Lord of the Rings TV series gets multi-season order at Amazon

[Michael Murry]

Again, from what I understand: Amazon plans to start televising the first episodes of their "Lord of the Rings" series next year (2022) which I look forward to lampooning given the sort of material that I assume will disgrace the entertainment industry -- a difficult task, I admit. Others more knowledgeable than myself in Tolkien Lore have said that The Silmarillion will constitute the literary basis for the intended rip-off. I don't have a copy of The Silmarillion, but I do have a copy of Unfinished Tales, where the Editor, Christopher Tolkien, writes in the Introduction:

"The problems that confront one given responsibility for the writings of a dead author are hard to resolve. Some persons in this position may elect to make no material whatsoever available for publication, save perhaps for work that was in a virtually finished state at the time of the author's death. In the case of the unfinished writings of J. R. R. Tolkien this might seem at first the proper course; since he himself, peculiarly critical and exacting of his own work, would not have dreamt of allowing even the more completed narratives in this book to appear without much further refinement." [emphasis added]

"On the other hand, the nature and scope of his invention seems to me to place even his abandoned stories in a peculiar position. That The Silmarillion should remain unknown was for me out of the question, despite its disordered state, and despite my father's known if very largely unfulfilled intentions for its transformation; and in that case I presumed, after long hesitation, to present the work not in the form of an historical study, a complex of divergent texts interlinked by commentary, but as a completed and cohesive entity." [emphasis added]

Without a copy of The Silmarillion, I have had to research the Internet -- Wikipedia and other on-line sources -- so that I have some clue as to the "divergent texts" that the television series plans to pilfer and "adapt." As a model for how I might go about lampooning this stuff -- as I did with the "Itaril/Tauriel" butt-kicking elf-chick love interest in The Hobbit movies -- I consulted National Lampoon's "Bored of the Rings" and the terrific send-up of Star Trek and its fan base in Galaxy Quest. I trust that this influence will come through in my next verse offering:

Demiurge Dementia

Valium, Land of the Vulgar, it seems,
features some real-estate made up of dreams
parceled-out absent competitive schemes,
"built" by The Owner for "his" chosen teams:
“Angels” who mouth metaphysical memes;
“Demons” who thump theological themes.

Boron and Lithium, man and elf female,
teamed up to perpetrate – down to the detail –
theft of a mineral stone (cheap at retail):
Morbid’s crown missing a rock, now for resale.
Lithium’s dad asked his girl why should she wail?
Boron knew that he’d get shafted should he fail.

Where do the Halfwits come into this story?
Trying to separate Labor from Tory,
What should we call them? A “truck” or a “lorry”?
Do they not serve as an apt allegory:
Rustic and “Middle” and “common” and hoary?
Who, if not them, will suffice as pure quarry?

Somehow this story sounds already told,
Like a stale meal having long since grown cold;
Fetid like swamp water covered with mold;
Reeking of avarice; done; over sold;
Amateur alchemy: tin made from gold;
Narrative nonsense: escape from the fold.

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2021