Then again some of the scenes missed out would have been very good on-screen. How about the spooky bit on the Barrow Downs? Or putting the army of the Dead where they belong destroying the Corsairs on the Coast of Gondor (I don't think they worked at all well on the Pelennor). Or mining the Appendices for Aragorn and Arwen's backstory, which would introduce Arwen's character better and allow them to follow the rest of the book more closely, with Glorfindel meeting Aragorn and the Hobbits rather than Arwen (which I though in the film actually worked quite well) and Frodo defying the Nazgul on his own at the Ford which adds strength to his character.
You could even work in some of the extra scenes that Tolkien wrote later (published in Unfinished Tales) like the Battle of the Fords of Isen where Theoden's son is killed, or the Hunt for the Ring where the Nazgul are trying to find where the Ring and the Shire are. You could even (as it's an adaptation) have included scenes not in the book though hinted at, like Boromir's journey to Rivendale (that Tolkien wanted to write but never got around to)
As others have said though, treating the LotR's like this would work a lot better as an extended miniseries like Band of Brothers. That way you could even include the Scouring of the Shire, which would have been difficult in a film, as a penultimate episode.
Finwe was the first King of the Noldor, who led them into Aman. As you say he was killed by Morgoth, when he was suceeded by his son Feanor who led a rebellion of the Noldor to try and get the Silmarills back. Some Noldor decided to turn back and stay in Aman, where they were ruled by Feanor's younger half brother Finarfin, the rest followed Feanor back to Middle-earth, the house of Feanor taking with the curse of the Valar.
Feanor was killed by Morgoth soon afterwards, and the Noldor decided on Fingolfin as High King of the Noldor. The last Noldor High King was Gil-galad, and Galadriel was next in line, but there were too few Noldor left by then, and she never claimed the post. She also fell under the curse of the Valar, though Tolkien changed his mind about this in the end. At any rate she was forgiven in the end as she resisted Sauron and refused the One Ring, and allowed to return to Aman.
The Elves that remained behind in Middle-earth 'faded' into some sort of spirit world, in fact the same one that the Nazgul inhabit, and that Frodo started to enter when he was wounded by the Witch King. The Elves were supposed to inhabit both worlds at that time, and Frodo sees one of them, Glorfindel, as he is in this other world as a bright figure. In the films he sees Arwen in much the same way. Tolkien does in fact describe briefly what a faded Elf would be like in Morgoths Ring (in the Laws and Customs of the Eldar from the last version Quenta Silmarillion in that book - the published Silmarillion was adapted from this and other writings). Here he calls these faded Elves Lingers, in contrast to the Houseless souls of elves who have died violent deaths and not been reincarnated. Here he says;
"...Moreover, the Lingerers are not houseless, though they may seem to be. They do not desire bodies, neither do they seek shelter, nor strive for mastery over body or mind. Indeed they do not seek converse with Men at all, save maybe rarely, either for the doing of some good, or because they perceive in a Man's spirit some love of things ancient and fair. Then they may reveal to him their forms (through his mind working outwardly, maybe), and he will behold them in their beauty.....For the hearts of True Men uprise in joy to behold the true likenesses of the First-born, their elder kindred; and this joy nothing evil can counterfeit"
This was in a note supposedly added by the 9th century English mariner Aelfwine who met them, and was supposed to have copied all the Elvish legends and histories from faded Elves he met on an island in the Western oceans he found on one of his voyages. The contrast with Houseless souls of elves is interesting, as these were basically the Evil Dead of Middle-earth. Elsewhere in Morgoths Ring it says;
"Some say that the Houseless desire bodies, though they are not willing to seek them lawfully by submission to the judgement of Mandos. The wicked among them will take bodies, if they can, unlawfully. The peril of communing with them is, therefore, not only the peril of being deluded by fantasies or lies: there is a peril also of destruction. For one of the hungry Houseless, if it is admitted to the friendship of the Living, may seek to eject the fe"a from its body; and in the contest for mastery the body may be gravely injured, even if it is not wrested from its rightful habitant. Or the Houseless may plead for shelter, and if it is admitted, then it will seek to enslave its host and use both his will and his body for its own purposes. It is said that Sauron did these things, and taught his followers how to achieve them"
Sauron was called the Necromancer in the Hobbit, and the last sentence in this paragraph explains why.
I presume you mean The History of Middle-earth when you say the modern stuff from Christopher Tolkien. Not that modern in most cases! Some of it dates back to 1916/17! Not to everyone's taste, but the later volumes are very interesting, though difficult to read in places.
