Tolkien's Middle-Earth: He was just Beorn this way

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Tolkien's Middle-Earth: He was just Beorn this way

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

I liked that and the Books of Lost Tales (there are two). But even with those you're getting a lot into some earlier/alternate/extended versions of some of the Silmarillion stories.

That said, the standalone Children of Húrin is fantastic.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2016 03:54

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 11:40

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

I love Jackson's LOTR films for a lot of reasons. They have a lot of great atmosphere, art design, scenery, music, acting - it's hard to imagine Gandalf or Saruman differently now. The Balrog design is tremendous and I can't conceive of it ever being done better; the same goes for the Nazgûl.

But there's also a lot in them that painfully doesn't work. Gollum tops my list - it was a great technical achievement but I think both Serkis and the character design missed the mark. I understand they were trying to make him more sympathetic but he didn't have the gravitas he should have.

Anyone complaining about a tonal dissonance in the Hobbit movies should get whiplash from the non-original lines used in LOTR vs. Tolkien's writing.

I was also disappointed with Treebeard and the Ents turning on a dime when they saw the devastated forest, and with Faramir's reaction to the ring. Galadriel's test might have worked without that stupid voice filter; as single moments go that's probably the most embarrassingly bad one in the trilogy.

On balance though, there's a lot more good in them than bad. Every time I watch them, by the time they get to the Grey Havens I'm in tears along with all of the hobbits.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2017 05:27

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

webmeister posted:

Galadriel's Mirror scene owned and is a legit fantastic moment. I'll agree it's probably not how a lot of people read that scene, but it's a totally valid interpretation if you come at it from the POV of Frodo seeing a glimpse of what Galadriel wielding the Ring would be like.

Everything else about it is alright, it's that drat voice modulation I can't stand. It's just a specific thing that always sounds terrible to me and I don't know why anyone ever uses it.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2017 06:05

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

euphronius posted:

Also the dwarfs have all sorts of technology and industry and are neither absolutely evil or good.

Dwarves, please. Or Dwarrows I believe Tolkien says is the more proper term.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2017 14:42

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Maybe he's stretching the bread.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2017 05:04

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Lemniscate Blue posted:

Balrog wings: No......

Thank you for saving me from untold hours of wasting my time with bad opinions.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2017 04:46

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Lemniscate Blue posted:

He's right about that, fight me.

(but he's wrong about Bombadil)

I'll 'ave you, Longshanks!

# ¿ Jul 22, 2017 04:58

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Radio! posted:

I agree with this, but I also feel like the potential for Sauron to be that kind of villain is there moreso than it is for Morgoth. If Sauron's stint in Numenor before the fall had been written in the same style as LotR instead of in the detached/distant format of the Sil, we would have seen Sauron as a contemptible schemer much in the same vein as Wormtongue (only more successful in the end, obviously).

I think Sauron in the Sil at least is a different kind of deity than Morgoth- more of a trickster god (Annatar, him turning into a wolf to defeat Huan) than Morgoth is.

Tom Hiddleston to play Sauron in the adaptation of Akallabêth.

# ¿ Aug 18, 2017 05:52

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Data Graham posted:

Man

I know as well as anybody the whole "gently caress you, LotR isn't an allegory" thing. But going through the Treason of Isengard, particularly through the podcast, where you really hear the way certain bits of dialogue sound, and what must have been in Tolkien's mind when he wrote them...

I mean—the whole bit where Saruman tries to recruit Gandalf to Sauron's service. In the earlier versions it's so demagogic, so persuasive... I wish I had a transcript of it, but it's all in like the last 15 minutes of ep. 5 of the podcast, and it's just crackling in my ears how much it sounds like the kinds of stump speeches I have to imagine Tolkien must have been hearing all the time as he was writing this in 19-loving-39. A new power is rising in the southeast... there's no standing against it, and really we've been fools to try. Our only hope is in allying with it. If we do, and it wins, which it will, we'll get so much power to do everything we ever wanted. "There has been a conspiracy", it even says, to suppress knowledge, wisdom, and government... I mean maybe I'm just on edge but it can't have not been at least informed by the day-to-day news that was surrounding him on his equivalent of D&D

Informed, I'm sure. But that's the contemporary example of the much older and more universal phenomenon of craven power worship, as opposed to righteousness.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2017 01:38

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

The Silmarillion Ways to Die in the West

# ¿ Nov 14, 2017 03:36

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Gondolin With the Wind

# ¿ Nov 14, 2017 05:03

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

The Shiring

# ¿ Nov 14, 2017 05:32

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Tengwar Things I Hate About You

# ¿ Nov 14, 2017 13:49

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Dr. Strangeberry, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bombadil

# ¿ Nov 14, 2017 18:25

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

There's Something About Merry

# ¿ Nov 15, 2017 06:11

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

The Fresh Prince of Beleriand

# ¿ Nov 15, 2017 06:12

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Wight Christmas

# ¿ Nov 15, 2017 06:12

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

chernobyl kinsman posted:

it's ok to stop now

Dumb and Dúnedain

# ¿ Nov 15, 2017 18:30

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Thorin: Ragnarok

# ¿ Nov 15, 2017 18:31

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Bongo Bill posted:

It should be in the public domain.

