LOTRonPrime Vanity Fair Analysis!

On February 10, Vanity Fair released an article with a countdown so fans were all awaiting and speculating anticipating what’s going to come with the Amazon LOTRonPrime Series. After it finally acquires a name, and the 23 posters were released earlier in the week, (earlier this week at time of posting) we are starting to know more about the series. 

Yes, not EVERYTHING yet of course. 

But now we know that it’s not based on the Silmarillion, but more so based on the Appendices in Lord of the Rings. And this was also indicated in the article. We also now know there will be five seasons. 

This and most other snippets seem to be centered around Galadriel, the elven queen. She will be played by Morfydd Clark in the adaptations. As she is thousands of years younger, portrayed as a young lady fighting for the future. 

“Tolkien never wrote…”

Then, there will be 22 stars and multiple story lines, and their creations will be the main focus in the series. However, this last sentence from one of the show runners, Mr. McKay, kind of concerned me quite a bit: he asks,

“Can we come up with the novel Tolkien never wrote and do it as the mega-event series that could only happen now?”

I’m a little worried that it implies it’ll go in a direction that strays far away from the source and lose the essence of the characters. 

I don’t mind changes as long as it remained…

We will see some familiar characters we will be able to recognize from reading Tolkien, and some made-up characters that are entirely new to the legendarium and made up for the sake of the series.

Then, we see a brief overview of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and their respective movies, and how Christopher Tolkien took the reins of the estate. 

Characters

Elrond

We also get a glimpse of Robert Aramayo, who will be playing Elrond in this series. He was born in England, and is most known for playing Eddard Stark in the Game of Thrones.

Bronwyn

Then, we are introduced to Bronwyn, a new character – who is played by Nazanin Boniadi, who has a forbidden love, Arondir, played by Ismael Cruz Córdova. 

I don’t really take issue yet with the new characters. The elf/mortal romance was something that sort of irked me, but movies and viewers love to incorporate and see – forbidden love stories especially in the realm of Middle-earth, the Elf/mortal romances. Much like Kili and Tauriel in The Hobbit movies, Bronwyn and Arondir go through a forbidden love. 

But it’s also a decision that Tolkien reserved for certain characters, and in my opinion was a little overdone in films. 

Based on the name, it seems in my opinion still true to Tolkien, since it has a Welsh background. And Welsh was one of the influences in his Elvish languages, which was actually his main driving force of his legendarium. It’s also a very common female first name in real life.

Time Compression

While I didn’t care as much about the characters, I was deeply concerned that they would be trying to compress thousands of years all in the span of 100 years, as I thought this would eliminate the significance of the Numenorean lifespans. Especially since the difference in lifespans of the Elves and Men were the main things leading to the Downfall of Númenor. 

But we can also say that on the other hand, Lord of the Rings cut 17 years out of its timeline from the books, and it turned out okay. But this might be more than the 17 years they chose to leave out. 

But I wonder if they meant they were doing more of a time leap than a time compress, though we’re not really sure how this time compression would work in the first place.

I also have just been agonizing over the time compression – as sure Lord of the Rings did it, but I actually sometimes wonder what would’ve happened if they made it clear that there was a 17 year gap – well they don’t have to include events from there but at least mention there was one, making it more of a time leap. 

LOTRonPrime: The bottom line

Many worry that it’ll end up like other shows, in that LOTRonPrime will end up not associating with Tolkien’s vision. However, we don’t know this yet. With this part though, I think it’s best to just wait and see. As the last half of the article mainly deals with common concerns of the series. 

Personally I don’t really take issue with the pictures or the characters, but it’s more about the direction they’re taking with the lore. 

I want to be optimistic of what the series is going to entail, but after starting to know more and more about it, it’s getting harder and harder to keep the hope. 

But knowing it’s not really based on The Silmarillion sort of helped me ease some concerns quite a bit. That way I won’t have to expect it to be true to the Silmarillion, though I would’ve wanted it to be that way in the first place. 

One tip I’ve heard would be to view the books and movies as separate entities. 

But it’s definitely hard, as we love what came before it, and want it to come out well without straying too much from what Tolkien created.

Thanks for watching and stay tuned for the trailer review…until next time.