Amazon Studios put the show’s creative team in a tough spot. They were charged with making a Lord Of The Rings series that appealed to the widest audience possible without alienating die-hard fans. Meanwhile the show had to be at least somewhat faithful to Tolkien—who famously resisted all attempts to adapt any of his writing in his lifetime—despite having limited rights to his works and a limited time period in which to tell stories that take place over millennia. That’s a tall order by anyone’s standards, but showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay came up with the idea to mine the appendices at the end of The Return Of The King for stories from the Second Age of Middle-earth.
Despite Payne and McKay proclaiming their fidelity to Tolkien in interviews, some fans seemed wary from the start. And with each new publicity hit the divide between those who are excited about the new show and those who have already decided it’s going to be a disaster grows wider. The criticisms have been all over the map, with varying degrees of integrity. Tolkien fans with deep knowledge of his works have picked up on quite a few changes in the characters and history of Middle-earth. What they’re essentially wrestling with is the Ship of Theseus question: How many elements can you swap out in Tolkien’s text and still claim that it comes directly from Tolkien? The discussion is further complicated by the fact that the author died nearly 50 years ago, so how can anyone presume to know what he would have thought or wanted today? These are legitimate, rational debates and there’s nothing wrong with having them in good faith. There are other critics, though, whose motivations are murkier.
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