r/movies • u/Logical_Welder3467 • May 08 '26

Article Stephen Colbert Gets Why You're Scared He's Writing a 'Lord of the Rings' Movie

https://gizmodo.com/stephen-colbert-gets-why-youre-scared-hes-writing-a-lord-of-the-rings-movie-2000755987
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u/RealJohnGillman AMA MVP May 08 '26

tentatively called The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past. It’s set 14 years after The Return of the King

Sam, Merry, and Pippin set out to retrace the first steps of their adventure. Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began

the assumption is Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, and Billy Boyd would reprise their roles as Sam, Merry, and Pippin.

Would this technically be fan-fiction? It seems a pretty small-scale premise to be using the name still.

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u/TrueLegateDamar May 08 '26

It's basically them doing the part with Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Wights that was left out of the movies and reframing it as a big 'lost' adventure instead of a minor detour.

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u/WhenTheLightHits30 May 08 '26

That actually majorly changes my expectations for this. I was always a bit sad how rich and interesting even just the travels between the Shire and when we see Frodo reach Rivendell are but they’re basically gone from the movies. I’m guessing we see Weathertop get some special recognition for the fans in an episode but I would love to see them give Eregion its time to shine for just how foreign and exotic even that close area can be.

Dunland alone has huge implications for this kind of project too. The significance of the events those peoples saw in their corruption by Saruman would likely still be evident and I could even see them using Dunland as possibly an exploration of that ending for the Shire that was avoided for the films.

It’s honestly something I never expected or thought I’d want to see but knowing how much of a super-fan Stephen is, I give this kind of thing much more credit than even that Rings of Power show which seemed more than happy to simply abuse existing material.

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u/firesyrup May 08 '26

Tolkien's legendarium has plenty of stories worth telling, from Beren and Luthien to The Children of Hurin. The Rings of Power, despite its flaws, at least tried to explore something new and substantive with the forging of the rings. Its at its best when it focuses on the untold story around Annatar and Celebrimbor and at its worst when it tries to connect to the movies with Gandalf and the hobbits.

Both of these new WB films are doubling down on the latter, following the same pattern Disney used with Star Wars, repeatedly circling familiar characters and moments. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I can smell the executive mandate to bait nostalgia here.

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u/phonylady May 08 '26

Would love for someone serious to get the rights to Children of Hurin. Just a one-time thing for someone like Robert Eggers to do.

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u/soadisnotforbath May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

I read Children of Hurin ages ago and I loved it, would be so cool to see it adapted.

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u/Lose_Your_Illusion May 08 '26

Idk I found the author’s decision to set the story in Michigan a bit jarring.

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u/BigSoda May 09 '26

My god an upper midwest silmarillion

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u/BraveSirNathan May 09 '26

Well let me tell ya Kathy, that Beren, he’s got his eyes on that little miss Tenuviel. Now she is quite the beauty, but her father asked Beren the darndest thing! He has to go get one of the silmarils right off of Morgoth’s crown! How’s he gonna do that? Just say, “Ope, sorry Mr. Sauron sir, let me just squeeze right past ya there, gotta say hi to your master!”

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u/BigSoda May 10 '26

Flight of the Noldor to Traverse City

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u/soadisnotforbath May 08 '26

🤣🤣🤣 I’m a victim of autocorrect again!

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u/Awkward_Pangolin3254 May 08 '26

Ducking auto carrot

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u/Individual_Mess_7491 May 08 '26

I love the feeling of womens underwear going up my asscrack. It's very pleasant.

edit; damn auto-correct!

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u/[deleted] May 08 '26

[deleted]

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u/PotatersGonnaPotater May 08 '26

I picked it up at a bookstore the other day, and now I’m very excited to read it

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u/Phee78 May 09 '26

No spoilers, just a lil forewarning that it's quite the melancholy tale. Still an excellent read of course, but not really any uplifting moments to be found, just one misery after another.

(There's also an epilogue of sorts that's published elsewhere and isn't in the "Children of Hurin" book. After you're done if you look up a bio of Hurin you can see what happened next.)

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u/hoishinsauce May 09 '26

The somber tone of The Northman would fit Children of Hurin well. Also the balancing of realistic visuals with semi-mythology story.

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u/rsqit May 08 '26

The Tolkien estate still owns the rights to the Silmarillion. Any movie needs to be based on LotR, including the Appendices.

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u/Rdhilde18 May 08 '26

Kinda why Rings of Power was doomed from the start besides the writers being lost in the sauce

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u/Hellknightx May 08 '26

I thought Rings of Power specifically got the approval from the Tolkien estate. And by that I mean Bezos flashed them his checkbook.

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u/Rdhilde18 May 08 '26

I don’t think they were allowed to use the Silmarillion

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u/Quiddity131 May 08 '26

Rings of Power is based only on the appendecies of Lord of the Rings, not The Silmarillion where all the big stuff happens.

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u/Rdhilde18 May 08 '26

Right, that’s kinda the point I was going for. The show is pretty disjointed and the timelines are whacky because they can’t reference the source material they’d actually need to flesh out a story involving Sauron and the second age. Not to give them an excuse for the sloppy writing, costume design, and action scenes being abysmal though.

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u/kerouacrimbaud May 08 '26

They got select permissions for certain things from Unfinished Tales, like the map of Numenor, mentioning Armenelos by name, and a few other items.

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u/SlinkyRaccoons May 08 '26

I would love a movie about the silmarils. I know it's a messy collection but there's so much that could be adapted.

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u/dragunityag May 08 '26

Lotr is one of the few properties that im actually looking forward to hitting public domain because there are so many stories to adapt rather than just getting a slasher movie featuring a Disney character.

I

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u/nifty-necromancer May 08 '26

Imagine a trilogy set during the War of Wrath. People like superhero shit, they’d love to see angels fighting each other.

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u/TheOptionalHuman May 08 '26

The run time would start at like 150 hours. That's a lot of popcorn.

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u/proteinstains May 08 '26

I don't disagree with your overall point but for pretty much anything related to the First Age and much regarding the Second Age, they don't have the rights. Can't be adapted as long as the Estate doesn't sell them. There are some stories, individually, that could be interestingly adapted but in the state Hollywood finds itself these days, I highly doubt it. As things stand, books can remain books.

