With the Warner Bros. New Line deal promising more Lord of the Rings movies, the movie’s creators can finally expand on several story and character arcs that need closure. The last time fantasy adventure audiences got a live-action film adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien was in 2014, with the final installment of The Hobbit trilogy, The Battle of the Five Armies. Between then and now, viewers peeked at the possible events that occurred in the Second Age, thousands of years before The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, with Amazon’s TV series The Rings of Power.
However, Percy Jackson’s full-feature films were based in the Third Age. With the deal focusing on Tolkien’s work in the Third Age, as with The Hobbit and LOTR, the new movies are not expected to include stories from The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. While not many details have been released, creators will be looking to tell new stories, at least in part, with the already established Third Age canon. With the Third Age lasting 3021 years, there’s a lot of inspiration for plot ideas, especially since the events and characters in The Hobbit and LOTR occurred between 2941 to the end of the Age. Here are possible stories for the new movies that can be adapted within the established canon.
The Adventures of Legolas and Gimli
Unarguably one of the viewers’ favorite characters and friendships is Legolas the Elf and Gimli, the Dwarf. The characters came together in The Fellowship of the Ring and gave viewers good comic relief throughout the trilogy. With the joys of victory from conquering Sauron and Saruman, and destroying the One Ring, Legolas and Gimli set off on their own adventure. Thankfully, Tolkien wrote extensively about their travels in the appendices. Rings of Power season 1 helped refresh viewers’ minds on the relationship between an Elf (Elrond) and a dwarf (Durin IV). As such, a storyline focusing on Legolas and Gimli’s individual story and the aftermath friendship at the end of The Return of the King is worth exploring.
Aragorn’s Origin Story
Movie audiences were introduced to Aragorn as a Ranger named Strider in The Fellowship of the Ring. Before the trilogy’s end, viewers realize Strider is not only Aragorn but Isildur’s heir and the rightful King of Gondor. While Aragorn’s history and origin didn’t matter much to viewers when The Fellowship of the Ring was released in 2001, The Rings of Power has given a peek into the character of Isildur. Then, for most of the series’ episodes, viewers believed Halbrand to be the true King of the Southlands. All these bring to question how Aragorn chose to live as Stringer and what led to him losing his claim to the Throne. As one of the trilogy’s favorite characters, audiences would love to know more about his origin, as well as life after his marriage to Arwen – more or less like a prequel/sequel.
The Adventures of the Istaris in the Third Age
The two most notable Istaris shown in the LOTR film trilogy were Saruman and Gandalf. Saruman’s journey in the trilogies set him as a servant of the Dark Lord Sauron. From the movie’s perspective, most of what was known was that these were powerful Wizards. However, a broader look at Tolkien’s work shows they are more than just Wizards. Since live-action film adaptations are limited to Third Age events, there’s still a lot to be explored about what they did in Middle-earth since they arrived almost two thousand years before the events of The Hobbit and LOTR.
Saruman the White was head of the Istari order in Middle-earth. A new movie can tell about how he became corrupted by Sauron. Gandalf’s visit to Isengard to meet with Saruman in The Fellowship of the Ring is indicative of the fact that Gandalf, up until that point, still saw Saruman as good. What events would lead the great leader of the Istari Order to work for and under Dark Lord Sauron?
The Rise of the Witch King of Angmar
Tolkien’s Middle-earth is filled with different forms of evil that seem to ally with Sauron. One such evil force with little backstory is the Witch King of Angmar. Viewers are introduced to the Witch King in The Fellowship of the Ring when he leads the Nazgûl to ambush the four Hobbits and stabs Frodo with a Morgul blade. The Nine or Dark Riders are introduced with no backstory. Dedicating a three-hour movie entirely to cover their backstory may be overkill, but incorporating their stories and the rise of the Witch King can help tell the events that occurred centuries before The Hobbits‘ timeline.
The Destruction of Khazad-dum
The Mines of Moria, referred to in The Lord of the Rings, was once a prosperous country of the dwarves. As a reminder, The Mines of Moria was where a Balrog killed Gandalf the Grey after falling together into a dark chasm. Luckily, The Rings of Power showed Khazad-dum as the home of Durin IV. With a glimpse at what Khazad-dum once was, it beats any imagination of how it became in ruins. The destruction of Khazad-dum takes place in the Third Age, making it a viable storyline to be told in Percy Jackson’s canon. The Rings of Power already teases the destruction of Khazad-dum with the planned mining of mithril and the awakening of Balrog. The new Lord of the Rings movies can either focus on any of these storylines or a combination of them.
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