The Tube.

[Eoin McLove]

Is it essentially the exact same story as the books/ films just told in greater depth or is it more like a spin off, do you know? Seems kind of superfluous at a glance.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Spin-off. Set thousands of years prior to The Hobbit and LOTR. There's lots of material to work with, penned by JRR and son Christopher, but it certainly seems like a whole load of new stuff has been invented by people who think that they can just magic content as good as Tolkien's out of the air. Which is exactly where The Hobbit trilogy movies went so awfully, awfully wrong.

[John Kimble]

Yes, that would be my fear as well. I'm not a Tolkien die-hard by any means, but as you said, he has already provided plenty of his own material so I hope there's not too much license taken here. The CGI is a worry though, it was completely OTT in the Hobbit films. Much as it had it own issues, and there were plenty towards the end, I think Game of Thrones in terms of fantasy struck the right balance when it came to the use of CGI etc.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I haven't watched the teaser. Prefer to be put off by an entire episode than a sneak peak. But, I dunno, I'm actually re-watching the Hobbit trilogy at the moment, showing the wee lad a bit of it, herself had never seen them, me only once, decided I'd give them another go. The CGI, in my opinion, really is the least of its problems. Its main problem is that the additional storytelling is just shit. Dull and shit. Though maybe when you say CGI you're bundling in the fact that there's far too many action sequences, which are all too long, and this is also true. They nailed Riddles in the Dark. Such a simple scenario, fleshed out perfectly by the contrasts and similarities between the 2.5 characters involved, and essentially all the content and dialogue taken straight from the book, so yeah, that's why that bit worked so well.

[blessed1]

There's a fan made version of the hobbit somewhere online. Someone edited all the 3 movies into one 3hr long film. Which is how long it should have originally been.

[Ollkiller]

Aye the hobbit trilogy is awful. One film was all that was needed.

[Caomhaoin]

The idea of the series was exciting initially. I'll try to give it a go with an open mind, hopefully it is devoid of poorly veiled political bullshit.

The Hobbit is a great book for a 12 year old and I have nice memories of reading it but they pulled the arse clean out of it with those horrible films. Everything PT got right with LOTR he ballsed up on the other yin.

[Emphyrio]

Must look into that fanmade version. There's an excellent 3 hour movie in there but the divergences from the book are atrocious.

That second age is the area I'm least familiar with, having never read the appendices. Due a reread of The Silmarillion and the others finished by Christopher Tolkien. Think there's 2 released in the last few years that I haven't read.

[warhead]

The idea of the series was exciting initially. I'll try to give it a go with an open mind, hopefully it is devoid of poorly veiled political bullshit.

The Hobbit is a great book for a 12 year old and I have nice memories of reading it but they pulled the arse clean out of it with those horrible films. Everything PT got right with LOTR he ballsed up on the other yin.

Devoid of poorly veiled political bullshit, you say? Well, just look at the "ethnically diverse cast", that might or may not be a pointer.....

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Couldn't care less about the colour of skin or the gender of the characters, as long as it's good. And it won't be that which makes it fall, if indeed it does. Mare of Easttown was totally, totally "woke" but above all it was quality.

[Caomhaoin]

I guess it doesn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things, no. What I do find highly contrived is the 'diversity' of advertising. I was watching the ads between the two halves of the Scotland v Wales rugby game at the weekend and every single ad, every one had either a black 'lead' or a black male/white female couple. Those countries are about 95% white, so it's a tad overkill.

I know how corporations work and they see what way the wind is blowing etc, but I wonder what the 'qualifications' to get into diversity consulting are. I guess if u r two dumm to be an engineer or something useful it's always an option.

[Eoin McLove]

I'm with Chris on this. The colour, creed or sexuality/gender issues of actors is irrelevant to the quality, but I am also in agreement with Kev in finding the promotion of those angles as being overkill. On balance I give the whole issue a big fat SURE LOOK IT!

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

You might as well complain (as many have wasted their energy doing in the past) that people in advertising are too beautiful compared to 95% (prob more like 99 tbh) of the general population. It's good to be cynical about advertising and big media box-ticking, but for the right reasons The values of the Carphone Warehouse.

[Eoin McLove]

I think if more people lived their lives by the values of the Car Phone Warehouse the world would be a better place.

[Caomhaoin]

I mean, they are ads, turning the volume down negates them for the most part. It's simply amusing to note how hard most of them try to be right on, for the quite sensible reason of avoiding complaints from highly strung special interest groups or gimps Twitter feeds going viral about such and such brand lacking in 'diversity'. The 'values' of the various warehouses are 'buy this please', everything else is performance art.

Nike in Russia, on the other hand, has received complaints for underrepresenting ethnic Russians in their advertisements. They'll probably quietly cave, like the Middle Eastern branches of BMW, Coke etc having their emblems decidedly un-rainbow coloured during the gay month of celebration on social media.

That is to say, the bottom line will dictate all decision making.