What Story Could Cover Stephen Colbert’s Lord of the Rings Movie? – SlashFilm

JRR Tolkien superfan Stephen Colbert is now officially part of the Middle-Earth cinema experience. In a leaked video, Peter Jackson joined Colbert to announce the next “Lord of the Rings” movie titled, at least at the time, “The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past.” The title is the name of the second chapter of Tolkien’s book “The Fellowship of the Ring”, but Colbert made it clear that the film he is working on – in addition to presenting a frame story that takes place after the events of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy – will cover some material from the book “Fellowship” that Jackson and company did not include in their film.

“The thing I found myself reading over and over again was the first six chapters of ‘The Fellowship’ which would never have been the first film of its era. […] and I thought, ‘Oh wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into a bigger story.’

The six chapters Colbert talks about come right after “The Shadow of the Past,” the beginning of the “Fellowship of the Ring” book. As for the adaptation of Jackson’s movies, they take place after Frodo (Elijah Wood) and his fellow Hobbits Merry (Dominic Monaghan), Pippin (Billy Boyd), and Sam (Sean Astin), are almost captured by the Black Riders in the forest and suddenly appear in the pouring rain at the gates of Bree. The obvious question? What do these six skipped episodes have that would be worth turning into a completely different movie? Let’s clear it.

The first three chapters that Stephen Colbert translates from the book “Fellowship of the Ring” are “Three’s Company,” “A Shortcut to the Mushrooms,” and “The Conspirator Unmasked.” Some of these things were previously covered in Peter Jackson’s film, such as the Hobbits stealing vegetables from Farmer Cotton’s crops and almost being caught by the Black Riders.

As the group of Hobbits prepare to leave the Shire, however, Jackson’s footage cuts from them crossing the Brandywine Bridge on the Bucklebury Ship to immediately seeing Bree. The first book, on the other hand, has them travel from the Ferry to Frodo’s new home, called Crickhollow, which he bought after selling Bag End. There, they meet a fellow Hobbit named Fredegar “Fatty” Bolger, who helps them get going and even goes so far as to pretend that Frodo is still living in his new home.

In JRR Tolkien’s book, this is also the point where Merry, Pippin, Sam, and Fatty reveal their “plan” – in fact, the fact that they have been fully aware that Frodo is leaving the Shire all this time, and intend to go with him. In other words, they don’t behave just once, because of a chance encounter, like in Jackson’s film.

It will be interesting to see how Colbert changes this information to fit the way things play out in Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” films. Regardless, this is where the “between the lines” game that Colbert talked about goes. From there, the next three chapters – titled “The Old Forest,” “Tom Bombadil’s House,” and “Fog on the Barrow-Downs” – take the action beyond the boundaries of the Shire.

After they leave Crickhollow, Frodo and his friends walk through an untamed forest on the border of the Shire that feels like Fangorn Forest without the Ents. The trees are alive and relatively gentle, and one called Old Man Willow catches the Hobbits and nearly kills them. Fortunately, they were saved by the timely intervention of the extraordinary Tom Bombadil (who made his debut in “The Rings of Power” season 2).

Bombadil then takes the Hobbits home to rest for a few days. Next, they head to the strange land of the Barrow Downs and are captured by barrow-wights (the mysterious villains who appeared in “The Rings of Power”), but escape thanks to the heroics of Frodo and Bombadil. From there, Bombadil helps them to the nearby village of Bree. Meanwhile, the Strider ranger (ie Aragorn) secretly follows them to the village and their inn, the Prancing Pony. The next scene would be a shot of Frodo arriving at the city gates in the pouring rain from Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of “Fellowship of the Ring”.

There are certainly many new things that Stephen Colbert can bring out. The question is, can he make a well-thought-out story out of those chapters that fit into the larger story? There are many reasons to worry about this “Lord of the Rings” sequel. But, for the more optimistic, the fact that the beloved Colbert is working with Jackson and his brilliant co-writers Philippa Boyens and Fran Walsh is enough to keep JRR Tolkien fans cautiously optimistic, this poor fellow included.

“Lord of the Rings: Shadow of the Past” has not set a firm release date.