Lord of the Rings is by far my favorite book series and favorite film trilogy of all time. I grew up with Tolkien’s writings, and they hold a special place for me personally. I recently had the joy of sitting with two of my older children and watching the entire Lord of the Rings extended edition trilogy, and it was every bit as good as the first three times I watched it.
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
That being said, Amazon has announced it will debut its Lord of the Rings TV series on September 2nd of this year, and from what I can tell, it’s garnering mixed reactions. I’ve read a few mainstream outlets claiming that fans are excited and raving about the series, but I think that’s a little misleading.
I’m not going to go into the different sides of the argument, but it boils down to Amazon may not be staying true to the source material for its Lord of the Rings series. The company may be taking some freedoms and changing characters and adding storylines that aren’t present in Tolkien’s books.
I’m certainly not against filmmakers taking some artistic freedom in massaging the source material to make a better film. I think that sometimes it needs to be done for the book to translate to film better. But I draw the line at adding material that’s not something Tolkien even mentioned or conceived of. One reviewer claims that Amazon would make the series more like Game of Thrones, which would be a real shame because the two worlds couldn’t be more different.
I’m not ready to make a judgment call on Amazon’s version of Lord of the Rings, and I will start watching it when it drops. Time and fans’ reactions, not the critics, will tell if this TV series will be worth it.
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