The Tolkien Mega-Thread

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I have never had something new, no matter how shitty it is, impact my enjoyment of something I experienced before. I have just as much love for the original Star Wars trilogy, Jackson’s LotR trilogy, the first Matrix movie, etc. no matter what got released afterward.

I only saw Revenge of the Sith for the first time about a month ago. I heard from people I trust that it was shit, so I ignored it. I haven’t seen Rise of Skywalker for the same reason. I’m happy just ignoring all the sequels, and works perfectly fine for me.

Same with the hobbit movies. I saw part of the first one on a plane and just never bothered to watch the others. But I’ll still watch the LotR films no problem.

I figure the Amazon show will probably be good but not fantastic, and it’ll be considered an abomination by some segment of Tolkien fandom (especially if it has, gasp! nudity in it). I’ll certainly give it a try.
 
The showed Excalibur uncut on afternoon TV all the time when I was kid in Canada in the 80s. Seems much ado about nothing.

I know the US is pretty prudish, but I'm surprised the Canada would run it uncut. It is not just the scene between Uther and Igraine, there is quite a bit of sex and nudity in Excalibur. It was heavily cut when shown on TV in the US.

I couldn't have been older than 5 first time I saw it.

But, my parents were, for all their faults, very liberal with letting me watch R-rated films growing up. I saw The Thing and Alien around the same time I first saw Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

R rated movies used to be less of a thing when I was a kid in the late 70s / 80s. Never had a problem getting into an R rated film with or without adult supervision. A friends Dad took us to see Black Christmas and It's Alive when I was in (probably) 3rd grade (10-ish).

I saw Alien as a double feature with Moon Raker, I would have been 12-ish. The most memorable part to Alien for my Dad was that my mom had the amazing timing to start handing out Red Vines just as Kane had the alien burst out of his chest. To this day if you offer him Red Vines he will mention that scene from Alien.

My mom took me and some friends to see Heavy Metal and Excalibur, those came out in '81 so I would have been 13 or 14. Not only did she take us, not one of those kids parents said anything about it before or after. Worst part about that was watching those movies with your mother, a little awkward.
 
I know the US is pretty prudish, but I'm surprised the Canada would run it uncut. It is not just the scene between Uther and Igraine, there is quite a bit of sex and nudity in Excalibur. It was heavily cut when shown on TV in the US.



R rated movies used to be less of a thing when I was a kid in the late 70s / 80s. Never had a problem getting into an R rated film with or without adult supervision. A friends Dad took us to see Black Christmas and It's Alive when I was in (probably) 3rd grade (10-ish).

I saw Alien as a double feature with Moon Raker, I would have been 12-ish. The most memorable part to Alien for my Dad was that my mom had the amazing timing to start handing out Red Vines just as Kane had the alien burst out of his chest. To this day if you offer him Red Vines he will mention that scene from Alien.

My mom took me and some friends to see Heavy Metal and Excalibur, those came out in '81 so I would have been 13 or 14. Not only did she take us, not one of those kids parents said anything about it before or after. Worst part about that was watching those movies with your mother, a little awkward.

I recall Jenny Agutter's brief scene of full frontal in Logan's Run also playing on daytime TV in Western Canada, among others. I don't believe there was much cutting of films for content on Canadian TV back then.

They also played softcore films, many of them French, French-Canadian and English Canadian productions known as 'maple syrup porn' (they weren't really porn) and uncut horror films like The Hills Have Eyes on late night TV.

I particuarly remember Betrand Blier's crazy and sex-filled Les valseuses with a young Depardieu and the French singer Miou-Miou, playing I believe on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) regularly! If a movie was in French and on later we knew it was likely to have some sex and nudity.

One of the channels that was best known for this, City TV, with their late night softcore 'Baby Blue' films, were the inspiration for the James Wood character in Cronenberg's Videodrome.

I was surprised and delighted to see one of these Canadian 'classics' Heavenly Bodies (which is nowhere as explicit as the title makes out) play on TCM Underground recently with a lovely, pristine print!
 
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I recall Jenny Agutter's brief scene of full frontal in Logan's Run also playing on daytime TV in Western Canada, among others. I don't believe there was much cutting of films for content on Canadian TV back then.

They also played softcore films, many of them French, French-Canadian and English Canadian productions known as 'maple syrup porn' (they weren't really porn) and uncut horror films like The Hills Have Eyes on late night TV.

