You may have been slightly surprised that I didn’t say anything here about the big Tolkien-related news which broke over the weekend. The word is that Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens are returning to the franchise in some capacity. That is indeed pretty massive news: I regard Jackson’s adaptations of Tolkien’s novels as absolute masterpieces, and the news that they could now be added to is very exciting indeed. Yet, to tell the truth, part of me is concerned. I don’t see where they can go from what they have already without effing it all up. Tolkien’s two main texts, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, have been successfully converted into cinematic epics; what remains are much more fragmentary, scholarly texts which would be much harder to translate onto the big screen.

As pleased as I am to see Jackson back behind the camera, then, I still have grave concerns about where this is leading. As I wrote here last year, Tolkien’s work seems to be being reduced down to just another big, mainstream Hollywood franchise: as bold and epic as the initial adaptations were, the risk is that they will now just be rendered into generic pap as they are added to and added to in the hunt for money. While at least we can rest easy that Jackson knows what he’s doing (Andy Serkis is also apparently on board, which is awesome), for the most part I still wish that the first two trilogies had been left at that. What is left of Tolkien’s work won’t convert as easily into film, and the risk is that the result will be a generic, confused mess.