An Surprising Framing Machine
Per the movie’s official logline, the film is ready 14 years after Frodo, Gandalf, and the remainder of the Ring-bearers depart from the Gray Havens. Sam, Merry, and Pippin will — for some as but undisclosed cause — got down to retrace the primary steps of their journey. Perhaps it is a pub crawl, who is aware of? However, elsewhere, Sam’s daughter, Elanor, “has found a long-buried secret and is decided to uncover why the Struggle of the Ring was very almost misplaced earlier than it even started.”
What all of which means is one thing we’ll all seemingly be debating proper till the movie is launched. Is Elanor going to observe after her father and his associates and uncover one thing scary within the Barrow-downs? Is she going to the library to do analysis, Hermione Granger-style? How a lot does she even learn about her father’s position within the Struggle of the Ring?
Tom Bombadil on the Huge Display
The Elanor query, at the least initially, appears to be of much less curiosity to Tolkien followers than what seems to be affirmation that we’re lastly getting a big-screen tackle what’s arguably the writer’s weirdest and most divisive character, Tom Bombadil. On some degree, this is sensible, as a complete bunch of probably the most hardcore Lord of the Rings lovers are obsessive about him, despite the fact that his presence within the e book’s bigger story is minimal and, admittedly, fairly bizarre. A legendary determine who lives in full concord with nature, is resistant to the ability of the One Ring, and usually retains himself properly out of the bigger affairs of Center-earth, Bombadil just lately made his onscreen debut within the second season of The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Energy. As a result of that sequence is a prequel, he was reimagined as a sort of magical mentor to a youthful Gandalf who hadn’t but realized his true id. (Severely, don’t ask.)
However apart from Tom repeatedly rescuing the hobbits and having a cool river-goddess spouse, he doesn’t essentially provide a lot in the way in which of story, at the least not when it comes to no matter this movie is doing with Elanor’s plot. The simplest reply is probably that she’s searching for some piece of the Barrow-wights’ stolen treasure hoard — the brooch Bombadil meant for Goldberry, possibly? — however that’s a very wild guess.
Does The Lord of the Rings Want a Sequel?
However the extra essential query right here has nothing to do with Colbert’s enthusiasm for deep lower Tolkien lore or expansive fan service — it’s whether or not The Lord of the Rings even wants a sequel in any respect. The writer himself famously didn’t need one. And a part of the ability of Tolkien’s unique ending is in understanding that it’s the conclusion of a narrative — of Frodo’s story particularly.
What makes the ending of The Return of the King so satisfying is how bittersweet it’s. Frodo has achieved what he got down to do. He has saved Center-earth, protected the Shire, and introduced his associates again residence. However he has achieved so by making himself a stranger to it, now too broken by the trauma of his journey to search out the peace he craved there. Some wounds can’t be healed on this life, and it’s in that spirit that Frodo passes on to the subsequent, to the Timeless Lands and no matter lies past.
