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Hey there, fellow travelers. I
recently joined the Tolkien podcast Window on the

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West from the guys at the Onenering
dot com for a discussion of what makes

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Tolkien so great and the future of
Middle Earth on screen. This was a

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fun conversation, and I'm providing a
sample for you here, but you should

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really head on over to the Oneering
dot com to listen to the whole thing

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and subscribe to their podcast. To
make it easy, just head on over

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to Tolkien Road dot com slash window
and that will get you where you need

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to be. And now enjoy this
sample of my recent appearance on the Window

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on the West podcast. The reason
I agree with you so much about that

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point about Newmanoor is because this is
what makes Tolkien's works so compelling is that

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he has this detail and he wasn't
perfect, he didn't not make any mistakes,

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but he had this such a devotion
to the richness and building the background

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that it would be it is a
deep disservice to his literature to ignore all

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that. So that's fine. That's
one thing that's like for the Tolkien to

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real Tolkien nerds. We get worked
up about that stuff, but then you

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get to places like when the new
Menorians are coming to save a village they

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don't even know exists in his under
attack, which is hilarious that they would

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be charging across the mountain, but
they literally say it's going to take us

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three days or two days to make
this travel, and then one night later

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they arrive, so they can't even
pay attention to their own dialogue from from

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the previous episode and make sure that
it's I mean, I don't know who

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the quality control people were or weren't. Yeah, I mean, this is

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what why Tolkien is so good,
because he he slaved over the details.

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There's a quote that I posted to
Twitter a while back which was this map

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as hell because he couldn't He couldn't
make the map work exactly as he wanted

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to. He had to keep shifting
things, and like the time it took

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them to cross certain paths and get
across mountains and things like that. It

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just wasn't working out perfectly, and
he spent so much time trying to get

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it right. And then other people
who take his work and don't care about

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it. That's where I think the
big disconnect becomes for fans like us,

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whereas they just seem like they didn't
care anymore. It's just like the goal

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is to actually make the special effects
look really good. Now nothing else matters,

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like the acting, the writing,
everything else doesn't matter. They had

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money, they had time, they
had like you know, and they couldn't

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get it right. And and I
don't, you know, at the end

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of the day, like I don't
pay a lot of attention to like the

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you know, what's happening now in
terms of like the daily you know,

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leaks from the production or whatever like
um, but I don't. I don't

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necessarily um and maybe that's maybe I'm
wrong in this, but I don't necessarily

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fault the showrunners. The two the
two guys whatever their names are, UM

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and UM. I think they got
thrown into it and um and and somebody

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like they were like, these two
guys want to make a name for themselves.

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They'll just you know, they'll they'll
be useful tools for us corporate powers,

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right. Yeah. I think about
like the corporate powers having their hands

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on Tolkien's works, and I'm like, it's like this is basically Sauron got

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his hands on Tolkien stories and it's
now telling the stories right, burning up

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the shire. Yeah, you know, um. And so you know,

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and I look back at like Peter
Jackson's films, and again there's there's issues

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with Peter Jackson's film he did.
He did not create perfection. But those

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Lord of the Rings films stand up
and are good films in my opinion,

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um, and are still very enchanting
to me because he was one guy who

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had a very unique vision, just
like Tolkien was right, just like the

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passion man he did right. And
then you look and Rings the power is

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all it's a corporate thing and it's
so it's mediocre and uh and it's mart

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and it's marketable and all these kinds
of Yeah. I did a video a

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while back, like probably in the
summer where it's all these things fail when

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you don't have a single passionate voice
standing up for it. And so you

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look at Star Wars, even Marvel. Now when I think John Favreau left

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right, there was there was a
voice who was like kind of speaking what

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it was. And then you lose
George Lucas and now you lose Peter Jackson

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or Peter Jackson last year token or
however you want to look at that,

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but you lose that passion and it
becomes an exercise in profit, and if

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it's not going to make a profit, we're just going to kill it rather

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than let's make something great. And
by default what should happen is you will

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actually make money on it, which
is what happened. And uh and I'm

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and which leads us right into where
we are now with the upcoming films from

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Warner Brothers, supposedly set in the
Third Age. Yeah, but it's it's

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that corporate entity and that's what scares
me the most. It's it's it's a

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machine. Yeah, And I'll speak
to what you're saying, John, I

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really do I agree with you one
hundred percent about um J D. Payne,

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whose name has taken on special significance
to me and Patrick McKay um.

