The Tolkien Mega-Thread

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Since C.S. Lewis has come up in this thread, I'll just note that I was surprised that one of his Narnia books--The Silver Chair, I think it was--is basically a heroic fantasy novel with little in the way of Christian allegory. His Discarded Image is also a useful book if you're running an rpg set in the Middle Ages or Renaissance, since it provides a guide contemporary ideas about the nature of the cosmos.
With regards to the Narnia series, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe is actually sort of atypical in its allegorical elements - the traitor, the execution, the Resurrection, etc. With the exception of the End Times motif in The Last Battle and the creation scene* in The Magician's Nephew, I'd be hard-pressed to think of anything comparable.

*Which, to bring things back on topic, shares with Middle-Earth's creation myth the idea of God singing the world into being accompanied by a celestial backup choir.
 
CS Lewis lost me really early on when partway through the first book Santa Clause showed up tp hand out magic weapons. At ten years of age,it took a lot to offend my literary sensibilities, but I threw it away and never picked it up since.

Later on I would gain an appreciation for the BBC adaptions, just for their weird Doctor Who-ish home video vibe.
 
I found Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet an evocative science fantasy with a vivid vision of Mars undermined to a degree by his didactic instincts. I keep intending to get to his Perelandra to see what he makes of Venus.
 
I've mentioned Pauline Baynes before, whose illustrations for Tolkien's Smith of Wotton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham I adore. I was always sad we never got an edition of the Lord of the Rings illustrated by her, her one contribution to that work being the first published map...

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I found Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet an evocative science fantasy with a vivid vision of Mars undermined to a degree by his didactic instincts. I keep intending to get to his Perelandra to see what he makes of Venus.

I keep meaning to get around to reading Lewis' space trilogy, for the titles if nothing else.
 
An interesting perspective...


I got the 4k blurays for Christmas, but haven't wached them yet Does this ring true for anyone else?
 
A storygameish zine inspired by Tolkien's extended epilogue to LotR.

Back Again from the Broken Land—ZineQuest, via @Kickstarter
 
An interesting perspective...


I got the 4k blurays for Christmas, but haven't wached them yet Does this ring true for anyone else?
I’m not a fan of the super-high resolution versions of movies.

A friend of mine bought the Blue Rays of the original Star Wars movies, and when he put Star Wars on his TV it was like watching a soap opera on cable. The worst part was that you could see that the interior of the Millennium Falcon was just a set instead of the actual interior of a space ship. It was just way too clear, and it took me right out of the movie.

Same with the Blue Ray of The Avengers. The battle in New York, where Cap is on the soundstage surrounded by green screens and styrofoam props looked completely fake.

So I don’t really understand this desire for super-high resolution. To me, it makes movies less immersive rather than more.
 
An interesting perspective...


I got the 4k blurays for Christmas, but haven't wached them yet Does this ring true for anyone else?
I saw the high frame rate version of the first hobbit movie with friends first and then later the regular version with my kids. There is a startling clarity that was present in the first but not the second. But now that I have a 4K Monitor and watched a bunch of 4k videos, I like the clarity of 4K in a lot of ways. Plus I think they are getting better at balancing everything. So maybe the blurays won't be as startling.
 
I guess the LOTR trilogy does possibly occupy the same space as the Star Wars trilogy for Generation X for those of a younger generation.

But they didn't have to wait 20 years for some godwaful prequels, so the heartbreak probably wasn't built up on a lifetime of nostalgia...
 
I read this article about the George Lucas thing and the author wrote:

And that, I think, is why all the George Lucas hatred is fundamentally misplaced — and, in fact, why my initial gut-reaction (“Screw you, George!”) reflects much worse on me. The reason why our first response is to hate George Lucas is not because Lucas is ruining our childhoods. Far from it. Lucas is, perhaps accidentally, forcing us to admit two things: First, that our childhoods are over; and second, that the things we enjoy when we are children tend to be silly.

He also says before that:

George Lucas can’t ruin my childhood, because my childhood already happened.

Reminds me of a George Carlin joke.

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Hell, DVDs did that for me. I was so excited when all these shows from my childhood were finally being released...until I watched them...

