War of the Rohirrim: LOTR prequel anime

[pendell]

As seen (https://deadline.com/2021/06/lord-of-the-rings-anime-film-the-war-of-the-rohirrim-new-line-1234773024/). Apparently the director who gave us Ghost in the Shell is directing "War of the Rohirrim", an anime prequel to Lord of the Rings.

I love anime and I know Kenji Kamiyama isn't a dragon ball Z director. All the same, I somehow can't help imagining LOTR being overrun by anime tropes.

Still, it does explain why Gandalf came back after Moria; that wasn't his final form :smallamused:

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Keltest]

I'd kind of like to know why somebody looks at a bunch of anglo-saxons on horses and goes "yes! This should be in an anime style!"

Beyond that, i guess im kind of cynical of anybody making any LOTR stuff right now as an attempt to cash in on Amazon's temporary raised awareness of the setting. Maybe it will be good, but i cant help but think that LOTR style grounded fantasy wont cooperate well with Anime.

[pendell]

I'd kind of like to know why somebody looks at a bunch of anglo-saxons on horses and goes "yes! This should be in an anime style!"

Beyond that, i guess im kind of cynical of anybody making any LOTR stuff right now as an attempt to cash in on Amazon's temporary raised awareness of the setting. Maybe it will be good, but i cant help but think that LOTR style grounded fantasy wont cooperate well with Anime.

What? You're saying the nine Nazgul combining into one gigantic Uber-Nazgul (Nazgul Ultima?) is not in keeping with the spirit of JRR Tolkien?
Or a thirty second stock transformation when Frodo puts on the ring, complete with costume change?
Or the Eagles being able to change into human form as high school girls, complete with anachronistic sailor outfits?
Or Minas Tirith turning into a giant mecha when the armies of Mordor approach?

C'mon, Tolkien would TOTALLY go for it, were he not spinning in his grave so fast a connected turbine could power a small city.

Tongue-in-cheek ,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

Honestly after the Hobbit movies, the Shadow of Morder/Shadow of War games*, and probably some other terrible things I'm forgetting, I'm going to suspect all giant corporation produced LoTR media as at least one of


terrible on its own merits
a rip-off of something else
completely missing the point


until it proves itself otherwise. The pen and paper RPGs are good, but those are niche enough they can laser focus on being, you know, Lord of the Rings, instead of a generic fantasy thing with highly marketable characters.

*I will not forgive sexy Shelob. Ever.

[Lord Raziere]

I mean.....

if they adapted the Silmarillion as an anime instead, I think there'd be no problems about the accuracy of the portrayal.

as it is, I can see Rohirrim being told like a samurai story though. who is Helm Hammerhand......apparently he is a guy who canonically fought barehanded, and thats where he gets the last name. oh. well this makes a lot more sense now. and that this wasn't a one time thing, he slaw MANY people with his bare hands....and yeah judging from what I'm reading of Helm, this isn't going to be happy anime with all that nonsense you guys are joking about.

basically? think less "heroic knight with cool anime swordplay defends his kingdom" and more "Rip and Tear Until it is Done With Dunlandings".

[Dienekes]

Honestly after the Hobbit movies, the Shadow of Morder/Shadow of War games*, and probably some other terrible things I'm forgetting, I'm going to suspect all giant corporation produced LoTR media as at least one of


terrible on its own merits
a rip-off of something else
completely missing the point


until it proves itself otherwise. The pen and paper RPGs are good, but those are niche enough they can laser focus on being, you know, Lord of the Rings, instead of a generic fantasy thing with highly marketable characters.

*I will not forgive sexy Shelob. Ever.

I'm kind of with you here. Maybe it will be good. Maybe I'll enjoy it.

But I am suspicious.

[Rynjin]

A lot of this thread sounds like people are still stuck in the 90s interpretation of what anime can be. Which was always wrong, but it's odd to still see it held onto in this thread.

I'd be less worried about the show being "too steeped in anime tropes" and more Kenji Kamiyama crawling up his own ass like he always does. Giving Kamiyama the rights to LotR stuff is kind of like giving them to Christopher Nolan.

[Zevox]

*I will not forgive sexy Shelob. Ever.
I'm sorry, what?

*googles this*

What?! :smalleek:

Geez, I see I was right to skip that based on everything I heard giving me the impression it wouldn't even be trying very much to fit into LotR. Even still, good lord, that's way further afield than even I suspected.

Oh, uh, yeah, War of the Rohirrim anime. Eh, an announcement of it with virtually no details means nothing to me, I'll judge it once we have something more concrete to go on. I'm certainly not holding my breath or getting excited or anything, but there's always the possibility this is a case where they'll do a decent job, until we see evidence otherwise.

[Mechalich]

I'd be less worried about the show being "too steeped in anime tropes" and more Kenji Kamiyama crawling up his own ass like he always does. Giving Kamiyama the rights to LotR stuff is kind of like giving them to Christopher Nolan.

He's not writing it though. It's being written by two Americans and produced by New Line. I think it will be fairly restrained for all that.

