The Silmarillion TV Series by AndyC

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Season 1, Episode 1, Part 1

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EPISODE ONE – CHILDREN OF THE STARS 

PRE-CREDITS SCENE

EXT – OUTSIDE CUIVENEN 

We see Cuivenen under stars from high up.  The stars are far brighter than usual, and more plentiful (we see stars at the 7^th, 8^th magnitude – we’re scaling to Elven eyesight).  There is an effect as if of very faint shimmering light in the air [a sort of very, very diffuse mist – SFX department need to work on this]  We come closer down and see the woodlands around it and skim over a barely seen figure on horseback and through the trees for a while until we come up to two Elves. 

Elf 1 (unsure, eyes darting around): 

I don’t know. I’m still not happy about this. There may be more berries over this way, but- you know. The Dark Rider. 

Elf 2 (cocksure and almost laughing): 

The Dark Rider? The Dark Rider’s just a story. Ooh, there’s a dark figure in the woods who steals away Elves who wander too far alone. Personally, I’m sick of fish and we know there are berries over here. 

Elf 1 (following him uncertainly): 

But Elves have gone missing. Quite a few of them. 

Elf 2 (pauses and looks back, exasperated): 

And who’s to say they haven’t just gone exploring further and not come back yet? 

Elf 1: 

On their own?  

Elf 2 (nearly jumps at a half-heard sound in the distance): 

Now you’ve got me doing it. Yes, on their own. Or they could have met with an accident, which is far more likely. [he pauses] Oh, yes, and the Dark Rider only takes Elves on their own. There are two of us.  

Elf 1 (rolling his eyes):  

Right, I get it: there isn’t a Dark Rider and anyway he only takes Elves wandering on their own?  

Elf 2 (sighs):  

Well- 

[The world darkens; the stars fade down to human-vision levels and still further. The effect of faint shimmering light in the air recedes. Distortion effect as if twisting through a wide-angle lense] 

Elf 1 (almost stammering in panic):  

Not well! Not well! Not well at all!  

[Looks wildly around. Crashing sound of Dark Rider. They stare, frozen in fear. Dark Rider lifts his hand and they stumble and fall. 

CUT TO 

Dark Rider galloping northwards with two unconscious Elves draped over the front of his horse. We see his face – dark and beautiful. Sauron laughs.  

 

OPENING CREDITS 

 

BLACK SCREEN. A DOT OF LIGHT. MUSIC RIGHT ON THE EDGE OF HEARING, SWELLING. PIPES, HARPS, VOICES WITHOUT WORDS. 

 

THE DOT OF LIGHT GROWS AND BECOMES THE FLAT WORLD ENGLOBED IN DARKNESS.   

 

SYMMETRICAL, SILVER LIGHT IN THE NORTH; GOLD LIGHT IN THE SOUTH, AS PER THE AMBARKANTA 

 

The image freezes and becomes a beautiful sketch. A long pause, and then it burns outwards from the centre. In the image in the centre, it blurs as the music turns to discord. 

 

STORMS, DISTORTION, CLOUDS. IMAGES OF CRASHING ICE, RAGING LAVA, FIRESTORMS, TEMPESTS AND GALES. Turns into a sketch and pauses. 

 

MOUNTAIN RANGES FORMING, TREES AND FORESTS GROWING, RIVERS SPRINGING AND RUNNING, LIGHTNING CRASHING AND DESTROYING, STONE SLIDES, ERUPTIONS, PILLARS IN THE NORTH AND SOUTH WITH GREAT LAMPS, GOLDEN AND SILVER ILLUMINATING ALL. Turns into a sketch and pauses. 

 

THE MOUNTAIN-LIKE PILLARS FALLING, THE LAMPS CRASHING, LIGHT SPILLING, STORMS RISING 

PANNING UP TO SEE PINPRICKS OF LIGHT – ONLY THE STARS BELOW THE THIRD MAGNITUDE. 

 

THE BRIGHTER STARS BLOSSOM, ONE BY ONE. 