I particuarly remember Betrand Blier's crazy and sex-filled Les valseuses with a young Depardieu and the French singer Miou-Miou, playing I believe on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp.) regularly! If a movie was in French and on later we knew it was likely to have some sex and nudity.

One of the channels that was best known for this, City TV, with their late night softcre 'Baby Blue' films, were the inspiration for the James Wood character in Cronenberg's Videodrome.

I was surprised and delighted to see one of these Canadian 'classics' Heavenly Bodies play on TCM Underground recently with a lovely, pristine print!

Must be the French influence on Canada. It is said the US was founded by people who were too uptight for England. :grin:
 
There was, up until around 2010, the "Blue Movie Special" on every Friday night (IIRC) on CTV, a Canadian TV network (not cable), that was just softcore porn movies.

Canada was always, I found, more likely to censor violence than sex (or drug use), pretty much the opposite of the U.S. Even the theatrical versions of the Cheech & Chong movies were completely different in the U.S. and Canada.
 
You guys are made of sterner stuff than me. Maybe it's my bad childhood, which is not a thing I will tell here. Hint: the people I call parents are not my biological parents. They're close relatives though.

Anyway, the first time I watched Aliens I was nine. It happened at my grandparents (father side). It was on the TV and my cousin insisted we watch it. My grandfather watched it too. Our little brothers quickly left, but we watched the whole movie. It gave me nightmares. It's interesting to note, that Aliens is now my favoite Alien franchise movie.
 
I first watched Alien when I was nine or ten, on a friend's 8mm projector (or something like that). I don't remember how many reels, but total running time can't have been much over 45 minutes. I wasn't exactly traumatized (probably due to the fact that the film must have been cut down to complete incoherence) but ISTR trouble getting to sleep for a few days. What gave me nightmares was watching the Triffids series on SSVC.

That said, I'm still more comfortable watching Alien when there's a big comfy chair to hide behind. I should have no trouble playing Isolation.

I first watched Episode I when I was in my twenties. That definitely traumatized my flatmates.
 
I was 10 when I saw Alien, caused nightmares for a little while. I was seeing some other movie, rated G, when I was 6 and they showed the preview for Beyond the Door (Italian Exorcist knock-off). I was so scared that night I was sick.
 
I grew up watching horror films with my older brothers so I had a pretty thick skin for scares, I loved Alien, The Thing by Carpenter and American Werewolf in London although the scene of the demons killing the family in the latter really creeped me out.

But it was seeing The Shining when I was 8 that freaked me out and gave me shivers whenever I had to take a bath.
 
It is said the US was founded by people who were too uptight for England. :grin:
Truth. England offloaded all their religious extremists on the colonies.
But it was seeing The Shining when I was 8 that freaked me out and gave me shivers whenever I had to take a bath.

I think I was around 8 in 1982 when I saw The Shining and The Thing on VHS. I loved The Thing but the motherfuckin' Shining terrified me.
 
Speaking of movie nasties, I remember the video rental era of the early and mid 1980s, especially the earlier Betamax era, where they would stick half an hour of previews on every video, sometimes with almost no regard for censorship.

I remember hiring out dodgy videos like Gor, Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, and The Sword & The Sorcerer, and seeing rather long previews for very mature-toned movies like: Basket Case, American Werewolf in London, Scanners, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Wicker Man, The Thing, Count Yorga Vampire, Deliverance, The Holy Mountain, The Hills Have Eyes, The Deer Hunter, Pirana, The Shining, Evil Dead, Caligula, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Blood Sucking Freaks, Shocking Asia, Eaten Alive, Reanimator, etc all that horror/art/exploitation stuff from the late 60s thru to the mid 80s.

Totally freaked out my brain from 8 years old to almost 15 years old - censorship seemed to be more reasonable after that
 
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Speaking of movie nasties, I remember the video rental era of the early and mid 1980s, especially the earlier Betamax era, where they would stick half an hour of previews on every video, sometimes with almost no regard for censorship.