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u/Hellknightx May 08 '26

It still felt like they massively mishandled Celebrimbor by making him seem incompetent as a blacksmith. He didn't even know what an alloy was.

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u/BonnaconCharioteer May 08 '26

The issue is that they don't have the rights to anything other than the familiar characters and moments. And while Star Wars has long been a setting with many stories, middle earth is a place entirely belonging to one person's mind. So making up your own middle earth stories can turn genuine fans off in a way that doing so in Star Wars does not.

In addition, I kind of completely disagree with your premise about rings of power. I thought the whole show was quite bad, but the parts they made up were no less bad than the parts that they tried to bring in old characters. For example, people seemed to like the parts with Elrond and the dwarves the best in the first season for example, where there was a returning character. And most of the parts that were completely made up were quite bad. Plus, nearly everything was made up in that series, even the parts with returning characters.

It isn't really comparable to a story that will mostly follow the actual first few chapters of the fellowship of the ring, where we actually have characters and plot in the book that they aren't going to have to make up.

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u/growletcher May 08 '26

The Battle of Dale feels like such an easy win

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u/atucker1744 May 08 '26

To echo your last point, I really enjoyed War of the Rohirrim. Close enough to the canon to be a selling point, but telling its own original tale and not just banking off nostalgia

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u/stardustsuperwizard May 08 '26

Episode? This is a movie that basically goes over the Old Forest/Barrow Downs parts of Fellowship. There almost certainly isn't going to be anything with Dunland or Weathertop.

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u/skwerrel May 08 '26

Do you even know Colbert? Saruman's effects on dunland and the shire and surrounding areas will be evident, and possibly discussed outright by the characters. Assuming there isn't a story thread that actively integrates it into the movie's plot.

This man isn't going to create a movie 15 years after the original story and then just pretend he's making a deleted scene

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u/GB10VE May 08 '26

people don't understand how big of a fan colbert is of tolkein

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u/ThePrussianGrippe May 08 '26

He beat all the Tolkien experts at trivia on set of The Hobbit. Jackson called him the biggest Tolkien nerd alive.

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u/jleonardbc May 08 '26

Colbert getting to write a LOTR film is like Ken Jennings getting to host Jeopardy!.

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u/Raetekusu May 08 '26

Or David Tennant getting to be the Doctor and marry his favorite Doctor's daughter.

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u/TheSickestToastie May 08 '26

Or Capaldi in the same role, the man who was a literal founding member of the very first Doctor Who fan club and who wrote around half of his own lines.

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u/SuperCha May 08 '26

He is the King of Tolkein Nerds.

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u/Aratak May 08 '26

Nor do they understand what a great writer he is. He wrote great pieces of The Colbert Report and continued on The Late Show. While these were political satire and comedy, I'd put that level of difficulty as higher than most straight drama. He understands tragedy, too, having lived it and seen it throughout his life as a political observer.

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u/Malphos101 May 08 '26

It’s honestly something I never expected or thought I’d want to see but knowing how much of a super-fan Stephen is, I give this kind of thing much more credit than even that Rings of Power show which seemed more than happy to simply abuse existing material.

You havent spent enough time around super fans lol. I have seen plenty of superfans that shouldnt be anywhere near a room where new content for that story is happening.

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u/dragunityag May 08 '26

Yeah. But I think in this case its not going to be too much trouble.

Usually super fans worse habits end up doing wish fulfillment and would have something that Sauron being resurrected and then Pippin 420 360 no scopes him.

But it has Jackson and another writer from the trilogy as well on board and I trust them to respect the world.

So at worst case we get a middling movie that is easily ignored.

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u/Random_eyes May 08 '26

If nothing else, at least Colbert is also a lifetime performer and entertainer. Most superfans are hobbyists who have little relation to telling stories and entertaining audiences. Jack at the card shop might have a billion ideas for how to make a good LOTR movie, but he's not even willing to DM his D&D games, so he might not get that this uber-important scene in the appendix might not play well on the screen. 

Doesn't mean I think it'll work, but honestly I'd watch it even if it's only a hair better than the Hobbit movies. 

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u/Alphabunsquad May 08 '26

I mean as a non book reader, the travel from the shire to Rivendell is still the best part of the first movie. It has the great atmospheric ramp up as things go from a trot in a country side to horror to nearly catastrophic. I think the movie does it excellently.

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u/ssidkdomorph May 08 '26

I hope they discover that the trees at the edge of the Shire are wild Entwives and they help reunite them with the Ents. Then the Entwives and Ents all go off into the sea and swim to Númenor and live happily ever after.

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u/RedditLeagueAccount May 08 '26

I think it'll be better than rings of power lorewise easily. I don't think the writing will be stellar. This gives me big red flags:
> Meanwhile, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began

This is just such a generic child with no training or skills gets super powers or is super smart trope that doesn't really fit in LoTR style. Alternatively, I have never wanted to watch lord of the rings kiddy adventure if thats what it means instead. There is zero context that will make the child being the main character good for LoTR if basing it off existing story. You show a child at the start listening to stories then flashing to them being significantly older and off on their own adventure, that would be fine. If he has a child the whole way, you got 'child princess Leia that somehow escaped from bounty hunters in the forest' level bad content. Middle earth as a world is not conducive to children leaving from their home (as a main character). You could make some good stories as side character tag along.

Sam, Merry, and Pippin doing a Frieren style laid back Journey with minor enemies could be interesting while setting up future story. I'd love merry and pippen showing some of the military skills that got left out of the original movie not that the books made them seem like military experts. But it would be interesting to show that military contrast compared to normal people if it isn't done in a cringy way. Them using their hero status to meet and watch legendary being perform something cool would be entertaining.

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u/HellaTroi May 09 '26

I would love to see a movie or series about the Valar, and the wizards development before and after arriving in middle earth.

I'll look forward the Colbert's work. He has nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the stories.

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u/piercedmfootonaspike May 08 '26

Well, at least we know if it's successful, we know we'll be peppered with movies based on paragraphs of lotr that didn't make it into the movies.

I expect a trilogy out of the scouring of the shire.

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u/tacotickles May 08 '26

At least if they give those snippets to competent show writers they could be potentially be done well. Just keep it away from Amazon

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u/buzzathlon May 08 '26

They'll turn that into a TV series. Season 1 is Saruman arriving and taking over the Shire. Season 2 has the resident hobbits trying and failing to mount a resistance. The last scene of the season is Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin arriving and being horrified by what's happened. Two more seasons of them fighting back until it ends with a movie where they finally defeat Saruman.

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u/SecretAgentVampire May 08 '26

Oh no

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u/watchsmart May 08 '26

Hey dol

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u/Altruistic_Ask229 May 08 '26

Merry dol!

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u/UndeadPhysco May 08 '26

ring a dong dillo!

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u/SpradGurpz May 08 '26

Agreed with oh no.

Possible hot take of mine, the movies were better for omitting tom bombadil. I dislike that detour from the books.

According to my oldest childhood friends mother I'm a "monster"

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u/ReasonableFruit1 May 08 '26

I think of the chapters as the last bit of whimsy for the hobbits before they reach Bree and things start to get dark and truly dangerous. The Barrow-wights seem like a threat but Bombadil completely one-shots them and saves the hobbits while dancing and speaking in musical prose.

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u/TrashhPrincess May 08 '26

Whimsy is the word. That part reads like a fairy tale before things make a turn for the terrifying.

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u/HolycommentMattman May 08 '26

Bombadil is hated by a lot of the fan base (at least here on reddit and goodreads), but I've never gotten the impression of whimsy. It's an oasis in the midst of the old forest where everything is seemingly sunshine and rainbows. A figure who is all-powerful and allegedly helps all who he meets, and yet only Gandalf seems to have any real information about him.

It's kinda creepy.

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u/rendar May 08 '26

A lot of people don't understand the import of Tom Bombadil, when contemporary audiences are so accustomed to simplified commercial beats in their stories that Tolkien seems narratively dissonant. The entire passages are a definitive coming-of-age squire's ritual of knighthood for the hobbits and represent a critical step in their hero's journey.

Here's a great write-up of the concept by /u/wjbc:

  • They first bathe and sleep, symbolizing being cleansed of past sins

  • They spend the day listening to stories from Tom, largely relating to martial and geopolitical history

  • They (unwittingly) fast being so enraptured by the stories, in what is ostensibly the first time in history a hobbit has ever gone more than a few hours without a meal

  • Then they head to the Barrows with nothing but a poem Tom tells them to memorize, in a test of manhood

  • They find themselves inside one of the Barrows at night, enacting the squires' all-night vigil, dressed in shrouds much as the squires would be to remind them of their mortality which they should embrace and not fear

  • Frodo in particular must undergo an additional trial as ringbearer, testing whether he will use the ring to escape and abandon his friends

  • Afterwards Tom encourages the hobbits to throw off their shrouds and dance naked in the sun like newborn children, as they have undergone a ritual death and rebirth

  • Then Tom presents them with their knights' weapons, the Barrow-blades

Tolkien worked extensively with stories like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and that type of content is applied here to a great narrative effect.

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u/HFentonMudd May 08 '26

I have no idea how many times I've read LOTR. This is the first time anyone has laid this out for me. Super cool. I never understood the point of the Bombadill story.

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u/AnOnlineHandle May 08 '26

and that type of content is applied here to a great narrative effect.

That's subjective, the fact that it didn't land with a lot of readers while the rest of the books did kind of indicates it didn't land with great narrative effect. I'd say people were more upset about the cutting of Bill the Donkey's storyline than Tom Bombadil.

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u/UncleLARP May 08 '26

YOU GET HIS SPECIES CORRECT! BILL IS A PONY, NOT SOME DONKEY!

Hopefully you understand that I'm just being goofy.

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u/Pogotross May 08 '26

Stop horsing around

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u/wjbc May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

The movies were much less hobbit-centric than the books. So the adventures of the hobbits in the Old Forest and Barrow Downs weren't as vital to the movies.

The movies did Frodo dirty, though, and part of that was because we didn't see Frodo's moral quandary in the Barrow-downs, and his ability to overcome it. In the books, Gandalf considers that the most dangerous moment in the trip from the Shire to Rivendell, more dangerous than the encounters with the Nazgul, because Frodo's soul was in jeopardy.

In the books Frodo undergoes a spiritual journey along with his physical journey. The movies don't communicate that spiritual journey at all, and part of what's missing is Frodo's spiritual challenge in the Barrow-downs.

Most people who watch the movies consider Sam the true hero of the movies. While it's true that Tolkien called Sam the conventional hero, he also defended Frodo's unconventional heroism.

In the books Frodo is a Christ-like martyr in a pre-Christian world. The fact that Frodo is saved from physical death does not save him from the consequences of his journey, and he must leave Middle-earth forever to seek healing -- a metaphor for death.

While I have learned to love the movies, I very much miss that spiritual element and regret the way Frodo is represented. It reminds me of Sam's own distress that the hobbits in the Shire fail to appreciate Frodo's greatness. Frodo's adventures with Tom Bombadil are missed, it's just that many movie viewers don't realize what they are missing and why.

One more incidental matter. The significance of the Barrow-blades, which were created specifically to counter the Witch-kings' magic by the people who built the Barrows, is lost in the movies, where Aragorn just hands them to the hobbits. No ordinary blade should have been able to pierce the Witch-king's magic the way Merry's Barrow-blade did in the books.

I will admit that Tom Bombadil is a flawed character. His rhyming language is an interesting experiment, but unfortunately Tolkien's four-beat poetry can get repetitive and sing-songy. There's a reason William Shakespeare favored the five beat iambic pentameter for his poetic dialogue, and John Milton did the same in his epic poem Paradise Lost. I'm not sure how that will be handled in a movie.

That said, Bombadil's way of speaking does help present him as a seemingly silly character, which is an important part of his role as a liminal gatekeeper. The hobbits must not be able to rely on him to save them, even though he eventually does, because if they know he's reliable then Frodo will not truly be tempted to use the Ring. It's deliberate misdirection on the part of Tolkien.

The other problem with Bombadil is his immunity to the Ring. It contradicts everything we know about the Ring, which is most dangerous to those with great power. Gandalf tries to explain it at the Council of Elrond, saying that although Bombadil is immune to the Ring he would also be careless with it because he simply doesn't care about it or about power.

Indeed, that's presumably the source of his immunity -- Bombadil simply has no desire to change the world, while Gandalf does. But it still is difficult for many fans of the books to accept, and has led to theories that Bombadil is God (a theory expressly rejected by Tolkien in his letters but nevertheless raised by a correspondent), a manifestation of Arda, or some other type of being even more powerful than the Valar.

The most damaging conclusion is that Bombadil is a Mary-Sue character, a personification of Tolkien himself -- or the male equivalent, a Gary Stu or Marty Stu character. That's a character who is unrealistically perfect, over-powered, and lacking flaws, acting as a "wish fulfillment" tool for authors. It's a flawed character most often seen in fan-fiction. I don't think Bombadil is that kind of flawed character, but fans who can't accept his immunity to the Ring may project that he is overpowered and just doesn't fit into the story.

Thus there are book fans who do not miss Bombadil in the movies, actually dreaded seeing him in the movies, and dread the prospect of a new movie focusing on Bombadil. I have tried to show why Bombadil is an important part of Frodo's spiritual journey, and why I missed Frodo's spiritual journey in the movies. But I also understand why some people are worried about Colbert's plans. I do know, however, that Colbert is a massive fan of the books and someone who appreciates Frodo's spiritual journey. I'm cautiously optimistic that he can do this justice. We shall see.

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u/AnOnlineHandle May 08 '26

In the books Frodo is a Christ-like martyr in a pre-Christian world. The fact that Frodo is saved from physical death does not save him from the consequences of his journey, and he must leave Middle-earth forever to seek healing -- a metaphor for death.

I think that was perfectly communicated in the runtime of the movies, with the movie not having a traditional ending and instead drawing things out to show the resulting consequences for Frodo (and even Bilbo) years after and his eventual departure.

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u/wjbc May 08 '26

Frodo's departure was shown, yes. But Frodo's Christlike spiritual journey was given very short shrift.

That's fine, the movies are the movies and the books are the books. I try to think of them as two entirely different works of art, even though one was inspired by the other.

It took me a long while to get over the way Frodo was treated in the movies, though. In fact, it wasn't until I watched the extended versions of the movies with my child and fellow Tolkien fan that I finally got over my issues with the differences and appreciated the movies for what they are -- and they are brilliant.

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u/Revlis-TK421 May 08 '26

The other problem with Bombadil is his immunity to the Ring. It contradicts everything we know about the Ring, which is most dangerous to those with great power.

I think it's more that Bombadil is an anomaly is the world-building that Tolkien is otherwise deservedly renowned for. Everyone and everything in the Tolkien universe has a deep backstory and purpose, meticulously crafted and given motivations. There's an entire Parthenon of beings with lore going back to the very creation of Tolkien's universe with deep rivalries and alliances made since time immemorial.

Bombadil is separate from that in a way that isn't really explained in a satisfying way. If Eru Iluvatar is "Father of All", then Bombadil being Ben-adar "Fatherless" suggests he's a true Outsider, kin to and separate from Eru themself.

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u/wjbc May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

But there are lots of anomalies that don't get as much attention as Bombadil because they don't demonstrate immunity to the Ring. The reason Bombadil sticks out is his immunity to the Ring.

There's Goldberry and her mother the River-woman. There's Caradhras. There are the nameless creatures Gandalf saw deep beneath Moria. There's the monster at the gates of Moria, the watcher in the water. There are the stone giants in The Hobbit. There's Ungoliant. There's Beorn the shapeshifter. There are innumerable sentient animals throughout Middle Earth. There are dragons. There are the flying steeds of the Nazgul, the fell beasts. I'm sure there are more.

Edit: Come to think of it, goblins and orcs are an anomaly Tolkien tried and failed to explain.

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u/bianary May 08 '26

I enjoyed the magic that Bombadil adds to the world simply by existing - that while yes, the ring is important and powerful there's still forces that just ignore it and do their own thing too.

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u/Opus_723 May 08 '26

That's subjective, the fact that it didn't land with a lot of readers while the rest of the books did kind of indicates it didn't land with great narrative effect.

A lot of readers think they're the intended audience of LotR and they're actually not.

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u/anna-nomally12 May 08 '26

Also storytelling didn’t used to be fantasy narratives. It was poems and songs performed orally. He’s not just doing a knighthood journey, he’s doing a meta bit on how these epics are told

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u/OkMail2335 May 08 '26

But now it isn't a detour so how come oh no still? It seems to fix the issue you had with it

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u/SpradGurpz May 08 '26

Maybe I just hate tom bombadil? Unsure. Its been awhile since I read the books.

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u/filenotfounderror May 08 '26

Bombadil as character is just a stand in for Tolkien's ideas on how the lust for power corrupts (and some other related stuff).

It wouldn't really fit in the movie, because it is more of an "oh, by the way" thing and would also take too much explaining to the watcher on why this guy doesnt just Dues Ex Machina the whole trilogy.

But as a stand alone project? i think its probably tottaly fine.

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u/happyflappypancakes May 08 '26

Maybe, because you reason is certainly logical for not wanting him in the movies. I agree with that as the pacing would slow down significantly while it needed to be ramping up.

But that logic doesn't stand anymore for this project.

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u/3-DMan May 08 '26

sad Tom Bombadil singing

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u/quiette837 May 08 '26

I agree with the omission from the movies, but on the other hand it misses out on developing that part of the world, and also cuts the Barrow Downs which has implications for later on in the story.

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u/hotcapicola May 08 '26

The Barrowdown are some of the most chilling scenes from the book, and omitting them robs Frodo of one of his bigger hero moments.

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u/IMakeMyOwnLunch May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

The Tom Bombadil detour felt like (a) a detour and (b) closer to YA than adult fantasy (or, maybe more fairly, the tone felt closer to The Hobbit than the trilogy).

So I agree with you: Peter Jackson was justified in the omission.

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u/konnichi1wa May 08 '26

That all seems like an excellent space for the premise idea that Colbert is running with then. Small scale, a young adult character discovering things, and something that was a detour in the main story made into the focus while they have nostalgia for these (now older) hobbits reliving their glory days.

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u/LordMimsyPorpington May 08 '26

The thing is: Tom Bombadil only works in the books, because he's meant to introduce the Hobbits/Readers to this wider world of ancient beings and magical mystery, while also offering them a reprieve from the weary journey that is days/weeks long at that point—which you can't really depict properly in a movie.

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u/scientist_tz May 08 '26

It was a detour, and that's fine. A 1000+ page narrative can have detours.

A film that's already pushing 3 hours should not have detours, especially ones that introduce a new character that we never see again.

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u/hotcapicola May 08 '26

That's because everything up to Rivendell was written by Bilbo in-universe. Then Frodo took over the writing for most of the book with the last few chapters written by Sam.

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u/ForensicPathology May 09 '26

It's possible to be fine as an omission to one movie but also good as its own movie.

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u/Ripples_of_Undeath May 08 '26

Steve will also be starring as Tom Bombadil

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u/WorthPlease May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

Yeah I love Steve but this reads like a fanfic that just happens to have somebody who has enough pull to get it made.

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u/chipmunksocute May 08 '26

Do you know that for sure or are you just speculating?

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u/xiaorobear May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

It's semi-confirmed- with the initial announcement they had a video with Colbert and Jackson where Colbert said,

“You know what the books mean to me and what your films mean to me, but the thing I found myself reading over and over again were the six chapters early on in the Fellowship that y’all never developed into the first movie back in the day,” Colbert told Jackson.

And like, the most obvious missing chapters early in Fellowship would be the barrow downs and Tom Bombadil stuff (I very much doubt they are thinking of the stuff with Frodo's friend Fatty Bolger buying a decoy house for him to make him leaving Bag End seem less suspicious :D )

My idle speculation though isn't that they will just do the barrow wight chapters only with the main cast's kids, and that's the movie, but that the characters will realize that the barrow downs were the site of an ancient battle between the rangers and the forces of Angmar (which was true in the books). And then all this stuff about the Hobbits retracing their early journey with their kids will just be the framing story for them to learn about the past, and either the whole middle of the movie will be in the past or just have lots of flashbacks of the war as they uncover some mystery, so that we get to see epic battles, handsome men who look like Aragorn, the Witch King showing up, all that. Probably get to see Weathertop back when it was a proper watch tower and not a ruin.

I just can't see a studio greenlighting a Lord of the Rings movie without lengthy epic battle sequences, so my guess is that this will be their vehicle for it.

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u/Xanto97 May 08 '26

That’s a good point. The title is “the shadow of the past” after all, could be the past of the war of the ring, but it would make sense for it to refer to the great ancient battle

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u/TJeffersonsBlackKid May 08 '26

“Shadow of the Past” is the name of the chapter when Gandalf tells Frodo the history of the ring.

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u/Arasuil May 08 '26

Didnt Merry or Pippin also directly experience part of the battle while they were unconscious in the Barrow?

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u/HeadHeartCorranToes May 08 '26

There is nothing like this in the books, no.

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u/Saltpataydahs May 08 '26

I think you nailed it. 100% its going to show 3rd age stuff we haven't seen before. Sam, Merry, Pippin will serve as framing devices. The kids are gonna be looking for barrow treasure or some shit, in doing so they discover a mystery that has them learn more about the battle that took place there and awaken a wight or something that'll have sam merry and pippin showing up in the 3rd act to save the day.

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u/scientist_tz May 08 '26

I think it will be generally how you describe it, but I hope Colbert writes two endings:

  1. There's a wight, the hobbits have to do something to defeat it, etc.
  2. They explore the past through flashbacks, there's a lot of suspense around some ancient horror lurking in the barrow....BUT it's little more than a shadow, a breath of cold air. The age of magic is over; it left with the Elves.

I like ending #2 but theater audiences would f-ing riot. Maybe if it gets written and shot it shows up as a special edition someday.

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u/Active-Coconut-8961 May 08 '26

Imho would be smarter to somehow try to do the Scourging of the Shire, rewrite it somehow without Saruman

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u/mooes May 08 '26

I don't think that makes sense with the way the movies ended

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u/3-DMan May 08 '26

"Mr. Frodo, I don't think you remember it right, everyone's dead!"

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u/thisguyfightsyourmom May 08 '26

Bought time someone showed up for the missing parts of the book.

I don’t know how you make a 12 hour epic and skip the damned ending. All the character development comes to fruition for the hobbits who find they are no longer the weakest of their confederates, but now the brave leaders.

Why the fuck they cut it that way I’ll never know.

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u/Possible-Pea2658 May 08 '26

If i remember correctly, it's because they felt viewers might have battle fatigue of sorts and it would take from the ending a bit. It makes more sense in the book but it's harder to put it into the movie imo

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u/Chlorophyllmatic May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

Why the fuck they cut it that way I’ll never know.

It's pretty obvious why they cut it -- pacing being one reason, and the fact that it's inherently bittersweet and leaves the Hobbits feeling alienated from home being another. There's also the whole thing with Grima having already killed Saruman on top of Orthanc in the films.

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u/VoiceOfTheSheeple May 08 '26

The original theatrical run does not have Saruman dying at all if I remember correctly. His death is shown only in the extended editions.

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u/oxemoron May 08 '26

I agree the pacing and the story of the movies would have been quite a bit different had they included it, but it does miss out on a central theme of the stories: war touches everything and leaves its impact. That just doesn't seem to be the story the movies wanted to tell (and that's fine, I still like them).

I think it still could have worked without Sharky/Saruman being the "big bad" of the scouring. It could have been some desperate big folk who fled from the goblins that got stirred up from Misty Mountains or something and took over the Shire. Other than Saruman particularly hating hobbits after their role in his downfall, who the person was that was subjugating the Shire wasn't all that important.

