New LotR movie incoming - 2026

[Mordar]

Looks like a new LotR movie is inbound - "The Hunt for Gollum" starring and directed by Smeagol, produced by Jackson.

Hope it minimizes CGI (outside of the lead character of course) and focuses on practical/costume when possible, and no rivers of 100s of gobbos all lined up like a Disney ride to assault our incredibly nimble dwarf hobbit whatever protagonist.

- M

[Zevox]

:smallconfused: Uh, why? Everything important about Gollum's story was already in LotR itself.

I mean, I'm a pretty big Tolkien fan, you could definitely sell me on other movies set in Arda, but, why one about Gollum of all characters?

Heck, they released that Gollum video game last year too, and I had the same reaction to when they announced it. Why do the people making these decisions think he's the one to build new LotR media around?

[Metastachydium]

…
There already is a fan movie entitled exactly that. Has been for a decade and a half now. What's happening here?

[pendell]

Who's producing the movie? Amazon, or New Line Cinema? Is Andy serkis reprising the role?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Talakeal]

Who's producing the movie? Amazon, or New Line Cinema? Is Andy serkis reprising the role?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Warner Brothers. Yes, Serkis is starring and directing.

[Mordar]

Who's producing the movie? Amazon, or New Line Cinema? Is Andy serkis reprising the role?

Warner Brothers. Serkis is starring and directing. Sounds like Jackson writing with his two collaborators.

- M

[t209]

I think there was a fan movie with that name.
Someone wanted to canonize it.

[Ionathus]

LotR movies I would rather watch:


Gandalf: The Lost Years
Aragorn: The Later Years
Merry & Pippin Go To The Pub Four Times in One Day
Tom Bombadil - The Musical!
The Two Towers Again But Everyone Is Played By Sir Patrick Stewart
Farmer Maggot: The Early Years
How Legolas's Father's Mother's Sister's Cousin's Former Roommate Did Something Important, Probably, I Bet It's All There In Appendix Q-A5C
Two and a Half Hours of Sam Gardening
Faramir: The Early Years
The Entire Courtship of Sam and Rosie Cotton
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Horror)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Comedy)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Carrots Grown by Farmer Maggot (Horror/Comedy)



Heck, they released that Gollum video game last year too, and I had the same reaction to when they announced it. Why do the people making these decisions think he's the one to build new LotR media around?

Gollum is memorable, and Andy Serkis is presumably content to keep playing him? I genuinely don't know why this is the direction they're choosing but the actor-willingness-to-actor-recognition-to-actor-pricetag ratio could be a big factor.

[DavidSh]

I wouldn't have thought that Gollum himself would appear much in "The Hunt for Gollum". Rather, the hunters would be the focus. (Is Viggo Mortensen still available?) Just like the statuette appears very little in The Maltese Falcon.

What I'd like to see is a proper version of the Scouring of the Shire. Shoot it like The Seven Samauri.

[Zevox]

Tom Bombadil - The Musical!
So, just any movie about Tom Bombadil, then. :smalltongue:

Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!


Gollum is memorable, and Andy Serkis is presumably content to keep playing him? I genuinely don't know why this is the direction they're choosing but the actor-willingness-to-actor-recognition-to-actor-pricetag ratio could be a big factor.
I guess that likely factors into the movie, but he didn't have anything to do with the video game.

[Mordar]

LotR movies I would rather watch:


The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Horror)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Comedy)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Carrots Grown by Farmer Maggot (Horror/Comedy)


If you make the last one as a short/cartoon before each of the first two I will buy tickets to those movies.

No more Gandalf though. Or Legolas.

But maybe "The One Where Gimli isn't Presented as a [Joke]" would be a good movie for me, too.

- M

[Bohandas]

LotR movies I would rather watch:


Gandalf: The Lost Years
Aragorn: The Later Years
Merry & Pippin Go To The Pub Four Times in One Day
Tom Bombadil - The Musical!
The Two Towers Again But Everyone Is Played By Sir Patrick Stewart
Farmer Maggot: The Early Years
How Legolas's Father's Mother's Sister's Cousin's Former Roommate Did Something Important, Probably, I Bet It's All There In Appendix Q-A5C
Two and a Half Hours of Sam Gardening
Faramir: The Early Years
The Entire Courtship of Sam and Rosie Cotton
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Horror)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Comedy)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Carrots Grown by Farmer Maggot (Horror/Comedy)


And on a more serious note, any part of The Silmarillion

[warty goblin]

I can't say I need or want this - we have 3 perfectly good LoTR movies already and the further from the source the adaptations get the worse they become - but if the franchise must be continued for the sake of the almighty shareholders, at least the creative team is strong and the base idea isn't terrible.

