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Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
Yup, big Lord of the Rings (LoTR) fan here. The books and the movies. But they have to be the Director's Cut versions of the films. Each one of those is roughly three and a half hours long, IIRC. While it's possible to watch all three in one day, though I've never attempted that, it's best spread over three days. And yes, I'm still a bit miffed that Tom Bombadil and the barrow wights didn't make it into the films.
The first one of Tolkien's books I read was The Hobbit (as an aside, didn't care at all for those movies, too long, not faithful to the book, and too long, yes, I mentioned that twice), this must have been in the early 70s. A friend of mine recommended it to me, loaned me his copy he did. I don't really remember how I got from there to the three volume series, but it happened in the early 70s for sure. Frodo lives and all that.
The first film in Peter Jackson's trilogy based on LoTR came out in 2001, The Naviguesser was home (it was his first year in the Navy) and the whole family headed off to the theater to watch The Fellowship of the Ring, the name of the first book and the first film. We went shortly after Christmas, not long after the film came out.
After that, for the next two years, we would go to another LoTR film. Walking out of the third film, we all felt a bit like, "Man, that was the last one. What are we gonna do next year?"
It had become a short-lived family tradition to go to a LoTR film. Okay, it was only for three years, but after the first one, we couldn't wait for the next. I think I wanted to rush right out and buy the first film on DVD, but the progeny talked me out of it.
"Just wait Dad, wait until all three come out on DVD. Then we'll wait for the Director's Cut versions. Then we'll binge watch all three!"
Yes, we did that. The Missus Herself thought we were all nuts. She sees no need to watch a film, or read a book, more than once. "What? Weren't you paying attention the first time?" Mind like a steel trap that lady. (And I'm the one always stepping in it!)
I've read the books many times, though to be honest, I skipped trying to read the Elvish poetry after the first. Each time I found another facet of the story that I had missed before. I have a fascination with these type of stories, the End of Days genre if you will. When all seems lost a free people will arise and preserve what they can. But each time, something is lost.
J.R.R. Tolkien knew this, he had seen the horror of the trenches in World War I, the West had survived, not triumphed, simply survived. We managed, as a species, to survive the horror that was World War II, though millions perished. Something again was lost, never to be recovered.
To my way of thinking, Mordor is on the march once more. There are those among us who seek to rule us all, through outright lies, false promises, and dreams of "free stuff." We have to guard against the evil which stalks the planet, and always has. Someday the final victory will come.
But we're not there yet. And yes, I associate socialism with the One Ring.
The opening scene of the first film still sends shivers down my spine.
Keep your guard up.
Happy I am to read of your enjoyment of these things.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post.
Paul L. Quandt
:)
DeleteDiscovered The Trilogy senior year high school and after finishing them had a complaint, they were too short! Love at first reading and began an annual reading every fall during university years....lol. Yep, saw the movies in the theater and got the DVDs. Ah socialism....the look is fair but the feeling is foul eh? Tolkien had the right of it.
ReplyDeleteTolkien was brilliant.
DeleteI was in high school back in the 60's, my friend's brother really liked the books & had been trying to get me read them... I finally borrowed the Hobbit. I was up all night reading it... the next day I borrowed the trilogy and did nothing else that weekend but read them.. Wow!
ReplyDeleteI think you have something there with the "Mordor is on the march again".
Great books.
DeleteI hope I'm wrong...
I have read them all and watched all the movies.
ReplyDeleteI first read The Hobbit on my second deployment in 75-76.
Naturally!
DeleteI got to read LOTR in the provincial library where it was simply because the library got the duty to gather everything ever printed in country. Got my own paperback as soon as the free market flooded the bookstores with all kind of wonders previousaly too rare to own.
ReplyDeleteTolkien himself was a WW1 veteran of trench warfare, something that shows in his description of grittier aspects of warfare...
The Dead Marshes and Mordor are reminiscent of the blasted no-mans-land between the trench lines, while Samwise Gamgee is tribute to all the low-born nameless footsloggers.
Still to this day some of the my fave quotes ring (no pun intended) true:
“Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. “Strider” I am to one fat man who lives within a day’s march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly.” (Aragorn, LOTR) - it depicts the service of the guardians unseen, be it submariners or secret services, or special forces...
But if hope should not fail, then I say to you, Gimli son of Glóin, that your hands shall flow with gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion. (Galadriel, LOTR) - this is the fate of the best of the businessmen, those who manage to give away to good causes as successfully as they manage to earn.
Also the Galadriel remarks or corrupting nature of the ring - they remind me so close of the "absolute power corrupts absolutely". This is why checks and balances, and divisions of power are so important to democracy everywhere.
