about this time span. The Tolkien Estate will insist
that the main shape of the Second Age is not altered. Sauron invades Eriador, is forced
back by a Númenorean expedition, and returns to Númenor. There he corrupts the Númenoreans
and seduces them to break the ban of the Valar. All this, the course of history, must remain
the same. But you can add new characters and ask a lot of questions, like: What has Sauron
done in the meantime? Where was he after Morgoth was defeated? Theoretically, Amazon can answer
these questions by inventing the answers, since Tolkien did not describe it. But it
must not contradict anything which Tolkien did say. That’s what Amazon has to watch
out for. It must be canonical, it is impossible to change the boundaries which Tolkien has
created, it is necessary to remain ‘tolkienian.’”
The gist of what Shippey was that they cannot change what was made, although they can add
in new characters and such, which they very much need to do. I would like to see this
show be as accurate as possible, but it is not feasible for the show not to add in new
elements. If that statement hasn’t changed your mind about the show yet, this will:
“The Tolkien Estate keeps a very careful eye on everything and is quite capable of
saying no. They retain a veto over everything that concerns Tolkien.”
So, the Tolkien Estate can certainly prevent anything they don’t like about the story.
Because they still hold very dear Tolkien’s works, we have every reason to believe they
will keep Amazon accurate. Additionally, the Tolkien Estate has been very aggressive legally,
so we know that they will punish Amazon if they defy the terms of their agreement. Yes,
Amazon is a very large company, but whatever documents they’ve signed are binding. This
veto also of course applies to all other points, such as the show being political. A while
ago Tom Shippey, a Tolkien Scholar, left the show, causing a lot of worry. Most people
took this as Amazon not wanting to be accuracy, but, from Corey Olsen, we know that the situation
isn’t as black and white as it seemed. I’m not going to throw out any theories out of
what happened to Shippey’s position, partially out of respect for him, but there is a lot
that could’ve happened.
Next, some fear that the show’s cast and crew members are too inexperienced or unskilled.
Well, the only thing I can say to this is trust in whoever hired the cast and crew members.
After all, the minimum production cost is 1 billion dollars, and the rights to the show
were bought for 250 million. So, they’re not going to settle for anyone but the best
when it comes to cast and crew members. Also, Morfydd Clark, who plays Galadriel, recently
got nominated for a BAFTA Rising Star Award, so congratulations to her. To conclude, I
doubt that Amazon would entrust a bunch of B-rated showrunners and actors with well over
a billion dollars; they’re very likely the best of the best.
Now, multiple actors and crew members have left the set of The Lord of the Rings on Prime,
causing a lot of doubt and worry. Tom Shippey, Tom Budge, Will Poulter, John Howe, Bryan
Cogman, and a few producers have left the show, all naturally, I might add.
I have already talked all I can about Tom Shippey, and now I would add that his absence
could be nothing more than his job being done. Tom Budge, who is 39, was an actor for the
the show, announcing his departure with the following statement:
It is with great sadness that I am writing to tell you I have departed Amazon's 'Lord
Of The Rings’ television series. After recently seeing the first episodes shot over the last
year Amazon has decided to go in another direction with the character I was portraying... I must
thank the creative team for their encouragement towards trying something that I believed was
new, exciting and beautiful. And I sincerely thank the extraordinary cast and crew for
their love, support and friendship over what has been a very difficult and unusual experience.
Alas, some things just cannot be.
We can tell from this that there are likely no hurt feelings, nor was Tom Budge fired.
Rather, he just didn’t like what was happening with his character. Presumably, Tom Budge
only played a minor role, so if worst comes to worst, this means that they will have to
do some reshoots: it is not a cause for worry.
Will Poulter is a 28 year old actor, who had the name Beldor on the series. He has acted
in many movies and shows, such as Narnia and Maze Runner. He left very early on, possibly
Elrond in the show, so his absence was at first worrying, but as I said, he left too
early for this to be an issue. Additionally, he left because of a scheduling conflict;
he wasn’t fired, nor did he leave unamicably.
Next, John Howe has also left the series. John Howe is a 63 year old Tolkien illustrator
and artist. This is something he is recorded of saying from the official Lord of the Rings
on Prime Reddit:
“Designing the Second Age is going to be a challenge. The showrunners are determined
to remain faithful to the existing trilogies and the spirit of the books. It is a huge
project and a very different project from a feature film.
I did the map that was on Amazon. We did a big map of Númenor we made two mistakes.
I was working with Tom Shippey, a Tolkien scholar, a very solid historian who reads
Norse and Icelandic… Tom worked so hard researching all these elements that we needed
to integrate into this map because in the second age Tolkien didn’t really give us
a map of the second age. We have a map of Númenor and a map of Middle earth.
It is amazing the scholarship that the fans are actually involved in. They are so passionate.
I think it probably comes from the fact that you can with Tolkien be passionate about it
because his sources are serious sources. You can become an expert on Narnia or Game of
Thrones but not in the same way it is not quite the same. You look at the number of
books that have been written on LOTR there are hundreds and hundreds of books. Far more
than what has been written on Narnia.
This not only speaks greatly to the accuracy of the show, adding to a prior point, but
also highlights Howe’s only known job: illustrating his map with Thomas Shippey. It could very
well be that both of them or at least Howe were brought on for a consulting basis, or
perhaps his services weren’t needed. Again, there so much that could have happened it
is useless speculating. Assuming the very worst, that they fired Howe because they disagreed
on something, this is unlikely to ever affect the show.
Bryan Cogman was a writer from the popular TV series Game of Thrones, but left The Lord
of the Rings on Prime very early on, kind of like Will Poulter. This is starting to
get fishy, isn’t it? Surely I can't just explain away all of these things. Well, it
turns out Cogman actually finished his job, and so left the show. It is also important
to note that his bio says CONSULTING producer. Not only was he just a consultant, but he
also would have probably taken this out of his bio if he was fired. Next, rumour has
it that several other producers have left the show. If this is true, I haven’t been
able to find any facts about it, and frankly, we have learned thus far that almost nothing
is as it seems. To conclude this section of the video, I’d like to add that all of these
cast and crew member changes are not only common, but very natural in the filmmaking
process. Some of this stuff even happened with Viggo Mortensen’s role of Aragorn.
Lastly, will the Lord of the Rings on Prime be political? When I say “political,”
I mean it very loosely; denoting any controversial real-world topic. I get a lot of comments
saying that canonically male characters will be female in the show, or that the show will
be “woke.” The best reference to all of this out of everything we know is what Thomas
Shippe said, that the Tolkien Estate can veto whatever they would like. There is no better
argument against the show being political or inaccurate to the lore than this. Additionally,
any changing of the characters would be met with heavy resistance, something which Amazon
knows very well. So, if you are currently worried that the show will be political, I
implore you to not be.
That’s all for this video, so I hoped you enjoyed it. I did my best to remain free of
bias, so if in any scenario what I said seemed out of place, that is probably why. Please
be sure to like and subscribe if you enjoy my content, and watch the rest of my videos
about the show, on this playlist appearing on the screen. On Easter I hit one thousand
subscribers, which is really great; I genuinely want to thank you all. I’m completely blown
away at that number, and I truly can’t wait to see where this leads next. To give back
to you guys, I’d like to ask you if there’s any reasonable Tolkien-related video you would
like to see. I can’t guarantee anything, but I’m currently trying to go back and
answer any questions my comment section has posed. As always, thank you. Laitanna Aino-er
https://www.tolkiengesellschaft.de/30918/exklusive-interview-with-tom-shippey-concerning-lotronprime/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LOTR_on_Prime/comments/cs8a3g/interview_with_john_howe/