Personally, I'd be more worried about Sola Entertainment as the animation studio. Their work list (http://sola-ent.com/works/) is somewhat underwhelming and there's nothing on it that suggests an appropriate style for animating Middle Earth. 3d animation seems the obvious choice to present large armies in animation, and they do have experience there, but that sort of thing always looks very glossy, suitable for futuristic settings not the earthiness of Rohan (on a technical note, Rohan is a grassland, and 3d animation and grass do not mix well).

[Rynjin]

He's not writing it though. It's being written by two Americans and produced by New Line. I think it will be fairly restrained for all that.

Personally, I'd be more worried about Sola Entertainment as the animation studio. Their work list (http://sola-ent.com/works/) is somewhat underwhelming and there's nothing on it that suggests an appropriate style for animating Middle Earth. 3d animation seems the obvious choice to present large armies in animation, and they do have experience there, but that sort of thing always looks very glossy, suitable for futuristic settings not the earthiness of Rohan (on a technical note, Rohan is a grassland, and 3d animation and grass do not mix well).

Oof. Yeah, a lot of the things on that list are NOTORIOUSLY bad, like SAC 2045 and that godawful Ultraman show I tried an episode of. Here's a snippet from SAC 2045 BTW.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/FailingAnxiousHalcyon-max-1mb.gif

[Fyraltari]

Honestly, I'm more confused about the subject matter than anuthing else. The history of Rohan has got to be the most mundane part of the Lengendarium. No magic, no elves, no dwarves, barely no orcs. Just a bunch of Anglo-Saxon cosplayers fighting a bunch of Celt cosplayers and the occasional Magyar cosplayer.
No great "Good vs Evil" affairs either.
As part of a larger thing focusing on the Third Age, sure, why not? But on its own? This isn't really what people go to Middle-Earth for in my opinion.

I'd kind of like to know why somebody looks at a bunch of anglo-saxons on horses and goes "yes! This should be in an anime style!"

Beyond that, i guess im kind of cynical of anybody making any LOTR stuff right now as an attempt to cash in on Amazon's temporary raised awareness of the setting. Maybe it will be good, but i cant help but think that LOTR style grounded fantasy wont cooperate well with Anime.

What? You're saying the nine Nazgul combining into one gigantic Uber-Nazgul (Nazgul Ultima?) is not in keeping with the spirit of JRR Tolkien?
Or a thirty second stock transformation when Frodo puts on the ring, complete with costume change?
Or the Eagles being able to change into human form as high school girls, complete with anachronistic sailor outfits?
Or Minas Tirith turning into a giant mecha when the armies of Mordor approach?

C'mon, Tolkien would TOTALLY go for it, were he not spinning in his grave so fast a connected turbine could power a small city.

Tongue-in-cheek ,

Brian P.
Oh, come on guys! This is exactly what the people who say "Comic books are all about people in spandex punching each other", "Sci-fi is about robots going beep-boop in space" and "fantasy is about teenage boys waving around magic swords on dragonback while seducing a barely dressed elf girl" are doing. Animation can tell any story.


as it is, I can see Rohirrim being told like a samurai story though. who is Helm Hammerhand......apparently he is a guy who canonically fought barehanded, and thats where he gets the last name. oh. well this makes a lot more sense now. and that this wasn't a one time thing, he slaw MANY people with his bare hands....and yeah judging from what I'm reading of Helm, this isn't going to be happy anime with all that nonsense you guys are joking about.

basically? think less "heroic knight with cool anime swordplay defends his kingdom" and more "Rip and Tear Until it is Done With Dunlandings".

Helm Hammerhand is a jackass, that's for sure. I'm fairly certain he wasn't intended as a "good guy" either.

[Lord Raziere]

Honestly, I'm more confused about the subject matter than anuthing else. The history of Rohan has got to be the most mundane part of the Lengendarium. No magic, no elves, no dwarves, barely no orcs. Just a bunch of Anglo-Saxon cosplayers fighting a bunch of Celt cosplayers and the occasional Magyar cosplayer.
No great "Good vs Evil" affairs either.
As part of a larger thing focusing on the Third Age, sure, why not? But on its own? This isn't really what people go to Middle-Earth for in my opinion.

Helm Hammerhand is a jackass, that's for sure. I'm fairly certain he wasn't intended as a "good guy" either.

1. It could be a "test the waters" thing? you make something smaller to test how well the style will do with something more grounded and easily followable. then if it does well, you move on to something bigger and flashier and cut loose. after all if immediately go big and screw up with that, well that is too much of a risk, but if you start smaller and it fails well, no one is going to miss it. its low risk with a franchise like this, something like the Silmarillion would be higher risk since its much more important lorewise, and thus be more of a loss if they start with that and screw up and thus get chewed out by the fandom.

2. from what I've read, "jackass" is putting it lightly, he sounds more like a psychotic berserker who got worse as time went on.

[Rodin]

A lot of this thread sounds like people are still stuck in the 90s interpretation of what anime can be. Which was always wrong, but it's odd to still see it held onto in this thread.

I'd be less worried about the show being "too steeped in anime tropes" and more Kenji Kamiyama crawling up his own ass like he always does. Giving Kamiyama the rights to LotR stuff is kind of like giving them to Christopher Nolan.