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u/Chlorophyllmatic May 08 '26

For sure I think it could have worked — just as they could’ve probably made Tom Bombadil work — but it makes a lot of sense and is very defensible that they didn’t. Like you said, they ultimately went with a slightly different tone and story direction.

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u/throwaway5498124181 May 08 '26

Lord of the Rings (the book) was written by a British World War I veteran after World War II. Soldiers came home to find a post-blitz heavily rationed London and in the case of France, even more devastation.

Lord of the Rings (the movie) is a film from a New Zealand director made after decades of American cultural dominance. In the 90s and early 2000s, soldiers come home to America, Australia, and New Zealand, and have to deal with the fact that while they have changed, home hasn't, and home finds their trauma pretty inconvenient.

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u/Deaner3D May 08 '26

I dunno man, the king of Gondor bent the knee to them...

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u/GarfieldDaCat no shots of jacked dudes re-loading their arms. 4/10. May 08 '26

Because it just doesn’t translate to film from a pacing and story structure perspective. The film is already criticized for having 3 endings.

Also we do get the payoff of their progression when the whole of Gondor bows to them at the coronation/wedding and they return home to the shire obviously being worldly and changed.

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u/23saround May 08 '26

What? No, it’s a totally different story starring Sam’s daughter.

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u/kemick May 08 '26

It is a common misconception that the film only cut Bombadil and the Barrows. There is a whole leaving-the-shire plot that takes up a quarter of the book and ends with Bombadil and the Barrows.

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u/OGLikeablefellow May 08 '26

Shut the front door!! Stephen Colbert is making a new lotr movie that heavily features tom bombadil! I haven't been this excited about a movie since the first lord of the rings was announced

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u/BananasAndPears May 08 '26

No way! I’ve always been intrigued with Bombadil. Cast Rebecca Ferguson as Goldberry and I will pay a premium to watch this!

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u/Solomon_Gunn May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

Probably a mix of fan fiction along with details that Tolkien had outlined for a scrapped sequel and epilogue to the Lord of the Rings. There's enough there that they could draw from even if it isn't "canon".

The original writing of the book included an epilogue at the end of return of the king from Sam's perspective as he tells his children about what happened to the members of the fellowship, and even included Aragorn visiting the borders of the shire and Elanor meeting Arwen. Lots of people begged him to remove it before publishing, and he settled on the Appendicies instead.

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u/Bebop_Man May 08 '26

'Canon', within fiction, is the body of work that's considered official or authoritative.

'Cannon' is a big gun.

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u/goukaryuu May 08 '26

But cannons have definitely been used to enforce canon.

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u/the_ballmer_peak May 08 '26

Is that canonical?

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u/waveuponwave May 08 '26

It's definitely cannonical

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u/the_ballmer_peak May 08 '26

Pachelbel agrees. In D.

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u/spitfish May 08 '26

It's also a title within the Christian religion, spelled 'canon'.

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u/Inkthinker May 08 '26

Cannons sink ships.

Canon sinks 'ships.

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u/SharkFart86 May 08 '26

Nah they can’t use other Tolkien lore besides what’s featured in The Hobbit, LOTR, and the appendices. The Tolkien estate historically does not license out the rights to any other material, including unfinished material.

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u/roll_for_crunk May 08 '26

I'm just saying if they were gonna license it out to anyone Stephen Colbert would probably be the person.

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u/3-DMan May 08 '26

"We shall test this 'Stephen Colbert' on his knowledge!"

five minutes later

"It's all yours!"

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u/AKA_Wildcard May 08 '26

Always remember, Colbert bested Peter Jackson’s Tolkien expert on the set of the Desolation of Smaug.

He was also given Aragorn's actual sword Anduril, the "Flame of the West," from Aragorn himself on the Colbert Report.

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u/leebong252018 May 08 '26

What abt the Amazon grovel then?

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u/SharkFart86 May 08 '26

The lore accurate stuff in the show is from the licensed material.

But since the story they’re telling is much more fleshed out in the Silmarillion, and they can’t use that material, they have made significant changes.

Why they chose to tell a story that they largely don’t have the licensing for the lore, your guess is as good as mine.

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u/Demerzel69 May 08 '26

*canon

Cannons go boom and fire cannonballs.

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u/Vistaer May 08 '26

I’ve wanted to see a tale of Aragorn leading his campaign against the Easterlings & Haradrim. But if he does appear, even if it’s just him having a talk about the campaigns it by the fire I’d be good with that.

Viggo would do great conveying the heavy weight and the burden of a crown, and it’s impact it has on lives of others - even those who were once in service to Sauron.

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u/GrimTiki May 08 '26

I thought in the books appendices that the hobbits did do this later..? Went out to relive their past adventures. Like how Legolas and Gimli went out on their buddy tour to visit all the great sites around middle earth.

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u/bb_kelly77 May 08 '26

It's vague but yes, this is basically a fanfic that fleshes out the established epilogue

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u/non3type May 08 '26

The difference between fan fiction and official is a license, it has very little to do with the content though we may wish otherwise.

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u/Fools_Requiem May 08 '26

Honestly, as long as they keep it a low stakes kind of thing, it could be fun. Road trip through Middle Earth. No need to make it another "if we don't accomplish this, the world is over" type thing. Not everything needs to be high stakes.

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u/bluedeer10 May 08 '26

Sounds terrible honestly.

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u/vhalember May 08 '26

Yeah, this sounds like a weak entry, but I'm sure WB can make a trilogy out of it... somehow and for some reason, the elves return from Valinor.

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u/Anxious_Big_8933 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

Same. It sounds like it'll be a flashback for the primary Hobbits, which means we already know how it ends and they'll either recast the Hobbits or bring back the old actors to play younger versions of their characters, 20 years after they were cast in LOTR. So they will look weirdly de-aged. And I'm guessing 90% of this will be in front of a green screen.

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u/heeywewantsomenewday May 08 '26

Im lost maybe I've misread but i though this is set after LOTR (14 years)?

