A new lord of the rings

 

You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't consider Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings to be a masterpiece of fantasy cinema that in many respects still waits to be topped to this day. Where Game of Thrones might have trounced the classic for a while with it's unflinching gritty and muddy dissolving of the fantastical formula to the murk of real world politics, as the concept was originally designed to do, it unwound so much of it's good will with that finale. Luckily, Lord of the Rings managed to keep itself up to snuff until the final moments of it's trilogy and kept all the embarrassing gaffes for the follow ups. The over indulgent Hobbit and the frankly confused 'The Rings of Power'- they never felt like they were strictly parts of that original tale and so didn't tarnish the original product. Hence I would argue the crown still sits squarely on it's gilded throne.

That being said- good god what a shame every single piece of proceeding media has been, huh? The Hobbit, with Peter Jackson on board, had some charm and heart to it- but that quickly became lost under a strange diversion away from the source material in an attempt to try and create something on a somewhat comparable cinematic scale to the original movies, only without all the hard physical sets which brought that world to life. It really does hammer home how much physicality aids the films when you look out and can seemingly touch Lord of the Rings through the screen, but The Hobbit feels like every other fantasy movie squeezed out over the past 10 years. How'd that end up being the case? And wouldn't you know that's the best of it!

The Rings of Power views like an over-funded bad fan fiction slapped together by someone who had a bit of an unhealthy crush on Galadriel. There's a real sense of lost purpose behind the show in it's progression, how they film the big set piece action moments that are supposed to punctuate the narrative, and how they handle new and reimagined plot threads that gnash at each other awkwardly like mishappen teeth. Stripped of all the love and care for Tolkien's works, themes and spirit that Jackson's adaptations held tantamount, what is left is a bloated corpse of a show puffed up with the grandeur of 'the grandfather of fantasy' without so much of an inch of the requisite weight to back that up. It's a bit of a disaster at the end of the day.

And outside traditional media, there really hasn't been much of anything at all. What comes to mind immediately is the 'Of Mordor' franchise which inserted a new character into events surrounding Lord of the Rings and expanded the lore in a manner pretty much acceptable only if you view the property in a complete vacuum. Accepting a second Ring of Power fuelled by a 'Bright Lord' who isn't, as the name might imply, Sauron's opposite but more just a lesser of two evils- it's a bit contrived. Then throw atop that the added bonus of Shelob into both a shape shifting sexy lady and the franchise's biggest dolt by making her actually on the same moral side as the fellowship only for some reason failing to communicate her intentions appropriately- It is again, a mess.

Which is all why I accept the news of a brand new Lord of the Rings entry with... trepidation, above all else. A brand new movie directed by Peter Jackson is the most likely project to do this halcyon franchise some small slither of justice- but you've got to bare in mind he was also behind the mess that ended up being The Hobbit trilogy. Of course, Peter isn't actually directing this one as far as I'm aware, but merely involved heavily in the process of creation- so perhaps that distance will permit a more objective view over his role in what is going to be another original tale told within the Lord of the Rings Universe. Yeah, let's be positive about this for once, shall we? And prae, what are we telling this new story about then?

How the hell is 'Gollum' the go-to when it comes to these original stories? The contemptable little creature, emblematic of greed and lust in their most pathetic form, deserves to play his role as a background agitator- not the guiding force of a narrative! Sure, he's interesting to work on screen, but only when you are as in dark as the characters around as to what's really going on in his head. That pitiable, seemingly helpless thing that manipulates and plots- never showing his true face until it's time to push you down a mountain and leave you for dead. Kind of like Patches from Dark Souls in that regard, then... And would you like a Dark Souls game where you played primarily as Patches the trickster and grave robber?

We've already been down this road with the disastrous Gollum game, and that was not just a failure for it's shoddy construction, let me tell you! Gollum's narrative was lethargic and undriven, portraying a worm living the life of a worm, going back and forth with those that have the compunction to actually have thoughts for themselves- because without the Ring in his life that is literally all that character can be! I actually don't think the game did a bad job of accurately characterising the Gollum character, in fact they did too good a job and ended up creating the perfect use-case as to why a Gollum centric narrative doesn't really work unless you shift the character altogether!

I suppose if I'm being charitable I might say there's a story to be told about the downfall of Smeagol- discovering the ring and falling deeper and deeper into his obsession until he becomes the thing known as Gollum. But downfall stories typically work best from the highest height of pride and Smeagol... well, even in his prime he was just a greedy little hobbit. (Or more accurately a Stoor- but those are a progenitors to hobbits- leave me alone.) Honestly, this is going to need quite the upsell in order to work, and Peter Jackson hasn't presented the best track record for his original additions to this franchise. But hey, if anyone is going to learn how to do it right- it would be the man who has dedicated the best of his professional years to the property. I trust his ass more than Amazon, for what little that's worth...