What would Tolkien think about this whole "conquer Mordor with your own orc army" thing that's been going on with this...

What would Tolkien think about this whole "conquer Mordor with your own orc army" thing that's been going on with this series? What do you think?

He resisted having a movie made out of the series because the proposed script had too much action to it.

This shit would make him roll in his grave. Only in this scenario he seems to be alive, so I guess he'd just roll.

Probably pretty peeved, since it goes quite a bit against the base moral code of his works.

Seeking power and domination are intrinsically bad in Middle-Earth, as compared to creativity, inspiration, and personal determination and heroism.

The central struggle of the entire LotR trilogy was that using the weapons of the Enemy against him would make whoever used them just like him. Galadriel, Gandalf, Elrond, Glorfindel, etc... could have easily laid waste to Sauron and his armies had they harnessed the power of the Ring, but they chose to instead put the fate of Middle-Earth in the hands of a lone Hobbit and his trusty companion.

I haven't really played that much of the new LotR games, but I'd be surprised if the devs weren't to some degree aware of this and setting up the protagonist as a bad guy for some future game.

Still, they're pretty fun iirc. I thought the whole "persistent orc nemeses" thing was pretty cool from what little I played of it. Didn't capture the atmosphere of the series very well, especially since I'm a bookfag, but it was still enjoyable.

Shadow of Mordor does a good job being a story that's clearly set in middle earth but at the same time is a very different kind of story to LotR or the Hobbit.

Can't be worse than the constant nuclear allegories he had to argue with while he still lived.

JRRT's message in LotR was that Good won because they willingly rejected power. Using the Ring's power (or on the games' case, that of another ring) to raise an army and conquer Mordor goes against everything dear to Tolkien. If I may remind you of one pivotal moment in the story, when Galadriel (who desired earthly power as much as Saruman) had Frodo at her mercy and was almost lured to evil by the Ring:

>“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!”
>She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.
>“I pass the test”, she said. “I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel.”

That is how you beat Sauron canonically. He was afraid some of his most powerful opponents would use the ring against him. Any of the wizards, or the Elf-lords, or Aragorn probably would've succeeded in replacing him had they used the Ring. But he could not comprehend that all of them would reject to use it, and that they would then attempt to destroy it (which is also why Aragorn's diversionary attack on the Black Gate worked to distract the Eye from Frodo & Sam).

Well, Shadow of War, if it properly follows the themes and foreshadowing that the developers have been building up, will end with Talion and Celebrimbor becoming exactly as bad as Sauron, possibly resulting in Talion becoming Sauron's new physical body since they fucked up his old one in the first game.

However, this is EA, who doesn't understand the concept of letting a property die a natural death, so in all likelihood Talion will get to ignore the consequences of forging a Ring and becoming a power-hungry warlord, and the series will be dragged out another 2-3 games before poor reviews and worse sales kill it off for good.

>Using the Ring's power (or on the games' case, that of another ring) to raise an army and conquer Mordor goes against everything dear to Tolkien.

He wrote about such a hypothetical situation in one of his forewords. In that situation, hobbits would've been completely wiped out, trampled under both sides as worthless and weak.

The developers might as well take this shit right to the end. If we can't nuke the Shire eventually, in a sequel or something, I will be very disappointed.

When it comes to Celebrimbor, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I think Tolkien would be interested in it as a hypothetical scenario. The Developers seem to be committed to being faithful to the wider lore of the setting so I don't believe that they'll let Talion and Celebrimbors buddy-cop fiesta have a happy ending.

What I don't really get about these games is that why couldn't they just have made a LotR game that wasn't about the War of the Ring.
Shit, it's LotR. People won't care what the setting is, the name will sell enough in any case.
It is just feels really contrived to try to fit it in the frame of Tolkien's main work. I get why it is done, probably like 10% of people who've read the trilogy have also read Silmarillion, let alone Unfinished Tales, but just make a game set in the War of Wrath or something.
You could still use LotR in the title to sell it. You'd even have more creative freedom and I'd imagine more of a positive response from Tolkien fans too.

>just make a game set in the War of Wrath or something.

Play as an original Maia, a stealth archer commando out to murder the shit out of balrogs?

>probably like 10% of people who've read the trilogy have also read Silmarillion
I think you're forgetting that not everyone who's read the trilogy also posts on Veeky Forums.