Are they? I've seen 3 of the parody items on Pendell's list done in the last year. All of those tropes are still going strong as far as I can tell.

I'm super skeptical they could pull this off. Anime LOTR could work with a serious and understated style. I don't see that happening, especially after all the other LOTR fanfiction has failed to understand the setting.

[Rynjin]

Are they? I've seen 3 of the parody items on Pendell's list done in the last year. All of those tropes are still going strong as far as I can tell.

Sure. By that token, every single film ever made is a superhero film, because some of those are coming out this year.

Shonen action series and giant robots are genres in a medium with just as broad of an ability to tell various stories as any other medium. And it always has been.

Series like Black Jack and Monster have always been around. Vinland Saga just came out in 2019. To Your Eternity is one of the biggest series this season.

That is, respectively, an episodic series about a skilled but unusual doctor (well predating many of the live action examples, even), a grounded thriller about a serial killer and the man who tries to stop him, a historical drama about vikings, and an ages spanning tale about an immortal being coming to know and appreciate humanity (and by extension grief and loss). These are a small smattering of the things the medium provides besides the dated stereotype.

With the people working on it, do I expect it to be a masterpiece of fiction like Vinland Saga? No. But that's not an issue with anime as a medium, it's an issue with 90% of everything being ****, and anime is no exception.

[Anonymouswizard]

*I will not forgive sexy Shelob. Ever.

Just think, if this project is a bit then we could get an anime featuring Shelob-kun!

But yeah, out me in the 'eh?' camp. It's not that I don't think it can be pulled off it's that I'm I just didn't expect it and would be worried that it just won't look right.

[Sapphire Guard]

I can't remember the story of Helm, so I have nothing to make a judgement with.

Y'all need to watch more anime, it's an animation style, not a genre.

[A.A.King]

As seen (https://deadline.com/2021/06/lord-of-the-rings-anime-film-the-war-of-the-rohirrim-new-line-1234773024/). Apparently the director who gave us Ghost in the Shell is directing "War of the Rohirrim", an anime prequel to Lord of the Rings.

I love anime and I know Kenji Kamiyama isn't a dragon ball Z director. All the same, I somehow can't help imagining LOTR being overrun by anime tropes.

Personally I think LotR could be improved with some anime tropes. At the half way point a bunch of anime school girls show up to make up for the lack of female roles. :smalltongue:


Still, it does explain why Gandalf came back after Moria; that wasn't his final form :smallamused:

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I always thought of that moment as more of a Pokemon reference than a DBZ reference.

Frodo Encounters a Wild Balrog
Frodo sent out Gandalf the Grey to fight
Gandalf uses Fire Spin
Wild Balrog fainted
Gandalf gained EXP
What's this? Gandalf is evolving!
Gandalf the Grey has turned into Gandalf the White

[Fyraltari]

1. It could be a "test the waters" thing? you make something smaller to test how well the style will do with something more grounded and easily followable. then if it does well, you move on to something bigger and flashier and cut loose. after all if immediately go big and screw up with that, well that is too much of a risk, but if you start smaller and it fails well, no one is going to miss it. its low risk with a franchise like this, something like the Silmarillion would be higher risk since its much more important lorewise, and thus be more of a loss if they start with that and screw up and thus get chewed out by the fandom.
That would make sense, but I suspect another reason. Most of the history of Rohan (including Helm's rule) is told in the Appendices to the Lord of the Ring which means that New Line already has secured the adaptation rights, unlike for the Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales whose rights are still firmly controlled by the Tolkien Estate.


2. from what I've read, "jackass" is putting it lightly, he sounds more like a psychotic berserker who got worse as time went on.
I'd have to re-read that bit once I get home, but if memory serves, he was more of a racist brute than a berserker. It's not like he charged the ennemy camp alone or anything. And he seems to have tolerated Freca's disrespect for a while.

[GloatingSwine]

C'mon, Tolkien would TOTALLY go for it, were he not spinning in his grave so fast a connected turbine could power a small city.


I doubt any of that would add more than half an rpm to his existing spin, given what's already happened with the franchise. I mean we got hot lady Shelob in one of the videogames (because videogames).


Just think, if this project is a bit then we could get an anime featuring Shelob-kun!


https://blog.lootcrate.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/tenor-57.gif

(Actually, it's awesome)

[Brother Oni]

Y'all need to watch more anime, it's an animation style, not a genre.

Unfortunately shonen is a genre.

That said, there's a decent chance of it turning out not a complete disaster - the Kingdom anime is reasonable interpretation of the manga which covers the Warring States period of China and features (lots of) bronze age technology battles between massed armies.

Shifting it forwards a thousand-plus years to the Saxon era shouldn't be too much of a jump.

[Rynjin]

Unfortunately shonen is a genre.



Shonen is also not a genre, it is a target audience. Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, Great Teacher Onizuka, Bakuman, The Promised Neverland, and Death Note are all shonen.

[Sapphire Guard]

I don't see 'shonen' in the press release anywhere.


I mean we got hot lady Shelob in one of the videogames (because videogames).

Which one was that?

[GloatingSwine]

Which one was that?

Shadow of War. (The one that also had lootboxes full of orcs).

