There is a moment in the recent Middle-Earth Is BACK! video from a popular Tolkien YouTube channel Fellowship Updates where the host, covering Peter Jackson’s Cannes revelation about active talks to license The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, describes it as “the biggest news in a very long time” and proceeds to list First Age stories with undisguised excitement, including the stories of Beren and Lúthien, the Fall of Gondolin, the rise and fall of Númenor.
He’s wrong, even tough the excitement is understandable. It’s exactly the kind of enthusiasm that will be weaponized to justify what would be one of the worst things to happen to Tolkien’s legacy in living memory.
