any lord of the rings fans?

[stickarts]

Bombadil always gets axed because they don't feel he is essential to the plot.
It would have been great seeing him though, even if only in the extended version!

 

[Bigshadow]

I read them first in jr. high, and every few years I just have to read them all over again.

My fave was always Boromir. Of the non-hobbit members of the fellowship, he always seemed the most "human" to me.

Jeff

Boromir was cool! I also liked Gimili's lack of fear! He was a tough character! Of course, the two characters that stand out the most to me were Legolas and Stryder.

 

[HG1]

Flying Crane thanks for the answers.


Doesn't Peter Jackson have the rights to The Hobit and The Silmarillion? IMO The Silmarillion would be a difficult movie to make. That being said I still would love to see it on the big screen.

 

[zDom]

I think that given what Jackson was trying to accomplish, he did a remarkable job and it was truly a monumental task. That being said, there are definitely parts that I think should have been done differently. Just my thoughts as a Tolkien die-hard.

Me, too.

 

[zDom]

Doesn't Peter Jackson have the rights to The Hobit and The Silmarillion? IMO The Silmarillion would be a difficult movie to make. That being said I still would love to see it on the big screen.

From what I hear, he IS doing The Hobbit.

As for the Silmarillion, I don't think you can "do" it. What IS feasible is picking a story and doing IT.

And then picking another story and doing IT. And so on - make a franchise out of it. They don't even need to be in sequence. But there are a LOT of great stories that would make great movies.

As for Jackson's work:

one ONE hand, the sceney, costumes and casting was SO damn perfect. I mean, when I first saw Gandalf arriving in the Shire on the Big Screen, tears of joy welled up in my eyes. Goosebumps ran across my body: it was EXACTLY like I had pictured it in my mind while reading it.

And not just that -- Gondor, the Mines of Moria, etc., etc. -- it was if he had snuck inside my mind and put it on the Big Screen.

on the OTHER hand: why couldn't he have just stuck to the story? I mean, I understand omitting Tom Bombadil -- it was logical, if a bit disappointing.

But put in a five minute pillow fight/love scene of the hobbits at the end *instead* of doing "the Scouring of the Shire"? Come ON, Peter!

Or, I agree as stated above, CHANGE Faramir just to stress something PETER thought needed stressing? Really wish he hadn't.

Heck, I could fill a whole thread with things I think he did PERFECTLY and things I want to strangle him for changing. But flawed or not, I'm glad the movies were made.

The Hobbit would be fun, but I'd love to see some of the Silmarillion stories be made into films.

 

[stickarts]

Jackson would like to do "The Hobbit" but two different entities own different rights to the story and movie and haven't come to terms yet. Frustrating since eventually when they do come to terms it will still be a few years to get the project off the ground and completed!

 

[Blotan Hunka]

The Harry Potter, thread got me going on LOTR movies, so instead of hijacking that thread I decided to put this here. This Wiki has some great beefs with Jacksons manipulation of Tolkiens characters.

http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Movie_vs._Book:Major_Differences#Faramir

I posted the link to Farimir because it was his character change that upset me the most. In the book he was a pure character that had no desire to power or the ring. In the movie he was twisted because (IMO) writers/directors have to show the "human weakness" of characters. They cant stomach "heros" as they were in the original work so they re-write them. I also think that there is a (liberal?) slant against "soldiers". Faramir, being a soldier had to be painted as a ruffian, as was shown in the Rangers rough treatment/torture of Gollum in the movie, that didnt happen in the book either.

Sam leaving Frodo on the stairs was a useless change.

The whole Arwen/amulet/life tied to the ring thing was crap too.

 

[JBrainard]

hi , any lord of te rings fans on the forum? and if you are whos your fave character?

Huge fan of the books and movies (except that I HATED the love story inserted into the movies). Allways like Gandalf the best, ever since I first read the Hobbit way back when.

 

[CoryKS]

One thing that bugs the crap out of me every time I watch LotR: the scene where Frodo and Aragorn are stranded on the broken stairs and Aragorn tells Frodo to lean forward. Right. Because you can direct a bajillion-ton slab of teetering rock by standing in the right place.

 

[Xue Sheng]

One thing that bugs the crap out of me every time I watch LotR: the scene where Frodo and Aragorn are stranded on the broken stairs and Aragorn tells Frodo to lean forward. Right. Because you can direct a bajillion-ton slab of teetering rock by standing in the right place.

Of course you can... I do it all the time. Hobbit tossing, you should try it.

But wait that means you have no problem with falling for miles fighting a balrog and coming back as a better stronger Wizard..... or for that matter Wizards.... :uhyeah:

 

[CoryKS]

Of course you can... I do it all the time. Hobbit tossing, you should try it.

But wait that means you have no problem with falling for miles fighting a balrog and coming back as a better stronger Wizard..... or for that matter Wizards.... :uhyeah:

Someone, I think it was Stephen King or Orson Scott Card, wrote an essay which said that most people will accept any premise for a story as long as the writer plays fair with the rules he has established. If Jackson wanted to have Gandalf move the stone with magic, that would have been okay. But to use bad physics is unforgivable.

