THE OPTIMAL LotR PREQUEL MOVIE

(which is not likely to ever be produced...)

Well: With the appearance of the Extended Edition of Return of the King, the Jackson Trilogy is complete in its fullest form. Now what? Is the "Lord of the Rings" franchise dead? Or will the silver screen become a window into Tolkien's universe in future films as well?

Obviously there cannot be, or at least should not be, any sequels. This is simply because chronologically, the saga of the War of the Ring is the last part of Tolkien's vast mythos. Tolkien did start writing a story that was to be set in Gondor after the death of King Elessar (Aragorn), but he didn't even complete the first chapter. It wasn't worth doing, he decided. And indeed a world drama like the LotR saga would be a tough act to follow. If the downfall of Sauron was really the decisive victory over Evil Incarnated, stories of the same epic Good-vs-Evil proportions could not be set after the LotR. Of course, we have seen many supposedly dead villains return in a sequel, complete with some suitably lame explanation of how they cheated their apparent death in the previous installment. But Tolkien would never insult his readers with some ridiculous "Sauron wasn't really destroyed after all" scenario.

On the other hand, Hollywood directors would probably be all too happy to bring back Saurie Boy for "The Lord of the Rings Episode IV: Mordor Strikes Back". So let us all be glad that as things appear now, Hollywood just doesn't have the right to do this. Frodo and Sam worked really, really hard to destroy the Ring and take out Sauron, so we mustn't cheapen Sauron's demise in any way. Jason, Freddie and Frankenstein's monster will always be back for another movie no matter how thoroughly they were killed in the previous installment -- but Sauron is for all intents and purposes DEAD! True, Tolkien did suggest that a shrunken residue of Sauron's spirit remained even after the destruction of the Ring, but then he also implied that it was so maimed and reduced that it could never return to haunt the world yet again. In other words: useless for sequel purposes. Sauron is GONE, folks! Deal with it!

No. If we don't want to insult Tolkien's memory completely, there cannot ever be any sequels to the Jackson movies. But there is another option, namely the by now well-established genre of the prequel -- a story set before the LotR saga, with Sauron still around and all. Any reader of Tolkien's books will know that the War of the Ring is just the final climax of a long, long history, stretching into a past almost unimaginably remote. The compelling sense of history is often cited as one of the chief qualities of LotR the Book, and while this quality could not be fully represented in the movies, it is far from absent either: Jackson does show us glimpses of the vast battles of the past, and we are taken through a landscape full of strange ruins.

To some, the obvious "prequel movie" is a Hobbit film. Set about sixty years before the Jackson Trilogy, we would follow a younger version of Bilbo on an adventure, where Gandalf would also participate (I understand Ian McKellen is amenable to such a project). Bilbo would encounter Gollum and find the Ring; later there would be a tremendous fight against the dragon Smaug. I guess I would like to watch such a movie, especially if Ian Holm could return as Bilbo. However, The Hobbit is what Tolkien intended it to be: a children's book. The story only hints at the deeper and darker themes in Tolkien's authorship. Sauron is briefly mentioned as "the Necromancer", and we learn that Gandalf (when he returns after a long absence from the main story) has been involved in some kind of fight with this "Necromancer" guy. An audience knowing that the final outcome of the conflict with Sauron will decide the destiny of the world could well cry out in outrage: "So why didn't you show us THAT instead of following the 'adventures' of a %&#& fat Hobbit who doesn't even understand the importance of the ring he stumbled upon?!" The story of The Hobbit might appear somewhat simplistic after the world-changing events recorded in the LotR saga.

But, if a LotR Prequel is ever to be made, there is another option than The Hobbit (not that one excludes the other...long live the franchise!) For many reasons it would require far greater courage on the part on whatever studio that dared to produce it. Yet the end result, if well done, could be one of the most heart-wrenching epics ever brought to the silver screen.

Of course, the audience would have to get used to a rather different setting. For one thing, most of the movie would not even be set in Middle-earth (though that is where the surviving characters end up). The story of this movie would be the catastrophic climax of the history of Westernesse, the great island kingdom in the western ocean -- a realm also known by the Elvish name of Númenor. Ignoring Sauron, no LotR character would also appear in a Westernesse movie, except for Elrond if we end the movie with the battle of the Last Alliance against the hordes of Mordor (and this is the end we definitely should have – or the average audience would be quite unable to figure out how this movie relates to the Jackson trilogy!)

There are no hobbits; this would be a movie about Aragorn's ancestors, and the protagonists are Mortal Men (except for Sauron, of course, but even he would appear in a humanoid shape in most of this movie). The Hobbits entered the scene in a far later historical period, and there is simply no way they could be included here. (I shudder at the thought of some Hollywood director trying to insert them because "we gotta have Hobbits in this franchise!" – they just don't have anything to do in this story!) We would meet some Orcs and other monsters of Sauron in the scenes from Middle-earth, there could be some flash-back scenes to earlier times where dragons are glimpsed, and maybe even some hapless cave trolls would be imported to Númenor as slave labor (notice how Sauron uses them to open and close the Black Gate, according to Mr. Jackson!) But when all is said and done, this would not primarily be a story about fantastic creatures. Rather the main part of the movie would be a psychological drama.

