From books to the Big Screen ...

Read the LoTR trilogy and the Hobbit every summer as a kid. Read the Silmarillion twice. Hated what Jackson did with movies (insert nerd rant), and was upset with the edits in the Hobbit to add more action (and make 3 GD films).

With that in mind, I could see a Middle Earth TV series doing well. There are far fewer fervent fans (hehe alliteration is fun) of the Sil, so any licenses the story writers took wouldn't be as ridiculed. With the amount of information available, you could easily run 10 20 episode seasons and not touch 30% of the text. Focus in on a few famous bloodlines, with lesser roles coming in as needed for seasons. By shows end, you've run through hundreds of years of Middle Earth lore. New main cast members every few seasons so no casting budget issues as the 'stars' demand more money to stay on.

Assisi":33algwos said:

Well ... depends on how much imagination you have ...
A very good scenarist can transform the "history textbooks" into a masterpiece. The rest is there ... Very nice cosmogony, good vs evil, big fights, heroes and antiheroes, etc.
And as most of those that have seen LOTR Trilogy never read the books, there would be many that would watch Silmarillion movies/ series.
Regarding the need to flesh out 70% of the books content ... look at Game of Thrones and it's a succes.

All the best!!!

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Granted, and I have an excellent imagination... Lol it is just compared to the main novels it is clear the Sim and other books were not meant to be released as novels, but background... And at least Sim was an actual finished product... The others? Shudders... Christopher was not his father... Even if all he did, supposedly, was collate the notes his father had written... I tend to think some of that was created out of while cloth by the son to further the family finances. But that is merely my opinion and I could be wrong.

feldon":2e10pud8 said:

Read the LoTR trilogy and the Hobbit every summer as a kid. Read the Silmarillion twice. Hated what Jackson did with movies (insert nerd rant), and was upset with the edits in the Hobbit to add more action (and make 3 GD films).

With that in mind, I could see a Middle Earth TV series doing well. There are far fewer fervent fans (hehe alliteration is fun) of the Sil, so any licenses the story writers took wouldn't be as ridiculed. With the amount of information available, you could easily run 10 20 episode seasons and not touch 30% of the text. Focus in on a few famous bloodlines, with lesser roles coming in as needed for seasons. By shows end, you've run through hundreds of years of Middle Earth lore. New main cast members every few seasons so no casting budget issues as the 'stars' demand more money to stay on.

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A few of the longer lived races would have characters spanning a lot of that depending on what and how the script writers did it... And of course they would need to pay all sorts of royalties to the Tolkien foundation... They received a ton from the movies in royalties

Granted you could have elves played by the same character thru the series, and yes there would be royalties, but it seemed to work out for Martin and GoT. I was only pointing out that most long running series end up having to deal w increased contracts for the 'stars'. The two biggest killers for shows that make it past 5 years is story content and casting. Sim seems to eliminate these challenges.

And I'm totally cool with the Tolkien family making money. JRR provided my childhood an amazing gift of imagination and wonder. Even if the Chris and the rest are a bunch of Sack-Ville Bagginses.

feldon":3tr2e7cx said:

Granted you could have elves played by the same character thru the series, and yes there would be royalties, but it seemed to work out for Martin and GoT. I was only pointing out that most long running series end up having to deal w increased contracts for the 'stars'. The two biggest killers for shows that make it past 5 years is story content and casting. Sim seems to eliminate these challenges.

And I'm totally cool with the Tolkien family making money. JRR provided my childhood an amazing gift of imagination and wonder. Even if the Chris and the rest are a bunch of Sack-Ville Bagginses.

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LOL indeed... And I am not trying to shoot down the idea... I would love to see it done well...

Aalandryll":1ycpjmnm said:

Christopher was not his father... Even if all he did, supposedly, was collate the notes his father had written... I tend to think some of that was created out of while cloth by the son to further the family finances. But that is merely my opinion and I could be wrong.

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Many times in life we choose between having/trusting nothing or having/trusting something nice,interesting, plausible but can be (in part) fake. Silmarillion is too good to bother so much if it's JRR or not. And anyone created Ainulindale or the story and maps of the Middle Earth deserves credit.

Same story with the Saga of Dune.
I read the six books about 15 years ago but the ending left me unfinished. The cliffhanger was there and I was sure that Herbert didn't managed to finish it (btw ... Hope GRRM will do it). I found out quite late that Brian Herbert ( his son! again) wrote "Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune". There were many comments that Brian's ending is not what Frank Herbert planned but I read the books anyway. And I am happy about it because it's logic, plausible and a better ending than those that I conceived (when I had nothing)

feldon":x3fiv378 said:

Read the LoTR trilogy and the Hobbit every summer as a kid. Read the Silmarillion twice. Hated what Jackson did with movies (insert nerd rant), and was upset with the edits in the Hobbit to add more action (and make 3 GD films).

With that in mind, I could see a Middle Earth TV series doing well. There are far fewer fervent fans (hehe alliteration is fun) of the Sil, so any licenses the story writers took wouldn't be as ridiculed. With the amount of information available, you could easily run 10 20 episode seasons and not touch 30% of the text. Focus in on a few famous bloodlines, with lesser roles coming in as needed for seasons. By shows end, you've run through hundreds of years of Middle Earth lore. New main cast members every few seasons so no casting budget issues as the 'stars' demand more money to stay on.

Click to expand...

I would love it, but it's unlikely that we'll ever see the Middle Earth the way you or me want it, until January 1st 2044 (Tolkien works will go public domain then).