Tolkien's sci-fi shows we need only one ring

Don't accept that the West (the elves) is in charge as we (the dwarfs and hobbits) labour for them

- Donovan E Williams

I love science fiction movies and series. But what always bothered me was that as imaginative, forward-thinking, inventive and superlatively intelligent as the worlds and multiple universes they created, it was no match for the diversity we have on Earth and humankind.

Even my current favourite Apple TV+'s Foundation, based on the genius Isaac Asimov's 1950s book series, cannot create a world or planet as diverse as ours. Generally speaking, movies and TV series have just one type of people per planet. Indeed, a planet is often a single city.

When I read politics and philosophy at university, I was introduced to Douglas Adams and his amazing book series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the “trilogy in four parts”. It was through Adams' Hitchhiker's books that I began to recognise the lessons I had been picking up from Star Trek and Star Wars movies.

All the stories involved good fighting against an overwhelming evil power, while they try to build a new society that is based on equality and freedom. There are obvious comparisons to South Africa's resistance against the apartheid government and military.

But some of the greatest minds cannot imagine a world as diverse as Earth's or conjure up a species with a multitude of cultures, nationalities and peoples as the human race.

It is British-South African writer JRR Tolkien, in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, who is able to best reflect the many sides of humankind. In truth though, Tolkien's books are fantasy and, strictly speaking, not sci-fi. But I like to think of fantasy and sci-fi as close cousins.