You see clearly!
DeleteSpot on Pawel. I believe Tolkien based the Dead Marshes on his experiences on the Somme, I particularly like a quote of his from that time " the most improper job of man is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, least of all those who seek the opportunity'.
DeleteHaving seen the films the only slight criticism I have is that Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn just seemed a bit too 'smooth' for me. Having read the book I imagined Aragorn as being a rough, lined weatherbeaten character, a bit like Sean Bean perhaps?
Mordor may well be on the rise but where from? The left or the right? I am holding to the view that the extremes of both meet round the back and are both as evil in their own ways.
Retired
Won't disagree on where the threat might be coming from. Extermists are bad, no matter what their "bag" is.
DeleteWe should look further than "left" and "right". We have elephant in the room called islamic fundamentalism, and growing "green radicalism". We had in our own Western history periods of religious fundamentalism crossing paths with conflict for power ( 30 years war anyone?) and coming November shall see anniversary of "mother of all 9/11s" (yeah the guy that is on the masks that are mass-produced in China using at best half-slave labor - oh the irony). BTW I wonder what wonedrful alternative hsitory could develop if Fawkes succeeded - earlier and more brutal English Civil War?
DeleteI think Tolkien would love Miyazaki - for both of them Mordor was coal and steel and oil fuelling the industrial war machine grinding millions to dust and ashes... yet in both of them works there was something worth fighting for, and, in case of Miyazaki, even co-opting elements from the other side that shared the basic nobility...
Extremist of all causes, have one thing in common, contempt for compromise, consensus and sharing power with opposition. Another common trait is tendency to use violence, and lack of inhibition in targetting.
Well said Paweł! Well said indeed.
DeleteEnjoyed reading much more than watching.
ReplyDeleteThe only Hobbit I’ve seen is a cartoon version, on television.
A number of “fantasy” tales have the earmarks of analogy.
Roger that!
DeleteAt least the movies didn't have 27 pages of Tom Bombadil singing. Tolkein must've been toking a lot when he wrote that part.
DeleteHahahahahaha!
DeleteIn high school I picked up a copy of "The Sword of Shanarra" by Terry Brooks and then blazed through the rest in succession. It wasn't until after the first movie that I read LOTR, realizing Brooks completely ripped off Tolkein. Imitation/flattery though I guess.
ReplyDeleteThe Naviguesser was a big Shanarra fan. Having read LoTR, I just couldn't get into those.
DeleteI’ve met Brooks a couple times (the gf is a big fan, so). Seems like a pretty nice guy, and certainly has the “right” attitude towards fame and all that. Also, very short.
DeleteNot saying the man isn't talented, I just never got into his books like my son did. I did read the first one, but again, wasn't LoTR, so...
DeleteIt's kinda cool that you've actually met the guy.
It’s like taste in fiction is personal and subjective, or something :)
Delete(I read like two of the Shannara books, and they were entirely non-memorable to me.)
Like PLQ always says, "To each his/her own." It's a freedom thing, but yeah, it's a preference thing mostly.
DeleteI threw away the copy of "The Elfstones of Shannara" that my brother gave me. It was such a total ripoff that it would've qualified as theft of intellectual property nowadays. Ugh. It still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It wasn't even fanfic.
DeleteIt happens. I threw a book away once, it was a misogynist screed masquerading as science-fiction. Horrible book. Poorly written and the author was such a hater.
DeleteSounds like you got one by John Norman. I've only ever tossed 2 books over the side to watch them float away, almost completely unread. They weren't foul, they were just awful and very poorly written.
DeleteDid a quick search, I believe that was the rascal himself.
DeleteHorrible book. I would have burned it but I was living in the barracks on Okinawa at the time. The authorities always seemed to get anxious when we airmen would start burning things. A quick heave into the trash was sufficient.
If you look at them from a specific point of view, the Harry Potter series has the same political cautionary tale, IMHO.
ReplyDeleteExcellent point. (Guilty pleasure, I loved the Potter books.)
DeleteWhen I said "fantasy tales" above, Terry Brooks is who I was thinking about.
DeleteAh! The light comes on, slow, but I get there eventually.
DeleteAm also ticked off with the missing Tom Bombadil section. A 'man' so ancient and powerful even Sauron himself wouldn't screw with, and who remained neutral, and kept his lands neutral no matter what. And you could stay there, for a price. Switzerland, eh?