Sauron Defeated (vol 9) has the epilogue chapter to Lord Of The Rings that Tolkien's friends talked him out of including, Sam and Rosie in Bag End, (they tried and failed to talk him out of a lot of the appendices as well, to put it in context). There is also a half completed Time Travel story about Numenor that Tolkien wrote as a pact with C.S.Lewis called The Notion Club Papers. One was to write a time travel story (Tolkien) whilst the other (Lewis) was to do a space travel story. Lewis completed his, published as Out Of The Silent Planet. If you like Tolkien's languages, this has a lot about another one! It's Adunaic, the language of Numenor.
Morgoth's Ring and The War Of The Jewels (vols 10 and 11) have most of the stuff that Christopher used when he put The Silmarillion together, along with lots of other stuff, such as a debate between Finrod, the elvish king of Nargothrond, and Andreth, a mortal woman, that explores elvish immortality as well a showing a failed love story between an elf and a woman. This was to have been an appendix to a published Silmarillion. There is also various bits supposedly inserted into the Silmarillion by a 9th Century English sailor, who 'found' the book and met 'faded' elves! Also various bits about elves; their marriages, sexual equality, 'death', children etc etc.
These later volumes are definitely woth a look if you are interested in Tolkien's mythology. If you are interested, have a look here for what's in them all.
I can see why it was done, even though I do miss it. Especially as the episode on the Barrow Downs is then also missed out. However, it would have been a very very long movie if they had kept everything in, and I doubt they would have got funding for it.
From what I've read I think we should be grateful for what we have got in three films. Miramax apparently wanted it all compressed into one, thought there were too many Hobbits and wanted to kill one or two off (presumably Merry and Pippin), and liked Arwen at Helms Deep.
Like you, I think the films are great, but some of the plot changes are a bit annoying, especially when they lead to continuity errors. The Elves at Helms Deep are an example here. I can sort of see why they were put in, after hearing the commentaries on the EE DVD, but still if you think about it, how did they get there in time? Saruman's army has left Orthanc and is marching off to war, and whilst this is going on Elrond (telepathically?) contacts Galadriel and says it's a good idea to help out. The Elves then have to get ready, and march a distance about three times as far as the Uruks (who have already started). and arrive well before them. Sorry, can't be done. I think the films do fairly consistently get some of the scales wrong, Orthanc seems just a couple of miles down the road from Minas Tirith for example.
My personal list of annoyances, limiting myself to one per film, are;
From FotR - missing out the real reason why Merry and Pippin go off with Frodo and the whole 17 year gap between Bilbo going off and Gandalf turning up with the bad news. This also results in a few more puzzles, as for example how does Gandalf know that Gollum had been captured by Sauron, or what he told him? In the books Gandalf and Aragorn had captured Gollum, and questioned him, but in the film they don't have any time to do so.
From TT - Merry and Pippin having to 'trick' a rather dim Treebeard into joining up. Where do all the unhasty Ents suddenly come from once Treebeard finds out they haven't been doing a very good job as shepherds of the trees?
From RotK - Mad Denethor and how Gandalf deals with him. Mad Denethor may be explained better in the EE, but I can't see how they can excuse how Gandalf reacts to Denethor.
Again, I did like the films, but they aren't perfect.
I agree, especially as it makes him a hypocrite as well as a bit racist. He is after all only Elrond half-elven, as his dad was of the race of Men, as was his brother Elros, first King of Numenor and ancestor of both Isildur and Aragorn. In the film he also seems to have conveniently forgotten that it was the Elves who made all those Rings (except the Master One), that Sauron tried to enslave all the other races with, including those that made the Nazgul. The Elves weren't really blameless.
Well, I think you probably have to see the extended version of The Two Towers to really judge the film. Just as the extended version of The Fellowship addressed a lot of the issues I had with the theatrical version I expect much the same from the extra 43 minutes in the extended The Two Towers. For example, you mention the 'Angry Ents', well from what I've read about it the Huorns are in the extended version, and who knows how Faramir's or Theoden's characters will be fleshed out. Personally I think the only thing that would be difficult to turn around will be Treebeard and the Ents, the film seemed to equate them being slow to act with them being stupid. You would think they'd notice their forest was being cut down without the Hobbits 'tricking' them into finding out.
"In very general terms, in LotR 'west' means good and 'east' means bad."