One major point in favor is that most of the locations where a Gollum hunt is likely to occur are already well described in the books, and have frequently already been filmed. This reduces the chances for really bad ideas. I also think Serkis is likely to do pretty well by Gollum as a character, and Jackson & co, when not roped in at the last minute, do filmic Tolkien as well as can be expected of anybody. The scope is nicely limited by the existing story, which I expect Jackson & Co will generally respect, and it's a fairly approachable task. It's also a reasonable place to include more of Aragorn and Arwen's backstory, which is good, actually exists in reasonably detailed form, and got rather papered over in the movies because they're side characters.


The downside is that, well, there's not a ton of original material to use, and Tolkien is both stylistically unique and very hard for a modern writer to mimic in big, freestanding blocks. The world view and narrative structure is pretty distinct and hard to capture.

I can't say I'm excited. But my expectations are higher than another Rings of Power type project.

[KorvinStarmast]

Gollum is memorable, and Andy Serkis is presumably content to keep playing him? I genuinely don't know why this is the direction they're choosing but the actor-willingness-to-actor-recognition-to-actor-pricetag ratio could be a big factor. I am gonna guess that the focus of the story is Aragorn. I doubt Vigo will be back for that.

What I'd like to see is a proper version of the Scouring of the Shire. Shoot it like The Seven Samauri. Interesting idea. It's been 20 years. Will Sean, Dominic, Billy, and Elijah be able to fill those roles again?

I can't say I'm excited. But my expectations are higher than another Rings of Power type project. Yeah. Get someone other that Mordred Morfydd to play Galadriel.

[Mordar]

And on a more serious note, any part of The Silmarillion

I think there's a major licensing problem there, right?

- M

[J-H]

Who's the target audience for this?

I'm certainly not in it.

[KorvinStarmast]

Who's the target audience for this?

I'm certainly not in it. People whose first exposure to the LotR was the films. That is my guess.

[Errorname]

I'm baffled as to why Warners insists on trying to make movies out of appendices instead of just letting someone take another crack at adapting the Lord of the Rings.

[warty goblin]

I'm baffled as to why Warners insists on trying to make movies out of appendices instead of just letting someone take another crack at adapting the Lord of the Rings.

I suspect a few reasons.

1) If all you can do with the Tolkien liscence is remake LoTR every 25 years, it's not worth as much as if you can make other stuff in it. Like it or not we still live in the world of repeated franchise film making, so franchises are gonna be exploited to the max.

2) The Jackson versions are an extremely high bar to clear. I'm not saying they are flawless, but I don't think there's much potential to do a version that's on the whole better. Any attempt to remake them is going to be stupidly expensive, and probably worse because very few movies are better than the Jackson LoTR films.

3) the Jackson versions are still very popular. Any remake is going to get approximately 800,000 hours of memes comparing the remake to the original frame by frame and then explaining why the new one sucks and the director and (particularly the female) cast should be fed feet first to syphilitic wargs.

[Metastachydium]

LotR movies I would rather watch:


Gandalf: The Lost Years
Aragorn: The Later Years
Merry & Pippin Go To The Pub Four Times in One Day
Tom Bombadil - The Musical!
The Two Towers Again But Everyone Is Played By Sir Patrick Stewart
Farmer Maggot: The Early Years
How Legolas's Father's Mother's Sister's Cousin's Former Roommate Did Something Important, Probably, I Bet It's All There In Appendix Q-A5C
Two and a Half Hours of Sam Gardening
Faramir: The Early Years
The Entire Courtship of Sam and Rosie Cotton
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Horror)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Comedy)

Also:
–Uglûk – The Whole Freakin' Two Weeks (Biopic);
–The Little White Flowers of Minas Morgul – A Case Study in Strategies towards a Rapid Adaptation to the Shadow (Documentary);
–Where Was Erkenbrand when the Westfold Fell?! (Political Propaganda Piece);
–The Wainriders – A Mad Max Story (Self-Explanatory);
–The Sea of Núrnen – The Impact of Large-Scale Agriculture on the Landscape and Fauna of Southern Mordor (Documentary and Political Propaganda Piece).


The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Carrots Grown by Farmer Maggot (Horror/Comedy)

Also also, I don't like you anymore.


