People Have Been Questioning Amazon's Decision To Remake Lord Of The Rings

As the old adage goes: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. That's a sentiment that some The Lord Of The Rings fans are clinging to after an announcement by Amazon that an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein's novels for a multi-season television series is to go into production.

There's a debate raging about the announcement, as you can see in the video, and it remains to be seen how it will develop.

Even people who don't particularly like fantasy stuff absolutely love Peter Jackson's epic adaptations of the trilogy - 2001's The Fellowship of the Ring, 2002's The Two Towers and 2003's phenomenal finale, The Return Of The King.

That is for a good reason, because even over 15 years later, they're as good as they ever were. In fact, they're pretty much perfect. And with a combined running time of over nine hours (or over 11 hours if you're watching the extended versions), they're about the length of a TV series anyway.

So does that make a problem for Amazon in its remake, if only because the actors of the films are now so ingrained in our minds as those characters?

Can you imagine a Gandalf that isn't Sir Ian McKellen, a Legolas that isn't Orlando Bloom with long blond hair or anybody other than Liv Tyler playing Arwen? And that's just scratching the service.

Christopher Lee was the perfect Sauron, Elijah Wood the perfect Frodo, Viggo Mortensen the perfect Aragorn and Cate Blanchett the perfect Galadriel, and they all truly brought the characters from the books to life.

And don't get us started on Gollum - both the CGI creature and Andy Serkis' behind-the-scenes portrayal of him, were perfect. There's that word again: perfect. As is Howard Leslie Shore's score, which was as fundamental a part of those films as the actors themselves.

To be fair, the press release explains that the new series will take place in Middle Earth but will "explore new storylines preceding J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring." But would that not, as some people are snarkily pointing out on Twitter, be The Hobbit? Or The Silmarillion?

Some were a bit more philosophical about the news while others actually seemed kind of stoked on it.

But most people seemed a bit pissed off and offended by it:

Only time will tell but the pressure is on to follow-up an all-time classic in the books and films.

Featured Image Credit: Lord Of The Rings

Topics: TV and Film, Lord Of The Rings

Mark McGowan

Mark is a journalist at LADbible, who joined in 2015 after a year as a freelance writer. In the past he blogged for independent football fan channel Redmen TV, after graduating from Staffordshire University with degrees in journalism and English literature. He has worked on campaigns such as UOKM8? and IIOC.