C. S. Thurman

First things first, I have so far watched the first 3 episodes to The Rings of Power and I am loving it! As a long time fan of Tolkien (having watched the movies and read the books and The Silmarillion many times) I enjoy what they have done with the show, but I get where the Tolkien purists are coming from. There is a lot that they leave out, and a lot that they change.

And yet, I wonder if we remember all that has really been changed from the books to the movies?

From The Lord of the Rings trilogy, we lose that firm steadfast Aragorn who knows that he is going to be King, to someone who fears what he might become and what the future holds. Both are great characters, and I love the change that Peter Jackson made in that part of the story to help make everything that much stronger in the adaptation. Many of you may also know that it wasn’t supposed to be Arwen who meets Aragorn and the hobbits on the trail, but rather Glorfindel. And let’s not forget Tom Bombadil and his wife who had many chapters from the story dropped from the adaptation. But again, all of these changes were either to introduce or leave out characters that helped make the story stronger.

There are a few things that make this harder to judge as a good Tolkien adaptation. The first is that, while this is a TV show I feel that many are looking to this like they did the movies, including the director and writers too. For the first 10-15 minutes of episode 1 it was mostly backstory and info dumping for the views who aren’t familiar with the history of Middle-Earth. While this very much has the same feel to it as the movies, it is lengthier and more complex than it probably should be. As a result it can mean a slower viewing experience for everyone and perhaps a little longer of a wait to actually get into the plot of the story.

The second thing that makes this hard to judge is that Amazon did not get the rights to The Silmarillion, which is the essentially the bible for the elves of Middle-Earth that Tolkien had written as a backstory for the world. What Amazon did get rights to was The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and its appendices. In the appendices, it goes over a timeline for the world of Middle-Earth, more information on the languages Tolkien had made, and the genealogy of Aragorn, or the Numenorians. When Amazon bought the rights they asked if the appendices were included (which they were), and decided to make a TV show off of that, rather than a television remake of the movies. This was the smarter choice, in my opinion, since doing a remake/redo of the books would have been heavily scrutinized if they veered off too far along the path. By going with the appendices they had much more creative freedom to do what they wanted, and still make it seem like it leads up to the current movies that we know and love today.

But again, since they don’t have the rights to The Silmarillion (like many people think they do) they are limited by what they can and can’t use from Middle-Earth, which makes it very limiting in what they can do. As a creative writer I can respect the work that they have done and hope that others can enjoy the show for itself rather than what they wish it to be.