J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) wrote “The Hobbit”, “The Lord of the Rings” and other books in which he tells stories of Middle Earth, a world he invented. It is so wonderfully detailed that you feel as if you were there. Even though it is full of elves, dwarves, dragons and orcs, it seems realer than ours when you are reading it.
Tolkien loved languages. After learning Welsh and Finnish, he invented a language for himself. From there he invented the rest of the world that goes with it – other languages, histories, countries, kings, heroes, old songs and strange creatures.
He started by telling the stories to his children. Later they became books.
As with the old Greek stories about gods and heroes, the attraction lies not in the sort of truth you find in history or science books, but in its moral truth.
- “The Hobbit” (1937) tells the story of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit – like a man but shorter with more hair. He goes on a journey with 12 dwarves and a wizard, Gandalf. They cross the mountains and then the great Mirkwood to fight Smaug. He is a dragon who lives in a mountain, where he keeps the gold he took from the dwarves. On the way Bilbo finds a ring with strange powers…
- “The Lord of the Rings” (1954-1955): Bilbo gives the ring to his son Frodo. With the ring Frodo could rule the whole world, but that would make him even more evil than Sauron, who rules the south and wants the ring for himself. To save the world Frodo must go to the heart of Sauron’s land to destroy the ring. “The Lord of the Rings” is often written as “LOTR” for short. It was put out as three books for reasons of length.
Tolkien says there is no deeper meaning to his stories – he wrote them only to amuse. The ring does not stand for the atom bomb, Sauron is not Hitler. Still, they tell a great story of good against overpowering evil.
Tolkien wrote “The Lord of the Rings” out by hand. He did not have money for a typist, so he had to type it himself before it could be put out as a book. This became in effect a rewrite.
Tolkien taught at Oxford. He studied and taught the language and books of the West Midlands of England in the Middle Ages, stuff like “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (1300s).
He fought in the First World War at the battle of the Somme, where he lost two good friends. He thought the 1900s were a grey time to live in, but it is where God had put him so there must be a reason for it.
Like C.S. Lewis, he was part of the Inklings, a writing club. They met and read what they were writing. Here is where “The Lord of the Rings” and the Narnia stories were first heard.
Tolkien worked on the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). He researched word histories for the words from “waggle” to “warlock”.
See also:
- Lord Of The Rings
- The Chronicles of Narnia – by fellow Inkling C.S. Lewis
- story
- science
- Hitler
- 1900s
- OED
I can’t believe this thread is empty… But as far as I can tell, there are commenters who like his work.
LotR is one of my favourite books, and I could talk about it for hours… and still having a lot to say about why I like it.
But perhaps the most beautiful thing Tolkien ever written is Ainulindalë in The Silmarillion.
Here’s what I wrote in the Narnia thread:
I know different people see different things in LotR, which is their right (anybody can interpret a novel any way (s)he wants), so some people think the whole novel is a huge WW analogy, which he denied with passion.
I’ve always believed Tolkien simply wrote a story, creating these artificial myths that are so real, so rich in details, so full of languages (that can actually be spoken, with real grammar and all), that they seem like a real mythology created by a group of people. That is a very important thing that all (to my knowledge) other high fantasy novels lack: to create a believable world, it’s not enough to have a rich imagination, you all need to have a knowledge of how to make it work, how to make it real. (That’s why I think anthropologists would make good fantasy novelists).
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Oh, and Frodo was not Bilbo’s son.
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Someone pointed out on another forum – in Return of the King, in the moment before the battle at the gates of Mordor, the heroes and villains are arrayed…
…and the good guys are all white skinned, and the bad guys have all got brown or black skin.
Is this is a form of racism? Or is it simply portraying reality as it is?
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It is a form of racism.
I love Tolkien’s work, I won’t deny it. But it’s clear he wasn’t, well, untouched by the white racism.
Also, the whole LotR is basically a made-up middle-ages European mythology. Guess who were the bad guys to the middle ages Europeans and where did they come from? The East. (Turks, for example). While there are elephants in the story, most of the bad guys seem closest to the Middle Easterners.
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@ Mira
I believe that the “Haradrim” or “Southrons” (as described by Tolkien) were meant to be Black Africans. The Haradwaith was also referred to as “the Sunlands” Where the “stars were strange,” indicating that far Harad was in the southern hemisphere.