I remember hiring out dodgy videos like Gor, Bakshi's Lord of the Rings, and The Sword & The Sorcerer, and seeing rather long previews for very mature-toned movies like: Basket Case, American Werewolf in London, Scanners, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Wicker Man, The Thing, Count Yorga Vampire, Deliverance, The Holy Mountain, The Hills Have Eyes, The Deer Hunter, Pirana, The Shining, Evil Dead, Caligula, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Blood Sucking Freaks, Shocking Asia, Eaten Alive, Reanimator, etc all that horror/art/exploitation stuff from the late 60s thru to the mid 80s.

Totally freaked out my brain from 8 years old to almost 15 years old - censorship seemed to be more reasonable after that

I think that just seeing clips and bits probably blew those films up in your mind as far more disturbing than they actually were. Your imagination of how horrible they were far outstripped the reality.

I saw almost all of those films between 12-14 and while some where better than others, none of them really disturbed me.
 
I think that just seeing clips and bits probably blew those films up in your mind as far more disturbing than they actually were. Your imagination of how horrible they were far outstripped the reality.

I saw almost all of those films between 12-14 and while some where better than others, none of them really disturbed me.
I dunno, stuff like Blood Sucking Freaks or Texas Chainsaw Massacre would probably still disturb a youngster quite a bit.

But yeah. half of those titles I ended up eventually watching later, and they were often no where as bad as the early previews felt for me in my primary/elementary school years. I mean, I was anxious about by Count Yorga Vampire, then saw it as a rerun when I was about 20 and thought how the hell did that ever freak me out? heh heh

(Not sure how all this got caught up in the Tolkien thread, but it's all very RPG Pub heh heh)
 
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I think that just seeing clips and bits probably blew those films up in your mind as far more disturbing than they actually were. Your imagination of how horrible they were far outstripped the reality.

I saw almost all of those films between 12-14 and while some where better than others, none of them really disturbed me.

Yeah there were previews and partial viewings that I found far more disturbing then the full movie.

This trailer creeped me out as a kid, the trailer is far scarier than the actual film which is just your typical person hiding in the house kind of thing.




I remember seeing The Entity with a friend and it turned out to be too much for him so he wanted to leave at what turned out to be maybe 10 minutes from the end. So we saw all that hype built up for the end of the film and left during the climactic build up, but did not get to see the relatively mild conclusion.
The attacks in the film were accompanied by a rhythmic thumping very much like an out of balanced washing machine. Loads of fun when you have that in your head and the laundry room is next to your bedroom in the basement, that actually gave me the creeps well into my later teens, actually it still kind of gives me the creeps, so thankfully we have a front loader so out of balance isn't a thing in the house these days.

I've always found Ghost / possession films and potentially real psychotic killers (Silence of the Lambs, Saw etc) to be far more disturbing than "monster movies". The first because a normal person is basically helpless against them, and the second because they could actually exist. Alien is scary, but A it is a movie monster so "not real", and two it is like fighting a lion or crocodile bare handed, the odds are heavily stacked against you, but at least in your head there is a slim chance of victory / escape.

Alien did give me the heebee jeebees for a few years when going into the basement after dark. It was an unfinished basement so the high ceiling with its pipes, wiring (and for some reason a chain wrapped around one of the pipes dangling down) reminded me very much of some parts of the Nostromo, particularly the "chain room" scene where Harry Dean Stanton meets the Alien.

On the glass is half full side of things it taught me to suck it up and go into rooms that terrified me. :dead:


I should mention until I was 18 we lived in a house that had a genuinely creepy basement, and my room was down there from about 13 onward. Cool I got my own room, not so cool it was next to a portal to hell. :grin:
 
I dunno, stuff like Blood Sucking Freaks or Texas Chainsaw Massacre would probably still disturb a youngster quite a bit.

But yeah. half of those titles I ended up eventually watching later, and they were often no where as bad as the early previews felt for me in my primary/elementary school years. I mean, I was anxious about by Count Yorga Vampire, then saw it as a rerun when I was about 20 and thought how the hell did that ever freak me out? heh heh

(Not sure how all this got caught up in the Tolkien thread, but it's all very RPG Pub heh heh)

When I saw TCM the VHS was a dark mess so I was only able to see it properly years later on DVD. A great horror film.

Bloodsucking Freaks I find too incompentently mounted and bald in its intentions to shock to be effective

I remember being spooked just by the VHS covers of movies as a kid but they rarely lived up to that 'promise.'
 
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Yeah there were previews and partial viewings that I found far more disturbing then the full movie.