 

Camera pans down to the flat world again and pulls away to it englobed in darkness, but vastly more complex and detailed than before – and not as it was in the first idealised image. It holds solid and three shining white-gold shimmering lights appear in a triangle: one high in the centre, one happens to be overlain on the Western Ocean, the last, symmetrical in an asymmetric world, is overlain on the land in the East. Once again, freezing into a sketch. 

 

The Silmarillion 

 

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SCENE ONE: 

EXT. CUIVENEN  

A series of clearings in the forest under starlight – only it’s merely as dark as twilight on a clear evening. This is for two reasons – firstly, as described earlier, that Elven eyes are far more sensitive than ours in the dark, and secondly because the Light of the Trees is not as physical light since the loss of the Trees: it doesn’t follow the same laws of physics. It’s more like water than light – a straight stream from the Trees to whatever might cast shadow, and then mist or droplets beyond that. The lighter-than-darkness levels here are from what can be thought of as a very very fine (and low-level) mist of light drizzling over the entire world. 

There are huts dotted among the trees – and even in the trees at some places. On first glance, they’re crude, but as the camera nears them, we see they’re actually well made out of basic materials, with symmetry and aesthetic balance. We see Elves of all ages bustling about, but quietly and without fuss. The camera pans along for some seconds until it lights on a trio of Elves: one golden haired, one black-haired, and one with long silver-grey hair (and taller than any other Elf). These are Ingar, Finn, and El.  

Finn:  

So, he said to me that he’ll simply take that place to build a new hut because the view over Cuivenen was better than anywhere else. I tried to point out that, sure, it was, but it meant he’d be blocking the views of about six other families who’d all agreed to keep that – 

[Another Elf runs up to them. He looks similar to El, but a little shorter, younger and with white hair instead of silver. He is Ol, the younger brother of El.]  

Ol:  

El, it’s happened again. 

El (sighing):   

What has happened again? With our Clan, you could be talking of anything from Nurweg falling off a rock half-way up the cliff again, or Nowe nearly drowning when inventing that ridiculous ‘swimming’ concept, or… 

Finn (murmuring):  

Interesting that you should mention two who happen to be your cousins…  

[El glances back at him with a wry smile and a shrug.]  

Ol:  

I mean, Carmo and Neru have gone missing. The Dark Rider! It must be.  

[The three of them share a sceptical glance]  

Finn:  

I don’t mean to intrude into Third Clan business, but can you be sure? I mean, firstly, that they’re missing and not just preoccupied with something – like the play of a spring down a rockface and how the sound of the water sounds like music, just to give one example that cropped up fairly recently? And secondly, that if they are missing, that it’s down to a mysterious Dark Rider – and what he’s riding on has never been explained?  

Ol:  

Galwen saw it! Well, nearly!  

El (leaning forwards, intent):  

She saw it? Genuinely? A Dark Rider taking them away?  

Ol (wincing):  

Not exactly. She was nearby, she heard a crashing sound, she ran towards the place, and when she was there, they were gone. And she thinks she saw something large riding off through the woods.  

El (hollowly):  

She thinks she saw something large. Oh.  

Ingar (has been watching with amusement. Grinning):  

You know, I’m more and more grateful my Clan’s so…  

El:  

Small?  

Ingar (mock scowling):  

I was going to say ‘sane’. At least in comparison to your sprawling Clan of…  

El (arching an eyebrow):  

-  

Ingar:  

Um. Singers?  

Finn:  

It’s okay, you can say ‘lunatics’. He knows they’re a bit – well – absent, most of the time.   

[Grinning at El]  

It could be a lot worse. With the Tatyar, wherever you’ve got two of us, one will invariably say the opposite of the other, just to be contrary.  

Ingar:  

Oh yes, where is Moru these days?  

 

CUT TO THE SHORELINE WHERE A GROUP OF GESTICULATING AND EXCITED ELVES IS ARGUING. 

