{"id":111285,"date":"2021-08-06T04:08:52","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T09:08:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=111285"},"modified":"2021-08-27T02:59:50","modified_gmt":"2021-08-27T07:59:50","slug":"lotr-on-prime-declares-its-ambition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2021\/08\/06\/111285-lotr-on-prime-declares-its-ambition\/","title":{"rendered":"LOTR on Prime declares its ambition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I’m certain that there was nothing in previously teased material and maps that even hints at Valinor<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s more, this single image is as much of a statement as a certain someone recently flying to the very edge of space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At first, you think: “Well, it’s another Middle-earth city. But, hey, it’s pretty cool.” You’re expecting, perhaps, Armenelos or R\u00f3menna on the island of N\u00famen\u00f3r<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And in an instant your whole worldview of the series just \u2026 changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s the Two Trees<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tree of silver and the tree of gold that are the source of all light in Valinor. That provide the light for F\u00ebanor’s Silmarils<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anything can be, this is the heart of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth mythmaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOTR on Prime has enormous ambitions and it’s not afraid to declare as much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s declaring that it’s here to challenge the Peter Jackson movies as the definitive visual depiction of Tolkien’s Middle-earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s declaring that it has the talent, technology and resources, and access to the necessary source material.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think, above all, LOTR on Prime is declaring to Tolkien fans that it doesn’t want to be underestimated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s declaring that it’s not simply making a Game of Thrones clone for the mass market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, on the other hand\u2026 this is real. Real, tangible proof that we’re on a journey to somewhere special.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strap in, kids, we’re about to blast off into space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOTR on Prime has enormous ambitions for its tv series, and a single image has shown us that it’s unafraid to declare it’s shooting for the stars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":111280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3127,3119,331],"tags":[3292,3680,3679,3599],"class_list":["post-111285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-amazon-studios","category-amazon-tv-series","category-greenbooks","tag-lotr-on-prime","tag-tirion","tag-two-trees","tag-valinor"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/LOTR-iPad-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-sWV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111285"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111378,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111285\/revisions\/111378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}