This trailer creeped me out as a kid, the trailer is far scarier than the actual film which is just your typical person hiding in the house kind of thing.




I remember seeing The Entity with a friend and it turned out to be too much for him so he wanted to leave at what turned out to be maybe 10 minutes from the end. So we saw all that hype built up for the end of the film and left during the climactic build up, but did not get to see the relatively mild conclusion.
The attacks in the film were accompanied by a rhythmic thumping very much like an out of balanced washing machine. Loads of fun when you have that in your head and the laundry room is next to your bedroom in the basement, that actually gave me the creeps well into my later teens, actually it still kind of gives me the creeps, so thankfully we have a front loader so out of balance isn't a thing in the house these days.

I've always found Ghost / possession films and potentially real psychotic killers (Silence of the Lambs, Saw etc) to be far more disturbing than "monster movies". The first because a normal person is basically helpless against them, and the second because they could actually exist. Alien is scary, but A it is a movie monster so "not real", and two it is like fighting a lion or crocodile bare handed, the odds are heavily stacked against you, but at least in your head there is a slim chance of victory / escape.

Alien did give me the heebee jeebees for a few years when going into the basement after dark. It was an unfinished basement so the high ceiling with its pipes, wiring (and for some reason a chain wrapped around one of the pipes dangling down) reminded me very much of some parts of the Nostromo, particularly the "chain room" scene where Harry Dean Stanton meets the Alien.

On the glass is half full side of things it taught me to suck it up and go into rooms that terrified me. :dead:


I should mention until I was 18 we lived in a house that had a genuinely creepy basement, and my room was down there from about 13 onward. Cool I got my own room, not so cool it was next to a portal to hell. :grin:



I actually read the book The Entity in my teens without knowing there was a film. It was - much more graphic. Still I was surprised to learn that it was made into a movie, the subject matter seemed a bit much for Hollywood.
 
I actually read the book The Entity in my teens without knowing there was a film. It was - much more graphic. Still I was surprised to learn that it was made into a movie, the subject matter seemed a bit much for Hollywood.

I remember watching it on late night tv, weird movie but Barbara Hershey is really good as she always is.
 
Barbara Hershey was in one of the most disturbing films I ever saw in my life, from the 60s-early 70s. Don't remember the name of it, but it also had John Boy Walton when he was a teen. They were like these three teens who meet at a beach resort and find a wounded bird, and try to heal it, but then ed up torturing it, and then meet a girl whose a bit of a social outcast, maybe a bit slow or something, and start treating her like the new 'wounded bird". It wasn't scary, just really f-ed up, and left me with a kinda sick feeling.
 
Barbara Hershey was in one of the most disturbing films I ever saw in my life, from the 60s-early 70s. Don't remember the name of it, but it also had John Boy Walton when he was a teen. They were like these three teens who meet at a beach resort and find a wounded bird, and try to heal it, but then ed up torturing it, and then meet a girl whose a bit of a social outcast, maybe a bit slow or something, and start treating her like the new 'wounded bird". It wasn't scary, just really f-ed up, and left me with a kinda sick feeling.

That's Last Summer.
 
I actually read the book The Entity in my teens without knowing there was a film. It was - much more graphic. Still I was surprised to learn that it was made into a movie, the subject matter seemed a bit much for Hollywood.

I think it was hoping to cash in on the success of The Exorcist and Amityville Horror films. Despite involving ghost rape as I recall the scenes were relatively tame, and done in a way to make it clear what the entity was up to without going overboard for shock value or turning into some kind of fetish soft porn.

Abused women were also starting to be a hot topic in the 80s which might have helped get the film approved.
 
I think it was hoping to cash in on the success of The Exorcist and Amityville Horror films. Despite involving ghost rape as I recall the scenes were relatively tame, and done in a way to make it clear what the entity was up to without going overboard for shock value or turning into some kind of fetish soft porn.

Abused women were also starting to be a hot topic in the 80s which might have helped get the film approved.

You may have seen a cut print as the film's assault scenes are pretty disturbing and overt for a mainstream studio film.

One scene in particular shows Hershey full frontal naked with some very creepy special effects.

But I do agree the film treats its subject pretty seriously, it is just such a strange idea, in some ways the seriousness of the film and the quality of Hershey's performance just add to the oddness.
 
