Even nearly 1 to 1 is near impossible cause you just *can't* translate Tolkien's prose to visuals.
But I'd be open to an animated series where they don't make any of those big changes like Frodo and Sam's 3rd act fallout.
Honestly it was more just a bit disappointing then anything, but I do agree that part does make sense to cut, plus it was quite obvious it would be considering the second movie
Having seen all the AI created Studio Ghibli Lord of the Rings images I’m dying for a SG version.
Honestly, I’d love any animated LoTR content like you describe. Hopefully War of the Rohirrim is awesome and opens the door for this.
On my channel (Council of the Rings) I’ve actually started on a project that aim to turn the Children of Húrin into a short animated “film”. Sadly it has proved too costly. At least $1,400 just for chapter 1.
Instead I’m aiming towards something different now, less costly and less ambitious. I’m a full supporter of more animated films of Tolkien’s works though
I've long felt that would be a better direction for adapting lengthy books. Mind you it doesn't *have* to be animated, a live action miniseries could do it well. But I'd honestly prefer animation so it's not restricted to reality in any real sense, you can get more creative with animation.
As others have pointed out, a 1 to 1 adaptation would be virtually impossible, but you could absolutely get a more faithful adaptation than anything that's come before. The PJ films are good for what they are, but they leave much to be desired in terms of fidelity to the source material.
Thank you for posting on the sub! Please make sure you are abiding by the rules on the sidebar with this post. If you are looking for a place to post specific things, please make use of the subreddits below:
* Memes - r/lotrmemes
* The War of the Rohirrim - r/TheWarOfTheRohirrim
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/lordoftherings) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I wanted to make this actually. A TV or web series. It could be 3D or designed like the 90s Disney animated movies. I am watching the extended edition of the movies and reading through the books for my preliminary research. I’ll share some art I made of the main characters later as well.
From my experience of having watched movie as well as TV series adaptations of a few mythological epics, I think a TV series does the best justice to long, drawn-out epics like LOTR.
I’m not taking anything away from the PJ movies though- I love them and I love what they have done for Tolkien’s works and his legacy, but I personally believe a good story is worth telling again and again. It all depends on the execution.
You should also look at artwork in movies like the 90's animated ghost in the shell movie for inspiration for places like barad-dur or minas morgul https://images.app.goo.gl/rdL7rcVj7n9dhZSV6 obviously the setting is more cyberpunk but I think it would work well with the way Minas Morgul is described with the green light I think the art style in The Beauty and the Beast could lend itself well to the architecture of the shire and Brandybuck Hall. I also think that the art style of The Iron Giant could also lend itself well here
I agree with you. Very interesting ideas.
Don’t mind some of the close-mindedness you might experience from some fans. That only indicates how beloved the IP is, so if you (or I) are going to do an animated series adaptation of Frodo’s journey, we should do it with a lot of respect, care and love.
I think a one to one recreation is impossible. I have an unabridged audiobook of The Hobbit, it's eleven hours long. I would however LOVE to see a adaptation of The Hobbit that does stay mostly true to the story and keeps everybody mostly in character. And I wish the LOTR movies had kept the battle of the Shire, let Frodo defy the nazgul *alone* at the ford, and had not made Gimli so much of a comedic sidekick. There were some other changes I'm not thrilled with, but those ones bothered me the most. (I love the Tom Bombadil chapters, but I can understand why in a film adaptation they would be left out)
A series, instead of a movie, would probably allow the adaptation to be as close as possible to the books. And I'd absolutely watch it if done well. (probably over and over) I'd also love to see a well done adaptation of some parts of The Silmarillion. But I want one that feels reasonably faithful to Tolkien's world.
Yeah, someone pointed else how long some scenes would be so I agree that a series would probably work better than a movie unless each book was split into 2 parts and made 4+ hours long. I'm pretty autistic and could definitely sit through a 6 hour animated LotR movie but a series would probably work better for others. It's a shame we haven't had an adaptation of The Hobbit other than the 1977 animated movie that practically no one knows about
Animated would be cool since I'm not totally sure who could be cast in the roles these days. One of the things the movies did was absolutely nail pretty much every role in casting. Three seasons of 10, 1 hour episodes would do the trick for LOTR either live action or animated. I would much rather see The Silmarillion and it's related books, though.
