-he has experience in connections in the film industry, and is generally liked by Hollywood

That's not a good thing at all. It means he's one of them.

Colbert is most definitely one of those "huge fans" of Tolkien. And as a "huge fan," he believes it is necessary to "criticize the things you love." And in that, he is going to say that Tolkien "was a straight white Christian man of his time" and that he wrote and believed in things that "wouldn't fit well with modern audiences today." And so he's going to address those things that are "problematic." Fix them if you will. Make his story and his world better, inclusive, and more "reflective of the world as it really is."