Sorry, you are correct, I was trying to do math in my head.
I’m having trouble figuring out why I should care about finding Gollum or really learning more about him from a storytelling perspective. We know who he was, how he came by the ring, how the ring transitioned from Gollum to Bilbo and his role with Frodo getting the ring to Mt Doom along with Gollum’s subsequent fate.
What could possibly be interesting about this side-quest of a film?
The Hobbit films turned a whimsical 300 page prequel book into a 9 hour CGI slog.
War of the Rohirrim, we’ve already seen a siege of Rohan’s redoubt of last resort.
The Rings of Power is a an inconsistent hot mess.
They need to either just stop or make films or shows that tell a new and interesting perspective of Middle Earth
There were things I liked about them and things I didn’t. Some of the things that were bad about them were due to the circumstances under which they were made (Peter Jackson taking over from Beniciio Del Toro at the last minute and not having time to do things right; studio meddling).
But I thought they were pretty good when they stuck to what was in the book. So I trust Peter Jackson & co to bring to the screen what Tolkien wrote, but not necessarily to invent new material that works and feels like Tolkien.
Guillermo. Though Benicio certainly would’ve been an interesting film.
Eh. I love TROP. It’s not as entertaining as Jackson’s first three films, but the visuals and scope and story are every bit as good. Tolkien himself treated Middle Earth as a story universe. No reason WB shouldn’t.
I enjoyed Rings of Power; it just had too much filler IMO.
That’s been the main issue of recent adaptations; a desire to fill screen time rather than tell the story with appropriate pacing.
Dammit, I knew I should have double checked. I always get those two mixed up.
That’s true. Somewhere, i found a copy of “the Hobbit, the Tolkien edition” which was just clips of the three movies sewn together. Sadly, what i found (or what i succeeded in downloading, anyway) ended at Beorn’s house, because i would have liked to watch the whole thing. But it was quite good.
I enjoyed the Rings of Power. It wasn’t as good as LotR, but i had fun watching it. I might enjoy the search for gollum.
The Silmarillion won’t go into the public domain until either 2072 or 2090, depending on whether that is governed by the 95 year rule after publication, or the 70 year rule after the death of the author (Christopher Tolkien died in 2020). These productions are thus severely hamstrung by their legal inability to use that and other such sources in the Legendarium.
I understand that the Tolkien estate will not cut loose the rights, but I’d love to see The Silmarillion done as a prestige HBO series, but in something of an anthology kind of thing. Each “chunk” or tale or chapter or whatever to be led by a different show-runner, and in a different visual style befitting the particulars of the story.
For example - I’ve always imagined the Creation story as an animated piece, somewhat like the darker portions of, “Fantasia.” Get Winton Marsalis to write a huge, sweeping suite for the Music of the Ainur (I’ve always imagined it as a jazz-like piece).
The Narn i Chîn Húrin could practically be its own stand-alone mini-series, with one show-runner so that there’s a consistent vision throughout the tale.
The Tale of Beren and Luthien needs a big, epic, almost old-Hollywood treatment. It’s got adventure, romance, tragedy, and the awesomest dog that could ever appear on-screen.
See, this is why I can’t be trusted with enormous wealth. I’d spend it on stuff like this. 
That is how we got Rings of Power, Bezos wanted more Middle Earth, spent stupid money on it and got a mediocre mess for all his cash.
I totally agree. And I want to watch the animated story of creation.
And, completely off-topic…
@puzzlegal I’ve been here since 2004 (!), and I only just now read your name as I assume it was intended. “Puzzle Gal.” For some reason, I have always parsed it as, “Puzz Legal,” which, frankly doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but here we are. Apologies for mis-pronouncing it in my head all these years. 
You and me both.
The thing is that Frodo was 50 for the huge majority of the LOTR books (basically everything after the party). So assuming this new movie takes place shortly before FOTR, and given the human/hobbit age ratios, 44 is pretty much on target for Frodo.
Though I agree, given the “Hunt for Gollum” was about 40 lines of text in the novel, I’m worried how much crap they’re going to make up to get a 3 hour movie.
Of course, but the movies didn’t include that big time skip between Bilbo’s party, and the actual start of the quest, so in order to be “true” to the films, Frodo needs to look like he did as a young person (and as Wood did c. 2000).
As I understand it, a hobbit “coming of age” is 33 and a 50 year old hobbit is considered relatively young, equivalent to a human in their late 20s / early 30s.
You’re not wrong. But the movies didn’t really touch on that – and they did not incorporate the seventeen years which passed, in the books, between the Birthday Party and Frodo’s departure from Hobbiton. The reality is that, when the original movies were filmed, Frodo was played by an actor who was ~19 years old. This new movie is supposed to take place in that same time frame.
Bilbo was 50 at the beginning of the Hobbit and considered middle-aged. The young side of middle aged but middle-aged. So think more like 35-40 for a human.
They need to just stop until whoever is blocking the rights to the Silmarillion dies. They are not going to top the original trilogy, they are not going to salvage The Hobbit because the cast is too old for a redo and it’s too soon after the originals for a full reboot. Everything else they have the rights to is a huge mess, the Rings of Power is literally fan fiction because the actual story they have the rights to is basically nothing but “And then Sauron goes over here and gets dunked on” over and over. There is no reason for anything LOTR related until they can do the Silmarillion or enough time has passed to do a full reboot, and that’s at least a quarter century away.