I'm guessing the number of people who've read the Silly Marian is about 1% of the audience for the fellowship of the return of the two hobbit kings.

Sure, I'd rather play that than Shadow of Boredom.

I'm pretty sure the video game licence only covers LotR and the Hobbit, same as the movies and the GW miniature game (the licencees are all different of course).

Silmarillion is definitely right out, but as these two games have shown, completely original stories can be made.

I think a game in the aftermath of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad could work realyl well, trying to survive as some unknown human or elf in Beleriand.

Tolkien's little shithead kid is being a cunt and won't license anything other than the core LotR series because he was butthurt about the movies and doesn't trust any film or game makers.

>tfw Chris "little shithead kid" Tolkien is 92 years old

He's Tolkien's kid, and he's a little shithead.

There is nothing wrong with my statement.

Can't rightly blame him for not trusting industries that mainly operate for maximum profit rather than art.

Sure, but you -can- blame him for depriving the rest of us out of entertainment we might've liked to see and enjoy. Does he really have the right to block potential millions of people from having a good time in Middle-Earth?

...

>Does he really have the right
yeah?

He didn't even write the fucking thing.

And hating EA is all very well, but I'd like to see someone with a soul make something out of Silmarillion. There was this fan webseries that was put down as I recall.

He has that right. But it doesn't mean we have to like it.

But his father did, and he most certainly is the best person to tell if something about his father work is right or wrong.

>He didn't even write the fucking thing.
He did write a lot of the Silmarillion. If you've read any of the HoME volumes, you'll notice from the minimal editing that daddy's notes were pretty much in shambles. It's fair to say that he should be considered the coauthor of publications like Children of Húrin and the upcoming Tale of Beren and Lúthien, too.

>Copyright lenght in the UK is 70 years after author's death
>not even 30 years until LotR becomes public domain

I'm waiting for the Hobbit, myself, though I'm rather skeptic we're going to see either. Are copyright renewals a thing in the UK?

So basically, the series will take lore accuracy to meta level?

I'd be surprised if he doesn't become a power-hungry warlord, or more likely, if the series doesn't end in he and Celebrimbor separating and Celebrimbor being the final boss.

I mean, one of the DLCs for the game is Celebrimbor with the full power of the ring marching around Mordor and assembling an army of mind-controlled orcs he uses to take down Sauron. It doesn't work as the ring goes for its 'true master'.

I'm pretty sure there's no copyright lobby as powerful as Disney in the UK and that Tolkien's works will enter the public domain on schedule.

As somebody who had to see all three Hobbit movies, I'd rather he had been even more of a "shithead." It would have spared us a lot of awful shit.

Once something's in the public domain, it's impossible to buy that thing's copyright, right?

I would be fearful of a future in which Disney snaps up the rights and starts making their own sequels like Star Wars.

Correct, although nothing would stop Disney from making such prequels anyway. They'd simply not have the exclusive rights.

>Once something's in the public domain, it's impossible to buy that thing's copyright, right?
Disney will certainly make its best legal arguments for why they should be allowed to re-copyright things that are in Public domain.

Why do you think modern fairy tale -based Disney names are named something stupid like Tangled or Frozen, instead of Snow White or Sleeping Beauty? It's because that way the can be copyrighted.

They'll set something in Middle-Earth, but they will name the movie Ringed or something and only use original characters, and then they can copyright all of those even if the world they're set in is still beyond their reach.

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>The central struggle of the entire LotR trilogy was that using the weapons of the Enemy against him would make whoever used them just like him.
That's exactly what's happening in the game, though.

I mean, you could already see it from the end of the first one, now the only difference between your guy and Sauron is the colour pallet.

Mickey's lobby will extend LOTR's copyright too.

Really? I'm pretty sure LOTR is based in Britain and has different laws.

Mickey's under US copyright. Tolkien was British.

The UK and US copyright laws are two separate things. Disney has managed to introduce US legislation that already extends Mickey's protection to 95 years, and will probably try to lobby for some kind of an extension or exemption in a couple of years - he's the company's mascot and one of its most lucrative intellectual properties, after all. Copyright in the UK, where LotR was first published, is pretty much capped at 70 years after the creator's death. (It was extended from 50 years in 1996, so another extension is of course possible if unlikely).
International copyright is governed by the Berne convention, which basically just states that the signatory countries have to respect each others' copyright terms, and establishes some minimum requirements for copyright that all countries must have (lasting at least 50 years after the author's death, that copyright is always automatic and works need no registration, etc).