However, Tolkien was not blind to the idea of white racism. When writing the history of Númenor in the Silmarillion. I give you this quote from Wikipedia:
“They [the men of Númenór] built a great city in the firth of Umbar, a vast natural harbour on the southern shores of the Bay of Belfalas, and eventually turned the city into a fortified citadel from whose gates they levied great tributes upon the tribes of Harad. Many of the Haradrim were killed or sold into slavery.”
According to Tolkien’s history, it was this subjugation, murder, and slavery, that was first imposed by the White Númenóreans that later caused the Haradrim to side against Gondor in the War of the Ring.
When Sam Gamgee looks down upon the slain Haradrim warrior in The Two Towers Tolkies has him wonder, “what lies or threats had lead him on this long march from his home.”
And finally, after the revival of the reunited kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor in the Fourth Age, peace was made with Harad.
It does not seem that Tolkien ever meant that the inhabitants of Harad/Africa were evil or inferior, but were manipulated by Sauron based on their previous mistreatment by the White Númenóreans/Gondorians.
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Michael Moorcock famously referred to the LOTR as “Epic Pooh” and he had no use for what he saw as Tolkien’s conservative Romanticism.
Tolkien himself spoke out against Apartheid and Nazism.
His works do endorse or perhaps exhibit a sort of biological determinism BUT they also have very strong messages against racism, arrogance and imperialism. Numenor (his Atlantis) goes bad not just when Sauron gets there but before Sauron’s arrival, when the Numenoreans get the bright idea that because they are more “advanced” than other men they thus have the right to rule over them and demand tribute.
Tolkien shows his disapproval of this idea when he has King Theoden tell Saruman (paraphrasing) that even were Saruman ten times as advanced or wiser than the Rohirrim that Saruman would still have no right to rule over them.
There are some problematic things in Tolkien’s works no doubt. But compared to Howard, Lovecraft or Chambers he was positively liberal.
And it’s important to note that one of Tolkien’s desires was to create/recreate a particularly English mythology, which he felt had been lost after the Norman invasion. So he was working with Anglo-Saxon and other Northern European themes.
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By the way, Tolkien got an huge inspiration when he found finnish language and Kalevala, our national epic.
About the racism in LotR. I think it is not so. When they talk about fight against Sauron and totalitarism, they talk of all the people of the Middle Earth. And so, you have elves, dwarfs, hobbits, humans and even the ents on it together, even though the history between elves and dwarfs is not so rosy. I think the relationship between Legolas and Gimli is Tolkiens way of saying that two races can and should be friends and allies. They hated each other but became the most enduring friends after all.
When I was a kid reading LotR I saw orchs as black skinned, but not human black. As a matter of fact I saw some of the elves as black humanbeings (meaning afrofeatures), dwarfs something like mediterannean-north african and so on, but not the orchs. I saw them as ash dark, colorless, meaning that they had no human color in them.
They were moulded in the mines of Utumnon by Morgoth from the elves, tortured and fashioned among the machinery and such, so they must have been dirty from the oil, ash and smoke, hence “black”. And since they were creatures of the deep and night they had no color in their skin other than the industrial grime and muck that stuck on them.
So while the others were something else, and let me remind that even Aragorn is described as dark and brown skinned, the orchs did not present not a race but a fright, horror, fear, desperation, suffering and all the other dark and sinister thoughts of Sauron.
If you have seen pictures of mainers who are covered on that coal dust, that is how I saw and still see the orchs. Not as blacks or resembling africans etc.
I have no idea does this make any sense. Comments??
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http://abundancesecrets.com/motivational-posters/index.php?item=3791953
Something like in this image of two german cola miners.
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Hmm. None of the Elves were “Black”. They are generally described as dark haired “Whites”with the exception of those of Vanyar descent who are blonde. There were a few silver haired ones as well. Eol was a Dark Elf but that refers more to the fact that he and his never saw the Light of the Two Trees of Valinor and not to his skin tone.
Aragorn is dark in the same way a Celt might be dark or tanned.
Even the Easterners and the Near Haradrim are not really “black”-just different (darker) than the the Men of the West. I think the only Black people would have been the Men of Far Harad, who generally aren’t discussed in the stories , with a few noted exception.
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Like I said, I love (love, love) Tolkien’s work, and LotR is one of my favourite books.
Still, it doesn’t mean I should give him a pass where I wouldn’t to another author.
