Say all you want about Scotland, one things which is undeniable is that we have magnificent landscapes all around us (I live at the bottom of a range of hills, they awe me every morning as I drive pas them). This fact has not been left unnoticed by film makers looking for appropriate locations. From Highlander, to Skyfall and most recently Avengers: Infinity War, our country has been the gorgeous backdrop of many hit films. And now it would seem, Amazon is scouting locations for their upcoming Lord of the Rings series spinoff.
According to the article linked below, neither Amazon nor Creative Scotland have confirmed this but assuming the rumours of the series being mostly based around the younger years of Aragorn, then it would make sense to place him in various mountainous locations as a ranger from the North would certainly have been around places such as Ered Luin, the hills of Evendium, the North Downs or even the Angmar mountains. Though to remain accurate to the terrain I would expect Mountains to be shot in places such as (if they were to shoot it all in Britain) Snowdonia (or more likely somewhere in Eastern Europe where series like Game of Thrones are shot) as their peaks, though not as high as Ben Nevis are more peak-shaped and thus look like mountains more than the glacier-eroded hills we have up here.
Given the amount of money that Amazon is pouring into this project this would be a boon to the Scottish film industry and would in the long run likely have similar effects on tourism (good or bad, you decide) that the likes of Outlander have had on our historical sites.
Of course much of what this series will be about is likely to be completely original as very little has been put down by Tolkien about the younger years of Aragorn but he did serve for a time with Thengel of Rohan (father to Theoden) and Ecthelion II of Gondor (father to Denethor) so we could expect a few battles involving Rohan and Gondor against the enemy somehow.
As an aside to this news, if it will be about Aragorn’s younger years one has to wonder whether we will see Gandalf again. the two of then became friends in 2956TA when Aragorn was just 25-years old, a whole 45 years before Bilbo’s farewell Birthday party. But now Ian McKellen is getting old to play the character again and though Scotland would be far more accessible to him now than New Zealand is, it’s unlikely he would agree to don the beard and hat again and so they would likely have to recast him, a hard task to pull of given how McKellen fit into the character like a hand to a glove.
More information in the attached link below:
