Quote:
Originally Posted by Morthoron
(Post 738948)
Or that the "Search for Gollum" has everything to do with the One Ring. This will always be an issue, of course, as long as the title of the books (and the movie "franchise") is Lord of the Rings.
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Well,
Lord of the Tiaras just doesn't have the same
ring to it. ;)
But in all seriousness - and for the sake of argument moving past Mithadan's not untrue statement about the "franchise" - I can come up with a few reasons why on the one side the money-making businesses shouldn't fixate on the Ring, and on the other why they have no reasonable alternative (besides picking different source material, of course). The book of LOTR is focused on the One Ring, but the world of Middle-earth is huge. Even in a story taking place during the War of the Ring, you could make the focus something completely different. Write a freedom-fighter epic about the Shire under Sharkey's rule. Write about Dwarven politics in Erebor, surely you can imagine the Nazgul's arrival stirring up some drama that can be spun into a story with the focus on something local. Write about a random dude who has no idea what's going on but experiences all the LOTR cataclysmic events. Or write about a different time interval, different generation (what they tried and very much failed to do with the series). Thing is, that's what the
fandom is doing. You can find fan fiction focusing on anything and everything at any point in Middle-earth history. The difference is that fan-fiction writers have access to all of Middle-earth to play with and no restriction on where imagination can take them, but the official money-making "franchise" does. They only have right to so much material. But equally importantly, while fan-fiction can delve into obscure corners of the lore and expand on them and be hailed within the knowing fandom, the "franchise" has to generate money, and therefore be appealing and recognizable to the general public... and therefore has relied heavily on the brand recognition. "The Adventures of Arador Son of Argonui" won't draw the immediate attention "Lord of the Rings" does. So they
have to link it back to the popular brand... and so you have the cycle. Ultimately though, the "franchise's" problem is not that they focus on the Ring - why not, there are many ways to build on the story of the Ring too - but that they are not telling good stories, and if it wasn't for the brand, the stories wouldn't have any leg to stand on. Shifting the topic of the story won't make it better if it's inherently weak.
On a different note, I thought there already was some spin-off movie about the search for Gollum. Hunt for Gollum? Not sure. But I recall something of the sort years ago, possibly before even the Hobbit movies.
And now I also remember a thread somewhere about a rumour that they are making an anime about Helm Hammerhand, which may not be true but is an interesting concept. As someone has recently made me warp up more to the medium, I actually have more trust in this conception than if they were making a Helm live-action movie. Will it be like what Tolkien described? No - and without pretense that it is. But will it be a good story, with Tolkien-inspired vibes? I have hope.