EXT. CUIVENEN, SHORELINE 

[To one side, there’s a series of low cliffs. About a third of the width of the cliffs is taken up by a series of gentle cascades, falling between 3-10 feet at a time into pools, overflowing, and into the next cascade. The gentle noise of the waterfalls is an omnipresent background. The other direction is a low rise, leading towards a series of low hills, covered with trees. The clearing in the middle is wider than the ones we’ve seen earlier 

Standing nearby, pausing before they wade in, Finn murmurs a question for El and Ingwe]:   

Finn: 

So how exactly did we become the ones everyone else takes complaints to?  

El:  

Don’t ask me. I thought my Grandfather was doing that job for the Third Clan, until he decided to just spend his days fishing. Next thing I know, everyone’s coming to me – or Ol, when I’m not around.  

Ingar:  

For me, it was when Father and Grandfather got grumpy over that chant they started using to teach the youngsters about numbers and greed. 

Finn (winces):  

That was all Moru’s doing. All right, he didn’t come up with it – that was someone over in the Third Clan – but he decided we came out of it perfectly. You know: not too greedy or too large in the end.  

Ingar:  

Maybe. But Grandfather got sick of telling all the newest generation that it wasn’t how it had been, that the numbers were all wrong anyway, and all right, the relative proportions were spot on in the end, but that was the entire point in having a story to help them remember, and… [he trails off]  

El (sympathetically):  

I understand. He’s a bit sensitive about it – even though no-one remembers who exactly was the first to wake up, it could have been his own father and it probably feels like a direct attack.  

Ingar (looks grateful): 

[sighs] I suppose we’d better say something, then.  

[He wades into the middle of it, his hands up]  

Right. What exactly do we know and what are we guessing?  

There is a hubbub of voices all answering at once. From the edge of the clearing, a young woman is watching them. It becomes apparent she’s watching Finn more than the others. She has darker silver hair. She seems to be sewing and pricks her finger as she watches absently. She doesn’t notice and continues sewing; the thread sliding through her dripping blood as she continues. 

 

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SCENE TWO: 

INT. UTUMNO 

A dark, empty cavern. The blackness is very different to the perpetual twilight-and-stars.  No hint of the low-level shimmering light, no stars – blackness. There is a flare of fire and we see the two Elves from the pre-credits scene. One is just stirring; the other is looking around in horror. 

Elf 1:  

Car! [in a harsh whisper] 

Elf 2:  

Wh – what?  

Elf 1:  

I think we’re in trouble!  

There is hollow laughter. Another Elf – but with face distorted like run wax and one eye milky shoves his face into theirs.  

Strange Elf: 

You don’t know just how much trouble you’re in, boys.  

Elf 1 (scared):  

How bad – how bad can it be?  

Strange Elf:  

You have no idea how bad it can be. Experiments – animals – spirits – pain – working to death – forced breeding…  

Elf 2 (muzzily):  

Breeding? How do they force you to breed? Do they introduce you…  

Strange Elf (laughing – it’s discordant and harsh):  

Introduce you? Oh, that’s special. Yes, boy, they take you to meet their parents and then they come to meet your parents and you get to meet each other over a bite to eat. Then you explain what skills you have and how you’ll be a benefit to their House and… [he starts to cry.]  

Elf 1:  

Look, I thought you were being sarcastic, but – why are you crying?  

Strange Elf (pulls himself together):  

Right. Yes. No, it’s just – for a moment, I forgot myself and I was far, far away from here.   

[scowls at them].    

No, boy, they don’t introduce you. The Master looks you in the eye and you do what he wants you to do. Sometimes they have to hurt you first –  

[reflecting]  

The first time, they almost always have to hurt you a lot until you let them in, but then you stop fighting and let them in straight away.  

Elf 2 (less muzzily – it’s starting to sink in just how bad this is. He’s looking around in dismay. There are flickers of torchlight and mystic lights illuminating small fractions of what has to be an immense space):  

Let who in? 

Strange Elf:   

The Master, and whoever he’s chosen. 