[Sapphire Guard]

...huh. Wasn't that the one that had

Celebrimbor use the ring to hide from Sauron in Mount Doom, which in the book was the best way to indicate your location to him?

Saw some Shadow of Mordor on Youtube, seemed like a good game.

[GloatingSwine]

...huh. Wasn't that the one that had

Celebrimbor use the ring to hide from Sauron in Mount Doom, which in the book was the best way to indicate your location to him?

Saw some Shadow of Mordor on Youtube, seemed like a good game.

Something like that. It should be pretty clear that any theme or meaning that could have been found in Lord of the Rings has long since been abandoned by its adaptations.

[Rodin]

Saw some Shadow of Mordor on Youtube, seemed like a good game.

It was pretty decent if you could get past the massacring of Middle Earth lore. Shadow of War gave up any pretense of being a LOTR game in favor of "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to command an army of orcs?"

[Sapphire Guard]

The uncomfortable thing was how quickly all these adaptations moved once Christopher Tolkien died and could no longer protect his father's legacy. I admired how much he resisted cashing in.

Edit: Looked it up. You know, Shelob probably does have the ability to shapeshift into a human form if she wanted to, the question would be why she would want to.

Likewise Celebrimbor knows more ringlore than virtually anyone else, if there was a way to do it he would know.

This stuff technically fits the lore, it's just really skating the edges of credibility.

[pendell]

Are they? I've seen 3 of the parody items on Pendell's list done in the last year. All of those tropes are still going strong as far as I can tell.

I'm super skeptical they could pull this off. Anime LOTR could work with a serious and understated style. I don't see that happening, especially after all the other LOTR fanfiction has failed to understand the setting.

I'm glad SOMEONE got the fact that I was kidding. I've watched a lot of anime, including some of the really good stuff that's come out like the original Ghost in the Shell and the modern Golden Kamuy (https://www.crunchyroll.com/golden-kamuy/episode-1-wenkamuy-769171) which if NC-17 for violence is still a very, very good show. It doesn't use any of those tropes and tells a terrific story of a veteran of the battle of Hill 352 linking up with an Ainu orphan to search what is now Hokkaido and the Karafuto peninsula for a hidden gold cache intended for use to set up an independent Republic separate from the Empire of Japan (which is a thing that really happened (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ezo)). At turns they are allies and enemies with Japanese deserters, Russian revolutionaries, and samurai holdovers from the Tokugawa era, all of whom are after the gold for their own reasons. Really, it's a great story and you'll learn a lot about the Ainu in the process.

That said ... well, yes, I do watch a lot of anime, and I'm constantly on the lookout for really good ones. Which means I'm sifting through a lot of dreck which DOES use those tired old cliches. Tropes are tropes for a reason; audiences understand them, people know how to draw them, and people like to see them. Stuff like So I'm a spider, so what? (https://www.crunchyroll.com/so-im-a-spider-so-what) about a schoolgirl who dies and is reincarnated as a spider in a fantasy world to be a random encounter.

I don't really expect the anime of LOTR to be anything like Dragonball Z; more likely it will resemble Sword of the Stranger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_the_Stranger). But that doesn't mean I won't have some cheap jokes at their expense. I kid because I love :smallamused:

I haven't seen 'sexy shelob' in Shadow of War but I don't think it's as alien to the source material as made out. Ungoliant was originally a spirit. She 'took the form' of a giant spider, yes, but that doesn't mean she couldn't change into other forms as well. Shape-changing is a thing in the Silmarillion. Sauron changes into both a werewolf and a vampire at different points in the story. Luthien takes on the guise of a vampire herself. King Finrod changed himself , Beren, and the rest of his party into orcs in order to infiltrate enemy territory. Even with Gandalf, we're led to believe that he isn't really an old man; that's simply the form he takes when dealing with humans, since his role is as an advisor and counselor, not a general or conqueror in his own right.

It's not a stretch to believe that Ungoliant could change shape. And if she could, and Shelob is her daughter, then Shelob could potentially inherit the ability as well, just as Luthien inherited many of her mother's magical abilities.

And well ... if you read some of the description of her fight with Sam where she gets on top of him .. um, yeah. Read in the right frame of mine there does seem like some rule 34 potential there. To say no more. Though I really, really hope that doesn't make it into any licensed adaptation of the work.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Dragonus45]

...huh. Wasn't that the one that had

Celebrimbor use the ring to hide from Sauron in Mount Doom, which in the book was the best way to indicate your location to him?

Saw some Shadow of Mordor on Youtube, seemed like a good game.


It was pretty decent if you could get past the massacring of Middle Earth lore. Shadow of War gave up any pretense of being a LOTR game in favor of "Hey, wouldn't it be cool to command an army of orcs?"

At least within the plot of the story they hand wave that aside by saying that having made the one right gives him the understanding to hide from Sauron

But yea in general Shadow of Morder is fine, it lacks some of the depth in it's combat system that similar games like the Arkham series had but it fit the mold of Good Fan Fiction to me. That second game though...

[Anonymouswizard]

https://blog.lootcrate.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/tenor-57.gif

(Actually, it's awesome)

...

Actually, if we get a Shelob-focused story that kind of design could work. A lot better than hot lady Shelob.