ReplyDeleteThe Barrows is one of two big point that I totally got peeved at Jackson for cutting. Ancient blades, hidden in tombs back when the whole Nazgul thing started, guarded by evil entities, waiting for the right time to surface. Prophesized about, even. Without an accident, the whole quest would have failed. Without a fight for one's inner soul... One of the most 'Norse' concepts that Tolkien hid within the books. And Jackson just passed it by. Fiend.
The fight over the Shire and the rebuilding after all the destruction also was a major part of the book, one of my favorites in fact, and I was sorely disappointed. There was much emphasis over the Party Tree and all it represented, and the loss of everything familiar by the time the 4 friends returned home. The replanting and magic dirt from Galadriel, along with the planting of the ?Rowan tree? seed so symbolized the return to a peacetime world. Not the same, but still the same. But those who saw the war on the frontlines, ever touched. Those in the rear? Lives shattered over what seems to be so much less trauma, but still... Dark section, dark section indeed.
Well, and not really touching on what 'going West' was all about. People so damaged, hurt, lost, that they couldn't stand anymore to see their homeland, and just left. Like the many 'Germans' who fled the unification struggles, or all the emigrants after WWI from Europe. Or the min-exodus of Jews to America before FDR pretty much shut down immigration for those people.
So many topics, so little time.
The books are a stark reminder that even if good succeeds, it succeeds at a terrible price. People touched with PTSD, or shell shock, or whatever they called it back then. Old men, who have been fighting all their lives, just worn down and mentally messed up by all the pressure, while someone the same age and seen the same things still acting as young and fresh as the youth he once was. Young men, struck down by a mysterious illness or a magical wasting after only one fight (the effects of the Nazgul upon men, see?)
Easily could have been a 6-8 movie series with each being 2 to 3 hours long. One of the major components of the books is the shear God-awful amount of time it took to walk from Normandy to the heart of the Ottoman Empire, oops, I meant from the Shire to the center of Mordor. You get some of that, the passage of time, but you don't really get it that they spent years on this crusade. It wasn't just a summer vacation. Years.
It took me several times of reading, but the evil just wasn't the Nazis and Fascists (as represented by the goblins and orcs of the mountains and forests between the Shire and Rohan, it was a huge, long-lasting, impenetrable empire in the Southeast where everything was different, but the same. Hmmmm. Just what was Tolkien warning us about, eh? An unconquerable evil that keeps springing from the ashes of victory? One can see the First Crusade right there in the opening scene that you posted.
Interesting topic. Are you trying to make us think again?
Wow. Beans, you've had a lot of good comments, but this one is your best so far! Nailed it, nailed it, nailed it.
DeleteWhile there was much left out of the movies, they gave me a great context for when I re-read the books. And yes, yes, yes, the quest to destroy the Ring was a long hard slog, I didn't notice that from the films, probably because I knew that. I wonder how many people missed out on all that from just watching the movies. Excellent points.
I'm always trying to make people think, when I'm not just being goofy.
Evil arises again and again, Santayana's quote about people refusing to learn from history springs to mind. Evil only goes away when it is utterly destroyed, you can't negotiate with a philosophy that wants you to either submit or die.
Damn, now you've made me think!
Tolkien, being of the whole late Great Britain/WWI era, and a medieval scholar with a specialty in Norse sagas, had a front seat to the long view of history. From the cluster-fruck of the Crimea, to the Boer war, to WWI and Gallipoli. Toss in all the Crusades and the Spanish Reconquista, and the darker Sagas, well, people think these are just 'teen angst' novels.
DeleteFar from it. He wrote about the world descending into Hell itself, tearing itself apart over thousand-year hatreds and slights, with all the power of the new world and the horrors of science unleashed. He may not have known about the atomic bomb directly, but there was enough literature out there, both scientific and in fiction, that pointed out the next war was going to be very nasty.
Taken out of the historical context of the world he lived in, the books and the milieu is very powerful. Add in the historic context, well, the books are darker than 6' up a Nazgul's behind at night in the mines of Moria.
Had this argument with one of my 'Engrish' teachers in High Screwl. She thought the books were all about goodness and socialism and such. All the hippy-dippy interpretations you would have expected of an post-flower child. Me? Not so much. I think I caused her to stroke out when I tied in comparisons to Heinlein's "Starship Troopers."
But, come on.. Look at the friggin MAP! Moria is maybe the Southern Alps or Northeastern Italy. Mordor is the Ottoman Empire. Gondor is maybe Constantinople or Acre or maybe Crusader Jerusalem. All the action in "The Hobbit" is just a pleasant walk into east Germany.
Oh the hippies and Tolkien, always some bloated hippie chick with more hair than a Turkish butcher and smelling like a goat. You know, the ones who always called themselves Galadriel. But looked more like orcs.