Most damningly of all, it would have spared us watching Ian McKellen cry.

Another movie ruined by the CGI Crutch.
Also considering Tolkien's reaction to the engraved goblet incident, he probably wouldn't like a game in mordor much either and that's before you even bring up the plot.

The thing about the goblet was that the language used to it was inherently ugly. Mordor, however, isn't - it even has some green in it.

I don't think he'd like the slavery in Nurn either, no matter how green the fields that the slaves work are

Yeah, but that's just background stuff: you had a lot of it in his books too.

> "conquer Mordor with your own orc army" thing that's been going on with this series?
That's not going on with the series. Wherever you saw that wasn't canon.
The only good LotR vidya is Third Age: Total War and The Third Age for GBA

>But his father did, and he most certainly is the best person to tell if something about his father work is right or wrong.

Brian Herbert.

QED

>engraved goblet incident

Details?

Woah.

I do appreciate the cast having a big get together for him once they realized how stressed out all the CGI horseshit was making him.

Fan sends him a goblet engraved with the black speech on the ring. He hated it, didn't want to be associated with the Evil speech, used it as an ashtray.

Some smart pants sent him a goblet with the one ring inscription on it.
he hated the fact it had the one fucking ring inscription (no shit) and used it as an ashtray (which again, I see no problem you're literally sending him something that was explicitly evil, send a goblet with "To a good night's feast" or "A feast with friends and family" in elfic and he'd probably like it)

He didn't make a categorical statement, dude, he said "[Christ Tolkien] is the best person to tell if something about [J.R.R. Tolkien]'s work is right or wrong." You didn't demonstrate anything other than a counterexample to a precept that wasn't stated

Holy shit, I appreciate this so much.
I keep seeing LotR fans IRL with the stupid One Ring replicas around their necks and I want to ask if they remember the part where the One Ring was fucking evil and needed to be destroyed.

Using green screens was barely the worst thing about the Hobbit movies.

All the greenscreens and CGI were but one of the more visible symptoms of the cancer within the trilogy.

Just check out what Andrzej Sapkowski thinks about the Witcher games. Basically, he's incredibly sour.
Of course, he's what can only be described as "an old man", and he also signed away the game rights for one lump sum payment before Witcher 1 came out. Why? Because he didn't believe there would be any way that it would become anything but a domestic title, never imagining international success in it's future.

He claims his books sold the game, not vice-versa, despite there not really being an English translation prior to the game's release.

As a counterpoint, the guy behind Metro 2033 (Dmitry Glukhovsky... Yes, I had to Google) is 37, signed a contract for residuals, worked closely with CD Project Red on dialogue and script, and loves the games.

right, but in their defense, it's all fiction.

>t. literal retard

>REEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Keep in mind the games take place some time before the books, I am guessing Talion will be consumed by evil in the third game and be an Overlord type, eventually slain by hobbits or something.

I watch SBFC too!

And playing that game, I loved it. It was formulated perfectly.
Yet it's not as popular as you'd think.
I hated the fucking late level polyp level though, that was fucking garbage. But I blame my weapon choices for that one.

Oh, for sure.
But it's still a bit awful, isn't it? You don't see fans of Lord of the Flies going around with artificial pig heads on sticks. They could say "yes, it's fictional," after all. You could argue that it's not as subtle and much grosser than a tiny ring on a chain but I still feel that there's something wrong with carrying around this little emblem of fictional evil around with you, specifically: why would you want to carry THAT bit around? I'm having trouble coming up with more informative examples of emblems of evil, though.

Ultimately, we make our own greatest sorrows; why would people sign away a property that is basically their baby without having a clause that allows you to have a say in its production?

Plus, and this is a tangent, does anyone else feel kinda irked that Superman is constantly turned into a Jesus analogy despite being made by a couple of Jews?