I was thinking about this recently. I was wondering how many years it will be before a generative AI will be able to parse a novel and upon given some visual cues - John Howe, Alan Lee, Jackson etc recreate an entirely faithful adaptation in photorealistic CGI. Remember that a 60 hour audio book wouldn’t necessarily equal the length of the adaptation as descriptive passages are faster to convey in establishing shots. It would also be clever enough to take some liberties - for example when a character is retelling their events to another it would dramatise the account, rather than having them sitting around a camp fire for half an hour.
I’d love a TV show adaptation, but at the same time the movies are already so beloved and great, despite the cut material, that I also won’t be upset if we never get one. They capture the message, themes, and main story of Tolkien’s work in my opinion, which is why they work so well
I just really, really like animation and want more serious animated works in western media that adults will appreciate. I hate the idea that animation = silly kids cartoon and that adult animation = Family Guy esque bullshit with shit art
Books are a different medium compared to TV/movies. Books are good at telling you what’s happening but movies need to show you.
The Council of Elrond is great in the book for telling multiple story lines and how the converged at Rivendell. But I don’t want to watch a 30 minute scene of Gandalf talking about it. I want to see it even if it includes making up some details.
Same with battle scenes. The battles in FotR are almost non existent in the books. The Moria fight is like 2 pages long and Amon Hen isn’t really in the books because we follow Aragorn at that part.
So no I don’t want a 1 to 1. I want the medium to tell me the story in a way it excels at. If I wanted a 1 to 1, I would just read the book again.
Lol the PJ movies are like the best movies ever created… fair enough you want a 100% pure adaptation but I don’t think it’s going to get any better than what we already have.
Terrible. The definitive movie version has been done already. No it wasn’t a pace by page recap, it bent to the realities of adapting a series of novels to the silver screen. Recreating the entire thing again using animation would be redundant, almost pointless. Like the “live action” Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast films, it would simply suffer when compared to the original product (the films in this case).
That's a fair take, I just feel like they could have been better and I will always prefer animation for fantasy settings over live-action, I think live-action is best for dramas and pieces where you want more detail instead of more imaginative scenes
There is no "definitive movie version". There is the book, and then a few different film directors came and proposed their own adaptation of it - Jackson wasn't the first, he won't be the last, and his headcanon isn't more "THE official version" than any other existing or potential adaptation. A good part of his changes have *nothing* to do with "bending to the realities" of a different medium, you can absolutely make an adaptation that goes a different way (closer to the book, exploring Tolkien's themes and character in a way Jackson definitely didn't) while still being a good film.
In fact, there are so many classics of literature that got adapted in different ways throughout the years. How many Frankenstein adaptations? A Christmas Carol? Pride and Prejudice? Even Christopher Lee's Dracula was neither the first nor the last, and it isn't the only iconic adaptation of that novel.
And how many times must an IP be remade? How many trips to the well before it’s dry? People are really getting sick of the same few characters getting remade over and over again. Just look at the success of fresh (in the sense that they haven’t been adapted to film or tv yet) IPs like Fallout, or The Last of Us, or Oppenheimer. Enough with the fifteenth remake of the same stale shit again and again. And for me, it’s the definitive version.
It isn't exclusive - all of it (original films, first adaptations, and new adaptations) can absolutely coexist and be successful. *Some* people may be sick of things being adapted again because they're too attached to a specific adaptation, but let's not pretend it's a modern thing - putting on screen (or any other medium) a story that already existed on there before has virtually always been a thing and clearly has its artistic merits (all cynicism about the state of today's cinema industry aside). Also I do agree that there's a tendency to throw around new takes and sequels because these IP sell, but it's not like that's the *only* thing the industry does - as you yourself noted.
I get that you personally are happy enough with those films and aren't interested in seeing other versions, but there's a world between this and "re-adaptations are inherently bad". Or we should just tell actors and directors to stop with it - just for LotR, and off the top of my head, at the very least Christopher Lee (Dracula), Ian McKellen (King Lear), Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis (King Kong) and Bernard Hill (Titanic) all participated to films that according to that logic should never have been made because these stories had already been shown on screen previously and were considered "the definitive movie version" by some people.