DeleteYes, scarred for life I was.
Beans, you got it right. I missed Bombadil (along with the great old willow scene). Along with the aftermath. Tolkien was a veteran of the Somme and you can see how that shaped his thinking. I remember getting rather pissed off at one critic of the book who complained that there was no real character development of the part of Frodo. He merely survived, and damaged, at that. Well, no shit! Tolkien knew war first hand.
DeleteI was pissed at Peter Jackson, too, for making orcs in the image of Nosferatu. My brother suspects that was PC in play. I don't know. But the over-the-top CGI, especially in the last one, turned me off. It's not like it wouldn't be impressive enough sticking to the literary descriptions. Sigh. Jackson got it mostly right, though. But that damned dwarf-tossing joke simply did not belong. Momentary laugh, but was dwarf-tossing ever really a thing in Middle Earth? When they're prickly of character and carry axes? I have my doubts. An out-of-place anachronism like Caesar joking about cheese-eating surrender monkeys as the Gallic hordes attack at Alesia.
Sigh, there was that too. Agreed, funny to a contemporary audience perhaps, but contemptuous to the work Tolkien put into those books.
DeleteGood point on the Southrons. There was never any talk anywhere of taking the war to them once Mordor was destroyed. They came and fought for Mordor and then just faded away. Kind of like the Ottoman Empire.
DeleteI see your point Cap'n.
DeleteI just never got into the whole sword/sorcery/wizardry/fantasy thing. I was always hard-core SCIFI, like Niven, Heinlein, and others.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate the skill and thought that went in to creating those works, I just wasn't interested in them.
Back in the day I gobbled up science fiction, now it's really hit or miss. If it isn't Pournelle, Niven, or Heinlein I won't even touch it.
DeleteThe sword and sorcery thing? Tolkien, and that's about it.
David Eddings is a good fantasy writer, writing two great mythos settings. Christopher Stasheff (RIP) is another one, writing sci-fi/fantasy with a strong Christian background and a believable and understandable base behind 'magic.'
Delete@Sarge: I actually enjoyed Heinlein's "juveniles" far more than his later books (e.g. Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday, etc) which I unfortunately read first. If you haven't delved into H. Beam Piper or Poul Anderson you might enjoy many of their works.
DeleteBeans - There's only so much fantasy I can take. Really isn't my cup of tea, though there are some really talented writers of that genre.
DeleteMike_C - I may have to delve into those. What little Heinlein I've read, I liked for the most part.
Delete"Starship Troopers" is the last of Heinlein's juveniles, in a way. "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel" is a classic. So is "Farmer in the Sky." And so many more.
DeleteAnd as to fantasy and sword slinging, well, you have to watch it. The two I mentioned make their characters seem like real, likeable people (on the good side, that is.)
When I was a lad I rather liked Fritz Leiber's characters, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I must find those.
DeleteWow....Fritz Leiber...I read him in high-school. I was fortunate that my high-school had quite a collection of SciFi. I read all of Bradbury, and the stumbled on Heinlen. Niven and Pournelle came along as I devoured everything I could find. My SciFi buddies and I would make lists of books we wanted, and then each of us would buy one from the list from the book lady that came twice a month to sell books, and then we'd swap the books around amongst ourselves.
DeleteAwesome!
Delete"When I was a lad I rather liked Fritz Leiber's characters, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I must find those."
DeleteWith you 100% on this, OAFS.
Paul
:)
DeleteI got hooked on the books when I was in high school. I burned through the books, and remember searching for The Return of the King while I was on a trip to Houston. Driving back to California, through West Texas, in a thunderstorm, looked exactly like Mordor.
ReplyDeleteHey! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. ;-)
DeleteMike - Um, um, yeah, I can see that.
DeleteJuvat - Ouch! My eye!
Delete(Just kidding.)
It's all fun and games until someone gets an arrow in the eye, and then, poof, you're King of England!
DeleteYeah, for like five minutes, then the next thing you know the French all over the place.
DeleteWhile I overall enjoyed the Jackson LOTR films, my complaints aren't about what was left out, but what was done to major characters. John Wright (scifiwright) had a good review/rant about the first Hobbit-by-Jackson movie which touches on some of these points, but from a somewhat different perspective than mine. In no particular order of egregiousness:
ReplyDelete1. Aragorn was made into a modern neurotic soyboy. Recall the early scene with him in Rivendell agonizing over whether the "weakness in his blood" (might be a paraphrase, been years since I watched it, but Movie Aragorn is referring to his ancestor Isildur's failure to destroy the Ring when he had the chance at Mt Doom) will doom him to failure. He has to be talked out of his funk by Arwen. NO! The descendants of Elendil in the North were always immensely proud that the mortal Man Isildur strove with and overcame a demi-god -- and cut the ring from his hand. That Isildur later fell into folly was unfortunate, but never considered to be some sort of genetically transmitted weakness. Aragorn was bound and determined to do the seemingly impossible to win (or earn) the hand of a lady far above his station. This is a heroic, or epic archetype, and it is sad that Jackson messed with it.
