When you stop and actually think about our situation you realise how thin our operating margins are, we are at the mercy of whatever the planet does and our safety is subject to immediate dismissal should the conditions change. Worse of course are the random cosmic whims which could wipe us out instantly at any time e.g. comets, the sun going weird, etc.
I wouldn’t put either of those in quite the same category as LOTR but I do agree that good stuff is still being made here and there, I think people just like to complain and also only think about the best bits of the past, while LOTR came out a million shitty movies also did you just don’t remember them.
Ferries are pretty nice, we recently used them for a NL -> EN -> WA -> IE -> SCO -> NL trip and they were nice. Some of them had plenty of entertainment and felt quite nice, others a bit more run down but still fine. The best was taking the overnight ones, you sleep on board and disembark fresh and ready to go in the morning at your destination and costs less than having a separate hotel night.
Sun is not always visible, where I live there is frequently completely uniform grey skies. Also depending on your latitude and time of year you’ll have to adjust or you’ll be quite a bit off.