Session 2.01

The Ainulindalë was never going to be more than 20 minutes of screentime in a 1 hour opening episode; what the Hosts did was to rework what story they wanted to tell to introduce the Frame. There are some 'short' episodes in Season 1, that still need more work, but that was a symptom of the script team running out of time more than the material not being available. Yes, Michael, you raised the concern that a 13 episode season was too long when we were working on S1Ep8 (which, though an 'invented' sequence, is pivotal to the plot and story we are telling). But it wasn't that we didn't have material - the issue is that people wanted Mairon's fall to be subtle and drawn out, so making progress on that storyline had to be a background thing in a few episodes rather than the central point of a single episode. Whereas the creation of the Dwarves was a stand-alone story. Working that all out structurally was a difficult feat to pull off, and we may not have done it. Same with the Melkor-in-the-Timeless-Halls-centric Episode 3. We're (hopefully) learning pacing as we go. Sure, we *could* have told the Season 1 story in 10 episodes rather than 13. And we could have skipped Season 1 entirely and begun with the Awakening of the elves, who meet the Valar when they go to Valinor, and we'd just get occasional flashbacks of the Season 1 material from time to time.

But we're not actually producing a TV show here; we're discussing the adaptation of a story. And the longer and more drawn out it is, the more opportunities there are for the hosts to discuss different aspects of that story. So, yes, they are always going to make the choice, 'Let's tell this story in the most drawn out way possible.' More episodes and more seasons is good for them, and there's no downside.
 
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Regarding the frame: it's important not to make the situation remind us too much of the season one frame. 'Flashbacks of someone lost, someone who was attacked by orcs, a young woman is angry, an older man is calm'...
 
I'm wondering if Sauron could continue to kidnap elves. That would add a sense of danger to the great journey. Also, when Ossë turns up and delays the Teleri, viewers will remember that he is a bit unpredictable. Showing this from the perspective of the elves is crucial to make the story interesting I think. We have to get close to the elves, show their hardship and fear, their losses during the journey.
 
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Haakon said:
I'm wondering if Sauron could continue to kidnap elves. That would add a sense of danger to the great journey. Also, when Ossë turns up and delays the Teleri, viewers will remember that he is a bit unpredictable. Showing this from the perspective of the elves is crucial to make the story interesting I think. We have to get close to the elves, show their hardship and fear, their losses during the journey.
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Eol is the only Moriquendi we ever meet up close. There are lots of them out there and we really have no idea what they're like or where they live. I think it'd also be a good opportunity to show them as insular and distrustful for good reason, so that when we meet Eol, we have some idea of his background.
 
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Passage of Time:

Season 1: EONS (can be measured in geologic time) [Frame: 1 year, though most of it happens in 6 months]

Season 2: [Frame should feel fairly timeless; one year or multiple years would not be entirely clear?]
YT 1050: Elves awaken at Cuivienen
YT 1495: Darkening of Valinor
445 Valian years is roughly 4264 Years. (One Valian Year is equal to 9.582 Sun Years)

Season 3: [Frame should take place over roughly a year]
YT 1495: Oath of Fëanor
FA 7: Fingolfin declared High King
Even accounting for the 5 Valian Years at the beginning, this season only covers at most 57 years.

Season 4: [Frame should stretch over multiple years, as we are now with Bilbo in the Shire]
FA 20: Mereth Aderthad (Feast of Reuniting)
FA 455: Dagor Bragollach (death of Fingolfin)
435 years

Season 5: [Frame: Aragorn and Arwen - 1 year again?]
At most 13 years from the fall of Minas Tirith to the birth of Dior

As you can see, one of these things is not like the others. Season 3 is going to be all real time with no time gaps, after we've gotten the audience used to large swaths of time passing between episodes. This could make for some intensely personal story telling, but it might seem like we're pacing it oddly when we then go back to Season 4 with a long timeline again. Season 5 was always going to be very different, because of the story being told, but I think we have to think about everything we are stuffing into Season 4. We're going to meet the Men; we're going to have to deal with the whole Eol/Aredhel thing, we want to have Andreth and Aegnor, and OH YEAH, a ton of elf politics is going on with Thingol finding out about the Kinslaying and banning people from his realm. It's really a lot of material, and that's even leaving out the two major battles (Dagor Aglareb and Dagor Bragollach). I think that ending with the death of Fingolfin *HAS* to happen, and starting out the season with the Feast of Reuniting is a good way to kick it all off. I'm not saying we picked the wrong cut-off points...just that it's going to take some really careful planning to make that all fit in one season.
 
Hey,

I just listened to 2-01, the season 2 overview episode. One question was whether the awakening of the dwarves would be covered in season 2. One thought I had was, since Arwen in Lorien is the frame for season 2, it would make sense to talk about the awakening of Durin and his arrival in the neighborhood - give the story about him looking into the Mirrormere and founding Khazad Dum. Then in season 4, with Bilbo's travels as the frame, he could go west to the Blue Mountains (maybe traveling along with some of his companions from the Hobbit as they are going from the Lonely Mountain to the homes of the dwarves in the Blue Mountains, and this would raise the story of the ancient cities of Belegost and Nogrod. This would then lead to the story of how dwarves first came to Beleriand. While there, of course, a side trip would have him meet Cirdan at the havens.

One question, were the dwarves who founded Belegost and Nogrod some of Durin's folk who traveled west, or where they descended from the other original dwarves?

Bruce
 
No, Durin's folk, the Longbeards, were in Khazad-dum after Durin awakened at Mount Gundabad. They were made up of all the other peoples of the dwarves, though, since Durin woke alone.

The Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost were Broadbeams and Firebeards.
 
MithLuin said:
But we're not actually producing a TV show here; we're discussing the adaptation of a story. And the longer and more drawn out it is, the more opportunities there are for the hosts to discuss different aspects of that story. So, yes, they are always going to make the choice, 'Let's tell this story in the most drawn out way possible.' More episodes and more seasons is good for them, and there's no downside.
Click to expand...

I get what you're saying, but in a way I don't. The logical conclusion of your reasoning is that there's no point in maintaining the fiction that this is a TV series at all. For example, when I questioned the number and length of episodes, I was told that was the box that would guide our creative thinking. But if there's never any downside to expansion, that's not realistic, and it denies the existence of the box. To me the point of the exercise is not an open-ended adaptation at all - it is specifically an adaptation within the media of a TV series, with all the pacing and other facets this implies.
 
I was trying to (gently) point out that while we are using the fiction of executive producers of a TV show, the reality is that this is an academic exercise in adaptation. There is a strong bias for an extensively expanded rather than tightly-paced adaptation.

I see no reason not to maintain the fiction, nor to avoid arguing that the material is being stretched too thinly. But it might be less frustrating to consider what could be used to flesh out the story more fully in those places when it seems bare, rather than to argue for less screen time devoted to the plotlines.
 
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