There are honestly few stories that wouldn't benefit from having a giant spideresque monster instead of an attractive human. So why are companies trying to remove the giant spideresque monsters from stories which already have them?

[Ronnoc]

Something like that. It should be pretty clear that any theme or meaning that could have been found in Lord of the Rings has long since been abandoned by its adaptations.

Amusingly enough while absolutely running rough shod on specific characters (Shelob in particular bears no resemblance to her canon version) Shadows of War does a pretty good job of exploring one of LotR's central themes, that true victory cannot be attained through strength. Throughout the games you attempt to fight Sauron through his own methods and at best delay him and frequently make things much worse.

[Rodin]

That said ... well, yes, I do watch a lot of anime, and I'm constantly on the lookout for really good ones. Which means I'm sifting through a lot of dreck which DOES use those tired old cliches. Tropes are tropes for a reason; audiences understand them, people know how to draw them, and people like to see them. Stuff like So I'm a spider, so what? (https://www.crunchyroll.com/so-im-a-spider-so-what) about a schoolgirl who dies and is reincarnated as a spider in a fantasy world to be a random encounter.


What impresses me most about I'm a Spider is that it's a piss take on isekai anime that manages to move past the premise. It revels in the tired old tropes while making fun of them, and the human side of the story is a totally serious fantasy epic that out-Fire Emblems Fire Emblem. The non-comedic elements of the plot stand on their own which is a very important thing many series don't manage.

But I digress.

I'm not against the idea of a LOTR anime on a "Dear God Why" level. I just don't believe it's likely to be done well. I can count the "high fantasy" animes I've enjoyed on one hand, and two of those are parodies. I can count the LOTR adaptations I enjoyed on one thumb, because there's exactly one: Peter Jackson's trilogy. Oh, Shadow of Mordor was serviceable, but the plot was there to facilitate you killing orcs by the bushel and didn't get me invested. Add to that the need to keep the cultures straight - I don't want a lot of the cultural baggage that works in anime to be applied to LOTR and vice versa.

So, is it possible for them to do it? Sure. There have been some incredible anime out there that I would never have thought could work like 91 Days. American 1920s gangsters with zero fantastical elements...as an anime? I thought the idea crazy, but damn if they didn't tell a good story.

I'm the same way with this project. It sounds crazy, and I have no confidence in it working, but I wish them the best of luck with it.

[GloatingSwine]

What impresses me most about I'm a Spider is that it's a piss take on isekai anime that manages to move past the premise.

It does quite a lot to take isekai to bits. Generally anyone who behaves like a normal Isekai protagonist and clings on to their assumptions and expectations from the previous world instead of addressing their new one on its own terms comes a cropper.

The worldview and skills of the average Japanese highschooler are not, it turns out, a superpower.

[Zevox]

I haven't seen 'sexy shelob' in Shadow of War but I don't think it's as alien to the source material as made out. Ungoliant was originally a spirit. She 'took the form' of a giant spider, yes, but that doesn't mean she couldn't change into other forms as well. Shape-changing is a thing in the Silmarillion. Sauron changes into both a werewolf and a vampire at different points in the story. Luthien takes on the guise of a vampire herself. King Finrod changed himself , Beren, and the rest of his party into orcs in order to infiltrate enemy territory. Even with Gandalf, we're led to believe that he isn't really an old man; that's simply the form he takes when dealing with humans, since his role is as an advisor and counselor, not a general or conqueror in his own right.

It's not a stretch to believe that Ungoliant could change shape. And if she could, and Shelob is her daughter, then Shelob could potentially inherit the ability as well, just as Luthien inherited many of her mother's magical abilities.
The only true shape-shifters in Arda were the Ainur - the others you bring up were instances of people disguising themselves, sometimes magically, not truly changing into another form. And while Ungoliant being an Ainu is plausible (though not definite), given the initial description of her speculated origins would track with her being one of the Maiar that Melkor convinced to join him, Shelob would have been at least half something else (likely giant spider, for obvious reasons), and our other known instance of a half-Ainur, Luthien, inherited some magic to be sure, but was very definitively an Elf, and not a spirit able to change forms the way mortals change clothes, as the Ainur were described. And frankly, despite her parentage we have no precedence for Shelob herself possessing any abilities beyond simply being a particularly enormous and intelligent giant spider - she never uses any magic in her encounter with Sam and Frodo, and is never described as doing anything magical anywhere else (unlike Ungoliant, who does things like spinning webs of pure darkness). So to leap from that to treating her the same as a full-fledged god, able to take on a radically different form like that, just because Ungoliant may have originally been one is quite the stretch. And doubly stupid because it was probably just done for the sake of including a sexy woman in a game where you'd otherwise struggle to include one, given the choice of Mordor as the setting.