 

[Kreth]

Someone, I think it was Stephen King or Orson Scott Card, wrote an essay which said that most people will accept any premise for a story as long as the writer plays fair with the rules he has established. If Jackson wanted to have Gandalf move the stone with magic, that would have been okay. But to use bad physics is unforgivable.

I believe the premise was that most of the support for the stairs had broken away, and the slightest movement would cause it to tip.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Someone, I think it was Stephen King or Orson Scott Card, wrote an essay which said that most people will accept any premise for a story as long as the writer plays fair with the rules he has established. If Jackson wanted to have Gandalf move the stone with magic, that would have been okay. But to use bad physics is unforgivable.

"I canna change the laws of physics, Captain — but I can find ye a loophole."

That's it, it was just a loophole... or possibly quantum physics... yeah that’s it quantum physics... or hobbit physics we all know how bad hobbit are with physics and orcs and trolls don't follow laws so I imagine the balrog doesn't either so the Laws of physics don't......... awww forget it... your right... it wouldn't work..... But the movie would have ended right there is Frodo fell to his death so they had to do something… but I have to admit the possibilities there are making me chuckle

 

[Steel Tiger]

Don't get me started on the films. I like them a lot but there are so many things that bug me and they all stem from the writing of the screenplay and the writers seeming to just not get it at times.

Huge fan of the books and movies (except that I HATED the love story inserted into the movies). Allways like Gandalf the best, ever since I first read the Hobbit way back when.

There are hints at the realtionship between Aragorn and Arwen in the books but they are very subtle (some scenes in Rivendell and one in Lothlorien).

One thing that bugs the crap out of me every time I watch LotR: the scene where Frodo and Aragorn are stranded on the broken stairs and Aragorn tells Frodo to lean forward. Right. Because you can direct a bajillion-ton slab of teetering rock by standing in the right place.

The easiest way to have avoided the situation on ther broken stairs would have been to actually follow the book and not have it. That being said and it being in the film, the biggest problem I have with the scene is that it presupposes that dwarves would build a stair that is very narrow and climbs out into nothingness rather than having it go down one of the walls of the chasm.

The Bridge of Kazad-dum was a necessary evil to cross an impediment, but the stairs were added just to add a little excitement which the writers of the screenplay could not find when reading the books. Once again I think that they missed the point. Moria is supposed to be forbidding and oppressive punctuated with episodes of stark terror. It is not supposed to be a theme park adventure ride.

 

[CoryKS]

The easiest way to have avoided the situation on ther broken stairs would have been to actually follow the book and not have it. That being said and it being in the film, the biggest problem I have with the scene is that it presupposes that dwarves would build a stair that is very narrow and climbs out into nothingness rather than having it go down one of the walls of the chasm.

The Bridge of Kazad-dum was a necessary evil to cross an impediment, but the stairs were added just to add a little excitement which the writers of the screenplay could not find when reading the books. Once again I think that they missed the point. Moria is supposed to be forbidding and oppressive punctuated with episodes of stark terror. It is not supposed to be a theme park adventure ride.

Yeah, my wife and I made a lot of jokes about the Dwarves needing an OSHA department. At least carve a railing into the thing! Oh, and thanks to a snarky website that I used to visit, I can no longer watch the Ents march off to war without thinking, "Run, Forest! Run!"

 

[Flying Crane]

a random thought - have any of you heard of alatar and polando (sp?) the blue , they were sent to the men of rhun and khand in the south , but were never seen again i read this on a few website , they all said the same thing , not much info on them on google

I recently discovered a short book, entitled "The Further Adventures of Beowulf, Champion of Middle Earth"

The premise is that the Beowulf poem only encompasses two major episodes in the life of Beowulf: the battle with Grendel and Grendel's mother, when Beowulf was a young warrior, and the battle with the Dragon, ending in Beowulf's death, after a long life as king of his people. The question is raised: what happens in the rest of Beowulf's life? Surely such a heroic character had many more adventures in his life, but these were never captured in the poem.

So this book is a collection of short stories written by modern authors, sort of filling in the blanks. Telling the tale of Beowulf's adventures between Grendel and the Dragon.

I've only begun reading the book so I cannot yet say if I think it is any good. But I certainly like the idea.

Maybe some modern authors could help fill in the blanks with the Blue Wizards, and even with Radagast, in the same way that they are doing with Beowulf. If the right authors took a hand at it, I think it might be good. Sort of a collective mythology, built upon Tolkien's work.

 

[Steel Tiger]

Yeah, my wife and I made a lot of jokes about the Dwarves needing an OSHA department. At least carve a railing into the thing! Oh, and thanks to a snarky website that I used to visit, I can no longer watch the Ents march off to war without thinking, "Run, Forest! Run!"

Its an interesting thing to think about. The bridge is described as being quite narrow with no railings all for defence. That's all well and good, but it is also the major entrance to Moria on the eastern side. I don't think JRR thought too well about how the dwarves moved stuff through this entrance, even though he did mention that they traded with others.


