Rightly or otherwise, The Lord of the Rings is expanding on the big screen. Following the animated The War of the Rohirrim, Warner Bros. is returning to Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth in a far more direct way with its upcoming The Hunt for Gollum prequel. If Hollywood is looking at these slivers of Tolkien’s timeline and sensing cinematic potential, it would be very surprising indeed if a direct The Lord of the Rings movie sequel wasn’t at least being considered.

From Tolkien’s own reluctance to pen a Fourth Age follow-up to the legal tangle such an endeavor would likely involve, there are many reasons a Lord of the Rings sequel trilogy is a bad idea. Such is Hollywood’s hunger for IPs, however, the prospect appears more likely than ever. After all, The Return of the King teased Aragorn and Arwen’s descendants, and the lack of Fourth Age source material would offer filmmakers a temptingly blank slate. While such a thing will hopefully never come to pᴀss, any Lord of the Rings continuation really has only one story to tell.

Why The Lord Of The Rings Can’t Adapt What Happened Straight After The Third Movie

The Scouring Of The Shire & Aragorn’s Reunification Campaign

Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy left out many events that followed in the wake of Aragorn’s coronation. Tolkien’s entire Scouring of the Shire arc – in which the Fellowship’s four hobbits wrestle their home back from a weakened Saruman – was excised, and audiences were only treated to a snapsH๏τ of Aragorn’s reign over the Reunited Kingdom. In truth, Aragorn was a busy monarch after the War of the Ring, setting about restoring the realms of Men splintered by Sauron. This campaign involved subduing various pockets of evil clinging to Middle-earth, such as the men who fought under Sauron’s banner.

The idea of bringing back Viggo Mortensen to play an older Aragorn reclaiming his ancestors’ land in a string of cinematic battles reminiscent of The Two Towers and The Return of the King may sound like a logical basis for a Lord of the Rings sequel. Even more so when told alongside Frodo’s group taking on Saruman in the Shire. Alas, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Even combined, these tales cannot sustain a single movie, let alone a trilogy.

Granted, the same could be said for Gollum’s forthcoming movie, but the Scouring of the Shire is effectively an epilogue, with Saruman a shadow of the wizard who stood triumphantly atop Orthanc. Aragorn, meanwhile, is essentially just mopping up orcs and pirates without any real resistance or challenge.

At least the Gollum movie, while undeniably carrying lower stakes, fills in an important chapter in the broader story of Sauron’s One Ring. Any tale concerning the Shire and Reunited Kingdom immediately after The Lord of the Rings does not. Tolkien himself acknowledged as much – regarding Aragorn, at least – writing in his letters, “the King’s Peace would contain no tales worth recounting; and his wars would have little interest after the overthrow of Sauron.”

The Least-Worst Option For A New Lord Of The Rings Trilogy Would Be Adapting Tolkien’s Abandoned Sequel

At Least Tolkien Entertained The Idea At One Time

Tolkien wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the narrative potential of Aragorn’s reign, and said something similar about The New Shadow, an abandoned sequel set in the Fourth Age that the author ultimately judged to be “not worth doing.” Nevertheless, the fact that Tolkien at least began venturing down this path suggests it’s where any future The Lord of the Rings sequel trilogy will find the most fruitful ideas.

The New Shadow was to be set after Aragorn’s death, several centuries after The Lord of the Rings‘ ending. In their hubris, the men of Middle-earth would begin dabbling in darkness and plotting to disrupt the peace. It would be up to the heroes – most likely Aragorn and Arwen’s descendants – to protect that peace. Tolkien admitted he could have spun a thriller-esque tale covering the conspiracy, but the premise hardly sounds trilogy-worthy at face value. By filling in the gaps and taking The New Shadow to its logical conclusion, however, one can begin to see a degree of adaptation potential.

The New Shadow‘s villains would have been a cult broadly worshiping Morgoth, the master of Sauron and the true main villain of Tolkien’s mythology. Sauron may be the more famous character, but his power pales compared to Morgoth’s, and the uber-villain’s fate was never sealed. Having lost the giant war at the conclusion of Middle-earth’s First Age, Morgoth was banished through the Door of Night, lost, but not as utterly defeated as Sauron was after Frodo destroyed the Ring.

The New Shadow leaves room for Middle-earth’s men to bring about their own downfall by summoning Morgoth back through the Door of Night, at which point the free peoples would face a far bigger threat than they did in The Lord of the Rings, and a fully-fledged sequel trilogy would finally start to take shape.

Basing a Lord of the Rings sequel trilogy on Tolkien’s unfinished fourth book, then adding Morgoth as the main villain is, admittedly, not an idea that would live up to the greatness of the original movies. It is, however, one of the least-worst options, and at least keeps half a hairy hobbit’s foot inside the original source material.

A Lord Of The Rings Sequel Trilogy Could End With Middle-earth’s Biggest Battle

A Battle That Would Top Even The Return Of The King

If the first movie in a Lord of the Rings sequel trilogy could be “The Lord of the Rings: The New Shadow,” the finale could potentially be “The Lord of the Rings: Battle of all Battles.” The Dagor Dagorath – translating as “Battle of all Battles” – is a prophecy from Tolkien’s writing that was originally omitted from The Silmarillion. It tells of a day when Morgoth would make his grand comeback through the Door of Night and attempt to restore his thorny grip upon Middle-earth. The ensuing clash would rage even harder than the First Age’s War of Wrath, with the forces of good and evil colliding one final time.

Moving from The New Shadow to the Dagor Dagorath doesn’t exactly match Tolkien’s vision, as the final fight is supposed to take place long, long after the Fourth Age. Having said that, the dark prophecy does set a canon precedent for Morgoth being able to return. Moreover, basing a movie on the Dagor Dagorath would mean adapting a battle Tolkien himself conceived, rather than going entirely off-script. Happily, the Dagor Dagorath’s sense of finality would also quash the ability to produce movie trilogies indefinitely into the future.

An entire Lord of the Rings movie about the Dagor Dagorath would also mean a climax far bigger than the Battle of Pelennor Fields from The Return of the King. ᴅᴇᴀᴅ legends would return, ancient beasts would rise, the Valar would mobilize, and the end of Tolkien’s timeline would be at hand as the very landscape of Middle-earth is reshaped. As much as developing a sequel trilogy to The Lord of the Rings would be the wrong move, therefore, witnessing the Dagor Dagorath in theaters would certainly be a spectacle worthy of the franchise.

Sources: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien