Last week we received news about a new Lord of the Rings project. There will be a film about the pitiful creature Gollum in 2026, which didn’t exactly trigger the most thunderous storms of enthusiasm. Only the inclusion of Andy Serkis as director and recurring Gollum actor and Peter Jackson as producer caused some excitement among ring nerds. But it’s exactly the wrong way around.
You can make an interesting film about any topic imaginable, but not this What is the most important thing, but that How. Were the Hobbit films terrible because of the original? No – they didn’t work because they were too attached to the form and aesthetic of the epic War of the Ring trilogy, the magic of which cannot be replicated in the same way. Not even from director Valar Jackson himself. Guillermo del Toro’s rejected film would have done the material much better.
The fantasy stuff that the same dreams are made of
The Hunt for Gollum, the title of the new Lord of the Rings film, may also raise doubts because some fans still have a bad aftertaste of the hated Gollum video game in their mouths. But you’re definitely not planning a little fantasy film in which Sméagol crawls through the mountains. Action King Aragorn or similar companions will be there again and it will probably have to be more monumental than the story warrants. Included What’s missing are the small, decidedly non-epic stories from JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth in film and series form.
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Gollum and the Hobbits in The Two
The Amazon series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power always shined in Season 1 when it didn’t try to emulate the Jackson films aesthetically and narratively. When she cooked her own fantasy soup and you were allowed to indulge in tender fairytale moments in which sparks of your own vision shimmer through. Far too often, however, the echo of the oh-so-holy trilogy reverberated, as if the series had to be able to adapt to the films at some point, and the trailer for season 2 only reinforces this impression.
A franchise to enslave them: Can Lord of the Rings still be saved?
The worst thing that could happen to the Lord of the Rings cosmos would be a fatal synchronization with content machines à la Star Wars. A franchise to enslave them so to speak. With a fixed design, an irrefutable canon, a recurring star menagerie, an overall vision. But maybe it’s already too late.
The noticeable resistance two years ago to something as banal as short-haired elves in The Rings of Power clearly showed that the Jackson trilogy partly dictates an all-encompassing aesthetic in people’s minds that goes beyond the Warner films. Do people still dare to try different or even experimental forms of Tolkien adaptations? Or is the radiance of the a Film series, including hairy hobbit feet, middle-parted elves and dem Balrog design just too strong?
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Another Tolkien vision from the 70s: The Balrog in the film by Ralph Bakshi
One remedy might be to bring in someone other than Tolkien illustrator John Howe, whose art has set the tone for 20 years, as a concept designer for a change. Howard Shore doesn’t have to be the first to be asked if he can contribute the soundtrack again. And Middle-earth would certainly do well by now, another Gollum than only ever seeing the interpretation perfected by Serkis.
Yes, the Lord of the Rings trilogy was and is great. Serkis was fantastic, he should have won a (as yet non-existent) motion capture Oscar for it. It’s been 20 years – next one please!
Fool’s hope comes galloping from the east
Before the Battle of Helm’s Deep, Gandalf told his allies to look to the east for help on the third day. How fitting, because by far the most exciting Lord of the Rings project, which is most likely to take advantage of the opportunity for diverse voices and design decisions, is scheduled to come this year – from the Far East of Japan.
There, director Kenji Kamiyama and his team are working on The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, an anime film about the horse lords of Rohan at the time of King Helm Hammerhand, with a focus on his daughter.
The film is supposed to be on December 12, 2024 is coming to German cinemas and could be the creative glimmer of hope that Middle-earth needs on the big screen. But maybe it’s just one “a fool’s hope”as Gandalf would say.