101 Reasons to Stop Writing

Wellington, New Zealand: WETA Workshop, the special effects company behind the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the recent King Kong remake, have constructed a “bigature” scale model of Mount Doom from over three thousand pounds of unsolicited fanfic and slash manuscripts their office has collected over the last five years.

“We appreciate the passion with which fans of Tolkein’s books have embraced our films, and our merchandise,” said WETA representative and Academy Award-winning effects supervisor Richard Taylor. “But our work on Lord of the Rings has long since ceased, and we have no practical use for stories exploring the sexual dynamics of a love triangle between Arwen, Grima Wormtongue and Sting the sword. I mean, even if the copyright issues could be resolved, Peter [Jackson] is too busy to make a seven minute erotic fantasy film. And I don’t want to spend my days gluing a prosthetic penis to Brad Dourif.”

“We copped a lot of flak from the hard-core fans about the liberties we took with Tolkein’s story,” said screenwriter Fran Walsh. “But that doesn’t mean we need hundreds of full-length screenplays showing us how we should have handled it. We are just not going to reshoot the movie with Danny de Vito as Sam Gamgee, or to retell the story from the orc’s point of view. “

The photorealistic model of Mount Doom will be lit at 8pm this evening. Rings director Peter Jackson will be on hand to supervise the burn, and to film some pick-up shots for the upcoming SuperUltraMegaWeta DVD boxset re-release of the film trilogy.