Why TV Is Wrong for Tolkien
Amazon’s series The Rings of Power hasn’t gotten great reviews and Evan Puschak hypothesizes that, unlike movies, TV is not the right medium to tell Tolkien’s stories.
I’m skeptical that the Lord of the Rings, or any other story from Tolkien’s mythology, can really work as a TV series. It’s a square peg round hole situation. TV as a form just doesn’t play to the strengths of Tolkien’s vision.
Comments 5
thread
latest
popular
Aaahhhh very good! I have been wondering why I cannot come to love the series, whereas I really love the films. The video provides a very good explanation.
Yeah, that tracks. I'm not much of a Tolkien fan but I really liked Morfydd Clark's Galadriel in season 1, it seems because she was written and played as a flawed, driven novelistic character. I'm watching season 2 and wondering where that character went as she's subsumed into torpid exposition hell.
This is a weird take and the title is misleading. The medium is not the same as the message. He's essentially criticizing psychological character development for epic novels adapted to screen. Portraying as three 2-1/2 hour movies (i.e. the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit) as opposed of eight 1 hour episodes (i.e Rings of Power season 1, season 2, etc) doesn't make the story itself better or worse.
I *think* his point is TV series's tend to be open ended and traditionally don't embrace a terminal conclusion, whereas movies tend to have solid endings. But that's traditional rather than inherent to the medium. But maybe the dominant tradition is the thing.
Cannot see the weird take nor the misleading title. His argument is not that the story is made better or worse, but that for this particular type of story the adaption to one medium works much better than to the other.
Hello! In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to comment or fave, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation.
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!