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But because I actually show runners,
Yeah, the two show runners for Rings

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of Power. I I just I
really do believe that the corporate machine just

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chose them because they were easy to
manipulate like they they they would not have

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been had no credits under their belt
before that. If they had actually got

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Jackson back again somehow, and if
he had been interested, they would they

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would not have liked it because they
wouldn't have been able to push him around

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right the way so that the same
way. Now I'm no fan of the

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Hobbit movies, but I know that
there was also other other considerations about demo

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y toros um scripts and things that
they had to total the line on that

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Jackson did to the line on.
But anyway, it's it. It really

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is a corporate product and hence more
of a more of a product. I

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mean, maybe maybe I'm tapping into
the lewis that hideous strength too much,

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but it's like, it's like as
if the Nice Corporation made a movie about

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Tolkien's Like it's so it's and it
doesn't even hold up to its own standards.

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I mean, for heaven's sake,
the prequel to House of the Dragon

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did way better than than Tolkien's work, which which has no no um right

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to. But but then again,
you look at that and you're like,

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well, the House of the Dragon
had the original writer involved still, and

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so there was even though and you
look at um uh a song licens fires

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what was the songs the Game of
Thrones, I could't even remember the name.

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Look at that once the once the
person with the passion behind it,

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the author was gone. The last
two seasons just fell into an a bit

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we're terrible. Yeah, I was. I was more, even though I

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think Martin is a talented writer.
I was more comparing like at their best

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Game of Thrones and House of the
Dragon, when put into film, they

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can reach about that high. Tolkien
has the potential for Tolkien, an actual

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good Tolkien film is so much higher. And the fact that they managed to

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achieve this ridiculously low level of interest
in you didn't even stand up to its

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own to modern media, let alone
his works. So yeah, it was.

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It was a travesty, absolutely,
So how do they fix it in

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the upcoming films? I mean,
they said they're going back to Peter Jackson,

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but I think, you know,
Peter Jackson's kind of been there,

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done that. I don't think he
has that passion anymore. Right, that

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was that was his magnamopus doing the
Lord of the Rings. I don't know,

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man, I don't want to.
So here's here's an example. Here's

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an example. I don't know.
Are you either of you guys Star Trek

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fans? Yes, yeah, I'm
a Star Trek fan. Okay, So

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Star Trek McCart Seasons one and two
were absolute utter trash They had no business

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being called Star Trek. Piccard was
a shelve himself. They had to deal

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with daddy issues and mommy issues and
all this sort of stuff that in Star

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Trek doesn't mean anything. Star Trek
has always been about people coming together about

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you know, Earth was obviously utopian
format and um based out of that,

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right, the Federation was trying to
do good and here the whole time,

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you know, we've got again,
there's a whole the whole Season two is

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based on illegal immigration, Like,
nobody in this world wants to see Star

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Trek based upon illegal immigration. In
our time, we watched Star Trek to

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escape, not to actually like go
look at like how bad our political systems

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are right now. Way, you
didn't watch Star Trek to see Stacy Abrams

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as president. That's another one Star
Trek discovery. I didn't see that,

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Serason, but I knew that she
was in it. What I want to

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see is the failed Georgia governor gubernatorial
candidate, right, That's what I want

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to see anyway. So, but
but Piccart season three is actually amazingly good.

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It is really really good. And
they got a guy who worked on

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I think he worked on an extension. He's like an intern or he was

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an assistant or something like that,
and kind of stuck with Star Trek and

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he worked on I think Piccart season
two, but that gave him an in

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to the suits and an end to
the actors to go to them a head.

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Here's my idea for season three.
Here, let's do this, let's

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do this. His name is Terry
Matalas, and the music is great.

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They got rid of Jeff Russo,
who's an absolutely bysmal conductor a musician.

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I hate his music. It is
all just bland and melodyless. And they

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got a new guy to kind of
like harken back to some of the old

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teams. And so what they did
is they got somebody with some vision,

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with some passion and put him in
charge of it and stood back and said,

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let you do whatever you want.
And so they completely ignored seasons one

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and two. They ignored, like
what what Warner Brothers would have to do

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with some parts of the hobbit I
think and would have to do with obviously

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with ringings the power they can do, but they have to ignore what came

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before and do something with a passion
there and hands off right and say,

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yeah, what go ahead. Michael's
however, I know we we brought we

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brought John on to interview them,
and then we're just sitting there talking jump

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in. I'll jump in a yeah, please do run rough shot if you

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if you can. And but but
here's the difference. The thing I love

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about Season three or Picardy, I
love. Yes, I agree with you,

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it's it's so far it's good.
First few episodes are good. Reason

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it's good is because they brought back
Riker, because they brought back Wharf,

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because they're doing it the way.
But it's not just that, no,

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no, but but they're living up
to their characters. They're yes. So

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here's the thing. They are tapping
into something that made as a Star Trek

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the next generation good or at least
watchable for most people. And and so

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they something real to reach back to
and say, hey, we're gonna make