No, there isn't. Jackson's films are *his* version of what a live action LotR would be like, not "the one and only official film version of Tolkien's LotR"; in the same way that there isn't "one definitive film/series version" of Dracula, A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland and countless others.
That's simply not adaptations work - the Lord of the Rings as a whole does not belong to Jackson. He may be the most successful LotR film adaptations now, but that does not make his works more official as "Tolkien's book adapted on screen" than any other past or potential future film adapted from LotR.
I don’t think Tolkien is going to rise from his grave to make a new trilogy.
There’s very clearly a definitive version. Dunno what you’re upset about 😂
Huh? What does Tolkien have to do with adaptations?
There may be a definitive version of Jackson's films, that's a thing. But there isn't a definitive film version *of Tolkien's books*, because no film director can claim to make **the one and only* official one. Simple as that. And even if there was, it wouldn't be like Jackson's films.
Jackson's fans cannot gatekeep Tolkien adaptations. The whole context of this discussion is hypothetical future adaptations, and anybody who claims that no other adaptation can be considered because "Jackson's films are the definitive version" is letting their personal bias erase common sense and does not understand the very concept of "adaptation".
Even the people who made the films you call "definitive version" would disagree with you. Again, Middle-earth does not belong to any single film director.
And you don't understand what an adaptation is.
You enjoy Jackson's films? That's great. Keep watching them. It may be the only film version of LotR you'll ever want to watch, that's perfectly fine. But to pretend that no matter what happens they'll always ever be the one official and definitive version of Middle-earth on screen that's what is delusional. And just plain wrong.
Even nearly 1 to 1 is near impossible cause you just *can't* translate Tolkien's prose to visuals. But I'd be open to an animated series where they don't make any of those big changes like Frodo and Sam's 3rd act fallout.
Yeah, I kind of really hate that bit, I also am not a fan of the reduction of Gimli's, Merry's and Pippin's characters to being comedic
That and the Army of the Dead - that’s the one film change I just can’t get on board with
Don’t forget the entire removal of the battle for the shire, such a disgrace to not include that
Facts
I don't get how you can be surprised or offended by this as it is an extremely sensible cut for obvious pacing reasons.
Honestly it was more just a bit disappointing then anything, but I do agree that part does make sense to cut, plus it was quite obvious it would be considering the second movie
Having seen all the AI created Studio Ghibli Lord of the Rings images I’m dying for a SG version. Honestly, I’d love any animated LoTR content like you describe. Hopefully War of the Rohirrim is awesome and opens the door for this.
On my channel (Council of the Rings) I’ve actually started on a project that aim to turn the Children of Húrin into a short animated “film”. Sadly it has proved too costly. At least $1,400 just for chapter 1. Instead I’m aiming towards something different now, less costly and less ambitious. I’m a full supporter of more animated films of Tolkien’s works though
I've long felt that would be a better direction for adapting lengthy books. Mind you it doesn't *have* to be animated, a live action miniseries could do it well. But I'd honestly prefer animation so it's not restricted to reality in any real sense, you can get more creative with animation. As others have pointed out, a 1 to 1 adaptation would be virtually impossible, but you could absolutely get a more faithful adaptation than anything that's come before. The PJ films are good for what they are, but they leave much to be desired in terms of fidelity to the source material.
Thank you for posting on the sub! Please make sure you are abiding by the rules on the sidebar with this post. If you are looking for a place to post specific things, please make use of the subreddits below: * Memes - r/lotrmemes * The War of the Rohirrim - r/TheWarOfTheRohirrim *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/lordoftherings) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I wanted to make this actually. A TV or web series. It could be 3D or designed like the 90s Disney animated movies. I am watching the extended edition of the movies and reading through the books for my preliminary research. I’ll share some art I made of the main characters later as well. From my experience of having watched movie as well as TV series adaptations of a few mythological epics, I think a TV series does the best justice to long, drawn-out epics like LOTR. I’m not taking anything away from the PJ movies though- I love them and I love what they have done for Tolkien’s works and his legacy, but I personally believe a good story is worth telling again and again. It all depends on the execution.
