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Regarding the battle stuff, I feel like Aragorn et al's battle scenes represent the heroic saga-ish ideal of combat, while Sam & Frodo's agonising plod through the hostile hellscape of Mordor represents the actuality of fighting in WW1. As for the visuals, my only gripe is, as others have noted, the lack of agriculture in Gondor. Moria, Minas Tirith, Barad Dur etc are all just magnificent.
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Sep 9, 2016 05:06
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Friar John posted:"In the south Gondor rises to a peak of power, almost reflecting Númenor, and then fades slowly to decayed Middle Age, a kind of proud, venerable, but increasingly impotent Byzantium." - Letter 131 Wonderful! I always got a Siege Of Constantinople In 1453 vibe from Minas Tirith, and it's interesting to see a bit of Tolkien's thoughts on that.
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Dec 19, 2016 11:53
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Sort of... stretched, like too much butter on bread
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Jul 12, 2017 01:46
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A televised Silmarillion could absolutely work; it's got a strong overall arc, a mix of recurring and once-off characters, and a bit of GoT-y incest and Torment in Pits, whatever that means exactly. Who wouldn't want to see the fall of Numenor? On the other hand, I'm not sure I could survive another decade of columnists writing about how gritty and morally complex modern fantasy is compared with Tolkien, ughh.
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Nov 11, 2017 13:19
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SHISHKABOB posted:"New storylines" means they're just gonna make stuff up. This could be okay, or it could be incredibly bad. "These stories written by a guy who was orphaned at 12 and lived through trench warfare aren't GRITTY enough!!"
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Nov 14, 2017 07:01
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skasion posted:Alright, here we go. Big wall of text about Boorman's doomed LOTR script ahead, stitched together from a couple sources: Hey, thanks for posting this. I wonder if this script seemed as mad at the time as it does now...
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Nov 17, 2017 22:20
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Help, I can't stop saying "Alqualonde" and "Taniquetil" and "Ancalagon," they are all perfect words. e: a shameful snipe. To continue the film adaptation discussion, I remember reading somewhere that the Uruk-hai-before-Isengard noise was based on PJ having the crowd at a rugby match in NZ perform various chants and roars. I want this to be true! Does anyone know anything else about it...? Tree Bucket fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Jun 5, 2018 |
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Jun 5, 2018 00:26
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Trin Tragula posted:This is a conflation of two different stories; he used two different crowds. The voices of the orcs in The Two Towers came from a cricket crowd (NZ v England one-day international in 2002), and the voices for Return of the King are from a rugby crowd (Wellington v Southland provincial championship match in 2003). Both were recorded at Westpac Stadium in Wellington, which is dual-use. Wow, thanks. It must have been amazing to be in those crowds.
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Jun 7, 2018 08:08
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:https://aleteia.org/2018/07/14/will-tolkien-and-chesterton-be-declared-saints/ Iiiinteresting! I thought you had to have done a miracle to count as a Saint. I mean, ever since reading the Sil, whenever I've engaged with Catholic theology I've found myself thinking "hmm, makes sense" or "I'm sure I've heard that before somewhere" which I guess is pretty miraculous. I seem to remember the young Tolkien getting disinherited by his wealthy relatives for sticking with Catholicism. I wonder what they'd think about him attaining sainthood.....
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Jul 15, 2018 08:48
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Thanks for the beatification info, goons, and the corrections on Tolkien's bio. Also, isn't it rad that the bit in FotR where Gandalf talks about Bilbo's song of Earendil is an author writing a story about a person talking about a person writing a song about a book about a story about a person...
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Jul 16, 2018 23:12
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The crazy thing about that, to me at least, is that all those layers would not be publicly explained for twenty-three years. Not until the Silmarillion was published in 1977 would readers get a reasonably detailed explanation of all the layers at work there. But Tolkien wrote it that way anyway. I didn't realise that! On the plus side, I no longer feel quite so stupid for not getting the references earlier. Incidentally, my copy of the Silmarillion includes (as an introduction) a letter Tolkien wrote to a friend explaining the whole shemozzle, which includes these lines: "the cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, weilding paint and music and drama. Absurd." Which is endearingly nerdy, and oddly satisfying; because it means that the maps ten-year-old me drew after reading the Hobbit are in some small way a continuation of what Tolkien intended.
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Jul 25, 2018 04:35
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Data Graham posted:He's like a kid doodling on his book covers It's great, isn't it! I love his sense of colour. And he draws bats and skulls and axes just like a kid does. Lester Shy posted:I'm finally reading these books after years of being a fantasy fan. Well, I got about 20 pages into The Silmarillion in elementary school because it was the only Tolkien book our library had in stock, but other than that I've stuck to more modern authors. Since I know the broad strokes from the movies, and every fantasy story I've ever read has been at least partially Tolkien-inspired, I'm shocked at how fresh and exciting it feels. I've had to stop myself from staying up too late reading just one more chapter. Yep! Tolkien's stuff really does have a special feel to it that I've not encountered anywhere else. He once mentioned in a letter to a friend that it felt like he was discovering something that was already "there," rather than making stuff up himself. That feeling really comes across to the reader.