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it like this again, because everyone
says that our first two seasons sucked,

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and so so we're gonna we're gonna
take a chance on a on a twist

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by like actually going back to the
source material that people like. They don't

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have that option with Rings of Power. This is why I say that,

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because they can't use the Silmarillion,
they can't and so it can and if

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they do, they'll they'll get their
rear end suit off. So you know,

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my thing was like, well,
okay, you've got you've got Appendix

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B and um and some information from
Appendix A M so you I mean,

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and and apparently they have, you
know, permission they can go to the

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Tolkien estate and be like, hey, can we use this? Can we

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use this? Right? Um?
But uh, you know, my whole

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thing is like, well, if
you don't, if you can't tell the

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story the way it needs to be
told, and don't tell the story,

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you could have told another story,
you could have done something totally right.

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Yeah, and um, but a
quarter of a billion dollars, come on,

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just to they spent a quarterbillion,
How could they have to do something?

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Now they are a bunch of suits
who just spent a quarter of a

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billion dollars on rights. So yeah, so I just I just think they've

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painted themselves in a corner. I
agree with you. You have elements,

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of course from the Simlarillion independix say
in appendix But but but you don't have

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enough if they start if they start
tapping in too much of the simlar Arlion,

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and sure you could play the lawyer
game, but you can't play the

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lawyer game with the whole thing,
and lawyer games are expensive, you can,

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so, so I'm let's completely right
off the Rings of Power and say

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that's you know, that's that's sludge
under the bridge. Uh. Let's talk

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about what they're gonna do with the
films, right, because that's the real

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thing, is like the Rings of
Power is like I don't know how you

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recover from that unless you take you
take what they made huge and you try

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to concentrate on one story and make
it really interesting. Um. But with

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Warner Brothers, right, they're gonna
they're gonna supposedly tell stories in the third

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Age, they're going to tell stories
perhaps of young Ragorn. They're gonna tell

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a story of perhaps, um you
know the Angmar Wars, the um uh

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with which convey Mar and how they
lost aren't or and all so you know

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the whole battle up there and what
a top again and see all that.

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Um, but how do you like? That's that's logistical, that's like,

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Okay, what are we going to
do? What kind of person do they

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need to get involved? Like?
Are there people still out there? Like

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do they need to go outside of
the Hollywood industry and would these guys ever

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do it or should we just forget
about it? Like I honest yeah,

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go ahead, I honestly don't.
Like I I'm so uh maybe the skill

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again to do it, because see
I seemed to trust these days when it

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comes to anything, umny anything in
Hollywood. Um So, I just there's

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so few people like that I think
are up. I think are up to

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the task. At this point.
It's just all it's just all so corporate

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and um, everything is so everything
is so managed, um from the top

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down by people who are you know, probably they're they're probably millionaires playing games

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with each other and you know,
career games with each other, and you

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know, everybody knows that dynamic that
goes on with people gunn you know,

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just idiots gunning for you know,
little little fiefdoms within their corporate worlds.

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And these are the kinds of things
that Tolkien stuff is subject to right now,

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right, um, little petty,
little petty fiefdom arguments. And so

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I'm like that probably sounds really pessimistic. My I guess the optimist in me

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will say, I do really hope
they can do something great, great,

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because I want to see something great. I wanted Rings the Power to be

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fantastic. Um, you go back
and you go back to the years leading

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up to twenty twenty two after they
announced it, and I was I was

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like super excited, very a lot, a lot about on the podcast.

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Um. It wasn't until like that
that trailers dropped during the super Bowl and

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some of the stuff with like magazine
articles and that kind of super fans remember

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them. Oh I I didn't even
ever watch that. I just I was

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done by even the time the super
Fans thing came out and I heard about

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it later on, but I was
just like that. It was the nail

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on the coffin for me because I
was like, I was like, you

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guys are trying way too hard with
this man. See See it's that's the

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problem with with uh, you know, converse to Catholicism, like you,

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is that you haven't you haven't absorbed
the self flagellation that that cradle Catholics have,

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and so we're we're you know,
we want the pain. At a

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certain point, we're just like,
oh, it's so that's so wrong.

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I'm gonna watch some more of it. Terrible. Hey, you know I've

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been a Catholic, uh twelve thirteen
years at Easter, so you know I'm

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getting there. I'm start to pick
up on the self flagellation. Then I

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watched Rings of Power all eight episodes. That's true, you did that.

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That is a good start. I
hope you enjoyed that sample of my recent

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appearance on the On the West podcast. There's a lot more where that came

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from, so make sure to head
on over to Tolkien Road dot com,

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slash window, or the Wondering dot
Com to listen to the whole thing.

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Thanks for listening, and until next
time, the Road goes ever On