[pendell]

The only true shape-shifters in Arda were the Ainur - the others you bring up were instances of people disguising themselves, sometimes magically, not truly changing into another form. And while Ungoliant being an Ainu is plausible (though not definite), given the initial description of her speculated origins would track with her being one of the Maiar that Melkor convinced to join him, Shelob would have been at least half something else (likely giant spider, for obvious reasons), and our other known instance of a half-Ainur, Luthien, inherited some magic to be sure, but was very definitively an Elf, and not a spirit able to change forms the way mortals change clothes, as the Ainur were described. And frankly, despite her parentage we have no precedence for Shelob herself possessing any abilities beyond simply being a particularly enormous and intelligent giant spider - she never uses any magic in her encounter with Sam and Frodo, and is never described as doing anything magical anywhere else (unlike Ungoliant, who does things like spinning webs of pure darkness). So to leap from that to treating her the same as a full-fledged god, able to take on a radically different form like that, just because Ungoliant may have originally been one is quite the stretch. And doubly stupid because it was probably just done for the sake of including a sexy woman in a game where you'd otherwise struggle to include one, given the choice of Mordor as the setting.

With regards to Luthien I must disagree. Consider this passage from Silmarillion.



By the counsel of Huan and the arts of Lúthien he was arrayed now in the hame of
Draugluin, and she in the winged fell of Thuringwethil. Beren became in all things like a
werewolf to look upon, save that in his eyes there shone a spirit grim indeed but clean;
and horror was in his glance as he saw upon his flank a bat-like creature clinging with
creased wings. Then howling under the moon he leaped down the hill, and the bat
wheeled and flittered above him.


A tiny bat wheeling and fluttering above something mansize definitely sounds like true shape changing to me, therefore I conclude this is a power she possessed, using it primarily for disguise. I suppose we could argue that it was illusion rather than true shape change, but equally at that point we could argue that Shelob had the ability to project an illusion of herself as a humanoid woman! That's at least a touch more plausible than a giant spider polymorphing into a human.



And doubly stupid because it was probably just done for the sake of including a sexy woman in a game where you'd otherwise struggle to include one, given the choice of Mordor as the setting.


Oh, I agree with your rationale for why they'd want to include it in the game and it is indeed silly. But I wouldn't think it would be that hard to fit a sexy woman in. Sauron has human servants as well as orcs, which presumably means there are both families and camp followers. Tolkien doesn't portray kitchens or nurseries or warehouses or much of anything in Mordor, but that doesn't mean it can't exist off-camera. It shouldn't be hard to invent a female Mordorian whether as Captain in Sauron's forces or in any other occupation. As I recall, in the hold HoME adaptation at least one of the ringwraiths was female.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[J-H]

The uncomfortable thing was how quickly all these adaptations moved once Christopher Tolkien died and could no longer protect his father's legacy. I admired how much he resisted cashing in.

Yeah, whoever took over lacked his spine. Christopher was an excellent guardian and assembler of his father's legacy.

I'm currently on lecture 3 of a really interesting lecture series (free on Youtube) by Ryan Reeves on JRR & CS Lewis and their writings. So far it's been setting the context including what was going on culturally at the time, and their mutual reaction against evil-focused Gothic horror where the bad guys usually win. I hadn't realized it, but not once in all of LOTR do we get the story from the perspective of any of the bad guys. The evil enemies are not the main focus of the story they way they end up being in a lot of more modern literature. (This is me summarizing about 15 minutes in 2 sentences, so it's not very precise).

Anyway... after what The Hobbit turned in to, I don't plan to watch any of the newer "Tolkien" spinoffs. The Silmarillion would make an excellent TV series or movie series, although I think a lot of the stuff with Feanor's family would need to be extended... easily able to rival GoT but without all the X-rated stuff (which admittedly is apparently even worse and more rapey in the source material). But at this point I don't trust anyone to do it well, so I'd rather see it not happen.

[The_Snark]

The only true shape-shifters in Arda were the Ainur - the others you bring up were instances of people disguising themselves, sometimes magically, not truly changing into another form.

It's a nitpick that isn't relevant to your original point, but I did want to point out that we have Beorn and his kin as shapechangers who aren't Ainur. (Though he originates from the Hobbit, which is at times kind of disconnected from the rest of Tolkien's work.)

[Dienekes]

Anyway... after what The Hobbit turned in to, I don't plan to watch any of the newer "Tolkien" spinoffs. The Silmarillion would make an excellent TV series or movie series, although I think a lot of the stuff with Feanor's family would need to be extended... easily able to rival GoT but without all the X-rated stuff (which admittedly is apparently even worse and more rapey in the source material). But at this point I don't trust anyone to do it well, so I'd rather see it not happen.

Eh, yes and no. The books make no attempt to alleviate the rape that would happen as a natural part of the events of the setting. Wars are horrible and all that, societies modeled on slavery or the ancients have rape as a pretty integral part of the culture. And a cursory reading of the Iliad and a look at genetics in the American south would back up the statement GRRM seems to be trying to make.

But the show literally adds scenes where protagonists get raped that are not in the books, and even takes consensual scenes in the book and makes them rape-y, seemingly just to add drama. Yeah, I got a lot of criticisms of some of the shows writing.

But anyway, while I do enjoy taking that more dark view of the world, keep that well and far away from Tolkien.

[Fyraltari]

But anyway, while I do enjoy taking that more dark view of the world, keep that well and far away from Tolkien.

You haven't read The Children of Hùrin, have you ?

