{"id":507984,"date":"2026-04-02T00:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/507984\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T00:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:03:17","slug":"colbert-finds-exciting-ways-to-fill-his-time-in-the-coming-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/507984\/","title":{"rendered":"Colbert finds exciting ways to fill his time in the coming months"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, as you know, Peter Jackson and Stephen Colbert surprised us all with the revelation<\/a> that the next Middle-earth movie, to be made after The Hunt for Gollum, will be written by Colbert (together with his son Peter McGee, who is a screenwriter). It has been given the working title The Lord of the Rings: Shadows of the Past.<\/p>\n

\"\"Two hobbits walk onto a Late Show set\u2026<\/p>\n

Though the exact reveal was a surprise, it was long-expected that Tolkien afficionado Colbert would take up some project associated with Middle-earth, once his Late Show comes to an end in May<\/a>. Word has come to TORn, however, that Shadows of the Past is not the only Tolkien task the mega fan will have on his agenda come the Summer.<\/p>\n

Colbert has often demonstrated his deep knowledge of the Professor\u2019s lore and languages. Now we hear he\u2019s going to put those skills to work, \u2018re-translating\u2019 the Red Book of Westmarch.<\/p>\n

As readers will know, the Red Book<\/a> is the \u2018found manuscript\u2019 which Tolkien created as an imaginary source for all his tales of Arda. Largely written by Bilbo and Frodo, there were also volumes of \u2018Translations from the Elvish\u2019 (by Bilbo), additions by writers such as Samwise, and even some records from Merry and Pippin. Further, the marginalia of the Red Book became The Adventures of Tom Bombadil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Red Book, as it appears in Peter Jackson\u2019s movies<\/p>\n

Just what would this task of \u2018re-translation\u2019 be?<\/p>\n

The rumours our spies have brought us are unclear as to whether Colbert\u2019s goal is to create a translation of all (or just some) of these works into Elvish \u2013 which would be a huge undertaking in and of itself \u2013 or whether he will seek to restore the \u2018original\u2019 manuscripts, which would require translating different volumes and passages into a variety of tongues of Middle-earth. The latter seems unlikely; Tolkien did not leave us with enough Westron for a translation of Bilbo and Frodo\u2019s writings back to that language to be possible, without creating more vocabulary. Perhaps we should assume, then, that Colbert will be translating to Sindarin and Quenya \u2013 and possibly, therefore, only tackling the parts of the legendarium which are known to us as The Silmarillion.<\/p>\n

Either way, this is a worthy project for an intellect and passion like Stephen Colbert\u2019s. And \u2013 we\u2019d like to suggest to Mr. Colbert that he make this a group project! We know that many fans have deep knowledge of the Professor\u2019s languages; if the Late Show host would like to \u2018share the load\u2019, with individuals taking on a chapter each, many hands would make light work of such a gargantuan undertaking.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Is such a re-translation even possible? Share your thoughts on our discord<\/a>! <\/p>\n

\t\tPosted in:<\/p>\n

Share:<\/p>\n

\t\t\"Divide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, as you know, Peter Jackson and Stephen Colbert surprised us all with the revelation that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[178052,96,65316,178053,49,94353,178049,9065,1922,18088,178054,2839,178055,178050,178056,178051,178057,3767,157058,9068,9071,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-507984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-creations","tag-entertainment","tag-fans","tag-fool","tag-headlines","tag-hobbit","tag-hunt-for-gollum","tag-j-r-r-tolkien","tag-languages","tag-lord-of-the-rings","tag-lotr-books","tag-movies","tag-other-tolkien-books","tag-red-book-of-westmarch","tag-shadow-of-the-past","tag-shadows-of-the-past","tag-silmarillion","tag-stephen-colbert","tag-the-hunt-for-gollum","tag-the-lord-of-the-rings","tag-tolkien","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}