Episode 128 · 2022-03-31 · 31:48 · Original in Finnish
The Rings of Power | Mike Pohjola | Negotiator 128
Originally published as “Mahtisormukset | Mike Pohjola | Neuvottelija 128”
The screenwriter and author Mike Pohjola takes up the difficulty of adaptation, with Jeff Bezos's billion-dollar bet as the main case: Amazon's The Rings of Power, which builds a series out of Tolkien's Second Age on the strength of the appendices alone. Pohjola and the host go through the trailer and speculate about what is coming. They also unpack the fan row about dark-skinned elves and dwarves, where Pohjola's observation is that Tolkien barely describes anyone's appearance at all. Earlier he explains how he localised The Office into the Finnish Konttori, and why the last two seasons of Game of Thrones failed.
Core theses
- Adapting the appendices is a different job from adapting a novel: there is a chronology and almost no scenes, so nearly everything has to be invented.
- Tolkien barely describes how his characters look, which relocates the casting argument from fidelity to expectation.
- Game of Thrones failed in its last seasons at the point where it ran out of book and had to invent, which is the same problem The Rings of Power starts with.
- Localising The Office into Konttori is the practical demonstration: what transfers is structure, and what has to be rebuilt is everything specific.
Watch and listen
Key moments
- 00:00 — Introducing Mike Pohjola: screenwriting, The Office, localising it into the Finnish Konttori, Sami Hedberg
- 03:30 — The Westeros correspondent: why seasons six and seven of Game of Thrones failed, particularly with Jon Snow and Daenerys
- 06:05 — Amazon Prime's The Rings of Power: adapting Tolkien against Peter Jackson's films
- 07:04 — Analysing the Rings of Power trailer: what looks good and what runs against the canon, ahead of the first season in autumn 2022 — Pohjola's and the host's expectations and speculation
- 26:06 — The Spede affair. Has the production culture of Finnish film decayed morally? Pohjola laments the loss of trust when, instead of approving a finished script, the production company announces it will make its Spede Pasanen film from a different angle. Does Finland need American practice here?
- 30:41 — What else Mike has in progress: the Agemonia role-playing game, historical fiction and more
Summary
The screenwriter and author Mike Pohjola takes up the difficulty of adaptation, with Jeff Bezos’s billion-dollar bet as the main case: Amazon’s The Rings of Power, which builds a series out of Tolkien’s Second Age on the strength of the appendices alone. Pohjola and the host go through the trailer and speculate about what is coming. They also unpack the fan row about dark-skinned elves and dwarves, where Pohjola’s observation is that Tolkien barely describes anyone’s appearance at all. Earlier he explains how he localised The Office into the Finnish Konttori, and why the last two seasons of Game of Thrones failed.
Adapting a chronology
The Second Age exists in Tolkien mostly as appendices — dates, names and outcomes, with almost no scenes. An adaptation therefore cannot be faithful in the ordinary sense, because there is nothing at the scene level to be faithful to. Pohjola’s point is that this makes invention the job rather than a failing, which reframes most of the argument about the series.
The casting row, restated
Tolkien hardly describes what anyone looks like. That single observation moves the dispute about dark-skinned elves and dwarves off the ground of textual fidelity and onto the ground of what readers had pictured — which is a real thing to argue about, but a different one.
The same problem, twice
Game of Thrones came apart when it overtook the books and had to write its own ending. The Rings of Power begins in that condition. Whether the comparison is fair is the episode’s open question, and it was recorded before anyone could answer it.
Watch
The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Mahtisormukset | Mike Pohjola | Neuvottelija 128. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.
In depth
The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode: English · suomeksi.
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People and topics
Guests: Mike Pohjola
Topics: Free Speech & Society