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Jul 26, 2018 00:17
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Maybe Isengard??
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Jul 26, 2018 12:32
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skasion posted:I mean that is exactly what it is. I seriously doubt he was writing it with Findegil in mind. The whole LOTR-as-composite-text thing is an ex post facto justification by Tolkien for the vast tonal changes across the book. Imagine him chuckling donnishly about it. To this day I nurse a 20-year-grudge against the English teacher who dismissed LotR as being full of simplistic grand narratives with no moral complexity. 17-year-old me was too stupid to present a counter-argument, sadly.
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Aug 3, 2018 02:48
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Bongo Bill posted:I liked the historiography in Beren and Lúthien. And I also liked this passage, in which Thû, the proto-Sauron, has captured the heroes, whom he strongly suspects of not being the orcs they are disguised as, and, addressing them, challenges to blaspheme: That's interesting- I always felt Sauron was motivated by hatred, sure, but also cold logic and a hunger for power. Thû meanwhile hates "light and law and love"- Sauron seems to find light unhelpful, laws useful (his own at least) and love incomprehensible. Have I been too kind to Sauron? Or was his earlier version more evil for the sake of being evil?
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Aug 9, 2018 00:19
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Trin Tragula posted:Kicking easy targets while they're down is both Cool and Good and I recommend it to anyone who needs to blow off a bit of steam ...that little extract you just posted isn't a real quote, is it? Please?
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Aug 19, 2018 04:10
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Trin Tragula posted:If only I were exaggerating, but 31 minutes into episode 70 if anyone else wants to take the "see how long you can go without stuffing your fist in your mouth or clamping your hands over your ears in embarrassment" challenge, which I'm sure will soon be sweeping nerd gatherings nationwide as a modernised version of Eye of Argon reading contests Aaaaghh what is that image that the Presenter just accidentally alt-tab'd to? My sprit broke at "ocular evidence of the black riders." Wow, this is simultaneously excruciating and boring.
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Aug 29, 2018 08:11
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There's something fascinating about the Sil's idea that the earth was originally flat, but became "bent" to shut off the true West. It's a really weird blending of ancient and, well, slightly-less-ancient ideas about the shape of the earth that I haven't seen anywhere else.
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Sep 6, 2018 08:24
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Ginette Reno posted:Elves are the original flat earthers Well, that explains why the entire southern hemisphere seems to have been left out...
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Sep 6, 2018 22:48
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Ohh, a stack of new posts in the Tolkien thread, I wonder if aaaaaaaaaaaaa
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Sep 11, 2018 09:05
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When I was a little kid, I liked dinosaurs (which are sadly gone forever) and then steam trains (which are sadly gone forever) and later knights and castles (which are sadly gone forever) and eventually ancient languages (which are sadly gone forever) and, big surprise, ended up loving LotR, with its ever-present sense of sadness for things that are gone forever. Anyone else find themselves tracing out a similar progression...?
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Oct 16, 2018 03:11
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:There's lots of places in the world where you can fight giant spiders with a big knife and a glowstick some lady gave you. But I already live in Australia.
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Oct 16, 2018 08:18
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Petition to rename Gothmog to "spongy orc" (and seconding the decision to move Proudfeet Hobbit to the top of the list.)
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Oct 25, 2018 07:58
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"Hey ding merry dol" is pretty bad, but "we are fond of parties" is easily the cringiest line in a Bombadil song. I really like the idea of Bombadil, and his (lack of) reaction to putting on the Ring is such a cool moment. I just wish his dialogue didn't make me wince so much.
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Oct 26, 2018 02:31
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There's something a bit weird about edgy interpretations of LotR. Maybe it's the assumption that the guy who was orphaned as a kid and fought in WW1 as a teenager had an unsophisticated view of what evil is. And clearly this legendary linguistic scholar was in fact a bit of a simpleton, but we at least can see through his naivety. (I still don't like bombadil's songs though.)
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Nov 25, 2018 02:14
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Ginette Reno posted:I'm not seeing how Tolkien writing Lotr the way he did necessarily implies he had simplistic views, especially given Tolkien went to great lengths to insist his work was not allegorical. Yeah, I worded that really badly - I meant that a lot of Tolkien criticism consists of sneering at him for writing about noble kings and good-vs-evil.
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Nov 25, 2018 10:55
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I've decided my favourite line from LotR is Gollum speaking about Sauron: "he cannot see everything, not yet." Such a simple, wonderfully chilling little line that paints such a vivid picture of what the future could look like. On a similar note there's Frodo's "is there anything he does not hate."
