I’m unconvinced that anyone apart from the author gained much from the genealogies in LOTR vol. 3. Christopher Tolkien has published a vast trove of supporting material which I’ve been happy to ignore, along with The Silmarillion. (Lights one of Gandolf’s pyrotechnics and retreats!) 
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Big fan of lotr, read it fairly regularly. Will be interesting to see this, i am assuming its based on the silmarilion?
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Big wiki on The Rings of Power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Rings_of_Power
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I think so, plus ‘Unfinished Tales’ and ‘The History of Middle Earth’ - though as only the rights to The Hobbit snd LOTR were purchased the writers bridged all the references to the second age they could find. (Explained in Wiki entry)
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Though I’ve attempted it several times I’ve never actually read The Silmarilion or any of Tolkien’s work other than The Hobbit and LOTR so I’m very much looking forward to The Rings of Power, reading the Wiki page posted by @Stokie it will apparently be over 5 seasons and will be the most expensive TV production ever costing $1 billion.
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Not too off-topic I hope. We watched two fantasy adaptations in the past year, Beowulf, which had quite dreadful computer graphics and The Green Knight, which we enjoyed, but the dark twist in the ending seemed to surprise some reviewers who were unfamiliar with the original. I suspect you needed to know the original to appreciate the narrative. Both are readable in translation for Tolkien readers.
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I found the silmarillion and unfinished tales hard work but theybdidbgive a lot of details that predated the hobit and lotr that was worth reading about
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It’s available with a standard Prime account in Toronto, so most likely it is for you as well.
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Yep, I watched the cartooon as well …
I also read ‘Bored of the Rings’ that @Camphuw mentions above. Good for a chuckle, especially if one took the time to get appropriately prepared each time before picking up the book.
It was the 70s …
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Haha yes I read that as well. I think the National Lampoon people were involved in that book.
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For those that think the Hobbit threesome of films is over-stretched, you are right! The Hobbit is a not very long book originally intended for children I believe. It’s a good read but it doesn’t take that long to do so.
The three LOR novels are a totally different matter. As a teenager I went directly from reading LOR to Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen which largely kicked reading Tolkien into touch for me. I bought the Silmarillion when it was published, but never managed to finish it.
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Ah! I listened to similar epic music when I read LOTR: Bach’s Hohe Messe.
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I listened to Bo Hansson, Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings, put it on yesterday after reading this thread. Captures the LOR vibe, sort of, available on Qobuz, I assume most have checked it out.
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I wasn’t aware of this. Thanks!
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Quite a bit of early Rush was inspired by LOTR too, and obviously Led Zep referenced a character in the worst lyric of all time
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Have read LOTR a couple of times and seen the films, but apart from the New Zealand scenery didn’t enjoy them as much as I expected. I found Fellowship of the Ring best, but the other episodes conflicted too much with my mental picture of Tolkien’s story.
For me the best version in another medium was the BBC Radio series with Michael Hordern as Gandalf and Ian Holm as Frodo. I believe Peter Jackson cast Holm as Bilbo in the film partly in recognition of his role in the radio series. It became a family tradition in our household to switch the lights off, put the fire on and listen to an episode a night in the run up to Christmas, at least for a few years when my son was of the right age.
Roger
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I have read the LoR and came away wondering if JRT had been paid by the word by the publisher.
IMHO the book(s) could be abridged and not detract from the the story.
I loved the three LoR films and have the Directors cut on Blue Ray.
I have read the Hobbit and came away underwhelmed. I think it must be aimed at 5 to 7 year olds. If they had made the Hobbit films as per the book I would conjecture that nobody would have gone to the cinema.
I have seen the Hobbit films and really enjoyed them and have the box set.
So I am really looking forward to watching the Amazon offering.
I agree. It’s almost as if Jackson hadn’t read the books. We never did watch the third movie, the second movie completely turned us off the series. Very overdone …
They could have picked up Frodo in the shire, put him on an Eagle, flown to Mount Doom, thrown the ring in the river. Simples!
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With hindsight I slightly regret ever having watched the three films. Not because they were bad, but because I find that the images, and especially characters from the film superimpose themselves over the images I generated in my own imagination. Especially Frodo, who I now visualise as a Marty Feldman impersonator.
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