These studios really can’t help themselves, can they? Warner Bros. is making an utter fool of themselves as they supposedly are planning on making the Lord of the Rings franchise into what Disney has done with Star Wars.
See what I mean when I said to get everyone’s critical pitchforks ready? You just can’t trust these studios to do anything competent these days.
Now, I have to be fair and point out that this is only a rumor some “insider” at Warner Bros. gave to the Hollywood Reporter (I’ve linked the article here and down below), but this is a mind-numbingly stupid idea if true.
Not only has Star Wars been utterly hollowed out, its reputation dragged through the mud, and its lore milked dry by Disney’s greedy, ruthless executives, but it also has always been a radically different franchise than Lord of the Rings.
Sure, George Lucas was the one who created the Original trilogy, Prequel trilogy, Clone Wars T.V. series, and characters, but the supplemental lore, concepts, timelines, locations, and characters that everyone assumes Lucas created were actually developed by other authors.
The Expanded Universe (aka: Legends), which was stupidly canned as non-cannon by Disney once they took over in 2012, was one of the greatest collaborative efforts in all science-fiction history as multiple authors devised hundreds of new stories, plots, characters, backstories, post-stories (for certain characters), and locations that feature within dozens of great comics, novels, graphic novels, video games, etc.
Super popular and beloved Ideas and concepts like Mara Jane, Starkiller, Darth Nihilus, Revan, Darth Malgus, Abeloth, Knights of the Old Republic, the High Republic, the Sith Empire, Luke’s Jedi Order and the New Republic, and the post-Empire battles with the Yuuzhan Vong were all created by independent authors that signed contracts or worked directly with Lucas and Lucasfilm.
And, of course, there’s Disney’s Star Wars projects (ex: Sequel trilogy, The Mandalorian, Andor, Obi-Wan Kenobi show, Book of Boba Fett, etc.) which came after the 2012 acquisition of Lucasfilm and the Star Wars brand by the Big Mouse.
(Image Creator: Lucasfilm/Disney/Image Source: Rotten Tomatoes-Star Wars: Episode 3-Revenge of the Sith-Trailer #1)
Needless to say, the vast lore and franchise that Star Wars is today comes from an amalgamation of collaborative works by different parties. The Lord of the Rings couldn’t be a more polar opposite comparison.
There wasn’t a single thing in the Lord of the Rings universe and lore that was not meticulously crafted in the genius brain of J.R.R. Tolkien. The “Father of Modern Fantasy” quite literally devised every single minute detail one can read about when traversing through the novels, games, movies, T.V. shows, fan-made lore pages, YouTube channels dedicated to the Lord of the Rings, etc.
Concepts like Gollum, Frodo, Sauron, Melkor, the Valar, Numenor, Gondolin, Feanor, Galadriel, King Eldarion (Aragon and Arwen’s son), Aragon, Arwen, Elves, Dwarves, Ents, Valinor, all came from the ideas of one man, unlike the ones I listed above for Star Wars.
Thus, even though Christopher Tolkien (Tolkien’s son) and Tolkien scholar Carl Hostetter (who stepped in after Christopher’s passing) have been the one’s editing Tolkien’s notes and unfinished works into novels after his death, it’s all still his creations and disingenuous to compare the two franchises in said category.
So, the content of books like The Unfinished Tales, Berin and Luthien, The Children of Hurin, The Fall of Gondolin, and The Silmarillion, which all were posthumously released to the public by the editors, still came from Tolkien’s notes, letters, scribbles, essays, etc. Obviously, that’s not the case with Star Wars…and nor will it be with Warner Bros. new Lord of the Rings franchise in light of their restricted access to Tolkien’s works.
Almost all of the adaptation rights to Tolkien’s posthumous works, such as The Unfinished Tales, Berin and Luthien, and The Silmarillion, are still locked away by the Tolkien estate and will probably never see the light of day (unless a fat Amazon check comes their way, but that’s another story).
Aside from just remaking The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogies over and over again, how is Warner Bros. going to create movies and TV shows without access to 95% of Tolkien’s entire body of work. At least Disney managed to acquire all of the rights to everything within the Star Wars universe when they acquired Lucasfilm, even if they did discard 75% of it.
Warner Bros. will have to go down the same route Amazon took when “adapting” the Rings of Power T.V. show: use the appendices and make shit up.
(Image Creator: New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. Pictures/Image Source: Rotten Tomatoes-Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring-Official Trailer #1)
And, seeing how Rings of Power was one of the worst adaptations in 2022 and failed miserably to House of the Dragon (Game of Thrones prequel) in critical acclaim, audience acclaim, and ratings metrics in general, I’m not filled with any hope that Warner Bros. can do any better.
I mean, even though I have my faults and criticisms of Amazon, at least the company hasn’t nearly gone bankrupt due to years of mismanagement and stupidity like a certain studio (cough…Warner Bros….cough).
I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if these rumors are true, but I’m still keeping my critical pitchfork extra sharp in the meantime.
Images Source: Featured Image: (Image Creator: New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. Pictures/Image Source: Rotten Tomatoes) (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001) Official Trailer #1 – Ian McKellen Movie HD – YouTube)
In Text Image 1: (Image Creator: Lucasfilm/Disney/Image Source: Rotten Tomatoes) (Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers – YouTube)
In Text Image 2: (Image Creator: New Line Cinema/Warner Bros. Pictures/Image Source: Rotten Tomatoes) (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001) Official Trailer #1 – Ian McKellen Movie HD – YouTube)