I wouldn't have thought that Gollum himself would appear much in "The Hunt for Gollum". Rather, the hunters would be the focus. (Is Viggo Mortensen still available?) Just like the statuette appears very little in The Maltese Falcon.

Yep. I don't think he even appeared in the 2009 version.


Or Legolas.

Come on, I bet they can make him even chubbier and (somehow also) even more Wuxia-flavoured than in the last one!


Yeah. Get someone other that Mordred Morfydd to play Galadriel.

I mean, I'm pretty sure none of the stupid things her "I swim back and romance Sauron or whatever" Galadriel did was her idea.


and the director and (particularly the female) cast should be fed feet first to syphilitic wargs.

On the one hand, given how well Hollywood Writer's Cherished OC no. 49337-to-49357 class additions to preexisting stories tend to go, and how tempting it is to make most of those female in any given work based on Tolkien, I can understand the frustration of many such people; on the other hand, man, the parts of the internet angry about these things you visit is tame.

[t209]

Come on, I bet they can make him even chubbier and (somehow also) even more Wuxia-flavoured than in the last one!

For some reason, you just give an unintentional reference to Sammo Hung (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sammo_Hung).

[Arcane_Secrets]

LotR movies I would rather watch:


Gandalf: The Lost Years
Aragorn: The Later Years
Merry & Pippin Go To The Pub Four Times in One Day
Tom Bombadil - The Musical!
The Two Towers Again But Everyone Is Played By Sir Patrick Stewart
Farmer Maggot: The Early Years
How Legolas's Father's Mother's Sister's Cousin's Former Roommate Did Something Important, Probably, I Bet It's All There In Appendix Q-A5C
Two and a Half Hours of Sam Gardening
Faramir: The Early Years
The Entire Courtship of Sam and Rosie Cotton
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Horror)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Comedy)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Carrots Grown by Farmer Maggot (Horror/Comedy)




Gollum is memorable, and Andy Serkis is presumably content to keep playing him? I genuinely don't know why this is the direction they're choosing but the actor-willingness-to-actor-recognition-to-actor-pricetag ratio could be a big factor.

I doubt Rings of Power will last this long but if they did a prequel about the fall of Numenor including Sauron giving the Rings of Power to the future Nazgul (especially since one of them was a Numenorean king's brother iirc) and the actual, full, battle against him I'd absolutely watch that.

However this...no. Please don't.

[KorvinStarmast]

–The Wainriders – A Mad Max Story (Self-Explanatory); Would probably watch that.


I mean, I'm pretty sure none of the stupid things her "I swim back and romance Sauron or whatever" Galadriel did was her idea. Galadriel is a particular person, and Mordred doesn't fill the boots well.
Tom Cruise made a Jack Reacher movie. It was an almost. He tried hard but it didn't work for me.
They finally got a big fella to play Jack Reacher and it worked. (Not saying season 2 was great, but it still felt like Reacher).


On the one hand, given how well Hollywood Writer's Cherished OC no. 49337-to-49357 class additions to preexisting stories tend to go, and how tempting it is to make most of those female in any given work based on Tolkien, I can understand the frustration of many such people; on the other hand, man, the parts of the internet angry about these things you visit is tame. They messed up the hobbit precursors (sadly) and it had nothing to do with the lead hobbit being female. (And I think I'm glad I don't visit those corners of the internet).

The movie I want to see is the film version of Cassandra Claire's Very Secret Diaries.

[Eldan]

Wainriders is definitely how I would approach it. Pick some random unimportant characters who are in some less discussed theatre of the ring war and tell their story. Rangers of the North. Or the defence of Erebor. Or a story told in the Sauron-worshipping East. Or Southern Gondor defending against corsairs.

[Metastachydium]

Galadriel is a particular person, and Mordred doesn't fill the boots well.
Tom Cruise made a Jack Reacher movie. It was an almost. He tried hard but it didn't work for me.
They finally got a big fella to play Jack Reacher and it worked. (Not saying season 2 was great, but it still felt like Reacher).

That's fair enough. It appears they went, like, "well, she's female, blond and we can afford to hire her, no questions asked – I can't see how that could not cut it". But comparing her to Tom Cruise is still unwarranted (man, do I hate that guy!).


The movie I want to see is the film version of Cassandra Claire's Very Secret Diaries.

Damn. I forgot those existed! Sadly, I'm not sure they'd work very well in a visual medium.


