Over on Twitter, Fellowship of the Fans (FOTF) has posted some new rumours about LOTR on Prime’s series that are sure to provoke head-scratching and even more rampant theorising about the composition of the initial two episodes.
Warning: these are, potentially, spoilers. If that’s important to you, what are you even doing here? Run away!
Photo by Stewart Cook/Variety/Shutterstock (5813163v) Robert Aramayo Discovery’s ‘Harley and the Davidsons’ Party, TCA Summer Press Tour, Day 5, Los Angeles, USA – 01 Aug 2016
According to Fellowship of the Fans’ sources:
Actor Robert Aramayo was on the production’s dwarven sets and filmed scenes with the dwarves.
Actor Owain Arthur plays an important dwarven character in the same scenes.
The dwarves wear “amazing dragon/dragon scale armour”.
The dwarven king is said to look strikingly similar to Tormund from the HBO Game of Thrones telly series.
Scenes in the first two episodes will show dwarves climbing a mountain, or ravine, and there is an “underground pub set piece”.
However, dwarven sets? Is this cold water being tipped over the Year of the Trees brigade? Regardless, the Valinor image still exists and it seems beyond belief that the production would lead with an image like that purely as fan catnip.
Keep in mind, this is not confirmed, while the Valinor image is most certainly official.
But it may be that that segment is shorter than we want to believe. Maybe it’s a short PJ-style prologue per Fellowship of the Rings. Because dwarves do not belong in Aman (unless it’s in Aulë’s workshop, or your name is Gimli), and the most natural place for dwarves and elves to be seen together is Eregion and Khazad-dûm, during the Second Age.
If it is Second age, the dwarven king is likely to be Durin III. Owain Arthur might be Narvi. Narvi most famously had a close friendship with Celebrimbor, but I wonder whether Celeborn might fit in there somewhere too.
Anyone who tells you that they expected the first promotional image for the LOTR on Prime series to reveal an iconic panorama of Valinor — the land of angelic beings of Middle-earth — is either a liar or is inside the production.
Because I’m certain that there was nothing in previously teased material and maps that even hints at Valinor.
What’s more, this single image is as much of a statement as a certain someone recently flying to the very edge of space.
At first, you think: “Well, it’s another Middle-earth city. But, hey, it’s pretty cool.” You’re expecting, perhaps, Armenelos or Rómenna on the island of Númenór. After all, we know the series is supposed to encompass the rise and fall of the island kingdom and there does seem to be a glittering body of water even if it’s a bit small to be a bay, much less the ocean.
Then your eye is drawn inexorably to the background glow and it dawns that what you thought was merely the sun nearly (and neatly) conceals a pair of colossal trees.
And in an instant your whole worldview of the series just … changes.
Because, you know — if you’ve tried your hand at reading The Silmarillion or have delved into the pre-history of The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit — that these aren’t just any pair of trees.
The tree of silver and the tree of gold that are the source of all light in Valinor. That provide the light for Fëanor’s Silmarils, and ultimately for the Phial of Galadriel. And whose destruction triggers a cascade of events that stretches all the way to the end of the Third Age.
If anything can be, this is the heart of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth mythmaking.
LOTR on Prime has enormous ambitions and it’s not afraid to declare as much.
It’s declaring that it’s here to challenge the Peter Jackson movies as the definitive visual depiction of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
It’s declaring that it has the talent, technology and resources, and access to the necessary source material.
I think, above all, LOTR on Prime is declaring to Tolkien fans that it doesn’t want to be underestimated.
It’s declaring that it’s not simply making a Game of Thrones clone for the mass market.
And it’s declaring that they’re going to take us, the readers of Tolkien’s work, to places that we never thought would be possible in a film or a TV series.
Sure, we already knew some of that — intellectually. We knew we were promised 50-odd hours of telly over five seasons. And, we knew that the rights and production investment runs into hundreds of millions of dollars. But you just can’t /feel/ a series of numbers.
This, on the other hand… this is real. Real, tangible proof that we’re on a journey to somewhere special.
Strap in, kids, we’re about to blast off into space.
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Add these to your queue for a taste of the creative talent behind Amazon’s $1 Billion LOTR series
Amazon’s billion-dollar Lord of the Rings series is in production but fans want to know what to expect now that Peter Jackson isn’t crafting Middle-earth. Since many are in quarantine and looking for shows to watch, we have put together a comprehensive list of films & TV shows which the current LOTR production team have previously worked on to provide a sense of the talent behind the series. Many of the writers have worked on other book adaptations, sometimes with actors from Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth films!
Note: all watch suggestions are based on U.S. platforms, check your local region for each of these!
Penny Dreadful pilot S1E1 – S1E2
Watch on: Showtime, Amazon Prime
LOTR Director JA Bayona directed the 2-episode pilot of Penny Dreadful, setting the tone for the entire series. He is currently filming the 2-episode pilot of LOTR.
A Monster Calls
Watch on: Cinemax
Bayona directed this powerful fantasy drama of loss, despair, love and family – themes familiar to Tolkien’s Legendarium.
Hannibal S3
Watch on: Amazon Prime
LOTR writer Helen Shang was deeply involved in crafting the Red Dragon storyline for NBC’s Hannibal series, featuring Richard Armitage (Thorin).