[Corvus]

The Silmarillion is my favourite book of all time and I would watch the heck out of a well made adaption of it. But given the current state of adaptions we get I'm not holding out hope of a good one ever being done.

But, yeah, it is dark. Not as blatant and in your face about it as GoT, but still very dark. You've got civilian massacres, child slaying, forced marriages with all that implies, incest, murder and a host of other such fun stuff. And that is just by the good guys. And lets not forget a kill count that leaves GoT to shame - pretty much no one from the start ends up alive at the end (except Galadriel). That is the one thing that cheap Tolkien elf knock-offs seem to miss, that elves could and did mess up big time and had serious flaws.

[Zevox]

With regards to Luthien I must disagree. Consider this passage from Silmarillion.

A tiny bat wheeling and fluttering above something mansize definitely sounds like true shape changing to me, therefore I conclude this is a power she possessed, using it primarily for disguise. I suppose we could argue that it was illusion rather than true shape change, but equally at that point we could argue that Shelob had the ability to project an illusion of herself as a humanoid woman! That's at least a touch more plausible than a giant spider polymorphing into a human.
Considering that same passage makes it quite clear that what she does to disguise Beren did not actually transform him, just make him appear as a werewolf (he became as a werewolf "to look upon"), and the fact that her being biologically counted among the Elves is a significant plot point later while the Ainur's shape-shifting is described as being a result of their being spiritual beings who can treat physical bodies like clothes, I am very much inclined to consider that an illusion. (Also, I don't think she's supposed to be a tiny bat there, but either a bat-winged humanoid creature, or at least a giant bat. The creature who she's disguising herself as was described as a vampire, with "great fingered wings" that "were barbed at each joint's end with an iron claw." Even the part you quoted only describes her as "bat-like." Pretty sure she's not supposed to be like a normal bat given all that.)

And while Shelob being able to project illusions of some sort is a little less ridiculous than her being able to turn into one, it's still well outside anything we know about her being able to do - and it's the sort of trick you'd think she might use in that battle with Sam when things go wrong if she were able to. Again, as far as she's described in the books, she seems to be "just" a particularly large, vicious, intelligent giant spider, with interesting parentage.


Oh, I agree with your rationale for why they'd want to include it in the game and it is indeed silly. But I wouldn't think it would be that hard to fit a sexy woman in. Sauron has human servants as well as orcs, which presumably means there are both families and camp followers. Tolkien doesn't portray kitchens or nurseries or warehouses or much of anything in Mordor, but that doesn't mean it can't exist off-camera. It shouldn't be hard to invent a female Mordorian whether as Captain in Sauron's forces or in any other occupation.
Sauron had human servants too, but they were drawn from the nations east and south of Mordor - he had their militaries there to bolster his forces, not their entire populace. And given that in Tolkien's world women didn't normally serve in militaries (hence Eowen's role in the story being a twist and all), it would actually be quite odd to see women among those forces, especially any as sexualized as that form they gave Shelob (she's not exactly decked out in a bunch of armor there, you'll notice...).


As I recall, in the hold HoME adaptation at least one of the ringwraiths was female.
I don't know what that adaptation is, but that's also quite the stretch, considering the ringwraiths were described as having been great Kings, warriors, and lords before they were corrupted by the rings, and again, women being such things was very much not normal in Tolkien's work.


It's a nitpick that isn't relevant to your original point, but I did want to point out that we have Beorn and his kin as shapechangers who aren't Ainur. (Though he originates from the Hobbit, which is at times kind of disconnected from the rest of Tolkien's work.)
True, I did forget about him - mostly for exactly the reason you mention, it's easy to forget about the elements of The Hobbit that don't quite mesh with the rest of LotR/The Silmarillion. Still quite disconnected from Shelob, though.


And lets not forget a kill count that leaves GoT to shame - pretty much no one from the start ends up alive at the end (except Galadriel).
Eh, and Cirdan. And Maglor, though his fate's not exactly a happy one either.

But yeah, The Silmarillion is fundamentally a tragedy, tracing the fall of the Elves in their struggle against Morgoth. Which is probably a big part of why they've never tried to film it, honestly, that puts it as tonally quite different from LotR, which is heroic fantasy where the protagonists struggle heavily, but are eventually victorious. Even the individual stories within The Silmarillion that would be easier to do stand-alone are tragedies - the main two being Beren and Luthien and Turin Turambar, the former of which requires the gods to let the main protagonists return to life temporarily to have a quasi-happy ending after everyone dies, and the latter of which ends in multiple suicides.

[warty goblin]

The Silmarillion would also require so much work to adapt it's not even funny. From the perspective of a screenplay there's basically nothing there except an outline; dialog is very sparse and in such a high style it would have to be almost completely rewritten to be approachable for a large audience, emotional states are similarly distant, and even the action is written very tersely. It wouldn't so much be adapting the Silmarillion as it stands, as it would writing a 98% new version that shared the same general plot and characters.