Actually, as far as East goes it's only 'bad' as it's the direction Mordor lies in as far as the characters in the books are concerned. Tolkien addressed this in one of his letters, pointing out that North had a better claim, as it was where the fortresses of Middle-earth's devil, Morgoth, lay. Presumably people east of Mordor would regard the west as the 'bad direction' in the time of Sauron.
As far as Egyptian influences are concerned, maybe not in the Barrow-downs. But again Tolkien points out in his letters the similarities between Numenorean and Egyptian culture, with their emphasis on the dead and monolithic statues of their Kings, not something seen in ancient or medieval European cultures. He even sketched the crown of Gondor, pointing out its similarities with the ancient Southern Egyptian crown.
As for Tolkien the cultural supremacist, where exactly does he say anything leading to this idea? He emphasises time and again that none of the races of men in his books are wholy good or bad. The Rhohirim have obviously treated the Dunlendings very badly in the past, and have hunted the people of Ghan-buri-ghan as animals. The Numenoreans starting turning bad when they started to make colonies in Middle-earth, and also treated the ancestors of the Dunlendings badly, turning their forests into a desrt by the end of the second age. The people of Gondor have fallen to a large extent as they now value the arts of war over learning and poetry. In real life Tolkien disliked the British empire long before it became fashionable to do so, or before people realised empires were just bad things (depending on how cynical you feel)
I think it depends on how well you visualised Middle-earth to start with, and how closely the films conform to your ideas. In my case at least the plot of the films hasn't affected how I imagine Middle-earth at all as far as I can tell. For example,Peter Jackson' Shire wasn't, and still isn't, how I've imagined the Shire (too 'Celtically', not enough like the English countryside Tolkien based it on), though Bag End is. The films, which I like with reservations, came close at a few points, but that was it.
Where they have had an effect, as far as I'm concerned, is the faces of some of the characters. My Gandalf now looks like Sir Ian, same with the characters playing Eowyn, Theoden, Bilbo and Boromir. This isn't necessarily anything to do with how they are played in the film, particularly with Theoden who was never possessed by Saruman, simply that they looked right, and when they spoke sounded right as well. On that basis the film have enriched my ideas of the books, which I think is the mark of good casting and adaptation.
Maybe it's because I read a lot, and a lot of the books I like have been made into films of TV series, so I'm used to enjoying films for what they are, but still knowing they aren't the real thing. For example David Lean's 'Great Expectations' from 1946 is one of my favourite films, but compared to the book, misses out huge chunks, and changes characters all over the place.
When Elves die, they go to the Halls of Mandos, on Arda (earth), where they wait for the end of the world
Almost right. What actually happens is they wait in Mandos for a variable period, then reincarnate, though not by being born as baby elves, (too confusing as to who your parents are), but by taking on copies of their old bodies. One example is Glorfindel, he is killed in the fall of Gondolin, but you see him again in LotR. LotR the book that is, in the film he doesn't appear.
As for the Dwarves, they had their own stories, which as far as I can remember had them staying in their own section of Mandos.
You said in one of your postings that you wished Peter Jackson had focused more on developing the characters. Well the books do that, so maybe you would like them if you read them, who knows? As for the Silmarillion (yes, correct spelling), if I were you I would read the LotR, then some of the appendices at the back of the RotK first. If you like the appendices you may well like the Silmarillion, if not save your money. As for the Hobbit, this is actually a childrens book, though many adults like it as well (I do),so the style is very different. Starts off as a comedy and ends up with 'Twilight of the Gods'.
If the movie doesn't stand on its own, it is not the fault of the audience.
I think the movie has stood on it's own, judging by;
a) The Box Office
b) The Awards, Oscars and others (loads of these)
c) Critical reviews, almost all good to ecstatic
d) Ratings on Movie web sites, for example IMDB rates Fellowship at #5 and Two Towers at #12 in their top 250 Movie List
Any one or two of these things may be a blip, but all combined? I don't think so. There are some people who don't like the film but for anything you you can think of will always find someone who doesn't like it. I think you are just one of this small minority for these films, thats all.
A fairly LARGE diversionary tactic surely? Sauron had a huge number of troops there, and Aragorn had quite a few on his side too. Also no Scouring, not even a skirmish.
Absolutely true. However these is a shot of Sam with his daughter Elanor, so they will have to have sometime in the Shire at the end of the film so Sam can marry Rosie, who he hardly talks to in Fellowship, and have baby hobbits
I don't actually think he was hoping to profit at all, he had a job he loved already, as a Professor at Oxford University, so he didn't need to be a professional author, it was just something he loved doing. From all I've heard the success of LotR came as a pleasant surprise to Tolkien AND his publisher.