Wainriders is definitely how I would approach it. Pick some random unimportant characters who are in some less discussed theatre of the ring war and tell their story. Rangers of the North. Or the defence of Erebor. Or a story told in the Sauron-worshipping East. Or Southern Gondor defending against corsairs.

East is especially rewarding in that way, what with having all those misplaced Wizards. I kinda like the fan theory reconciling Tolkien's "they probably failed like Saruman" with Tolkien's "but maybe they didn't, after all" through positing they set them up as rival dark lords, semi-acccidentally dividing up Sauron's available manpower and limiting his influence by going bad.

[Infernally Clay]

I doubt Rings of Power will last this long but if they did a prequel about the fall of Numenor including Sauron giving the Rings of Power to the future Nazgul (especially since one of them was a Numenorean king's brother iirc) and the actual, full, battle against him I'd absolutely watch that.

However this...no. Please don't.

Amazon basically has no choice but to do the whole story. They're contractually bound to not cancel Rings of Power otherwise they risk losing the rights to others Tolkien projects too.

There's a pretty good chance that Rings of Power season three will end with Galadriel beating the heck out of Sauron as the Númenoreans show up to save the day and the big cliffhanger will be that Ar-Pharazôn reveals to Sauron that he's there to save him from the elves and wants his help to make Númenor prosper.

[Tyndmyr]

Galadriel is a particular person, and Mordred doesn't fill the boots well.
Tom Cruise made a Jack Reacher movie. It was an almost. He tried hard but it didn't work for me.
They finally got a big fella to play Jack Reacher and it worked. (Not saying season 2 was great, but it still felt like Reacher).

Reacher's a pretty solid example of how casting can matter, yeah. Obviously Tom Cruise can act, but he doesn't really match the character, and it absolutely changes the feel of the work.

That said, in RoP, I don't think any casting change could have saved this plot. At some point, you've got to blame the scriptwriter, and the plot is so hamfisted that one cannot blame an acting choice. Even where one dislikes acting, the responsibility is fuzzy. Is it on the actor? The director? Both are certainly possible, along with other oddball things that crop up in moviemaking. A dissonant choice in lighting or music can also make a scene fall short. All in all, I think actors probably get more credit/blame on average than is likely deserved, and screenwriters and lighting, not enough.

[pendell]

Wainriders is definitely how I would approach it. Pick some random unimportant characters who are in some less discussed theatre of the ring war and tell their story. Rangers of the North. Or the defence of Erebor. Or a story told in the Sauron-worshipping East. Or Southern Gondor defending against corsairs.

How about the Blue Wizards? There's a pack of stories there begging to be told. While they ultimately failed, maybe we can still give them a Big D*n Heroes moment. Also, given these events would be happening in Rhun or Harad, we could have some stars who aren't obviously western European, which is important in the age of representation.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[warty goblin]

Anything you do with the blue wizards, Harad, etc is going to hit the Rings of Power problem but even worse; there's simply no source material to pull from. For the blue wizards I think there's almost literally zero, they exist, they went east, they did some unspecified but not successful stuff. IIRC that's all there is to go on.

Now look at the roughly 30 hours of filmed Tolkien in the 21st century, and ask yourself, just how good is the stuff the screenwriters made up and stuck in? It's generally pretty bad in my view, and the further from the source it meanders, the worse it gets. Any blue wizards stuff is going to be more or less right off the edge of the map, my prior guess is that it would suck, and I'm willing to use a pretty strong prior here*.

And the only reason to do any project like this is to keep shoveling out brand content to make the shareholders happy, artistically it's pretty much a dead end. It isn't going to be the story of "what really happened" because the Middle Earth canon is JRR Tolkien's work (edited by Christopher Tolkien) and anybody writing now is just a schmuck hired by the schmucks who leased the rights from the wreckage of a badly run European holding company that failed to sell itself to the Saudis. It's fan fiction, but deprived of the organic community driven natural selection of actual fan fiction.

Unless one owns a weird amount of stock in Warner Brothers, it's OK for Tolkien not to be pimped out once a financial year to keep the earnings calls sunny. The books endure, the Jackson movies are good, and in 10 or 20 years they can remake them for streaming and the five arthouse theaters still open and that's fine. Not everything needs to be an eternally expanding franchise - I'd argue very few things should be. Maybe nothing.

*
This is not a blanket condemnation of adaptations changing, adding, or removing things. In general I'm 100% fine with that, textual purity is a silly and reactionary hill I have zero interest in dying on.

However, Tolkien is I think an unusually challenging body of work to adapt. A lot of this is because the author's worldview is extremely distinct, and being the product of a fairly singular mind working on its own for years, is worked deeply into the text and narrative structure. This makes adding to it quite difficult, as any new material needs to not only make narrative sense, but not feel jarring or out of step with that worldview. This is true of any new material being backfilled into existing text, but Middle Earth is an extremely non-modern body of work. Like, even for when it was written it's very backwards facing, and the oldest parts date back about a century now. Its worldview is the late 19th/early 20th centuries and their attendant catastrophes filtered through the poetry and literature of 9th century northern Europe. I don't think that's a head space one can really get into in AD 2024.

But unlike something like Arthurian mythology, there's both a single set of canon texts, and those texts are extremely accessible to the modern audience; LoTR is not a hard read, it isn't like cracking open The Knight of the Cart. Modernizing and adapting it is simply not necessary. And because it's still caught up in our dumbass IP law, it cannot be modernized in the way Arthuriana has been, by continuous addition and audience selection over long periods of time.

All of which is to say, by all means, change and add stuff when adapting. Also Middle Earth is very hard to change or add things to successfully, most attempts are going to badly fail. Maybe dont try.

[KorvinStarmast]

How about the Blue Wizards? There's a pack of stories there begging to be told. While they ultimately failed, maybe we can still give them a Big D*n Heroes moment. Also, given these events would be happening in Rhun or Harad, we could have some stars who aren't obviously western European, which is important in the age of representation.

Yep. Blue Wizards could be quite productive.

[Seppl]

Anything you do with the blue wizards, Harad, etc is going to hit the Rings of Power problem but even worse; there's simply no source material to pull from. For the blue wizards I think there's almost literally zero, they exist, they went east, they did some unspecified but not successful stuff. IIRC that's all there is to go on.

But one of the problems with the current projects is their clash with established lore! Or being too restricted if they actually try to honor the established events and characters. If there is no lore, you can make up what you want. There are several hooks already, and contrary to popular belief, Hollywood writers are not contractually obligated to tell bad stories. That only happens so frequently because the stories are either made by a committee of managers; or because the producers really do skimp on writing talent, trusting in brand appeal and special effects, instead.

I am sure people would like to head a good(!) story about a wizard trying to resist an evil overlord. You can let them fail outright in the end, or have some small victory. The Wainriders and other Easterlings offer potential for a culturally interesting setting. And you can have a story about the Entwives for a fantastical element.

[Rodin]

LotR movies I would rather watch:


Gandalf: The Lost Years
Aragorn: The Later Years
Merry & Pippin Go To The Pub Four Times in One Day
Tom Bombadil - The Musical!
The Two Towers Again But Everyone Is Played By Sir Patrick Stewart
Farmer Maggot: The Early Years
How Legolas's Father's Mother's Sister's Cousin's Former Roommate Did Something Important, Probably, I Bet It's All There In Appendix Q-A5C
Two and a Half Hours of Sam Gardening
Faramir: The Early Years
The Entire Courtship of Sam and Rosie Cotton
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Horror)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Victims of Shelob (Comedy)
The Last Ten Minutes of the Lives of Fifteen Random Carrots Grown by Farmer Maggot (Horror/Comedy)




Thanks for the giggle, I laughed the whole way through that list. Especially the last 3.

[Buufreak]

Looking forward to Orlando shattering his foot again.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Seppl
I am sure people would like to hea[r] a good(!) story about a wizard trying to resist an evil overlord. You can let them fail outright in the end, or have some small victory…. And you can have a story about the Entwives for a fantastical element.

Indeed. Just because the Blues failed to stop Sauron doesn’t mean they failed entirely. Stories in far-distant realms can provide opportunities for the Blues to have made meaningful contributions to other peoples and nations, even if they weren’t able to stop Sauron’s broader machinations.

And the Entwives could well be a part of that—perhaps with the Blues helping to create a secret refuge/homeland for them, against the day when Sauron was finally destroyed.


Originally Posted by Buufreak
Looking forward to Orlando shattering his foot again.

That was Viggo, unless you’re referencing a joke of some sort.

Although Orlando did break his trusty bow.


Originally Posted by Ionathus
Two and a Half Hours of Sam Gardening

We need a Sam Gamgee cooking and gardening show.