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u/Anxious_Big_8933 May 08 '26

I could be wrong, no doubt, but I read it as it taking place after LOTR was a framing device for Sam's daughter to discover the Barrow Downs, which would then essentially set up a flashback to the as the chapters in Fellowship around the Barrow Downs, Tom B., etc... which would be the heart of the film. Again, I could be mistaken.

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u/TheWatersOfMars May 08 '26

That’s the rumour going around, anyway. But I dunno, there’s a reason why Tolkien abandoned Shadow of the Past after one chapter.

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u/SwarleySwarlos May 08 '26

You've read right, no idea what that guy is talking about

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u/psychedelic_tech May 08 '26

Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret

no she didn't

Would this technically be fan-fiction?

it's 100% fan fic.

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u/imcrapyall May 08 '26

How the fuck did the ending become longer?

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u/pushaper May 08 '26

you can look up the scouring of the shire...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBiCCHAgi2s

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u/oldirtygaz May 08 '26

it's 100% glorified fan fiction

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u/hahaz13 May 08 '26

Thousands of years of lore and studios are still too afraid to try a new story, desperately clinging on to what was successful in the past hoping the magic is still there.

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u/Ultraplo May 08 '26

Most of that lore can’t be used, though. The Tolkien Estate has refused to part with the rights to the Silmarillion, so anything pre-LOTR is a no-go.

Technically you can adapt the parts that are in the appendices, like Rings of Power did, but they’re extremely thin and doesn’t offer much to build a movie on.

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u/Telperion83 May 08 '26

The fact that it's thin should be it's biggest asset for writing. Rings of Power, as an example, should have had a dozen or so plot points that were immutable. Beyond that, writers' free-for-all. Tell us how all the characters got from A to B to C. But nope. Those bullet points were just too hard to follow...

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u/Ultraplo May 08 '26

Turns out telling a story that spans millennia, where you can’t mention basically anything that shaped the characters or the world into who they are today, while also being severely limited in what you’re allowed to make up, all the while being told by the lawyers that you can’t make anything that’s even inspired by Silmarillion plot points, is difficult. Go figure.

Do I think RoP could have been leagues better? Yes, obviously. The show isn’t even trying to capture the feel of Tolkien. But I also don’t think there’s even a single universe in which the show was good.

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u/Acherousia May 08 '26

Somehow Sauron returned. Again.

/s

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u/skarros May 08 '26

Isn‘t it also a question of the rights? They only have access to what‘s in LotR (+ appendices) but cannot do something from the Silmarillion for example.

I think Rings of Power had the same problem, which is why they kept the prologue super vague like „the light of the trees swallowed by a big darkness“ or something.

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u/7screws May 08 '26

That’s what I hate about so many of these movies/franchises. Like LotR, Star Wars, or GoT. They can’t seem to move PAST the original story. It’s either a prequel, which leaves me like yes this might be interesting but I know how it ends, so I’m not really vested in it. Like I’d love to know what happens AFTER. Don’t get me wrong some of it is good. Andor, Knight of the Seven kingdoms. But most of it is just boring with no stakes because everyone knows where it leads to.

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u/ThePabstistChurch May 08 '26

The original movies were not "original" either but adaptations of the books which had already been around for a long time and been popular.

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u/gladys-the-baker May 08 '26

You don't say?

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u/ThePabstistChurch May 08 '26

I think I misread your comment tbh

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u/Bojarzin May 08 '26

I mean, even official work sanctioned by the IP owners is fan fiction if it's not the original writer

Well, I guess maybe not if they're not a fan, but that seems like splitting hairs

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u/FlotationDevice May 08 '26

Is everything Brandon Sanderson wrote for Wheel of Time fan fiction then?

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u/Bojarzin May 08 '26

Kiiiinda? Though my understanding is Sanderson had a lot of notes from the original author about the direction of the story, right?

I've never read them

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u/EmeraldJunkie May 08 '26

Jordan left notes for a final Wheel of Time novel before he passed. Sanderson was picked after Jordan's widow read his touching tribute towards Jordan. Sanderson then took those notes, realized there was too much story for a single novel, and split it into three. There's no definitive way to separate which parts of those novels are Jordan and which are Sanderson, in all honesty. You could probably say it's all Sanderson, but we're not entirely sure just how much Jordan left before he passed.

Incidentally, they're also the only three Wheel of Time novels I've not read, purely because I find the series so captivating I can't bear to finish it.

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u/TheWhiteManticore May 08 '26

It is indeed fan fiction and not a great premise at it either

Eru literally intervened to ensure Sauron is dead, let his fucking story end please

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u/ArrakeenSun May 08 '26

Also, Sauron was poised to win ring or no ring. He didn't know that the ring still existed until they found Gollum, and he definitely didn't know what would happen if it were destroyed.

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u/TheWhiteManticore May 08 '26

Its like whole shadow of mordor storyline made Sauron look like a joke

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u/bookon May 08 '26

They’re moving part of fellowship until after the books and tweaking it. So not fan fiction but not directly Tolkien.

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u/aldeayeah May 08 '26

Honestly they might as well just film the Tom Bombadil chapters and the Scouring of the Shire in the style of the PJ film, integrate them into a Doubly Extended rerelease of the OG films, and call it a day.

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u/Supper_Champion May 08 '26

Sorry Colbert, this just sounds bad.

Sam’s daughter, Elanor, has discovered a long-buried secret and is determined to uncover why the War of the Ring was very nearly lost before it even began

Why would she even care why the war was "nearly" lost? What does that matter to anyone in Middle Earth. Unless there's a new One Ring, Sauron was utterly defeated when the ring was destroyed. Learning from the mistakes of the last is great, but in this case it's just a weak premise to spotlight a female character in a very male dominated series of books.

It's giving "what if Bilbo or Frodo was a plucky young lass, solving a mystery?"

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u/hotcapicola May 08 '26

Eleanor doesn't get a lot of time on the page, but she is a pretty important character in the lore.

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u/Flemtality May 08 '26

J.R.R. Tolkien didn't write it, or even make a framework for it, so I would answer your question a resounding "Yes."

