Let's Get Nerdy

    Why Can’t Rings of Power Just Adapt The Silmarillion? – Let’s Get Nerdy!

    Ashley Victoria RobinsonBy 7 Mins Read

    Amazon Studios The Rings of Power is here. The Second season is on its way. We want all Spoilerites to have the best viewing experience possible and have the widest knowledge base about the Second Age of Middle-Earth. This is a weekly Let’s Get Nerdy article series highlighting a different piece of Tolkien I think you need to know about!

    From the moment The Rings of Power was announced fans of J.R.R. Tolkien were already taking bets on which parts of The Silmarillion would be the focus. When news of the show trickled down to us and the series finally premiered it quickly became clear most of the content being adapted from The Silmarillion comes from the Appendices with most of the events being the focus of adaptation coming from Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales – the volume focusing on The Second Age of Middle-Earth. 

    The simple answer as to why this happened is because Amazon Studios’ simply did not procure the rights to The Silmarillion OR they acquired rights to only very specific part of it. Whether the idea for The Rings of Power came before or after the idea of exploring Annatar, Celebrimbor, and the Fall of Númenor – I certainly can’t confirm. 

    I can confirm that The Tolkien Estate has never put the rights for The Silmarillion up for sale despite most of the rest of The Lord of the Rings canon being available for purchase even going as far back as to when Tolkien, himself, was still alive. 

    Remember the Ralph Bakshi animated adaptations? If you don’t, you have some homework to watch!

    The Lord Of The Rings 1978 TRAILER

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    In a recent rumour post from TheOneRing.net they are claiming Amazon Studios may have acquired expanded access to the stories of The Silmarillion posting:

    1. Amazon has newly expanded rights to plot points from The Silmarillion.

    From my additional research I have neither been able to confirm or deny this fact. This is definitely one of those huge if true moments. 

    Why, Ashley?

    Welp, I’ll tell you:

    In the 1960s Professor Tolkien, himself, sold the rights to The Lord of the Rings to the Saul Zaentz Company with “matching rights” to The Silmarillion. 

    Per Northridgelaw.com:

    Matching rights typically exist alongside rights of first refusal and usually bite after a right of refusal period has passed. A matching right is a promise that: “If any other person makes me an offer for my rights, I will come to you and, if you are willing to make me the same offer, I will sell you those rights.”

    Since Amazon never actively tried to acquire the rights to The Lord of the Rings – rather the Tolkien Estate shopped for buyers in the television space – they would have been forced to circumvent the issue of “matching rights”. Unfinished Tales and other material considered more tertiary or supplementary was likely negotiated directly between the Tolkien Estate and Amazon, themselves. 

    This could potentially allow the Tolkien Estate a measure of control over the creative choices or liberties in adaptation Amazon may be taking with The Rings of Power. There’s an additional rumour seeded by TheOneRing.net which states:

    1. Simon Tolkien is personally involved and overseeing this show’s expansion of the mythology.

    Simon Tolkien

    These two facts I’ve included today could absolutely be unrelated. However, there’s a chance they are related. Right now since we haven’t seen or heard any official information about the second season (RIP to the hopes we would get another Rings of Power trailer during the recent Super Bowl the way we did for season 1!), I don’t have a guess as to whether this suggests more divergence from the book canon or less – but it is certainly shaping up as an interesting framework for what is to come!

     

     

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    She/her. Canadian actress. Bi Queen. Canadian co-host of Geek History Lesson. Canadian comic book writer: Witchblade, Apollo IX, Jupiter Jet series, Science! The Elements of Dark Energy, Aurora and The Eagle. Award-losing: actor, writer, podcaster. https://linktr.ee/AshleyVRobinson

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