[Divayth Fyr]

One thing to consider when talking about the Blue Wizards is whether they'd go with what Tolkien initially wrote (ie. that they fell not unlike Saruman, even if in different ways) or what he considered "true" closer to the end of his life (published in the History of Middle-Earth), where they went East to help those willing to rebel against Sauron, and actually had a lot of success in doing that.

I really do not know anything clearly about the other two [wizards] – since they do not concern the history of the N[orth].W[est]. I think they went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Númenórean range: missionaries to 'enemy-occupied' lands, as it were. What success they had I do not know; but I fear that they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and 'magic' traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.

Their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir up rebellion ... and after his first fall to search out his hiding (in which they failed) and to cause [?dissension and disarray] among the dark East ... They must have had very great influence on the history of the Second Age and Third Age in weakening and disarraying the forces of East ... who would both in the Second Age and Third Age otherwise have ... outnumbered the West.

These two do paint quite a different picture, even if they share the base idea of going East, deep into enemy territory.

[Buufreak]

I

That was Viggo, unless you’re referencing a joke of some sort.

Although Orlando did break his trusty bow.

Was it not Legolas in the post battle scene where he punts a helmet out of frustration? If yes, the take they used in the film, the actor broke his foot after shooting the same scene a few dozen times.

[Precure]

No, it was Aragorn, the son of Arathorn.

[Divayth Fyr]

Was it not Legolas in the post battle scene where he punts a helmet out of frustration? If yes, the take they used in the film, the actor broke his foot after shooting the same scene a few dozen times.
It was Viggo in the scene where they find the burnt orc bodies. He wanted to kick the helm to emphasize the feelings Aragorn had, didn't realize the helm would be hard enough to hurt his foot :D

[Infernally Clay]

No, it was Aragorn, the son of Arathorn.

Yeah, the biggest injury Orlando Bloom got is a broken rib from falling off a horse or something and the rest of the cast teased him something terrible about how much he complained about the pain.

[GloatingSwine]

Meanwhile Sean Bean walked two hours up the mountain every day to avoid having to go in a helicopter.

[pendell]

Indeed. Just because the Blues failed to stop Sauron doesn’t mean they failed entirely. Stories in far-distant realms can provide opportunities for the Blues to have made meaningful contributions to other peoples and nations, even if they weren’t able to stop Sauron’s broader machinations.


Even a story of complete defeat can be worthwhile, if it inspires others in their struggle. No one remembers Spartacus (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054331/)? There's one line at the end which still haunts me ...


Charlton Heston (playing Spartacus) :
Just by fighting them, we won something. When just one man says "No, I won't," Rome begins to fear. We were tens of thousands who said no. That was the wonder of it.


There's no reason we would have to make the outcome a complete defeat, of course. There can be a bajillion stories about The Resistance even if it never succeeds in overthrowing the Empire.

Of course, what the world really needs is a show where Smeagol acts as wellness and nutrition advisor. He's remarkably fit for his age, and doesn't have a kilogram of fat anywhere on him. Next episode: Goblin sashimi with chef Smeagol!

Tongue-in-cheek,

Brian P.

[Ionathus]

Fun story on the Viggo helmet kick: my most recent rewatch was with a bunch of superfans and when we got to that moment we had this lovely exchange:


*Aragorn goes to kick the helmet*
Friend 1: Hey did you guys kn---
Friend 2: (Simultaneous) We know.
Me: (Simultaneous) YES.
Friend 3: (Simultaneous) The foot thing, yeah
Friend 4: (Simultaneous) WE KNOW.
:smallbiggrin:

[KorvinStarmast]

Meanwhile Sean Bean walked two hours up the mountain every day to avoid having to go in a helicopter. Given what happened to Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Rick Morrow, I can't say I blame him.

Also, for pendell:
Spartacus was played by Kirk Douglas, not Charlton Heston. :smallwink:

[Mordar]

Given what happened to Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Rick Morrow, I can't say I blame him.

Also, for pendell:
Spartacus was played by Kirk Douglas, not Charlton Heston. :smallwink:

Although, I do believe that Heston said "You damned dirty ape...*I* am Spartacus!".

- M

[MinimanMidget]

Fun story on the Viggo helmet kick: my most recent rewatch was with a bunch of superfans and when we got to that moment we had this lovely exchange:

Something similar happens with my family when we see the knife being deflected.

[Felhammer]

I like Gollum as a character, but I am not sure he needs an entire video game and movie dedicated to him. I would much prefer a show about the life of Aragorn/Stryder before the trilogy, which I guess this movie will be, kind of.