All of the examples you give were things that happened under the last Tory government. Since the the current Labour government has enact some fairly major reforms, so that a lot of this nonsense has ceased. For example the hereditary peers have mostly gone, as you yourself pointed out, which has removed a major source of the abuses of power that the chamber was responsible for. The Lords could certainly do with further reforms, and some of the things they do now could rather be done in comittee by the Commons, but they have improved vastly over what they used to be and some of their recent debates are IMHO rather good.
Or even three or four really great movies. I don't think it's the stuff holywood would ever go for though. No happy endings, heros die along with everyone they love.
I can't see the Musical version working either, but I agree that all of Tolkien Middle Earth mythology could provide inspiration for all sorts of classical music, not just opera. In a similar way Celtic mythology has provided inspiration for many classical composers, most importantly Arnold Bax's Tone poems. I know that a Canadian composer called Glenn Buhr has composed some pieces based around the Beren & Luthien stories, though I haven't heard them. It would be interesting to know what else there is out there.
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Then again some of the scenes missed out would have been very good on-screen. How about the spooky bit on the Barrow Downs? Or putting the army of the Dead where they belong destroying the Corsairs on the Coast of Gondor (I don't think they worked at all well on the Pelennor). Or mining the Appendices for Aragorn and Arwen's backstory, which would introduce Arwen's character better and allow them to follow the rest of the book more closely, with Glorfindel meeting Aragorn and the Hobbits rather than Arwen (which I though in the film actually worked quite well) and Frodo defying the Nazgul on his own at the Ford which adds strength to his character.
You could even work in some of the extra scenes that Tolkien wrote later (published in Unfinished Tales) like the Battle of the Fords of Isen where Theoden's son is killed, or the Hunt for the Ring where the Nazgul are trying to find where the Ring and the Shire are. You could even (as it's an adaptation) have included scenes not in the book though hinted at, like Boromir's journey to Rivendale (that Tolkien wanted to write but never got around to)
As others have said though, treating the LotR's like this would work a lot better as an extended miniseries like Band of Brothers. That way you could even include the Scouring of the Shire, which would have been difficult in a film, as a penultimate episode.
Finwe was the first King of the Noldor, who led them into Aman. As you say he was killed by Morgoth, when he was suceeded by his son Feanor who led a rebellion of the Noldor to try and get the Silmarills back. Some Noldor decided to turn back and stay in Aman, where they were ruled by Feanor's younger half brother Finarfin, the rest followed Feanor back to Middle-earth, the house of Feanor taking with the curse of the Valar.
Feanor was killed by Morgoth soon afterwards, and the Noldor decided on Fingolfin as High King of the Noldor. The last Noldor High King was Gil-galad, and Galadriel was next in line, but there were too few Noldor left by then, and she never claimed the post. She also fell under the curse of the Valar, though Tolkien changed his mind about this in the end. At any rate she was forgiven in the end as she resisted Sauron and refused the One Ring, and allowed to return to Aman.
I presume you mean The History of Middle-earth when you say the modern stuff from Christopher Tolkien. Not that modern in most cases! Some of it dates back to 1916/17! Not to everyone's taste, but the later volumes are very interesting, though difficult to read in places.
Sauron Defeated (vol 9) has the epilogue chapter to Lord Of The Rings that Tolkien's friends talked him out of including, Sam and Rosie in Bag End, (they tried and failed to talk him out of a lot of the appendices as well, to put it in context). There is also a half completed Time Travel story about Numenor that Tolkien wrote as a pact with C.S.Lewis called The Notion Club Papers. One was to write a time travel story (Tolkien) whilst the other (Lewis) was to do a space travel story. Lewis completed his, published as Out Of The Silent Planet. If you like Tolkien's languages, this has a lot about another one! It's Adunaic, the language of Numenor.
Morgoth's Ring and The War Of The Jewels (vols 10 and 11) have most of the stuff that Christopher used when he put The Silmarillion together, along with lots of other stuff, such as a debate between Finrod, the elvish king of Nargothrond, and Andreth, a mortal woman, that explores elvish immortality as well a showing a failed love story between an elf and a woman. This was to have been an appendix to a published Silmarillion. There is also various bits supposedly inserted into the Silmarillion by a 9th Century English sailor, who 'found' the book and met 'faded' elves! Also various bits about elves; their marriages, sexual equality, 'death', children etc etc.
