Lord of Applications – Weekend – Kommersant
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On the Amazon Prime Video service, the series “Rings of Power” is coming out about what Tolkien did not write and Peter Jackson did not film in “The Lord of the Rings”.
Thousands of years before the journey of Frodo’s detachment to the flaming Mount Orodruin on a mission to destroy the Ring of Omnipotence, in the Second Age in Middle-earth, the prerequisites for this disaster are laid. The light elves who left Valinor are fighting in Middle-earth with Morgoth, the personification of universal evil. Our old acquaintance Sauron is still only ascetic with Morgoth on parcels, but he is already cherishing plans for world domination. And the elves in that era were not exactly bright – racial diversity reigned among them. The hobbits are also not presented in their canonical form, since Amazon, which paid untold millions for the film rights and won Netflix in this competition, did not manage to buy the rights to the word “hobbit”, and therefore we have to follow the adventures of their Mochnonog ancestors , as well as dwarves, humans, and elves back when the Nine Rings were still being forged.
What did Amazon buy the rights to then? The prequel series is a film adaptation based not even on The Silmarillion, but on short appendices to The Lord of the Rings, where Tolkien only outlined the chronology of the Second Age. All the main events based on this canvas were composed by the Amazonian scriptwriters, breaking them into four main storylines. Having already lived for several centuries, but by elven standards, the rather young Galadriel (Morved Clark) is chasing Sauron everywhere, sensing a new enemy in him, although the Elven king Gil-galad (Benjamin Walker) considers the war over, and the reigning peace is lasting. He even recalls the elves from distant outposts, including Arondir (the languid handsome Ismael Cruz Cordova), who guarded the human settlement, looking at the local healer Bronwyn (Nazanin Boniadi). Among the mokhnonogs, the curious girl Nori Brandyfoot (Markella Cavena, very similar to the young Elena Proklova from the time of the Snow Queen) stands out, who finds a mysterious bearded old man who has fallen from heaven in the forest. At the same time, young Elrond (Robert Aramayo) wants to help the great elven jeweler with the construction of a forge where precious artifacts will be forged (we know them!), And for this purpose he goes to the halls of Khazad-Dum to establish an almost lost friendship with the dwarf Durin (Owain Arthur).
Through all these stories one can easily see Tolkien’s painstaking rewriting. Galadriel here is as restless as Gandalf will be in his time, worrying about Saruman who has joined evil. Arondir is the same Pathfinder who will work out the line of a love union between a human and an elf. Nuri is young Frodo, only a girl. Well, the royal elf, who constantly doggies with the dwarf, is, of course, Legolas, who eventually became friends with Gimli. Before us is a fanfic, where the storylines are copied from the canon.
After the first episodes of the series went on the air, the abyss of heaven opened up, and devoted Tolkinists began to underestimate the series in the global imdb database. Well, Amazon, which owns this database, without much ceremony with the fans, began to remove bad reviews and ratings below seven points – because it can! Professor’s fans complain about inauthenticity: they say, why take the universe he created in order to immediately start changing something in it?
But it seems that the problem here is not at all in the dark-skinned elves. And not even a lack of action, although one can understand both one of the Russian-speaking commentators who compared the series with the film “Garage” – “solid talk!”, And those who, in response, note that serious passions boiled in Garage , which in the series is not yet in sight. It just lacks wisdom, magic and meaning. Tolkien talked about how dangerous it is when “my charm” takes possession of the heart and displaces the free spirit, how one who does not even succumb to evil under its oppression becomes thin and somehow transparent, that old gold rarely shines, but old fire is ardent , and how terrible it is to watch how the veil of darkness grows and grows stronger. He explored the nature of evil and the process of its origin from honor, and valor, and the desire to protect these little ones with his power. But the series that exploits his universe has not yet found the strength to start such a conversation. Yes, at least to tell where such a Morgoth fell from in Middle-earth and how Sauron came to such a life, if he was not born a villain. The scriptwriters take only timid steps in this direction, forcing Galadriel to ask her older brother a question: “The sky is reflected in the water, and they become the same color – how then to distinguish light from darkness and good from evil?” And he replies: “It happens that the difference is not visible until you come into contact with darkness.” I would like details from this place, but instead of them, for the time being, we are only diligently painting the horizon in the colors of Peter Jackson in order to sell the series along with his name. Of all the possible meanings, the scriptwriters managed to tenaciously grasp only one – a premonition of a future big war, which gradually covers all the characters.
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