Do I think Tolkien was (openly) racist? No, I don’t. I do believe he was honest, with his heart on the right place. Still, he wasn’t free of racism- some of it did have an impact on him and it shows.
You could say this is one of those cases of “being a child of your own time”, but it’s an excuse that is rarely seen as valid, and I am not sure if it can be used to cut him some slack. – if it’s not used for others.
However, I do think it’s exactly the case here: he wasn’t a bad man and he was against evils done in the world around him. But he was also a child of his own time and place, and he was socialized in a particular way (just like other people of his background), in a particular time and place, and he wasn’t free of racism.
Just like none of us (or almost none) is free. It’s simply impossible to grow up in our world and to be completely non-racist.
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I love Michael Moorcock’s Eric of Melnibone!
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It’s not really to do with race but one thing I always thought sort of funny and highly unrealistic was that Aragorn shows up out of nowhere claiming to be the true heir to a line of kings thought lost thousands of years ago and is not only taken seriously but actually gets the throne.
LOL
In real life or more realistic fiction, Denethor would have had Aragorn arrested immediately after which Aragorn would have caught a sudden case of death while “trying to escape”.
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@shady; you forget Aragorn was only of the dunedain, so he had some friends there, also the elves and Gandalf backed him up so… And also rohirrim backed him up too.
Yeah, I just talked how I saw it as a kid. For me the race played no big part, however I really did see the elves as “multi racional” bunch, angel like folks, who were the first ones, and so more acient and pure forms of the people of Middle earth, includin the haradrim.
As for Aragorns darkness, I saw him as a dark brown figure, like native american type (last of the mohicans influence I guess :D) or something that sort. Numenorians could have been like indians or some other distant people. Something like that for me as a kid.
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Yes, but it’s, well… a myth.
Honestly? I’ve never liked Aragorn that much. He was waaaaay to perfect for my taste. I understand why he had to be, but I prefer three dimensional characters.
My favourite character is Sam. In a way, HE, and not Frodo, is the true hero of the story.
PS- How to keep LotR fans occupied? Start a “who or what is Tom Bombadil” discussion. 😀
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@ Sam.. Yes, but by the Third Age the Elves were militarily and physically mostly a spent force. They would give advice and gifts to certain favored mortals (i.e Aragorn) but they weren’t going to be getting involved in human dynastic disputes. Most of them were getting out of Dodge , so to speak.
Using the Rohirrim as a base of support would have just started up all the old ethnic hatreds that had resulted in the previous Gondor Civil War.
Sure Aragorn had relatives/loyalists far and wide but if it came to it they would have been grievously outnumbered by Gondorian troops. The lack of numbers is a big part of why the Rangers went underground in the first place.
The best outcome was what happened in that Aragorn healed Faramir and was recognized as King. But given that our own history shows people murdering or imprisoning their own family members in order to become King or Queen it didn’t really ring true to me that the Stewards wouldn’t have declared themselves Kings after Earnur’s disappearance. It’s not consistent with human nature. If someone showed up today in France or Germany talking about he’s the rightful descendant of Charlemagne 😀
But it was a book so…ok.
BTW Joe Abercrombie, who is some ways is the anti-Tolkien had a very different take on a similar event in his First Law Trilogy. However Abercrombie is EXTREMELY cynical-something Tolkien wasn’t. I like both approaches.
I guess given Tolkien’s description of Aragorn there’s no way I could have seen him as anything other than Caucasian. :=)
Tolkien gives a brief but detailed description of Strider in The Fellowship of the Ring: lean, dark and tall, with shaggy dark hair “flecked with grey”, grey eyes, and a stern pale face.
@Mira, yup Bombadil is a puzzle. As you know Tolkien put him in specifically to mess with people and said that not everything ought to be explained. Since he is obviously some sort of immortal and claims to be the Oldest he must be some sort of Maiar-an Earth Spirit perhaps. It’s odd that the Ring has no power over him but I think Tolkien was making a point that Tom, who truly had no desires, was free from the temptation of power.
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You see, I’ve always thought Tom was put in the book before the worldbuilding was finished, so there is no real explanation for him.
Remember, he appears at the point at which Tolkien, more or less, still believed he was writing a sequel to Hobbit… and not a complex, “adult” book.
So my theory is that he never managed to find an appropriate place for Tom Bombadil, that this character was created before Tolkien himself set all those rules for his world.