These later volumes are definitely woth a look if you are interested in Tolkien's mythology. If you are interested, have a look here for what's in them all.
I can see why it was done, even though I do miss it. Especially as the episode on the Barrow Downs is then also missed out. However, it would have been a very very long movie if they had kept everything in, and I doubt they would have got funding for it.
From what I've read I think we should be grateful for what we have got in three films. Miramax apparently wanted it all compressed into one, thought there were too many Hobbits and wanted to kill one or two off (presumably Merry and Pippin), and liked Arwen at Helms Deep.
Like you, I think the films are great, but some of the plot changes are a bit annoying, especially when they lead to continuity errors. The Elves at Helms Deep are an example here. I can sort of see why they were put in, after hearing the commentaries on the EE DVD, but still if you think about it, how did they get there in time? Saruman's army has left Orthanc and is marching off to war, and whilst this is going on Elrond (telepathically?) contacts Galadriel and says it's a good idea to help out. The Elves then have to get ready, and march a distance about three times as far as the Uruks (who have already started). and arrive well before them. Sorry, can't be done. I think the films do fairly consistently get some of the scales wrong, Orthanc seems just a couple of miles down the road from Minas Tirith for example.
My personal list of annoyances, limiting myself to one per film, are;
From FotR - missing out the real reason why Merry and Pippin go off with Frodo and the whole 17 year gap between Bilbo going off and Gandalf turning up with the bad news. This also results in a few more puzzles, as for example how does Gandalf know that Gollum had been captured by Sauron, or what he told him? In the books Gandalf and Aragorn had captured Gollum, and questioned him, but in the film they don't have any time to do so.
From TT - Merry and Pippin having to 'trick' a rather dim Treebeard into joining up. Where do all the unhasty Ents suddenly come from once Treebeard finds out they haven't been doing a very good job as shepherds of the trees?
From RotK - Mad Denethor and how Gandalf deals with him. Mad Denethor may be explained better in the EE, but I can't see how they can excuse how Gandalf reacts to Denethor.
Again, I did like the films, but they aren't perfect.
I agree, especially as it makes him a hypocrite as well as a bit racist. He is after all only Elrond half-elven, as his dad was of the race of Men, as was his brother Elros, first King of Numenor and ancestor of both Isildur and Aragorn. In the film he also seems to have conveniently forgotten that it was the Elves who made all those Rings (except the Master One), that Sauron tried to enslave all the other races with, including those that made the Nazgul. The Elves weren't really blameless.
I agree, shame most of his episodes have been lost. There was a really good one set in the London Underground with Yetis
Well, I think you probably have to see the extended version of The Two Towers to really judge the film. Just as the extended version of The Fellowship addressed a lot of the issues I had with the theatrical version I expect much the same from the extra 43 minutes in the extended The Two Towers. For example, you mention the 'Angry Ents', well from what I've read about it the Huorns are in the extended version, and who knows how Faramir's or Theoden's characters will be fleshed out. Personally I think the only thing that would be difficult to turn around will be Treebeard and the Ents, the film seemed to equate them being slow to act with them being stupid. You would think they'd notice their forest was being cut down without the Hobbits 'tricking' them into finding out.
"In very general terms, in LotR 'west' means good and 'east' means bad."
Actually, as far as East goes it's only 'bad' as it's the direction Mordor lies in as far as the characters in the books are concerned. Tolkien addressed this in one of his letters, pointing out that North had a better claim, as it was where the fortresses of Middle-earth's devil, Morgoth, lay. Presumably people east of Mordor would regard the west as the 'bad direction' in the time of Sauron.
As far as Egyptian influences are concerned, maybe not in the Barrow-downs. But again Tolkien points out in his letters the similarities between Numenorean and Egyptian culture, with their emphasis on the dead and monolithic statues of their Kings, not something seen in ancient or medieval European cultures. He even sketched the crown of Gondor, pointing out its similarities with the ancient Southern Egyptian crown.