To me LOTR is two stories that are runnning concurrently. There is the major plotline, the destruction of the ring, but there is also the story of the return of the king. There is a third very minor plot that I find very interesting. It is the fall of the Witch-King. This character we are introduced to early in the story and we are told how deadly and dangerous he is. An important element in his demise is also introduced early in the story. But because that element is so closely associated with Tom Bombadil it is often overlooked, and in the films excised.

Now that I think about things a bit more critically, there is one event that changed significantly from book to movie. It is Frodo and Sam encountering Faramir. In the film this is presented as yet another encounter with a Man who is overcome by the power of the Ring (in a much lesser sense than, say, with Boromir). In the book this encounter is a respite from the trials and tribulations of days of wilderness travel in a land controlled by the Dark Lord. In order to achieve this the character of Faramir had to be undermined and made less than it was supposed to be.

This encounter also throws into light a strange little quibble of mine. Distance. The rangers' hideout is supposed to be about a hobbit's days walk from the crossroads which, in turn, is about a Man's days walk from Osgiliath. When Faramir takes the hobbits to Osgiliath they get there seemingly within a day with time for a fight and escape to somewhere deep in the woods all before nightfall.

Distances are very interesting in LOTR. JRR once said that The Shire was about where Oxford is in England and that Minas Tirith is about where Venice is. The Mouths of the Anduin being about where Troy is in Turkey. That actually gives a very good idea of the scope of the LOTR, geographically, but it doesn't tally with the classic map all that well. That is because the map was drawn by Christopher from descriptions given to him by his father and something was lost between mouth and paper.

It is also the reason that the road on the map does not make the described swing to the south around the marshes to the east of Bree. If you look at the map and compare it to the actions of the characters you wonder why they would go into the marsh to shorten their journey. More recent maps have corrected these little flaws.

Well I have been rambling on quite a bit. I get like that with LOTR. There is just so much stuff in there that you can always find something new and interesting to think about and discuss.

 

[Sukerkin]

Interesting idea there, FC.

Like most here, I love the films and they are marvellous attempts at getting onto the screen what was long thought untellable but they do run fast and loose with certain things that get between the teeth of long time LOTR readers. I try not to let it bother me in just the same manner as I choose not to see tanks from the wrong era's in war films et al .

Xue I'm not sure that I properly understand your comment above about Gandalf coming back 'from the dead' after his fall in Moria. Do you mean that to accept that and not accept that a teetering column of rock can be steered by where you stand is to indulge in dual standards of imagination?

After all, Gandalf being sent back to replace Saruman and complete the 'mission' of the Istari is a fairly central thread to the story, rather than an invention of the films.

EDIT: Oh and as to favourite characters, I've always said that I aspire to be Aragorn but am actually Boromir.

 

[Steel Tiger]

Maybe some modern authors could help fill in the blanks with the Blue Wizards, and even with Radagast, in the same way that they are doing with Beowulf. If the right authors took a hand at it, I think it might be good. Sort of a collective mythology, built upon Tolkien's work.

In his later life JRR started to completely reorganise the mythos and history of Middle-earth. He discussed some of these changes in notes and letters. Included was some information about the blue wizards who went into the east. Here is a little something culled mercilessly from the Encyclopedia of Arda: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.asp

One of the five Wizards who came to the northwest of Middle-earth in the Third Age; he journeyed into the east with Pallando, and never returned to the western lands.
Alatar was one of the original three2 Wizards selected by the Valar for the journey from Valinor to Middle-earth (the other two being Curumo and Olórin - Saruman and Gandalf).
Alatar and Pallando arrived in Middle-earth dressed in sea-blue. For this reason, they were together given the name Ithryn Luin, the Blue Wizards. With Saruman, they journeyed into the far east of Middle-earth, but while Saruman returned to the west, Alatar and Pallando did not. Of their fate, we know almost nothing3.


Notes 1The name Alatar can be interpreted (somewhat awkwardly) as 'after-comer'. If this is correct, it must be a reference to his being selected as the second Wizard, after Curumo (Saruman). It might equally have been given to him after his arrival in Middle-earth (he arrived after Saruman), but Tolkien specifically states that neither Alatar nor Pallando had a name in the known regions of Middle-earth - in this case, Alatar must be viewed not so much as a name, but rather as a simple description.
A curious, and probably spurious, alternative meaning is álat ar, 'noble giant'.

2The Valar originally intended to send just three Maiar as emissaries to Middle-earth. Aiwendil (Radagast) was added to this number by Yavanna, and Pallando was taken by Alatar 'as a friend'.

3Tolkien tells us 'What success they [Alatar and Pallando] had I do not know; but I fear they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were the founders or beginners of secret cults and 'magic' traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.' (The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, No. 211).


Later on JRR suggested that their mission was similar to Gandalf's and that they may have achieved similar success. But this also involved name changes and such things.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

I also have an issue with the treatment of Denethor. He was changed from a wise man, who was burdened, flawed and deluded by Sauron, but still more of a pathetic (as in you had a bit of understanding and sympathy for him) character than despised. The move turned him into a pure villain.

And Gandalfs almost defeat to the witch king, the breaking staff, the panicked look...where did that come from?