I might be mistaken here, but it’s something I’ve always assumed to be the case… That Tolkien himself didn’t really know who or what Tom Bombadil was, or what was his exact place in the mythology.
Other than that, my favourite theory is that Tom is Eru. But this was proven to be false, as far as I can tell, in numerous discussions. (Still, it is a theory I personally like the most).
The simplest explanation is that he’s Maia… After all, there are so many kinds of Maiar (from Sauron to Gandalf).
Still, there is something unique about him, that no other character has. So it’s entirely possible he’s one of a kind (be it because of the “sloppy” writing or intentionally).
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Mira, what are some of the places where you think Tolkien’s racism shows?
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His “racism” might be a bit of a strong term, because it implies Tolkien was a racist person, which I don’t think he was- not anything more than any other white person who lived in his time, place and cultural conditions. He might have been less racist than your average person, but I believe he was affected by his time (who isn’t?)
In this sense, I believe he was more of a “child of his time” than a “racist” racist, if this makes any sense.
But the truth is, his work is, more or less, whitewashed. Now, it makes perfect sense for it to be, considering the fact he was writing an artificial English middle ages mythology. You can’t expect many East Asian characters in there, now can you?
LotR was written back in the days when white authors didn’t pay that much attention to non-whites (the whole idea of diversity in literature and multiculturalism didn’t exist). A today’s author couldn’t just create a mythical world, no matter how European middle-ages inspired, without prominent non-white characters. Remember, JK Rowling was also criticized for this (for quite some time, I believed Hermione could have easily been a black girl, and I was sure I’d prefer it to be like that… But then the whole “mudblood” thing came to be and I’ve realized it was better this way).
But unlike many other authors of his days, Tolkien didn’t adopt the colonial mentality of writing about discovering Africa and bringing civilization to those wild peoples… And we all know many authors were obsessed with this stuff back then. There are non-whites in LotR, and they are not portrayed in the most positive light, but they are not completely trashed the way real non-whites were in some of the books.
So all in all, I don’t think Tolkien was an active racist, but I do think he was influenced by his own time and culture. And you are unable to be completely racist-free in those circumstances (even today).
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What I’m basically saying is that Tolkien’s racism was quite similar to his sexism.
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I would say that the Haradrim where portrayed not to be evil, but victimized by Númenór.
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Tolkien had every opportunity to write out the sins of White colonization, but instead he went out of his way to write a history where the Southrons had been conquered, made to pay tribute, and enslaved by the Númenóreans, thus justifying their opposition to Gondor.
It seems that if he were a virulently racist, he would have written that history quite differently – especially in those days. It would have been eagerly accepted by many.
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@ sam is of course my guy in the story because, well I am sam. 😀
As for Tom Bombadil, that guy is clearly father christmas! 😀 Not in a saint Nicolaus vein, but as a guy who does not care what evil everybody has done, who is in the same beat as the nature around him and totally disrespectful of the “dark powers”. He just sings along and has a jolly good time. And food. 😀
Also, the ents remember him as the First One, so he’s been around and nevermind the ring, he drives away ghosts and anyone he wants really, and doesn’t give a toiss about nazguls.
Gandalf does not think too much of him, but since he is the First One, that means that Tom has survived the original evil Morgoth, all those upheavals and things in the past, and he is still around. So no wonder he does not consider Sauron much of guy. After all, he has seen everything Sauron has done in the past and then some more.
For me Tom Bombadil is one of the best characters in the story. He is there to remind us that even when it seems that everything is in danger and everything is connected to this ring stuff, that is not the whole picture. Even Gandalf says so in Moria: there are things older than Sauron and orchs etc.
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Ok, let’s confess: who hated the fact Tom Bombadil wasn’t in the movies?
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Did so 😀
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Great post Mira!
I understand what you mean. I would just quibble a bit about today’s fantasy authors as many of them (especially if they are white) are quite comfortable writing worlds that are either white, focus on whites, or have no major black or non-white characters.
I don’t think Tolkien was an active racist by any means. I do think he had some form of belief in biological differences but that doesn’t mean he endorsed differential treatment on those differences. Some of the greatest evils in his world came from people who were convinced they were better than the other. I think this grows out of Pride which was of course the proximate cause of Morgoth’s fall and thus the ultimate seed of evil-Pride expressing itself as opposition to God.
