I’m in favor of exploring new ideas in science fiction and fantasy. And I don’t have a problem with black-skinned elves in Middle-earth. When I heard Amazon was doing a Lord of the Rings show, I thought, okay, let’s see how it goes.
Every new show goes through a period of drama with its fans. You can’t be a Star Wars fan without complaining about something. The same thing was true for Star Trek fandom. Harry Potter fans weren’t happy with Hermione getting together with Ron. Or they thought Ginny was a bad match for Harry. That’s how it goes.
So where do I draw the line? I think it comes when showrunner J.D. Payne says “what would Tolkien do?”
Come on, guys. You’re telling your own version of Middle-earth. You’re not continuing Tolkien’s vision. That vision got on the boat with him when he sailed away to the Other Lands.
Some people are upset with Amazon for condensing the whole Second Age into a 5-part drama. That’s 5 seasons, each 10 episodes long. But all the action takes place in a short period of time. It’s not going to last thousands of years like in the book.
Okay, that takes a little getting used to. But my dad told me that people were angry about how The Longest Day condensed events from D-Day. They took a lot of liberties in 1962, and people were upset, because the movie didn’t “do it right.”
I guess that upset a whole generation of WWII buffs. They thought it could be done right. And in 1998 Steven Spielberg proved you could make a realistic D-Day movie with Saving Private Ryan. I heard real veterans had to get up and walk out of the theaters because the movie brought up bad memories for them.
To bring this back to Middle-earth, I think where J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay are going wrong is they’re trying to make it sound like this is really Middle-earth. It’s a school play with a $100 million budget. It’s not what Tolkien would do. He had a chance to make a movie in his day and he backed off from it. He decided it couldn’t be done.
And maybe in 1965 it couldn’t be done. Maybe we had to wait for Peter Jackson to make The Lord of the Rings so everyone could see how it should be done. But then, Jackson’s movies aren’t very like the books. I don’t remember Legolas sliding around on elephant trunks in the books. It was a cool shot and all, but there are things they do in these productions that you don’t get in the books.
Saruman’s orcs didn’t come out of pods in the books.
And Tolkien’s elves don’t have pointy ears. Why do people always put pointy ears on these elves? Where in the books did anyone find a description of an elf with pointy ears? Legolas and Elrond should file lawsuits against Tolkien because they didn’t get the cool Vulcan ear look from him.
I know you’re thinking, hey, what is everything Amazon is doing wrong with Middle-earth? Well, think about it. They’re saying they’re doing it the way Tolkien would have done it. I think that’s going way out on a limb.
Maybe they should have stuck to the three-thousand-year plus timeline. I think Tolkien would have preferred that. I don’t think he would have cared about a dark-skinned wood elf. He probably wouldn’t have cared about including hobbit ancestors. But he would have said, “You kids are having fun with my ideas. That’s nice. But it’s your story, not mine.”
J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay should man up and admit they’re not making Tolkien’s Middle-earth. They’re writing fan fiction. I hope it’s good fan fiction.