Season one of Amazon's The Lord of the Rings series will cost $465 million to produce

i guess they're setting this up for a minimum of what? 4 seasons?

1) First Ive even heard of this...

2) How could it possibly cost that much....especially if GoT was in the 100 mill range for a season

Makes me curious about Wheel of Time’s budget. I think they’re doing most of their shooting in Eastern Europe.

I’m super pumped about that but the only promo material they’ve released is the unveiling of the Herron Sword and a 10 second video of Rosamond Pike looking like Rosamond Pike.

quote:

---

Is it going to be like the movies where the last one sucked but no one wants to admit it?

---

1) Fellowship
2) King
3) Towers

That’s the correct order, but I do consider Lord of the Rings to be more just one massive film split into 3 parts.

quote:

---

i guess they're setting this up for a minimum of what? 4 seasons?

---

Really depends on pacing. My understanding is that they have to remain true to Tolkien's work, and so for practical purposes this is a historical series. They can fill in the blanks, but there are going to be certain big-picture events here and there, that define "when" it is. And once you hit those events, you can't go backwards again.

1st being the establishment of Numenor, which puts it as the start of the 2nd Age. That shouldn't be an issue, but's there.

2nd being, what's going on in Eregion (Hollin). That was an Elvish realm, next to Moria and where the Rings were made. It was free and strong, ruled by Celebrimbor, while Sauron was at large and not yet in power. It doesn't fall until after all the Rings were crafted, and Sauron then made the One Ring.
That is going to be a big before/after period. As long as that's in play, we should have a lot of time left in the show.

I don't know the show's plans, but I assume we're going to start before the formation of the One Ring. There's a ton of potential storyline from that period. I could see at least one season devoted to that; Sauron is 'Annatar', hangs out with the Elves (but not trusted by Celebrimbor or Galadriel). The Rings aren't yet corrupted, so you would have the eventual Nazgul as mortal Men (various kings), with all the requisite greed and politics.
Numenor is around, but not actively involved with Middle Earth yet.
That gives us 2 main fields of play, to establish everything.

After the One Ring is forged, you then get the following:
Fall of Eregion and then Khazad Dum, leading to the founding of Mordor, Lorien and Rivendell as seats of power. Formation of the Nazgul as this goes down.
Sauron wins Middle Earth. I could see at least one season of this, maybe more.

Next big point is the Numenoreans. They stayed out of things awhile, but when Sauron won, they stepped in and took him down. And did that hard- they came and took him prisoner, it wasn't even contested. Once that happens, no backtracking allowed.
He then spends time in Numenor, eventually corrupting them too. Probably at least a season with that, could be several. As he corrupts them, they change from saviors to oppressors (the Corsairs of Umbar being a big point).

Once he convinces the Numenoreans to attack the West (Aman), we're at another big point- that's the end of Numenor, which leads to the establishment of Gondor and Arnor. Sauron is caught up in this, loses everything awhile (including his good-looking physical form). He then comes back to Mordor in the form we knew from the movies, and shite hits the fan there.
The Last Alliance is the ending of that, and the probable ending of the series.

Not sure when they start, how much time they will spend in each period building things. It could be long, or they could skim over a ton of shite.

quote:

---

Is it going to be like the movies where the last one sucked but no one wants to admit it?

---

All 3 films were masterpieces


I couldn’t even begin to even ponder how one could argue ROTK “sucked”

Only thing negative was length and straying from source material a little

quote:

---

1) Fellowship
2) King
3) Towers

---

Fellowship


Towers














King

quote:

---

Because it’s 9 hours long and I stopped caring as soon as a ghost army saved the day. Maybe instead of using some midgets to fight the war call those guys first

---

it's got 50 endings that add almost an extra half hour to the run time.

Endgame had a bit of the same problem, but most of their endings were pretty short lived, and Cap dancing with Peggy pulled on some heartstrings.