As for Tolkien the cultural supremacist, where exactly does he say anything leading to this idea? He emphasises time and again that none of the races of men in his books are wholy good or bad. The Rhohirim have obviously treated the Dunlendings very badly in the past, and have hunted the people of Ghan-buri-ghan as animals. The Numenoreans starting turning bad when they started to make colonies in Middle-earth, and also treated the ancestors of the Dunlendings badly, turning their forests into a desrt by the end of the second age. The people of Gondor have fallen to a large extent as they now value the arts of war over learning and poetry. In real life Tolkien disliked the British empire long before it became fashionable to do so, or before people realised empires were just bad things (depending on how cynical you feel)
I think it depends on how well you visualised Middle-earth to start with, and how closely the films conform to your ideas. In my case at least the plot of the films hasn't affected how I imagine Middle-earth at all as far as I can tell. For example ,Peter Jackson' Shire wasn't, and still isn't, how I've imagined the Shire (too 'Celtically', not enough like the English countryside Tolkien based it on), though Bag End is. The films, which I like with reservations, came close at a few points, but that was it.
Where they have had an effect, as far as I'm concerned, is the faces of some of the characters. My Gandalf now looks like Sir Ian, same with the characters playing Eowyn, Theoden, Bilbo and Boromir. This isn't necessarily anything to do with how they are played in the film, particularly with Theoden who was never possessed by Saruman, simply that they looked right, and when they spoke sounded right as well. On that basis the film have enriched my ideas of the books, which I think is the mark of good casting and adaptation.
Maybe it's because I read a lot, and a lot of the books I like have been made into films of TV series, so I'm used to enjoying films for what they are, but still knowing they aren't the real thing. For example David Lean's 'Great Expectations' from 1946 is one of my favourite films, but compared to the book, misses out huge chunks, and changes characters all over the place.
When Elves die, they go to the Halls of Mandos, on Arda (earth), where they wait for the end of the world
Almost right. What actually happens is they wait in Mandos for a variable period, then reincarnate, though not by being born as baby elves, (too confusing as to who your parents are), but by taking on copies of their old bodies. One example is Glorfindel, he is killed in the fall of Gondolin, but you see him again in LotR. LotR the book that is, in the film he doesn't appear.
As for the Dwarves, they had their own stories, which as far as I can remember had them staying in their own section of Mandos.
You said in one of your postings that you wished Peter Jackson had focused more on developing the characters. Well the books do that, so maybe you would like them if you read them, who knows? As for the Silmarillion (yes, correct spelling), if I were you I would read the LotR, then some of the appendices at the back of the RotK first. If you like the appendices you may well like the Silmarillion, if not save your money. As for the Hobbit, this is actually a childrens book, though many adults like it as well (I do),so the style is very different. Starts off as a comedy and ends up with 'Twilight of the Gods'.
If the movie doesn't stand on its own, it is not the fault of the audience. I think the movie has stood on it's own, judging by; a) The Box Office b) The Awards, Oscars and others (loads of these) c) Critical reviews, almost all good to ecstatic d) Ratings on Movie web sites, for example IMDB rates Fellowship at #5 and Two Towers at #12 in their top 250 Movie List Any one or two of these things may be a blip, but all combined? I don't think so. There are some people who don't like the film but for anything you you can think of will always find someone who doesn't like it. I think you are just one of this small minority for these films, thats all.
A fairly LARGE diversionary tactic surely? Sauron had a huge number of troops there, and Aragorn had quite a few on his side too. Also no Scouring, not even a skirmish.
Absolutely true. However these is a shot of Sam with his daughter Elanor, so they will have to have sometime in the Shire at the end of the film so Sam can marry Rosie, who he hardly talks to in Fellowship, and have baby hobbits
I don't actually think he was hoping to profit at all, he had a job he loved already, as a Professor at Oxford University, so he didn't need to be a professional author, it was just something he loved doing. From all I've heard the success of LotR came as a pleasant surprise to Tolkien AND his publisher.
All of the examples you give were things that happened under the last Tory government. Since the the current Labour government has enact some fairly major reforms, so that a lot of this nonsense has ceased. For example the hereditary peers have mostly gone, as you yourself pointed out, which has removed a major source of the abuses of power that the chamber was responsible for. The Lords could certainly do with further reforms, and some of the things they do now could rather be done in comittee by the Commons, but they have improved vastly over what they used to be and some of their recent debates are IMHO rather good.
Or even three or four really great movies. I don't think it's the stuff holywood would ever go for though. No happy endings, heros die along with everyone they love.
I can't see the Musical version working either, but I agree that all of Tolkien Middle Earth mythology could provide inspiration for all sorts of classical music, not just opera. In a similar way Celtic mythology has provided inspiration for many classical composers, most importantly Arnold Bax's Tone poems. I know that a Canadian composer called Glenn Buhr has composed some pieces based around the Beren & Luthien stories, though I haven't heard them. It would be interesting to know what else there is out there.