making lord of the rings gollum actor in cold water

That show remains sight unseen by this writer, and clearly there is a desire there for fidelity to Tolkien’s work, at least insofar as pulling strictly from the Lord of the Rings appendices will allow (and the admittedly IP-conscious need for the series to be a direct prequel to the events of Lord of the Rings instead of maybe something more original set in the world of Middle-earth).īut whether The Rings of Power sinks or swims, it is the result of a deliberate negotiation between Amazon and the Tolkien estate, and one that began even before Christopher’s passing. Tolkien’s books were never the sacred texts his son and likeminded fans espoused, they also deserve more reverence than the current trends explored by media companies who are always on the lookout to expand a story’s “universe” until its narrative has the vastness of an ocean… and often the depth of a puddle.įor the record, this is not a critique of Amazon’s upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power television series.

As a consequence, Christopher’s disdain became a source of bemusement to many Lord of the Rings fans.īarely two years after the Christopher’s death in January 2020, however, that same cynicism toward the industrialized forces of IP-exploitation is beginning to look prescient. Tolkien through those movies-and movies that, for whatever concessions were made to blockbuster filmmaking, still had a slavish devotion for Tolkien’s text. As late as 2013, he was still lamenting that “they eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25.” This is arguably too dismissive by half of a younger generation who learned to love the work of his father J.R.R. Christopher Tolkien, the ever watchful son of his father’s legacy, strongly disliked Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies.

Making lord of the rings gollum actor in cold water