The Tolkien Mega-Thread

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Wasn't there a Russian book that basically told the Lord of the Rings as if it was actually Mordor that was the good guys? Like Mordor was on the verge of an industrial revolution and then the Elves came and destroyed Mordor in order to keep humans subjugated by magic.
 
Giganotosaurus said:
Wasn't there a Russian book that basically told the Lord of the Rings as if it was actually Mordor that was the good guys? Like Mordor was on the verge of an industrial revolution and then the Elves came and destroyed Mordor in order to keep humans subjugated by magic.
Click to expand...
Last Ringbearer.
And I think it's not the only one, but that's the one that fits the plot.

P.S.: I'll get you for that, Séadna Séadna :shade:!
 
Giganotosaurus said:
Wasn't there a Russian book that basically told the Lord of the Rings as if it was actually Mordor that was the good guys? Like Mordor was on the verge of an industrial revolution and then the Elves came and destroyed Mordor in order to keep humans subjugated by magic.
Click to expand...

Séadna said:
Yeah, it's "The Last Ringbearer" by Kirill Eskov. AsenRG AsenRG , I've only had it described to me. Have you read it?
Click to expand...

AsenRG said:
Last Ringbearer.
And I think it's not the only one, but that's the one that fits the plot.

P.S.: I'll get you for that, Séadna Séadna :shade:!
Click to expand...

Silent Green said:
Иматъ прѣвод, приꙗтелю!
Click to expand...


I had no idea such a thing had been written. I am very curious and plan to read it. Thanks!
 
TristramEvans said:
The Appendix is far and away the best part.

No bullshit "derpity-doo" nursery-rhyme songs, for one...
Click to expand...
I agree the Appendix is the best part. However I also like "derpity-doo" stuff and memorized quite a bit of it.

O there was an inn a merry old inn, beneath an old grey hill.....
:tongue:
 
Silent Green said:
Иматъ прѣвод, приꙗтелю!
Click to expand...
Where did you pull the pre-40ies Bulgarian from (the one in the text pointing to the link:grin:)? Just curious, but if it's a machine translator, it might help for running 30ies pulp...

(And I don't need a translation from Russian, I translate it for other people...so I either didn't know, or had forgotten an English translation exists:tongue:).
 
I swear I had a translated PDF of The Last Ring Bearer at one point. Now I got to dig through my computer files.
 
AsenRG said:
Where did you pull the pre-40ies Bulgarian from (the one in the text pointing to the link:grin:)? Just curious, but if it's a machine translator, it might help for running 30ies pulp...
Click to expand...

Sorry, I just pulled up the Bulgarian in Google Translate and threw it in a blender with a two slices of Wiktionary and a spoon of online Russo-OCS dictionary. Nostalgia, really; Old Church Slavonic was a big thing in German role-playing at the turn of the century.

There's 30s Bulgarian pulp? What was cooking at that time?
 
Add one more vote for the first movie as the best one by a large margin.
There are huge scripting and editing problems with the other two.
 
AsenRG said:
so I either didn't know, or had forgotten an English translation exists
Click to expand...
There's no official translation as such and a Russian speaker told me the current ones on the net are middling. That said I'm not sure how good the original is. I was told it gets worse toward the end.
 
Séadna said:
There's no official translation as such and a Russian speaker told me the current ones on the net are middling. That said I'm not sure how good the original is. I was told it gets worse toward the end.
Click to expand...
So not that different from the original LotR.
 
Séadna said:
You know Tolkien never made fun of your writing.
Click to expand...
Ah yes, the professor of languages that was also a member of various literary societies who needs some dude on the intarwebz to white knight for him.
 
For me , Two Towers was the weakest film, mainly because it deviated so far from the novel and really "missed the point" in a lot of cases.

The one that still bothers me most on rewatch is the Wargs
You know what's really cool? Goblins riding wolves
You know what's less cool? Hyena-type things that are clearly not wolves

The character assassination of Farimir was particularly painful. I think that, and the elves at Helms' Deep both showed the stark contrast between Tolkien and Jackson & Co. Tolkien's was a story about faith in humankind - they may stumble along the path, but they are capable of being good, of being better than they are, and of pulling together against the odds. But the filmmakers are pessimists. It doesnt matter how good a person Farimir is, NO ONE can resist the temptation for power that the Ring represents. Of course the humans alone can't hold against overwhelming evil, they need supernatural help.

This film also cemented Gimli as just "the comic relief". He can't be onscreen without quipping a joke.
 
Conversely, I think the Two Towers is the strongest section of the Lord of the Rings novel. Fellowship is very clearly Tolkien stumbling along looking for his path in the story. It's disjointed, and meandering, and tonal whiplash. I love it for that, hell I love Tom Bambadil, but seriously, WTF was that entire sequence? The payoff of the Barrow blades wasn't enough to justify this completly random non-sequitor at a point then our "heroes" are supposed to be on the run from the forces of Darkness hunting them. Instead, they are attacked by ghost and a tree, each time saved by a magical fat man who prances through the forest. It's awesome, but ridiculous, and feels like it was cut and pasted from some 16th century fairy tale into the story. And one of our main characters is a pony who does nothing until Tolkien finally cuts him lose when the characters suddenly get done f-ing about and discover the Plot again.