Elf 1 (confused):  

To breed with?  

Strange Elf:  

No! That’s next. Whoever of the dark spirits he’s chosen to control you for that time. Else you’d never be able to do it. Not you, and not them.  

Elf 2 (almost under his breath. He’s standing up, looking around again):  

I guess I can understand that. No-one wants to be forced to beget with someone not their choice.    

[He crouches down and drops his voice further]   

There must be a way out of here. There has to be. How…?  

Strange Elf (initially ignoring his latter statement):  

You don’t know the least of it, you poor ignorant fool. It’s not just other Elves they breed you with. 

Elf 1: 

I – I don’t understand. Who else is there?  

Strange Elf (almost sobbing):   

Dark spirits in bodily form. Animals…  

Elf 2 (almost retching):  

Animals? But – I mean –  

[looks repulsed and puzzled]  

– that wouldn’t even be viable.  

Strange Elf (can’t catch his voice for a long moment):  

It’s against all laws of nature, yes.   

[Looks up, hopelessly]   

But look around. So’s this place. And so is the Master. He can make viable what shouldn’t be viable.  

[Stands up. Dashes away some tears and says almost conversationally]    

Abandon hope.    

[Turns to Elf 2, properly]    

There isn’t any way out. There’s no escape. The tunnels are lightless and infinite. They lead only to other caverns and halls – like this one. The same. Always the same. Wherever you go, they find you there. They don’t need to punish you – they do anyway. If you try to escape. If you don’t try to escape. If you disobey. If you obey. If you beg. If you stay silent. They break you.    

[pauses]    

You will live and work and slave for Him. You will do whatever He wants you to do. You will chip away at stone, you will work in His forges, you will make do and mend, you will eat what you are given – or who you are given. And, yes: you will breed with whoever or whatever He makes you breed with. Your children will be monsters. You will live and die here, far from the precious stars, far from all your kin, and even after death… I’ve seen and felt some of the dark spirits and recognised them.  

Elf 1 (disbelief on his face):   

Even in death?  

[There is a commotion, not far from them. The Dark Huntsman has walked in and stands there, a cruel smile on his perfect face. Despite the lack of light, we can see him – as if there is always the faintest light around him. He stands there, obviously enjoying the fear he’s generating. At last he walks slowly towards the new Elves. They freeze in terror. He catches their eye, holds it a long minute, snorts, and grabs an Elf near where he is. 

As if like a zombie, the Elf he’s chosen stands up and shuffles after him. They vanish into the blackness. Elf 1 and 2 hold their breaths for a long, long moment, before letting it out explosively]  

Elf 2:  

Thank the Stars! 

Strange Elf (laughs hollowly again): 

You think that was a mercy? You poor fools.  

Elf 1:  

What? I mean – he didn’t take us yet.  

Strange Elf:  

But he will. He will. He’s playing with you. To make the moment of loss so much the worse. Maybe he’ll take you straightaway next time. Or maybe he’ll just get closer and closer, veering away at the last moment. Giving you more and fresh hope each time – so it’s that much more delicious for him when he finally-  

[Interrupted by a silky smooth voice. They jump as the Dark Huntsman materializes right next to them] 

Sauron:   

Well, well. Someone’s been learning. I’m impressed.  

Strange Elf (cowers):  

No, Master. Not me. Not me. Take them! Not me! Not again!  

Sauron:  

Oh, my precious one. It is you. And it’s not that. Not again. No, my precious one, it’s time you moved on. You’ve learned so much – but there is so much left to teach you.  

Strange Elf (sobbing as he turns to follow):   

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. 

[The camera pans back, we see dozens of tunnels and caverns in a sudden rush, and then we’re high up outside, seeing Utumno from above. Crumpled mountains above, pits and tunnels leading down, fortifications that then blend into crags and outcrops, larger than life. The camera pulls back further and we see the snow fields around it and then, far off, the Iron Mountains to the south] 

 

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END OF PART ONE