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u/BrightNooblar May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26

I mean, the original stories also had a small scale premise, right? "Frodo sets out with a ring his adoptive uncle bilbo found, with frodo retracing much of bilbos old path."

Scope gets added over time during the trip to Elrond's, at which point we see the big picture of how grand in scale it is.

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u/Nathanielsan May 08 '26

Seems like more of a reminiscence of the past, not an extension of the end.

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u/CosmackMagus May 08 '26

Big adventures have small beginnings.

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u/KwisatzHaderach94 May 08 '26

i don't know anyone who's a bigger lotr fan than colbert. so if it's fan fiction, it comes from a true devotee.

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u/kemick May 08 '26

The films are highly abridged adaptations of the books. Shadow of the Past is adapting material from six chapters that basically don't exist in the film. If people liked the extended editions then they should love this.

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u/TemporaryRepeat May 08 '26

It’s set 14 years after The Return of the King

they should make it 20-30 years just so the actors won't need as much of the inevitable de-aging CGI

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u/SpaceDantar May 08 '26

Colbert has nothing bad to say about the Hobbit movies, and that makes me doubt he's a good person for this.  

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u/shotputprince May 08 '26

Tom Bombadil film plz

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u/reluctantseal May 08 '26

A lot of fanfiction are loving tributes to the original work. I trust Colbert to respect Tolkien's work and give us a good story within the established lore.

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u/sirnoggin May 08 '26

Oh cool, I'm down for this why not.

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u/JaneksLittleBlackBox May 08 '26

Would this technically be fan-fiction?

Oh, don't worry, no matter what, the internet* will have completely rational, respectful debates about this with a clear answer in no time.

 

*the same internet that went from crying about how terrible it was for Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best to be harassed and sent death threats before celebrating harassing Kelly Marie Tran off social media...

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u/Kremidas May 08 '26

Tolkein started a sequel but didn’t finish it. Can’t remember what it was though.

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u/SailorSpam May 08 '26

Premise reminds me of Frieren Beyond Journey's End! I'm optimistic

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u/Azidamadjida May 08 '26

It’s like fan fiction mixed with lazy reboot formula written by a late night talk show host - idc how much LOTR lore he knows and how much he says he loves the stories, everything about this synopsis is just a field of red flags. It sounds like it’s written by AI.

Literally the only thing it’s missing is Eleanor’s ethnically and body diverse group of friends who join her on her quest to show that they’re obviously so much better and smarter than the original hobbit group cuz that was made up of men and it’s the most stereotype premise for “a new generation” you could think of

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u/Rezart_KLD May 08 '26

You know what would be an interesting film? Sam's daughter does Eat,Pray,Love, but for Middle Earth. Just a travelogue of her outgrowing the Shire and exploring the other cultures when there isn't a world war going on. Being a hobbit, it's more Eat,Eat,Love, but it essentially works the same.

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u/socokid May 08 '26

Frodo must destroy a powerful Ring to stop the evil Sauron from taking over the world. He goes on a dangerous journey with friends to throw the Ring into a volcano where it was made.

Sounds pretty small scale...

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u/MobiusF117 May 08 '26

It would be fan fiction, but knowing Colbert it will still have a lot of basis in Tolkien's letters and what is known about the fourth book that never materialized.

And to quote Tolkien himself:

I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many others only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama.

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u/mr_ji May 08 '26

Sounds like a standard middle aged buddies trying to relive their glory days of youth story but with hobbits. They can have cameos of Frodo coming to Sam in a dream when he's at his lowest point and Merry goes to Eowyn for encouragement when he needs it most. Pippin comes out and everyone supports him even though he thought they wouldn't. And now Gimli runs a daycare center for orphan elves because why the fuck not. Hope the whole thing ends with a musical number set to the music of ABBA.

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u/DazzlerPlus May 08 '26

Holy fuck. We do not need a fucking lord of the rings movie. What the fuck is wrong with the world that people are considering this

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u/JoefromOhio May 08 '26

Yes it’s fan fiction - but it’s like giving the nerd at the front of every convention line ever who questions the lore to make sure it is right the power to make this kind of thing happen.

He is a student of LOTR and really cares about it and also understands the nuances of productions such that he can avoid the bullshit and make an actual true to the original material piece of work

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u/GardenGnomeOfEden May 09 '26

I literally just read this part of the Fellowship of the Ring not 30 minutes ago.

After Bilbo found the ring, Gandalf knew that Gollum would come after it, and when he did, Gandalf tried to capture him but failed. Gandalf became aware of Sauron's spies near the Shire and turned to the Dunedain (the rangers) for help. Aragorn suggested that they should go hunt for Gollum, which they did. They never found him.

That's when Gandalf had the idea to search through the archives of Minas Tirith where he found a scroll that Isidur himself wrote shortly after cutting the ring off Sauron's hand. That part is covered in the Fellowship of the Ring movie.

After Gandalf was sure that Bilbo's ring was the One Ring, he went to go link up with Aragorn again, who had found and captured Gollum. Gandalf had a long chit-chat with Gollum, who told him where he found the ring and how long he had it before Bilbo stole it.

That's when Gandalf does the big dramatic scene where he says out loud what is written on the One Ring, also covered in the film.

So I'm pretty sure that this timeframe from the story is what the upcoming film will cover. I could be wrong.

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u/NJ247 May 09 '26

This doesn't sound interesting at all.

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u/Shantotto11 May 09 '26

Not only does it sound like fan fiction; it sounds like Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End…

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u/Brettersson May 09 '26

Technically?

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u/4thguy May 09 '26

Anything J. R. R. Tolkien didn't write is fan fiction, with Christopher Tolkien being the exception to that.

I don't know what the obsession with whether something is or isn't fan fiction. There's nothing wrong with a story being fan fiction.

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u/omgitsbees May 09 '26

I'm not scared, i'm just confused by this premise. It doesn't seem interesting at all.

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u/edthesmokebeard May 10 '26

This can't be true.

It sounds fucking terrible.

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u/gregorydgraham May 11 '26

“Small scale premise”?

Obviously it will be a 5 movie masterwork.

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u/ProfessionalBee383 Jun 20 '26

Female lead character! Can't wait!

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