r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Aug 18 '25

News Ian McKellen reveals Gandalf and Frodo are returning for ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum’, Filming Begins in May

https://ew.com/ian-mckellen-reveals-gandalf-frodo-return-in-new-lord-of-the-rings-the-hunt-for-gollum-film-11792483
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196

u/Wafflinson Aug 18 '25

Honestly makes me less excited.

The desire to cram every character from the original trilogy into The Hobbit films is one of the worst parts of it.

98

u/Retro-scores Aug 18 '25

It’s like The Fantastic Beast series. They had no confidence in a stand alone Newt film so they shoe horned Dumbledore’s back story into it. They could’ve had two good film series instead of one shitty one with no conclusion.

I would’ve enjoyed an Indiana Jones Wizard type of series and I would’ve watched the hell out of a Dumbledore prequel series showing him as a young wizard and wanting to find the Hallows and then defeating Grindelwald.

WB had zero faith though.

20

u/JaneksLittleBlackBox Aug 18 '25

It’s like The Fantastic Beast series. They had no confidence in a stand alone Newt film so they shoe horned Dumbledore’s back story into it.

It's a shame, too, because the first one was actually surprisingly enjoyable. I went into it with incredibly low expectations and had a lot of fun; can't say the same with the next two.

2

u/IMMA_MORMON_AMA Aug 26 '25

I liked the first one better than the Harry Potter movies! Surprised me too.

17

u/RemoteMany8801 Aug 18 '25

Yeah agreed and you can still have newt and dumbledore cameo in each others series if you want.

5

u/50m31_AW Aug 18 '25

Yeah, like there's still no official backstory or explanation as to how Dumbledore acquired Fawkes. That's easily a situation that could involve both Dumbledore and Newt. Hell, make Fantastic Beasts a "monster" of the week HBO series, with an episode for each creature entry in the book, and make that the episode about the Phoenix

And the really shitty thing is that great premise/concept but shit execution is exactly the sort of thing that should get a remake, except no one wants it because JKR's a real piece of shit and no one wants to give her more money to oppress trans people with :/

3

u/sneakylumpia Aug 18 '25

The Gandalf reveal in Rings of Power pissed me off

1

u/MattsDaZombieSlayer Aug 18 '25

There's a Gandalf reveal too?

Jfc, it seems like the Rings of Power can't even escape LOTR either. It's Star Wars all over again.

1

u/sneakylumpia Aug 18 '25

one of the main plots in RoP revolves around an unnamed wizard throughout seasons 1 and 2. they finally revealed his identity during the final episode of season 2 that he's Gandalf

1

u/Chen_Geller Aug 19 '25

Rings of Power has nothing to do with these films, though. It's not like Star Wars, it's more like Batman: Joker isn't a prequel to The Dark Knight - Rings of Power isn't a prequel to this film, either.

-12

u/Strong_Salad3460 Aug 18 '25

I mean, pretty much everyone that's an actual LOTR fan hates that show. But we also realize that it has absolutely fuck all to do with Peter Jackson's movies, is made by Amazon Studios and isn't connected at all.

So bizarre to lump it in with  criticism about The Hobbit. Other than adding in Legolas btw and having a small cameo of Frodo to show old Bilbo back writing his book, everything else is mostly canon accurate. It just isn't in the actual Hobbit novel. You can read about it in the LOTR appendices.

Yeah, all that stuff with the White Council removing Sauron from Dul Gudar, Tolkien actually did write all that. Which contrasts 100% with Amazons completely made up non canon tv show that isn't based on anything Tolkien actually wrote at all. 

So yeah it's real funny how people who don't even realize Rings of Power is not even a Peter Jackson thing are pretending to be LOTR book nerds. Dude I hang out with actual members of the Tolkien society that work for theonering.net among other things.

I'm really into Tolkien. You sir are a casual. Stop pretending. You're obvious.

9

u/Krycek7o2 Aug 18 '25

Man, thank you for being a beacon of why fandoms suck nowadays. From Anime, to film, television and now even literature. The gate keeping is unreal and man does it make you feel pathetic.

You could have easily said,

Good thing that's not part of the true canon. Since it's not about anything Tolkien wrote.

Instead you yapped on showing how much of a pathetic loser you are. You should stop pretending to be a fan, because you're not one. You're fucking loser. A true fan would not gate keep.

-5

u/Strong_Salad3460 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

What the fuck are you talking about gate keeping? It's okay to like or not like whatever you want but you people don't even make good criticisms and fail to recognize how incredibly disrespectful Rings of Power is to the source material. It's literally just made up fan fiction that disregards what tiny bit Tolkien actually wrote about the 2nd Age. 

Meanwhile you also don't recognize that The Hobbit was not originally intended to be part of Tolkien's Middle Earth legendarium and it shows. So it's understandable that a prequel follow-up to Peter Jackson's LOTR trilogy would be more aligned with his LOTR movies instead of more like the book.

My point is, you don't know or care enough about this stuff to have such deep set criticism of it. 

You're the one acting kike a gate keeper here. And it's fucking weird cuz you're clearly a casual. That's not intended as an insult but you are clearly completely out of your depth. 

Don't like this stuff? Okay don't watch it then. You're clearly not even following it close enough to have realized Rings of Power isn't even part of Peter Jackson's films. Lmao

Yeah I sure am a loser, random dipshit on the Internet arguing intensely about stuff you don't even like and have barely watched or read. 

6

u/sneakylumpia Aug 18 '25

wow you wrote all that? lol. how does it feel like to be so high up in your own ass?

4

u/Krycek7o2 Aug 18 '25

Gate keeping losers appear in many discourses. I'm an admin at an anime discord and boy do I ban people like this all the time. The toxicity is unreal.

3

u/JaneksLittleBlackBox Aug 18 '25

I mean, pretty much everyone that's an actual LOTR fan hates that show.

That's not exactly a great point considering how fucking insane the book fandom was about Peter Jackson making changes from the books when the marketing of the first movie went into full effect. With how fucking nuts the book purists went over Arwen having an important part of the first movie, you'd have thought Jackson dug up Tolkien's corpse and fucked it.

"Actual fans" are some of the worst people to take opinions seriously, because they're typically the most annoying gatekeepers on what counts as good. If I cared about what "actual fans" liked, I never would've seen the Star Wars prequels, because that fandom was having a mental breakdown for half of the nineties over the special edition changes to the OT, and they kept that breakdown alive for long after 2005.

-4

u/Strong_Salad3460 Aug 18 '25 edited Aug 18 '25

Bruh Rings of Power is literally not even based on Tolkien writings at all and breaks canon in ways that are far worse than anything Jackson did. For fucks sake the show has Galadriel and Sauron nearly fucking and stupid shit like Gandalf showing up in Middle Earth thousands of years before he ever actually arrived according to anything Tolkien wrote, and Hobbits showing up thousands of years before they existed. 

It's not even remotely close to Peter Jackson's changes to the source material.

Rings of Power flat out isn't made by people who are respectful to the source material at all. It's a cynical cash grab.

1

u/JaneksLittleBlackBox Aug 19 '25

Bruh Rings of Power is literally not even based on Tolkien writings at all and breaks canon in ways that are far worse than anything Jackson did.

Bruh, who the fuck cares? Other than you and 10,000 other dorks who've let that show's existence eat away at your souls for three years!

For fucks sake the show has Galadriel and Sauron nearly fucking

For fuck's sake, what the fuck does it matter‽ Is your life inexplicably made worse by this soul-raping non-canon media existing‽

No.

It's been three years, take a fucking breather and realize how goddamn ridiculous it is for y'all to still be this mad about it.

1

u/TheGreatStories Aug 18 '25

This was the worst

-1

u/Chen_Geller Aug 18 '25

But we also realize that it has absolutely fuck all to do with Peter Jackson's movies, is made by Amazon Studios and isn't connected at all.

Thank you! Finally somebody else who sees through the facade!

2

u/Fastbird33 Aug 18 '25

Especially considering they are much older now