That wouldn't make the new estate holders millionaires though.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2017 06:06

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

PMush Perfect posted:

When did the new thread title come up? It's really good.

The Fault in Our Istari

# ¿ Nov 18, 2017 03:45

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

A big fish story is the one that got away, a tall tale that grows in the telling and retelling.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2018 18:30

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

I was going to say Fingolfin fighting Morgoth in single combat.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2018 18:44

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

elise the great posted:

I mean I kinda understand, my parents divorced over the nature of Istari, but I’ve maintained close friendships with people who actually LIKED the Hobbit movies. It’s not like they voted for Trump.

Wow, I have to admit, at first I thought you were joking with this post.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2018 17:35

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Data Graham posted:

Yeah well I have one friend who refuses to even watch Fellowship because he considers the whole thing to have been ruined by Dalek Galadriel, so what you gonna do.

To be fair that is the single worst, most embarrassing thing in all 6 PJ Middle-earth films.

# ¿ May 22, 2018 03:22

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

sassassin posted:

That's a high bar to clear.

I'm painfully aware. I like the films a lot - even, on balance, the Hobbit trilogy - but I'm under no illusions of their perfection.

# ¿ May 23, 2018 13:16

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Wow, that's a lot more abstract than what I've ever seen of his art before, and I like it a lot.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2018 13:16

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Trin Tragula posted:

Wetwang

omg, mods please change my name this instant

# ¿ Jul 28, 2018 03:31

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Orcs as Gentiles... just bouncing some ideas around in my head...

# ¿ Sep 25, 2018 03:03

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Ynglaur posted:

A barely-tolerated would-be son-in-law doesn't get the family news.

Guess Who's Coming to Dunland?

# ¿ Oct 2, 2018 13:20

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

cheetah7071 posted:

In the later volumes of HoME I recall Tolkien making explicit an idea implicit in the above-quoted passages of the Ainulindale, of Iluvatar-as-author. That Eru created the world primarily as a place where stories worth telling would happen. Suffering exists because it makes for good stories; Melkor exists because stories need villains. What Eru meant in the quoted passage wasn't "you're incapable of doing anything I didn't plan" but "you're incapable of doing anything that doesn't result in a good story." This ultimately falls apart when viewed from the third age where we have at least two examples of Eru saying "uh poo poo I don't want the story to go that way" and directly intervening. If we accept the premise of Iluvatar-as-author then his statement that Melkor can't produce anything that goes against the glory of Eru is clearly untrue bragging--if Melkor's servant goading the Numenoreans into attacking Valinor was part of the story, why did he interfere? And the same with Gandalf's death.

Eucatastrophe, when you're the protagonist, makes for the best stories.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2018 20:38

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Not to mention they are slow to talk and make up their minds, but then decide not to fight, only to make an instant heel turn later. It's beyond redundant, into contradictory.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2019 15:13

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

euphronius posted:

You have the burden of proving they are from gondolin. I don’t have the burden of proving they are not.

You can’t meet the burden of proof by relying on LOTR. Nothing in LOTR says these swords are from gondolin. Burden cannot be met with Lotr. This is hugely damaging to your argument.

If you instead rely on the Hobbit there are multiple problems with that as have been discussed. Ad nasueum. I agree there is evidence that they may be from gondolin in the Hobbit and that a reasonable person could see some evidence there.

However in the end and considering the works as a whole I don’t think you meet your burden of proving they are from gondolin

By the way your burden of proof is more than “any little bit of evidence I can nitpick or invent” You have to address that you can’t use LOTR to support your argument. This is huge and in my opinion can’t be overcome.

Argumentum ad ignorantium, a classic.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2019 04:20

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Ravenfood posted:

Every time I see that map I'm jarred by Mordor's mountain borders. It just looks so unnatural

Superimpose it over a map of Ohio. The parallel is obvious.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2019 18:58

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

SHISHKABOB posted:

Why hasn't anyone invented the steam engine in the last two thousand years of the third age? Does middle earth have algebra?

Because the Shire is specifically supposed to be a preindustrial utopia.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2019 04:03

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

BravestOfTheLamps posted:

The irony of the movies is that despite each being three hours long, Jackson has no ability to linger on anything, which is why the visuals are so boring.

I was about to reply to this in utter bewilderment, but then I saw who said it.

Carry on. :discourse:

# ¿ Feb 23, 2019 13:57

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Say whatever you want about the Hobbit trilogy, but the dwarves singing was a highlight, and if they can do something like that even once in a while then I'm all in with the musical numbers.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2019 04:00

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Octy posted:

Isn't that what happened?

If you're going to troll you should at least try to add the slightest bit of subtlety or plausibility.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 01:42

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Octy posted:

Look at this guy taking a post on an Internet forum seriously.

I'd like to protest that I called you a troll, which is inherently unserious, but then I'd be taking this post seriously. You've outmaneuvered me.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 04:01

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# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 11:40

Winifred Madgers: Feb 12, 2002

Shibawanko posted:

Hama in the books wasnt just a dumbass who doesnt realize the staff is a weapon, he actively decides to let Gandalf in because he has a hunch that it's for the best

The look on his face in the movie gives me a subtle hint of the same thing, although that could just be carried over from the book for me.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2019 02:40

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