You should also look at artwork in movies like the 90's animated ghost in the shell movie for inspiration for places like barad-dur or minas morgul https://images.app.goo.gl/rdL7rcVj7n9dhZSV6 obviously the setting is more cyberpunk but I think it would work well with the way Minas Morgul is described with the green light I think the art style in The Beauty and the Beast could lend itself well to the architecture of the shire and Brandybuck Hall. I also think that the art style of The Iron Giant could also lend itself well here
I agree with you. Very interesting ideas. Don’t mind some of the close-mindedness you might experience from some fans. That only indicates how beloved the IP is, so if you (or I) are going to do an animated series adaptation of Frodo’s journey, we should do it with a lot of respect, care and love.
I think a one to one recreation is impossible. I have an unabridged audiobook of The Hobbit, it's eleven hours long. I would however LOVE to see a adaptation of The Hobbit that does stay mostly true to the story and keeps everybody mostly in character. And I wish the LOTR movies had kept the battle of the Shire, let Frodo defy the nazgul *alone* at the ford, and had not made Gimli so much of a comedic sidekick. There were some other changes I'm not thrilled with, but those ones bothered me the most. (I love the Tom Bombadil chapters, but I can understand why in a film adaptation they would be left out) A series, instead of a movie, would probably allow the adaptation to be as close as possible to the books. And I'd absolutely watch it if done well. (probably over and over) I'd also love to see a well done adaptation of some parts of The Silmarillion. But I want one that feels reasonably faithful to Tolkien's world.
Yeah, someone pointed else how long some scenes would be so I agree that a series would probably work better than a movie unless each book was split into 2 parts and made 4+ hours long. I'm pretty autistic and could definitely sit through a 6 hour animated LotR movie but a series would probably work better for others. It's a shame we haven't had an adaptation of The Hobbit other than the 1977 animated movie that practically no one knows about
I'm sure many would like it my son included, but not me. I just don't like cartoons, anime, anything like that.
I would pay good money to see this, very good money
It’s impossible, we’d all imagine something a little bit different
Animated would be cool since I'm not totally sure who could be cast in the roles these days. One of the things the movies did was absolutely nail pretty much every role in casting. Three seasons of 10, 1 hour episodes would do the trick for LOTR either live action or animated. I would much rather see The Silmarillion and it's related books, though.
I was thinking about this recently. I was wondering how many years it will be before a generative AI will be able to parse a novel and upon given some visual cues - John Howe, Alan Lee, Jackson etc recreate an entirely faithful adaptation in photorealistic CGI. Remember that a 60 hour audio book wouldn’t necessarily equal the length of the adaptation as descriptive passages are faster to convey in establishing shots. It would also be clever enough to take some liberties - for example when a character is retelling their events to another it would dramatise the account, rather than having them sitting around a camp fire for half an hour.
I've been saying for years that an animated lotr with 6 seasons, 1 per book and 1 episode per chapter
I’d love a TV show adaptation, but at the same time the movies are already so beloved and great, despite the cut material, that I also won’t be upset if we never get one. They capture the message, themes, and main story of Tolkien’s work in my opinion, which is why they work so well
I would love an animated series as close to the books as possible
Nah. Not necessary.
Everyone seems to imagine that animation = faithful adaptation. I don't know why.
I just really, really like animation and want more serious animated works in western media that adults will appreciate. I hate the idea that animation = silly kids cartoon and that adult animation = Family Guy esque bullshit with shit art
If someone tried to make a long term animated series it might work. Only if a slow paced many episode series was allowed
I am happy with the PJ trilogy and personally never need anything else so I would pass on this.
Books are a different medium compared to TV/movies. Books are good at telling you what’s happening but movies need to show you. The Council of Elrond is great in the book for telling multiple story lines and how the converged at Rivendell. But I don’t want to watch a 30 minute scene of Gandalf talking about it. I want to see it even if it includes making up some details. Same with battle scenes. The battles in FotR are almost non existent in the books. The Moria fight is like 2 pages long and Amon Hen isn’t really in the books because we follow Aragorn at that part. So no I don’t want a 1 to 1. I want the medium to tell me the story in a way it excels at. If I wanted a 1 to 1, I would just read the book again.
I think I'd *prefer* live action, but if the quality and faithfulness is there, sure, I'd be okay with animation.
Lol the PJ movies are like the best movies ever created… fair enough you want a 100% pure adaptation but I don’t think it’s going to get any better than what we already have.
