-Born 2931.
-Father dies 2933. Fostered in Rivendell as Estel. Journeys with the El-twins.
-2941: Quest of Erebor (book).
-2952 (age 21): learns true name, receives Narsil. Meets Arwen for the first time and falls in love with her. Heads into the Wild.
-2953 (age 22): Misses the last meeting of the White Council.
-2956 (age 25): meets Gandalf, visits the Shire, becomes known as Strider.
-2957 (age 26): begins journeying as Thorongil, heading to Rohan. Theoden is 11. Thengel has held the throne for four years. Saruman begins fortifying Isengard in this timeframe. Theodwyn, mother of Eomer and Eowyn, will be born in 2963.
-2958: Quest of Erebor, assuming the timeline is shunted forward 17 years by losing them in FotR-M. This matches up with B5A-M, where he's already known as Strider (per Gandalf).
-ca. 2970 (age 39): moves on from Rohan to Gondor, eventually working his way up to Ecthelion's most trusted counsellor. Denethor is 40 - yes, they're only a year apart! - and in 2976 will marry Finduilas, who will be 26. Boromir will be born in 2978.
-2979? (age 48): attacks Umbar and destroys its fleet. Refuses to return to Minas Tirith, but journeys on into South Gondor and heads for the Mountains of Shadow. Spends a while learning about Sauron's plans, then heads back towards Rivendell and enters Lorien around New Year, (ie, ca. April 1st).
-2980 (age 49): Aragorn and Arwen wander Lorien together for a season, and plight their troth at midsummer.
-3001 (age 70): Begins the Hunt for Gollum.

So there's possibilities there! You start with his 21st birthday (March 1st, 2952), when Elrond tells him his name and gives him his sword and ring. Then he meets Arwen, falls head-over-heels in love, and goes out into the wild when she doesn't return his affections.

You get a couple of episodes of Ranging, then have an adventure with Gandalf in the Shire. Gandalf prompts him to go south, noting that perhaps Elrond will look favourably on such a move, and we head off to Rohan.

Rohan and Gondor are both going to mingle politics with war, so we need to find a way to distinguish them. Remembering that Pippin contrasts kindly Theoden with harsh Denethor, we can treat Rohan in a 'family I never had' way, with Aragorn acting like an older cousin to Theoden and baby Theodwyn. They face incursions of goblins and Huorns from the north (which gives Aragorn a chance to hear tales of the Witch of the Golden Wood), and negotiate with Saruman.

Then on to Gondor, where Aragorn meets a very different reception. Ecthelion is wary of him; Denethor is actively hostile. He winds up in exile in Dol Amroth (where Angelimir rules, Adrahil has 15 years on Aragorn, and Imrahil is a teenager). We can probably tie his return to Finduilas' trip to marry Denethor - perhaps Aragorn thwarts an attack by the corsairs, earning him his place back in Minas Tirith?

So Aragorn grows closer to the Steward, though not to his son. For dramatic reasons, we're going to put his explorations of the South and East in here, having him vanishing and reappearing at odd times. That means the third-to-last episode can be 'gasp, a fleet from Umbar, but where is Thorongil?', the penultimate episode is 'haha, Thorongil smashes the corsairs', and the final episode can be his journey to Lorien and his reunion with Arwen, a sort of farewell tour of the first season, wrapping up the personal themes.

It does have possibilities, to be sure.

hS

See, I like the story of Lord of the Rings, and I own both the book and the films - but I am far more likely to watch the films than I am read the book.

Part of that may just be the particular edition of the book I own: a hardback of the full trilogy in one, so it's roughly the size, shape and weight of a breeze block, and I've always done a lot of reading while travelling - not exactly practical with this book. But another part is just the writing style is pretty heavy going,and sometimes feels like it takes actual physical effort to read through. The films are just a lot more easily accessible, and I find them entertaining enough.

But I am aware that the books came first, and that the films cu a lot of stuff out, and made a lot of changes.

I think I was lucky with the films in that I liked the story, but hadn't read the book for ages, so I just didn't pick up on the changes (which sadly wasn't the case for the recent Mortal Engines).

-Irish

If they explicitly link this to the movies - Sir Ian or Orli appearing seem the most likely ways, or Agent Elrond - then contradicting those movies is going to jar quite hard. I can see a partial recasting going very sideways - 'why does Arwen look different when Gandalf looks the same?!' - but also if they do things that would break the plot of the films.

The funniest thing will be if they do something book-accurate which disagrees with Jackson. How about black walls around Minas Tirith? Or accurate distances between various points?

hS

I think that mostly because the new series sounds like a terrible idea to me, but that might just be my desire to leave well enough alone, which is also why I can't get behind the Star Wars sequels.