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Nov 27, 2018 02:46
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Pham Nuwen posted:My first attempt was in the 8th grade while I was home sick with the flu, and when I got into Two Towers my fevered brain couldn't keep Sauron and Saruman straight, so I quit. There's something uniquely unpleasant about reading LotR when you have a flu or stomach bug. You get those passages where Frodo is wandering thirsty, aching and delirious through a migraine hellscape, and it all feels a bit too real. OctaviusBeaver posted:Reading Tolkien's letters makes me feel really dumb. These are great- where are you finding these letters?
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Jan 17, 2019 09:15
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Shibawanko posted:I'm rereading the Silmarillion, i like how the years of the lamps had only ferns and big weird trees and no flowers, much like actual prehistory Huh! I've never made that connection before. I wonder how intentional that was. Come to think of it, I read Sil in New Zealand where there are indeed a lot of big dark quiet forests with huge trees and ferns; it certainly helped give a mental impression of the lamp years. sassassin posted:They're all debating fanfiction-level translations so how can the Tolkien Estate weigh in on either side? I thought Tolkien was okay with the Rome-and-Greece latitudes (or at least their languages)
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Feb 1, 2019 22:24
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I prefer Tolkien's artisanal, handcrafted retconning and continuity issues over that mass-produced hollywood stuff.
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Feb 7, 2019 03:36
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webmeister posted:Elrond just strictly follows the precedent set in the case of Finders v Keepers I don't know what the Sindarin for "losers weepers" is, but I bet it's hauntingly beautiful and redolent of starlight upon the sea glimpsed through, I don't know, oaks or something.
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Feb 7, 2019 05:41
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There's that quote from CS Lewis that Tolkien's response to criticism is generally to completely ignore it, or to scrap the entire work and start over. Which I imagine results in a less than speedy workflow.
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Feb 13, 2019 00:49
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skasion posted:Wearing no pants, but singing many songs This paints a surprisingly vivid picture
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Feb 13, 2019 23:39
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my bony fealty posted:its comforting that Tolkien-derivative fantasy will be written by robots soon True AI is just another name for a Maiar of Aule.
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Feb 16, 2019 08:17
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Hogge Wild posted:Nice! Twinks using longbows is one of my pet peeves. You need much more strength to use a proper warbow than a sword or an axe. This is a delightfully specific pet peeve. And now that it's been mentioned, I'll never be able to un-see it again...
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Feb 17, 2019 02:20
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Youtube informs me there's a trailer for a movie about the young JRRT, called "Tolkien," starring the dude who played Nux in Fury Road as the eponymous Tolkien. I am terrible at judging if movies will be okay or not based on trailers though.
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Feb 20, 2019 01:31
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skasion posted:Numenoreans would have invented it if they didn’t already. Early texts portray them as having ironclads, airships, possibly firearms, and it’s not clear that these aspects were discarded in later texts. Morgoth and Sauron could make steam engines, but they would get no use of them because their societies are based on endless supply of totally disposable slave labor. Labor saving devices are not purposeful to them. So what you're saying is, Tolkien invented steampunk?
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Feb 21, 2019 06:08
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Thanks, this was a really good post, and interesting. Hmm! That's a very worthwhile link. Your theory has definite merit. Sort of reminds me of how amateur Tolkien's illustrations are, and yet they really work, somehow. sassassin posted:The age of men is threatened when brave Boromir is penetrated repeatedly by Lurtz (and friends) who is undoubtedly a figure straddling male and female sexuality (ponytail, pouty lips, long elegant fingernails), and who derives strength from devouring manflesh (rather than it being an act of shame). There's birthing scenes, blood-drinking etc. PJ's one step away from filming the Uruk Hai worshipping the moon. I was going to write that this is a ridiculous comment, BUT THEN AGAIN, years later, I can still remember the sound one of my friends made at the knife-licking scene...
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Feb 24, 2019 02:15
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WoodrowSkillson posted:There is no way they pass up the chance to film an island being drowned by an act of god. We will see the akallabeth and then the forming of the kindoms in exile Let's have some climate change disaster stuff with drowning cities and Too Much Industry. Topical!!
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Mar 8, 2019 01:06
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:In Return of the King it says that Sauron strengthened the Lord of the Nazgul's flying mount by feeding it "fell meats". What do you all think those are, exactly? Some sort of evil liverwurst? Roadkill that's gone bad? Alligator steaks? Is Sauron doing his own meat shopping?? I think the line is "nursed it with fell meats" which has always stuck in my head for some reason. I guess orc makes the most sense, but other options include really horrid stuff like the Watcher in the Water, or stuff you really really really aren't meant to eat, like elf. Cool question.
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Mar 8, 2019 10:11
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