2. Problems with replacing Glorfindel with Arwen. Sure, these days Grrrrls Must Kick Ass and all that, especially part-elf grrrls I suppose, but no. Wrong. Not the archetype of this sort of myth. And make no mistake, Tolkien created such depth of backstory (or implied backstory, through fragments of songs and poems in diverse strange tongues) that he created no less than an entire mythos, the depth of which is so much of the appeal.
3. The vision, the suggestion, that Galadriel could transform into that scary blue-faced she monster, as she contemplates Frodo's offer of the ring: John Wright goes on about the wrongness of this better than I could here, but it's jarring and just plain wrong. Even if she were to be corrupted, as would have been inevitable, by the Ring, THAT would not have been the arc of her fall. IMNSHO.
4. Denethor is belittled. The Steward of Gondor, the Lord of the Tower of Guard, was NOT the petty, greedy (eating that big meal and smacking his lips over cherry tomatoes, in a besieged city short on food!) peevish ass. While he HAD been led astray (to despair) by The Enemy (via the palantir), because of his strength of will and devotion to his duty and his people -- in the books anyway -- led him to manifest this as a determination to go down fighting, willingly sacrificing everything he held dear (including his sons) and an excess of martial asceticism. "He even slept in mail, girt with a long sword."
I could go on, but Wright's indictment of Jackson may be correct, in that Jackson seems a man who could get the Hobbits mostly right (yes, well done; though Merry and Pippin were not ONLY mostly comedic louts, but also scions of Great Houses, at least such as Hobbits had; i.e. they could certainly act foolish as young men do, but fundamentally they came from Serious People), but Jackson was less right on the great ones. (Though IMO Boromir was done pretty well.) From my perspective it seems that Jackson either didn't know how to portray (much less understand) the archetype of the epic hero, or even the noblesse oblige of proper kings and lords, or he deliberately sought to subvert and belittle those qualities.
Hmmm. Looking at the above I get the feeling that I'm pissing all over something you very much like, out of spite, or something. Not my intention either to offend or ruin your enjoyment of what I must admit is a tremendous achievement by Jackson. Perhaps my friend R. was right. She has held steadfast in her position all these years: "I KNOW what Strider looks like. I don't need to see a movie to show me, especially if they get it wrong!"
No offense taken Mike_C. The brilliance of Tolkien's writing, the nuance, the subtlety, the feeling that in LoTR you are just scratching the surface of the ancient history behind all that, is probably impossible to capture in three films, lengthy though the director's cuts of those are. But Jackson did tell an epic story, he took some liberties with Tolkien's work, but overall I thought he did well. The Hobbit films though, were a complete dog's breakfast. I was very disappointed with those but as I understand it, Jackson came very late to the making of those films.
DeleteAnd the beauty of New Zealand was breathtaking. Felt otherworldly, Middle Earth come to life so to speak.
I do wish that they had included the Scouring of the Shire in the last film. A very important piece left out.
Sigh, Hollywood...
Pretty much describes why I didn't see any of the movies. I learned at the tender age of 11 that having read a book the last thing I wanted was some other guy stuff his version of a story I really enjoyed, down my eye. I read The Hobbit in 1972 after I swiped it from my older sister and the rest within a few years. I used to reread them once a year but I slowed down over the years.
DeleteI still enjoyed the films.
DeleteBut I get what you mean.
I disliked the movies very, very much, yet I rather liked the Hobbit, for all it's faults. I reread The Lord Of The Rings at least once a year, it is such an enjoyable tale. But I also grieve the loss of Terry Pratchett, who was perhaps the funniest writer in many a long year.
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
DeleteAnd yes, Terry Pratchett had a wonderful sense of humor.
StB is right, Terry Pratchett is always a good read/reread.
DeletePLQ
Might have to read some of his stuff.
DeleteThis ring, no other, was made by the elves
ReplyDeleteWho'd pawn their own mothers to get it themselves
Ruler of mortal, creeper and scallop
This ring is a sleeper that packs quite a wallop
If broken or busted, cannot be remade
If found, send to Sorhead (Postage is prepaid)
Hahaha!
Delete