Lord of the memes

The ring was destroyed. But little did we know: it's true purpose was to aid in the construction of a Death Star, which is now almost complete...

FWIW, Palpatine also came back in the original storyline past ROTJ before Disney retconned the EU. Though they didn't gloss over the "how" bit (he always intended to survive forever and had a clone factory hidden on some planet and used something similar to the force ghost, only he was able to posses his clones).

In the original story, he threatens Luke and his friends while Luke is alone, so Luke goes, "ok I'll join the dark side", gets some training, then switches back the first time he gets ordered to do something he didn't like.

The basic message was "turning to the dark side was only so final for some Jedi because the order itself considered it something that couldn't he undone, while Luke did it easily". Some of the video games touched on this, too, where the light side and dark side were just tools and it was how you used them that determined good and evil. It was also a big theme in ROTJ itself, though not heavily explored after Vader turns back.

There's hints of this in the sequels, but IMO they didn't handle it that well, especially with Luke and Kylo.

Through means never fully explained (unless you buy the comics and video games), the ring getting destroyed was all part of Sauron's master plan. The villain for the first two sequels is Samwise's son Bobbit, who Sam tried to kill when he learned he was dabbling in dark arts. He's redeemed by our hero, an orc that broke rank with Sauron after learning about his plan to, IDK, blow up the whole world or something, but he's killed anyway to make room for our third movie reveal that Sauron was behind it all. Our brave orc hero must meet up with a haggard looking Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas to painstakingly re-enact the events of the Fellowship of the Ring, wander around with Gandalf and learn how to become a wizard, then kill Sauron and take the last name Baggins.

2 Lord 2 Rings

❝But they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made. In the land of Mordor, in the fires of Mount Doom, the Dark Lord Sauron forged, in secret, a Ultra Master Ring™️ to control all others. And into this Ring he poured all his spare cruelty, his extra malice and his leftover will to dominate all life. An Extra Ring to rule them all.❞

Sauron checks under the couch cushions and BOOM, more profit!

Imagine all the Hobbits solo spin off shows that i you cant pay me to watch.

Long ago I read some incredibly cursed parody along the lines of "if LotR was a Disney animated film". The songs were absolutely horrifying. I can't find it right now, and I think it's best not to subject you to it anyway.

Tolkien himself considered revisiting Middle Earth for a new "uprising", but discarded it because it didn't and probably couldn't recapture the magic. Plus it probably felt too much like reality.

Disney doesn't make movies. They make cringe fan fiction.

"The Ring was destroyed."

"BUT WHAT IF IT WASN'T?"

If disney does what disney usually does, LOTR will be dead to me.

To be fair, the resistance being flabbergasted and in the dark at the return of their dead arch nemesis is actually quite reasonable. The return itself also harkens back to the prequels when Palpatine mentions Darth Plagueis.

The reason the Disney era movies are so underwhelming is a lack of soul and other writing blunders.

How is the last Rings of Power seasons? Haven't watched it yet