You may have seen a cut print as the film's assault scenes are pretty disturbing and overt for a mainstream studio film.

One scene in particular shows Hershey full frontal naked with some very creepy special effects.

But I do agree the film treats its subject pretty seriously, it is just such a strange idea, in some ways the seriousness of the film and the quality of Hershey's performance just add to the oddness.

No I recall that vividly, specifically the clear hand impressions appearing on her body but what I meant is the nudity and sexual situations were not gratuitous or "sexy", they were intended to be horrifying and I think they were. Done poorly the movie could have easily turned into fetish porn or gone into hentai territory.

I don't really find the movie out of place in Hollywood of the time. Sudden Impact came out the same year, and Tightrope the year after, both Clint Eastwood movies with strong themes of sexual abuse against women. There were a ton of teen sex comedies from major studios in the early 80s with more sex and nudity (Porkys and Revenge of the Nerds came out at about the same time).

I think it is easy to look back at Hollywood as very prudish, but I think they actually were willing to take a lot more risks back then, than now.
 
No I recall that vividly, specifically the clear hand impressions appearing on her body but what I meant is the nudity and sexual situations were not gratuitous or "sexy", they were intended to be horrifying and I think they were. Done poorly the movie could have easily turned into fetish porn or gone into hentai territory.

I don't really find the movie out of place in Hollywood of the time. Sudden Impact came out the same year, and Tightrope the year after, both Clint Eastwood movies with strong themes of sexual abuse against women. There were a ton of teen sex comedies from major studios in the early 80s with more sex and nudity (Porkys and Revenge of the Nerds came out at about the same time).

I think it is easy to look back at Hollywood as very prudish, but I think they actually were willing to take a lot more risks back then, than now.

Yeah in the 70s there was a lot more exploitation, that continued into the 80s but some more serious treatments also were done by the early 80s.
 
Ask a Star Wars fan circa the prequels. Apparently it can.
Nothing can be spoiled by any prequels that were never shot:thumbsup:.

No I recall that vividly, specifically the clear hand impressions appearing on her body but what I meant is the nudity and sexual situations were not gratuitous or "sexy", they were intended to be horrifying and I think they were. Done poorly the movie could have easily turned into fetish porn or gone into hentai territory.

I don't really find the movie out of place in Hollywood of the time. Sudden Impact came out the same year, and Tightrope the year after, both Clint Eastwood movies with strong themes of sexual abuse against women. There were a ton of teen sex comedies from major studios in the early 80s with more sex and nudity (Porkys and Revenge of the Nerds came out at about the same time).

I think it is easy to look back at Hollywood as very prudish, but I think they actually were willing to take a lot more risks back then, than now.
Wait, Revenge of the Nerds is an actual movie? I thought it's just a running gags on RPG forums:grin:!
 
Nothing can be spoiled by any prequels that were never shot:thumbsup:.


Wait, Revenge of the Nerds is an actual movie? I thought it's just a running gags on RPG forums:grin:!

No its real, they made several, although I can only recall seeing the first one.
 
No I recall that vividly, specifically the clear hand impressions appearing on her body but what I meant is the nudity and sexual situations were not gratuitous or "sexy", they were intended to be horrifying and I think they were. Done poorly the movie could have easily turned into fetish porn or gone into hentai territory.

Well scenes from the film are all over porn sites these days, so make of that what you will.

I think they did as "legitimate" as they could with a movie about ghost rape. As I said, the book was much more gratuitous.



I think it is easy to look back at Hollywood as very prudish, but I think they actually were willing to take a lot more risks back then, than now.


Oh, society is WAY more prudish these days
 
Nothing can be spoiled by any prequels that were never shot:thumbsup:.


Wait, Revenge of the Nerds is an actual movie? I thought it's just a running gags on RPG forums:grin:!
"Help, My Son is a Nerd," starring Ranier Wolfcastle, is a joke though.
 
If something can spoil a past experience, maybe you should stop letting the present change your past.

It is, after all just a film.
I'm not sure I follow. What kind of "present" has, in your opinion, changed my past? Because I don't see anything like that:thumbsup:.

Well, unless you are confounding me with some Star Wars grognards, but that's...usually a bad idea:grin:!
 
I think they used that first one for the Battle of Five Armies.

Also, what in the Halls of Mandos!?
 
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