As for the Elves, even they would be absent from the screen for much of the time. I believe, however, that there is a way of providing this movie with a "Legolas" character and keep him onscreen for a reasonable amount of time. The character I would use is Tolkienian enough. Though Tolkien never mentioned him in connection with the Westernesse story, his presence in Middle-earth at this time, and the role he could be assigned in the events, is (I hope) relatively plausible within the framework of Tolkien's general scenario.

The audience would also have to get used to the idea that the plot of this movie is quite different from the LotR story. I think this is a good thing, since we have seen far too many prequels/sequels that mechanically rehash the plot of the earlier movies. (Surely I can't be the only one to have noticed that the principal sections of Home Alone II reproduce the original movie almost scene by scene? Sheesh...) This time, we would not insult the audience with any recycled plot. Indeed this would not be a "quest" movie at all.

But neither would it be a romantic movie. There can be no prominent romance; quite on the contrary, one of the protagonists would be a young woman forced to marry a man she doesn't love at all. Possibly we could develop a minor subplot having to do a girlfriend of Isildur's, who eventually becomes his wife and the mother of his children (since it is important to establish that Isildur had children: the beginning of the bloodline that leads to Aragorn thousands of years later). But this would have little to do with the plot proper.

All right: Few fantastic creatures. No hobbits. Few elves. Mostly only Men onscreen. No quest. No prominent romance. Not even Middle-earth itself, for most of the movie. So what do we have left, really?

We have a whole lot. The potential of the story is immense. If well done, a Westernesse movie would not only tell a complete and absorbing tale in itself, but also add a completely new dimension of depth to the Jackson trilogy. You could watch Westernesse and then watch the Jackson trilogy again in a quite new light, with a much deeper understanding of What It Is All About. Consider some of the questions the Jackson movies do NOT answer:

Who, really, is Sauron? From the Jackson trilogy ignorant viewers will only be able to infer that he is some kind of demon manifesting as a huge Eye of Fire, though in the remote past he could also appear in a more human-like shape (as seen in the initial battle in Fellowship). Doesn't Sauron have a story? It is he who is "The Lord of the Rings", after all. Wouldn't it be nice to get so close to Sauron that we could finally perceive him as a real person, not just as a remote threat? (All right, maybe not actually nice, but at least interesting...) In a Westernesse movie, Sauron's background would be explained, and he himself would appear as a master of subtle seduction: even cut off from all his armies and entirely on his own, he is still able to corrupt and destroy an entire civilization merely by his knowledge and cunning.

Who or what is Morgoth? The balrog defeated by Gandalf is referred to as a "balrog of Morgoth" one or two times in the Jackson movies, but no further explanation is provided. If Morgoth is a person (and he is!), what is the relationship between him and Sauron?

What is Númenor? In Fellowship, Elrond once complains that "the blood of Númenor is all but spent, its pride and dignity forgotten". In the extended version of The Two Towers, Gandalf says to Aragorn that Sauron is afraid because "the Heir of Númenor still lives" (this heir being Aragorn himself, of course). When Éowyn learns that Aragorn is 87 years old, she is able to deduce that he is "one of the Dúnedain. A descendant of Númenor, blessed with long life." In the extended version of Return of the King, Faramir refers to Minas Tirith as "the city of the men of Númenor". One imagines the ignorant audience crying out in despair: "Can somebody PLEASE tell us what it really is, this 'Númenor' that everybody keeps referring to?!"

What was the deal with this Elendil guy? In the extended DVD version of Fellowship, Galadriel once refers to Elendil as an apparently most illustrious ancestor of Aragorn. She says Aragorn must either rise above all his ancestors since Elendil himself, or fall into darkness together with all that is left of his kin (actually a Tolkienian line, taken from the LotR Appendices, though in Tolkien's version it was Elrond rather than Galadriel who spoke it). Later, Aragorn uses Elendil! as a battle-cry. In Return of the King, Gandalf tells Aragorn that Sauron "knows the heir of Elendil has come forth". In the extended version of the same movie, Aragorn shows "the sword of Elendil" to Sauron in the palantír. Right...what's Elendil's story, really?

In The Two Towers, Elrond speaks of how Aragorn will eventually "come to death, an image of the splendor of the Kings of Men in glory undimmed before the breaking of the world" (another line based on the Appendices). Well, who were these glorious kings, and what is meant by "the breaking of the world"?

Who are the Valar? "May the grace of the Valar find you," Arwen says to Aragorn when she comes to him in a vision in The Two Towers. Yes, the astute audience may infer that some kind of divinities are involved here, but more details would probably be appreciated.

What about the "Undying Lands" we sometimes hear about in the Jackson movies? Bands of Elves are seen heading for the Sea, apparently embarking on ships to go to a place which Elrond once in The Two Towers names as Valinor. (At least the High-elven form Valinor appears in the subtitles; Elrond is speaking Grey-elven and therefore uses the form Valannor, actually a grammatically mutated variant of the basic form Balannor. Now you know the reason for the seeming discrepancy, and no longer have to lie awake at night wondering, "Why does it say 'Valinor' in the subtitles when Elrond says Valannor?") Elrond wants Arwen to go with him to this "Valinor". Aragorn tells her that if she goes there, she can have a life without pain and sorrow, so we are apparently dealing with some kind of paradise. Yet no details are provided.