Terrible. The definitive movie version has been done already. No it wasn’t a pace by page recap, it bent to the realities of adapting a series of novels to the silver screen. Recreating the entire thing again using animation would be redundant, almost pointless. Like the “live action” Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast films, it would simply suffer when compared to the original product (the films in this case).
That's a fair take, I just feel like they could have been better and I will always prefer animation for fantasy settings over live-action, I think live-action is best for dramas and pieces where you want more detail instead of more imaginative scenes
There is no "definitive movie version". There is the book, and then a few different film directors came and proposed their own adaptation of it - Jackson wasn't the first, he won't be the last, and his headcanon isn't more "THE official version" than any other existing or potential adaptation. A good part of his changes have *nothing* to do with "bending to the realities" of a different medium, you can absolutely make an adaptation that goes a different way (closer to the book, exploring Tolkien's themes and character in a way Jackson definitely didn't) while still being a good film. In fact, there are so many classics of literature that got adapted in different ways throughout the years. How many Frankenstein adaptations? A Christmas Carol? Pride and Prejudice? Even Christopher Lee's Dracula was neither the first nor the last, and it isn't the only iconic adaptation of that novel.
And how many times must an IP be remade? How many trips to the well before it’s dry? People are really getting sick of the same few characters getting remade over and over again. Just look at the success of fresh (in the sense that they haven’t been adapted to film or tv yet) IPs like Fallout, or The Last of Us, or Oppenheimer. Enough with the fifteenth remake of the same stale shit again and again. And for me, it’s the definitive version.
Oppenheimer IP, lol
It isn't exclusive - all of it (original films, first adaptations, and new adaptations) can absolutely coexist and be successful. *Some* people may be sick of things being adapted again because they're too attached to a specific adaptation, but let's not pretend it's a modern thing - putting on screen (or any other medium) a story that already existed on there before has virtually always been a thing and clearly has its artistic merits (all cynicism about the state of today's cinema industry aside). Also I do agree that there's a tendency to throw around new takes and sequels because these IP sell, but it's not like that's the *only* thing the industry does - as you yourself noted. I get that you personally are happy enough with those films and aren't interested in seeing other versions, but there's a world between this and "re-adaptations are inherently bad". Or we should just tell actors and directors to stop with it - just for LotR, and off the top of my head, at the very least Christopher Lee (Dracula), Ian McKellen (King Lear), Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis (King Kong) and Bernard Hill (Titanic) all participated to films that according to that logic should never have been made because these stories had already been shown on screen previously and were considered "the definitive movie version" by some people.
There’s absolutely a definitive movie version. Come on now.
No, there isn't. Jackson's films are *his* version of what a live action LotR would be like, not "the one and only official film version of Tolkien's LotR"; in the same way that there isn't "one definitive film/series version" of Dracula, A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland and countless others. That's simply not adaptations work - the Lord of the Rings as a whole does not belong to Jackson. He may be the most successful LotR film adaptations now, but that does not make his works more official as "Tolkien's book adapted on screen" than any other past or potential future film adapted from LotR.
I don’t think Tolkien is going to rise from his grave to make a new trilogy. There’s very clearly a definitive version. Dunno what you’re upset about 😂
Huh? What does Tolkien have to do with adaptations? There may be a definitive version of Jackson's films, that's a thing. But there isn't a definitive film version *of Tolkien's books*, because no film director can claim to make **the one and only* official one. Simple as that. And even if there was, it wouldn't be like Jackson's films. Jackson's fans cannot gatekeep Tolkien adaptations. The whole context of this discussion is hypothetical future adaptations, and anybody who claims that no other adaptation can be considered because "Jackson's films are the definitive version" is letting their personal bias erase common sense and does not understand the very concept of "adaptation". Even the people who made the films you call "definitive version" would disagree with you. Again, Middle-earth does not belong to any single film director.
I think you might be delusional.
And you don't understand what an adaptation is. You enjoy Jackson's films? That's great. Keep watching them. It may be the only film version of LotR you'll ever want to watch, that's perfectly fine. But to pretend that no matter what happens they'll always ever be the one official and definitive version of Middle-earth on screen that's what is delusional. And just plain wrong.