There was an interesting part in the book Masters of Doom I think applies. It was laying out John Carmack’s sprawling D&D campaign that he had been working on for years with its own encyclopedia. One thing it pointed out was that Carmack was absolute in that his game abided by the established rules of his fantasy world so you accidentally destroy the world it’s destroyed. I think that’s what made older fantasy work better. Current ThingTM trash just invents as it goes and advances the writers and producers own ego. The Acolyte is a perfect example of that. LotR worked because it had real rules and history that grounded the series. Modern writers are just hacks who don’t know anything and their worldview is just their little LA/NYC bubbles and self insert.