Amazon’s Lord of the Rings show gearing up for sex and nudity
The Lord of the Rings isn’t typically associated with sexually explicit content, but Amazon’s new show may change that.
Sexual content and nudity may be par for the course on HBO’s Game of Thrones, but they’re not often associated with J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The Lord of the Rings novels have never contained explicit material, and the film adaptations followed them to a T in that regard.
However, it seems that Amazon Prime’s upcoming Lord of the Rings prequel series may change that, and Tolkien fans aren’t happy about it.
Tolkien fan site TheOneRing.net has gotten ahold of numerous casting calls that imply that Amazon’s show could follow in Game of Thrones‘ footsteps when it comes to nudity. One casting call from Kiwi agency BGT seeks talent for background roles, specifying that they should be “comfortable with partial or full nudity.”
Additionally, the series has brought on intimacy coordinator Jennifer Ward-Lealand, which obviously implies there will be intimate scenes for her to coordinate.
All signs point to sex and nudity in the upcoming fantasy series, and Lord of the Rings fans are already calling the decision a mistake. Many took to Twitter to air their grievances, suggesting that the move made sense for Game of Thrones but feels unnecessary for any adaptation of Tolkien’s works.
The whole point of Game of Thrones is that it wasn't LOTR.
— Geoffrey Miller (@primalpoly) October 6, 2020
But conversely, the whole point of LOTR is that it could have been GOT, but Tolkien, as a socially conservative traditionalist, decided not to go that direction.
The reason the original 3 Lord of the rings movies were so successful were because they didn’t have pointless nudity or sex in them. That type of shit doesn’t fit in Tolkien’s world. If amazon does this they are making a big mistake
— Alex Savage (@AlexSavage3) October 6, 2020
— Life Unscripted (@Fuxy40k) October 6, 2020
Of course, not everyone opposed the idea:
Hi, please meet the "Laws and Customs among the Eldar " where Tolkien describes how elves have sex and highly enjoy it pic.twitter.com/oyISjBtVcH
— Lucius Arobel (@Lucius_Arobel) October 6, 2020
Although granted, if you go ahead and read Tolkien’s words there, it sounds pretty chaste:
Yes let's read about how Elves identify sex with marriage, lose interest in it after they have had some children, stay monogamous even as they live to the end of the world, and how "deeds of lust" are almost unheard of.
— David Marsh (@davidhmarsh) October 7, 2020
🙄 pic.twitter.com/RUGr588IBX
Admittedly, it is a little bizarre for Amazon to take Tolkien’s world to the same places HBO took Game of Thrones. Westeros has always been known for its depravity, but Tolkien’s Middle-earth has never embraced such things, even in its darkest moments. With the prequel series heading in that direction, one has to wonder if it will be capable of maintaining the light and hope that’s at the heart of Tolkien’s world, or if it will look like something else entirely.
Next. Young Galadriel actor talks Lord of the Rings show. dark
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