NewStatesman has an article by Rebecca Rideal about the new Amazon Lord of the Rings series. Rideal makes some excellent points about the risks and benefits of adapting Middle-earth material to a TV series format; however, I'm not sure she has a full grasp on the legal situation regarding the different Tolkien books . . . she suggests more than once that Amazon might mine the Silmarillion for material, even though it is not at all clear that the Tolkien Estate is prepared to release the film rights for that book.
Additionally, she trots out the "Lord of the Rings is racist" argument towards the end of the article, and suggests that Tolkien's world will need significant updating to bring it up to 21st century standards. To me this smacks of a lack of understanding regarding why Tolkien developed his Legendarium in the first place, but I'm too tired to open up that debate right now. I'll save it that for another post down the road.
Later.