Its because the Ring is literally everything the beast inside us wants, but the hero we have the capacity to be should strive against; wearing it is like succumbing to temptation, but worse, because the foulness of the thing is explicitly spelled out. The Ring isn't OF evil origin, it IS Evil, full stop, but loads of people today choose to think that anyone stupid enough to take such a corruption willingly would somehow possess the inherent decency to give it up once the task is completed.

Tl;dr: Accessorizing the One Ring is a demonstration of the pitfalls that occur in a society that fetishizes the Hero who has never fallen or ever experienced what it means to be weak.

>pleb with shit taste defends being wrong

KYS.

>fan: hey man I really liked your work, here take it, a memento with the most iconic phrase from it
>tolkien: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

it's like if you give a cross to the pope and he shit talks you because jesus was crucified and stuff and uses the cross as a dildo instead

It's more like you gave the pope a chalice filled with thirty pieces of silver.

What's the significance of that?

Judas was paid in silver pieces numbering 30.

He's done right.

I wonder who disney is gonna pay off to increase the length of the mickey mouse copyright next.

No I can't. This shit actively defames his father's work. I would prefer vidja babbies not ever touching books. They obviously cannot read.

Irrelevant. Read a fucking book. Not all media needs to be changed to another medium. Fucking read I mean goddamn

t. unironic Hobbit movie fan

Yes, because it's evident that many don't really respect the vision of his father's books

That's not called 'being a cunt' that's called 'recognizing your mistakes'. Good for him.

(You), however, is a small-minded faggot.

This is exactly the reason I regretted buying one of the trinkets (luckily just a cheap one) and stopped wearing it.
Luckily I've got my Core Drill necklace, and even one of the Elven Cloak Broaches. (Though so far nobody had recognized that and several thought it looked like a green dick.)

In a way, it's good that the movies are already around. Can you imagine if the Mouse was the first to popularize a LotR based film? They would sue the fuck out of everyone in the hopes of controlling future adaptations with their standard "but X is similar to OUR version" fight.

Maybe they're Hobbit fans? You know, when the ring was a powerful magical artifact without any inherent alignment

I don't think the markings around it ever showed in the Hobbit, though. So if they do, this explanation won't work.

It's the ones with wedding rings you need to watch for

He didn't get "reeee" angry he said
>Hey this is cool
>But I really don't want to fucking drink from a cup with the equivalent of "hail satan drink the blood of the living"

It does look like a green dick now that you mention it.

Who drinks out of a goblet anyways?

Tolkien made the lord of the rings as a shitty allegory of english countryside life opposed to the industrial city

The simple fact that there's a sword in it would be too much for him

Tolkien despised allegories and made this very clear numerous times. You're full of shit.

Face it the War of the Ring is the only thing worth mentioning in the Tolkien history

Trying to emulate the wars in the Silmarillion is downright impossible both for scale and characters involved, it would be like God of War on speedball

Fuck off, Moorcock.

>Tolkien despised allegories
>His whole work is an allegory for religion and a philosophical book about how industry and progress are bad and evil
>plus an essay on languages

Keep living in denial, your tolkien husband was an insane PTSD old man and you know it

>using allegory makes your all your work an allegory

Who doesn't?

If you want an allegory for religion, read the works of his buddy C.S. Lewis.

>Accessorizing the One Ring is a demonstration of the pitfalls that occur in a society that fetishizes the Hero who has never fallen or ever experienced what it means to be weak.
Well, isn't that exactly the same thing as what I'm saying? If this is supposed to be a defense of wearing replicas, your point is that people are wearing it ironically, which I honestly really doubt is the case.

Now see that's a nice-ass accessory. It's not even overt so it could pass as an ordinary leaf brooch thing to people who haven't seen the movies. I like that.

Well, I mean

They are setting the player up to fail, right

And Celebrimbor is being portrayed as a dick

Wait, so was it an allegory about industrialization or one about religion? That seems like a different claim.

We can say with certainty that Tolkien didn't intend to make the work allegorical at all, and we know for sure that it is in no way an allegory of WWII. If you want to get all handwavey and postmoderny on us you might as well claim that its a feminist work, but calling the entire work an allegory against industry sounds to me like a very bold claim that lacks in evidence. Plus, I know that
>The simple fact that there's a sword in it would be too much for him
is a joke, but it's a rather weird one to make persuasively when the sword fated to be reforged and a magical dagger are key plot points.