Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dill-NO!
Screenshot: Warner Bros.
Screenshot: Warner Bros.
If you were old enough to be online when Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies were being made, you probably remember the debates about what would and would not be included. Some people really, really wanted Tom Bombadil, the quirky fellow who helps the hobbits on their way and rescues them from some barrow-wights. Some really didn’t want Tom and his songs (personally, I always cared more about his companion, Goldberry).
Stephen Colbert is apparently in the former camp. Last night, in honor of Tolkien Reading Day, Peter Jackson got online to provide an update on The Hunt for Gollum, the questionable LOTR film Andy Serkis is making. Jackson says the script for that one is coming together, and that he thinks it’s going to be “a really good film.”
But then Jackson, in his very casual way, announces that another film is in development, and invites a guest to explain. That guest was Colbert, who says, “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.”
He goes on to specify the chapters: “Three Is Company” through “Fog on the Barrow-Downs.”
Some things that happen in those chapters: Frodo, Sam, and Pippin leave Bag-End (Merry has gone ahead to prepare Frodo’s new house). They sing some songs. They eat some meals. A fox wonders what these hobbits are up to. The hobbits meet some elves. (The scene with the elves is a favorite of mine; it would, I admit, be nice to see some less depressed elves than the ones Jackson gave us.) They get a ride from Farmer Maggot. They see some Nazgul, though they don’t know what they are yet. Merry and Pippin get stuck in a grumpy willow tree, and Tom Bombadil comes to the rescue. When they leave him, they encounter some barrow-wights, and Tom Bombadil comes to the rescue. And then they go to Bree and meet Aragorn, and the rest is cinematic history.
These chapters are great. It’s also very easy to see why they were cut from Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring.
Colbert says, in the video, that he thought, “Oh, wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story. Could we make something that was completely faithful to the books while also being completely faithful to the movies that you guys had already made?”
And that’s what he—and his son Peter McGhee, and regular LOTR writer Philippa Boyens—are doing. The film is called The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past, and Varietyreports that it has a logline:
Fourteen years after the passing of Frodo, 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.
After Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, and with Serkis’s upcoming unnecessary Gollum movie, it is really hard not to see this as these men squeezing every last franchise dollar out of these novels, even as they talk about how much they love Tolkien’s work. It also feels like they’re trying to get ahead of criticisms that these books have few female roles. (Have they considered other books?)
It’s not clear if Jackson will direct this film, or if any actors will return from his original trilogy. But we have time to prepare ourselves; The Hunt for Gollum is still being made, and this movie is next in the franchise pipeline.
Molly Templeton
Molly Templeton has been a bookseller, an alt-weekly editor, and assistant managing editor of Tor.com, among other things. She now lives and writes in Oregon, and spends as much time as possible in the woods.
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J.R.R. TolkienmoviesnewsPeter JacksonStephen ColbertThe Lord of the RingsThe Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the PastTom Bombadil