And at the end of the day, I think the Silmarillion is for all practical purposes unadaptable to film. Even if you did all the above, and had a genuinely huge budget, I don't think a movie or TV show can capture the feel of the thing. Sure at one level there's a lot of fantastic visual detail in the Silmarillion, but a huge amount of what makes it work for me is stuff that essentially bypasses visualization and goes straight into pure emotional resonance. The Silmarils are a perfect example of this; I cannot visualize gems that beautiful, and any attempt to actually show them will fail. But I can imagine the feeling and effect of them, and be moved by it. Or Fingolfin's duel with Morgoth. I've seen a lot of paintings of this, and while many of them are very good, none of them feel right. Not because it doesn't match my image of the scene, because to a large degree I don't actually have a visual, but I have a very detailed sense of the feeling of it.

[Mechalich]

The Silmarillion would also require so much work to adapt it's not even funny. From the perspective of a screenplay there's basically nothing there except an outline; dialog is very sparse and in such a high style it would have to be almost completely rewritten to be approachable for a large audience, emotional states are similarly distant, and even the action is written very tersely. It wouldn't so much be adapting the Silmarillion as it stands, as it would writing a 98% new version that shared the same general plot and characters.

And at the end of the day, I think the Silmarillion is for all practical purposes unadaptable to film. Even if you did all the above, and had a genuinely huge budget, I don't think a movie or TV show can capture the feel of the thing. Sure at one level there's a lot of fantastic visual detail in the Silmarillion, but a huge amount of what makes it work for me is stuff that essentially bypasses visualization and goes straight into pure emotional resonance. The Silmarils are a perfect example of this; I cannot visualize gems that beautiful, and any attempt to actually show them will fail. But I can imagine the feeling and effect of them, and be moved by it. Or Fingolfin's duel with Morgoth. I've seen a lot of paintings of this, and while many of them are very good, none of them feel right. Not because it doesn't match my image of the scene, because to a large degree I don't actually have a visual, but I have a very detailed sense of the feeling of it.

The Silmarillion is written in the fashion and style of an epic historical saga, which is effectively what it is, just that the history is something Tolkien made up rather than a series of embellished historical events. Plenty of popular historical sagas written in this fashion are regularly adapted. Three Kingdoms has been adapted often enough it has it's own wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_media_adaptations_of_Romance_of_the_Three_ Kingdoms). However, such adaptations usually focus on a small number of specific incidents that are described with a high level of detail and not the backdrop of events marching through the years. Trying to do the entirety of the Silmarillion would indeed be madness, instead you'd adapt one of the three 'great tales' within the overarching narrative, in the same fashion that Christopher Tolkien adapted those tales into stand alone novels already.

[Brother Oni]

Shonen is also not a genre, it is a target audience. Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, Great Teacher Onizuka, Bakuman, The Promised Neverland, and Death Note are all shonen.

Except that there are common themes in most shonen anime:

Camaraderie between boys/men on sports teams or other close knit units
Protagonists having a desire to better themselves and face challenges to their abilities, skills and maturity
Emphasis on self perfection, austere self-discipline and sacrifice in the cause of duty and honourable service to society/community/family/friends

Of all the series you have listed, Death Note is the only one that doesn't really have more than one theme (although I didn't finish that one and can't say whether the later parts of it do).


I don't see 'shonen' in the press release anywhere.

All the comments made previous to my post were highly indicative of the tropes of shonen fiction.

[Rodin]

All the comments made previous to my post were highly indicative of the tropes of shonen fiction.

Well, that and magical girl. Those two genres get picked on because they're the most derivative and the most common. This also leads to a Poe's Law effect that is more pronounced than elsewhere in anime - if somebody makes something that isn't shonen, mecha, or romantic comedy there's a better than average chance of it being good because they're taking a risk making it.

[danzibr]

What? You're saying the nine Nazgul combining into one gigantic Uber-Nazgul (Nazgul Ultima?) is not in keeping with the spirit of JRR Tolkien?
Or a thirty second stock transformation when Frodo puts on the ring, complete with costume change?
Or the Eagles being able to change into human form as high school girls, complete with anachronistic sailor outfits?
Or Minas Tirith turning into a giant mecha when the armies of Mordor approach?

C'mon, Tolkien would TOTALLY go for it, were he not spinning in his grave so fast a connected turbine could power a small city.

Tongue-in-cheek ,

Brian P.
These actually all sound like something I’d love to see, if only for kicks and giggles.

In all seriousness, I’ve seen some anime set in medieval times that would have the right feel for LotR.

[runeghost]

What? You're saying the nine Nazgul combining into one gigantic Uber-Nazgul (Nazgul Ultima?) is not in keeping with the spirit of JRR Tolkien?
Or a thirty second stock transformation when Frodo puts on the ring, complete with costume change?
Or the Eagles being able to change into human form as high school girls, complete with anachronistic sailor outfits?
Or Minas Tirith turning into a giant mecha when the armies of Mordor approach?

C'mon, Tolkien would TOTALLY go for it, were he not spinning in his grave so fast a connected turbine could power a small city.

Tongue-in-cheek ,

Brian P.

Most anime tropes are totally off-base for Tolkien. What Middle-earth needs is more metal (https://litreactor.com/columns/lord-of-the-strings-the-influence-of-tolkien-on-heavy-metal-music).

http://booklikes.com/upload/post/2/3/232bd4a680d04c41002bcf279ed4d9a7.jpg