There's a few exceptions, but sometimes memories are best left as memories.

That said, I disagree with the sentiment. Star Wars was still an entertaining film series for adults. It's audience was not children, regardless of Lucas's intentions. And The Mandalorian is definitive proof that Star Wars for all audiences can still be damn fine entertainment.

As my favourite rebuttal for the Phatom Menace being for kids goes...

"What do kids like? Trade negotiations!"
 
Hell, DVDs did that for me. I was so excited when all these shows from my childhood were finally being released...until I watched them...

There's a few exceptions, but sometimes memories are best left as memories.

That said, I disagree with the sentiment. Star Wars was still an entertaining film series for adults. It's audience was not children, regardless of Lucas's intentions. And The Mandalorian is definitive proof that Star Wars for all audiences can still be damn fine entertainment.

As my favourite rebuttal for the Phatom Menace being for kids goes...

"What do kids like? Trade negotiations!"
The world would be a poorer place without dear old Harry S. Plinkett.
 
I'm going back through the Silmarillion in eventual anticipation of fancy new books. I'm still trying to decide about the fancy edition. It's either that or PDF.
 
Would it be sacrilege to have somebody else return reinterpret the The Lord of the Rings for readers who don’t like all the poems and other things? It would be like making a novelization of the Peter Jackson movies, I guess. I don’t know how to explain it better. Like editing the best of the books and repackaging it?
 
Somebody did a fantastic troll job after Fellowship came out where they wrote a couple chapters of the book of the movie. It was dreadful :smile: Predictably, the fans exploded.

I've always thought the proper format for The Lord of the Rings would be a three or four season television series. I think for much of the poetry, you'd want to put in a stylized animated bit showing the story told in the poem to give it visual interest.

For those who don't want the poetry, it's easy enough to skip. Tom Bombadil not so much.
 
A graphic novel adaption of The Lord of the Rings could be brilliant, with the right author to adapt and artist(s), though obviously it would be a hell of an undertaking

There was a Hobbit one, but I wasn't impressed. Too compact and claustrophobic feeling, no room for the art or story to breathe
 
A graphic novel adaption of The Lord of the Rings could be brilliant, with the right author to adapt and artist(s), though obviously it would be a hell of an undertaking

There was a Hobbit one, but I wasn't impressed. Too compact and claustrophobic feeling, no room for the art or story to breathe
There was one in a Bulgarian comic magazine. They reached Moria or thereabouts, IIRC.
 
I really liked the Decipher game. One more pass at that and it would have been nearly perfect.
I was just about to post a similar comment in the TOR2 kickstarter thread. The game had a lot of hidden value. I particularly liked the attributes, the skill list, how the rules were backed by quotes, the non-photo art pieces, and how it solved the PC magic user problem. Granted there were sections that needed a rewrite.

You should start a thread about how to fix it.
 
I share a name with a Disney artist who did a LOT of original LOTR art for calendars and stuff.
 
I'm going back through the Silmarillion in eventual anticipation of fancy new books. I'm still trying to decide about the fancy edition. It's either that or PDF.
Which edition are you looking at? I want to get a hardcover edition. I've heard this is a good one (?)

This new edition of The Silmarillion contains the revised and corrected "second edition" text and, by way of introduction, a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1951, which provides a brilliant exposition of his conception of the earlier Ages. It also contains almost fifty full-color illustrations by the artist Ted Nasmith, many of which appear for the first time.

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Which edition are you looking at? I want to get a hardcover edition. I've heard this is a good one (?)

This new edition of The Silmarillion contains the revised and corrected "second edition" text and, by way of introduction, a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1951, which provides a brilliant exposition of his conception of the earlier Ages. It also contains almost fifty full-color illustrations by the artist Ted Nasmith, many of which appear for the first time.

View attachment 26927

That's the edition currently on my shelf. It's quite nice.
 
There's a BBC dramatisation of the Lord of the Rings which is quite faithful (and considerably shorter than a full narration would be) available on Amazon's audible.

Personally, I can't stand Peter Jacksons Tonal deafness that mars the movies.
 
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