The Two Towers novel, on the other hand, really conveys the multi-faceted structure of what's going on. the spiral to despair that Frodo and Sam takes with each step towards Mordor, the oppression of the rings thick in the air through every desperate moment.

And the struggle of Argagorn and Gandalf to wake mankind up, to throw off the malaise and casual acceptance of evil that has crept like a cancer throughout the world, to that final crescendo of gathering the will to fight a battle that no one believes they can win, simply because it IS human to struggle.
 
Oh, and the othe rmajor thing in the Two Towers film that really gets me is the dialogue, nowhere better summed up by these two lines by Theoden in succession:

"Simbelmyne.
Ever has it grown on the tombs of my forebears. Now it shall cover the grave of my son.
Alas, that these evil days should be mine. The young perish and the old linger.
That I should live to see that last days of my house."

cut to..

"No parent should have to bury their child."
(*Theoden sobs*)

What? Those are clearly lines by two completely different characters living centuries apart speaking completely different languages and living in completely different worlds.

That's like an adaption of Hamlet that goes...

"To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life."

(beat)

"I swear I will get my revenge on my Stepfather!"
(*Hamlet shakes fists of rage*)
 
TristramEvans said:
That's like an adaption of Hamlet that goes...


"I'll get your ass for that, Stepfather!"
(*Hamlet gives the finger to an invisible interlocutor*)
Click to expand...
Just a slight correction:thumbsup:.
 
TristramEvans said:
For me , Two Towers was the weakest film, mainly because it deviated so far from the novel and really "missed the point" in a lot of cases.

The one that still bothers me most on rewatch is the Wargs
You know what's really cool? Goblins riding wolves
You know what's less cool? Hyena-type things that are clearly not wolves

The character assassination of Farimir was particularly painful. I think that, and the elves at Helms' Deep both showed the stark contrast between Tolkien and Jackson & Co. Tolkien's was a story about faith in humankind - they may stumble along the path, but they are capable of being good, of being better than they are, and of pulling together against the odds. But the filmmakers are pessimists. It doesnt matter how good a person Farimir is, NO ONE can resist the temptation for power that the Ring represents. Of course the humans alone can't hold against overwhelming evil, they need supernatural help.

This film also cemented Gimli as just "the comic relief". He can't be onscreen without quipping a joke.
Click to expand...

I am quite sure that Peter Jackson is "that guy" who always plays an elf archer.

I have a number of minor gripes with the films, but the real crimes to me are diminishing Boromir's death scene / redemption (done so much better in Bakshi's LotR), and his fawning all over Legolas and elves in general. Gimli was every bit the skilled warrior as Legolas, but in the films he is reduced to a competent side kick. The elves arriving at Helm's Deep completely misses the point of the scene and the theme of much of the books.

This elf fanboyism went completely off the rails in the Hobbit movies. Sad because there is a great film buried under his unrestrained elf love and amusement park syndrome. The Hobbit films should have been called Elves are badasses, and oh yeah I think some dwarves and a hobbit meet a dragon or something.
 
Last edited:
I like Lord of the Rings but sometimes it feels like it’s trying too hard, for lack of a better way to say it.
 
Toadmaster said:
I am quite sure that Peter Jackson is "that guy" who always plays an elf archer.

I have a number of minor gripes with the films, but the real crimes to me are diminishing Boromir's death scene / redemption (done so much better in Bakshi's LotR), and his fawning all over Legolas and elves in general. Gimli was every bit the skilled warrior as Legolas, but in the films he is reduced to a competent side kick.

This elf fanboyism went completely off the rails in the Hobbit movies. Sad because there is a great film buried under his unrestrained elf love and amusement park syndrome. The Hobbit films should have been called Elves are badasses, and oh yeah I think some dwarves and a hobbit meet a dragon or something.
Click to expand...
A6DF8C88-0A94-42FB-96A3-FF8639526912.jpeg
 
I like Lord of the Rings fans, but sometimes it seems like they're trying too hard, for lack of a better phrase.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TJS
Silent Green said:
Sorry, I just pulled up the Bulgarian in Google Translate and threw it in a blender with a two slices of Wiktionary and a spoon of online Russo-OCS dictionary. Nostalgia, really; Old Church Slavonic was a big thing in German role-playing at the turn of the century.

There's 30s Bulgarian pulp? What was cooking at that time?
Click to expand...
OK, that explains the peculiarities. Never knew that about Old Church Slavonic, though! Actually it kinda surprises me, but then I don't know the German RPG scene... other than the popularity of the DAS.

There were quite a few crime stories at the time. I'm not sure about anything similar to pulp, though, and I'd suspect not.
If anything, the period was, for us, way more akin to the 50s (and to a lesser degree to the 2000s) in America, or even closer - to the 20ies in Germany, so the zeitgeist was way too different, IMO. (Unless it's just me not knowing about those stories existing, which is quite possible:thumbsup:).

There's a reason why noir became a thing instead of pulp at that comparable period, right?

However, I was thinking about just running an "international pulp". And maybe adding a few Bulgarian characters, possibly some secret agents, such things. And secret agents would have secret documents, which in turn would be written...well, not in contemporary Bulgarian, that's for sure (there was a language reform after that decade, for starters:grin:).

Séadna said:
There's no official translation as such and a Russian speaker told me the current ones on the net are middling. That said I'm not sure how good the original is. I was told it gets worse toward the end.
Click to expand...
Let's just say opinions might differ wildly:shade:!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top