amysrevenge
Well-Known Member
So, I've been listening to the Lord of the Rings, and just finished part one of the first appendix - the one where they give the rundown of what happens in Arnor, and then in Gondor, in the Third Age. It got me to thinking about a problem that we don't have yet, but will have later, and it might be good to work out what the solution will be now so we're prepared for later.
The issue is one of hopping around in the timeline. The way the story of the Dunedain of the Third Age is told is similar to how the Lord of the Rings story itself is told, and to how many First Age stories are told in the Silmarillion - each story is contained within itself, and not told in strictly consecutive order in the timeline.
The Arnor story runs through from Isildur through the kings and the chieftains down to Aragorn II. Then the Gondor story runs through from the line of Anarion down to Earnur down to the ruling stewards to Denethor.
I was trying to think of ways we could simply and visually show where in the timeline we are. I was thinking of it from a graphic design point of view. What if we had a sort of "progress bar" graphic as part of the opening titles, with some screenshots (either stills or videos or whataver) of previous events sort of slotting themselves into their spots in the progress bar/timeline - this would mean that the opening titles would be different all the time, as previous events are added or removed as the series progresses. And then a smaller version of that same progress bar could be shown, either periodically or continually, with an arrow indicating where in the timeline we are.
So in the above Third Age example, if we were at a point where the Arnor story has moved forward to the time of Arvedui holed up with the ice people, for instance, and then we're going to go back to Gondor and catch up to when Earnur Captain of Gondor heads up in his ships to help, but we're only at the Kinstrife in the Gondor story, we would have an opening title sequence that shows brief snippets of the events we've already shown of the Arnor storyline slotting into the progress bar, as well as Gondor stuff so far, and then an arrow a couple hundred years back to indicate where the Gondor events are in that timeline.
I think that if we worked it out, there could be a way to do this that would not be hokey or cheesy or distracting, and it would start to pay off next season when we try to show how the Sindar are getting along relative to the events in Valinor.
The issue is one of hopping around in the timeline. The way the story of the Dunedain of the Third Age is told is similar to how the Lord of the Rings story itself is told, and to how many First Age stories are told in the Silmarillion - each story is contained within itself, and not told in strictly consecutive order in the timeline.
The Arnor story runs through from Isildur through the kings and the chieftains down to Aragorn II. Then the Gondor story runs through from the line of Anarion down to Earnur down to the ruling stewards to Denethor.
I was trying to think of ways we could simply and visually show where in the timeline we are. I was thinking of it from a graphic design point of view. What if we had a sort of "progress bar" graphic as part of the opening titles, with some screenshots (either stills or videos or whataver) of previous events sort of slotting themselves into their spots in the progress bar/timeline - this would mean that the opening titles would be different all the time, as previous events are added or removed as the series progresses. And then a smaller version of that same progress bar could be shown, either periodically or continually, with an arrow indicating where in the timeline we are.
So in the above Third Age example, if we were at a point where the Arnor story has moved forward to the time of Arvedui holed up with the ice people, for instance, and then we're going to go back to Gondor and catch up to when Earnur Captain of Gondor heads up in his ships to help, but we're only at the Kinstrife in the Gondor story, we would have an opening title sequence that shows brief snippets of the events we've already shown of the Arnor storyline slotting into the progress bar, as well as Gondor stuff so far, and then an arrow a couple hundred years back to indicate where the Gondor events are in that timeline.
I think that if we worked it out, there could be a way to do this that would not be hokey or cheesy or distracting, and it would start to pay off next season when we try to show how the Sindar are getting along relative to the events in Valinor.