Another Christian or in Tolkien’s case Catholic theme is in the end of LOTR when Fredo, after everything finally fails in his quest. He is not stronger than evil, after all. And yet out of the blue Gollum chooses that point to attack and winds up destroying the Ring. It’s reminiscent of what Gandalf told Fredo, “Bilbo was meant to find the Ring and not by its maker. And that is a comfort”. It also harkens back to what Eru told Morgoth all those eons ago (paraphrasing) “There’s no work you can make that does not rebound to my glory”.
What looks like the triumph of evil is undone via evil’s own actions and the grace of Eru.
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@King
Yup. I don’t know that Tolkien would ever have been an anti-colonialist per se but he definitely gives backstory to legit grievances that the Haradrim and for the matter the Dunlendings and Druedain had against the men of Gondor and Rohan.
As far as Bombadil I always thought given the slightly dismissive way Gandalf speaks of him that they knew each other from WAY back.
Gandalf was probably thinking “While I was listening to Eru’s music and paying attention, this clown was getting high and making goo-goo eyes at Goldberry. He never should have been sent to this world. How he got out of Maia Academy I’ll never know”.
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@shady: 😀
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“Ok, let’s confess: who hated the fact Tom Bombadil wasn’t in the movies?”
Yes and no for me.
I would have liked to have seen Old Tom and Goldberry. But from a screenplay standpoint, it is just the kind of thing that’s perfect to take out for a swifter-moving movie script. Same thing goes for the Barrow-wights and Ghân-buri-Ghân, and The Scouring of the Shire. You have to leave some things for the book, or you’ll have a 6 hour movie 🙂
But, I admit that I wish there was a director’s cut somewhere with Tom and a C.G.I Fatty Lumpkin!!!
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Well, as much as I hate to admit it, LotR book is heavily unedited, which leaves plenty of “random” details (that are probably not really random, but don’t seem to be connected to the main story). In that sense, yes, I understand the decision to skip Tom Bombadil.
But I must also say I wasn’t really satisfied with the movies; the only perfect thing about them was the music. It’s the only thing that managed to truly catch the LotR spirit.
The movies were fine, visually stunning and what not, and some of the people did an excellent job. But there were so many things that simply didn’t do the novel justice.
Arwen, for example. Arwen with a sword. The way they made Faramir look bad. The bad way they handled many important scenes (read: my favourite scenes, lol :D), such as Eowyn’s fight with Nazgul and my favourite scene in the whole novel, when Sam takes the ring after Frodo was attacked by Shelob.
Also, I disagree about Scouring of the Shire. Sure, that part doesn’t go well with the triumphant finale… But that’s the point, in a way. Tolkien himself believed it was an essential part of the book, and a very important one for that matter. And it makes much sense and there’s an important point (just like about the already mentioned part when Frodo goes evil and doesn’t have the strength to destroy the ring- the part when he claims the ring for himself is one of the best moments in the book, imo, and the one that makes the whole work double amazing). So all in all, I don’t think cutting Scouring of the Shire was a good decision.
Also, to do this novel justice, you must make at least 6 movies (one for each “book” within the novel), and make each of them at least two and a half hours long.
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Yeah Mira, I agree with about The Scouring. It was important in that Tolkien was bringing the story full circle. But even more, Tolkien seemed to be making the argument for that the wars most worth fighting are not always big and far away. It speaks to not just dealing with the troubles in foreign lands but to dealing with the problems in your own back yard.
Gandalf tells the Hobbits while while in Bree (on the way back home). “I am not coming to the Shire. You must settle its affairs yourselves; that is what you have been trained for. Do you not yet understandûr My time is over: it is no longer my task to set things to rights, nor to help folk do so. And as for you, my dear friends, you will need no help.”
So it’s also a passing of the torch. Gandalf did not expect to have a permanent and parental role. He was willing to teach his lessons and then to let go.
But it still would have taken a fourth movie to fit all of that in!!! Cinematically, I’m not sure that Peter Jackson had much of a choice.
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Well, there is always a choice… Of not adapting something that can’t really be adapted. Not yet, anyway.
Maybe the worse decision- and I know many people would disagree with me here- was to make a CGI Gollum. CGI is simply not realistic enough, not yet, so while Gollum was decent, he wasn’t realistic enough. Also, it’s such a complex role (with a huge dramatic potential), that I’d strongly prefer to see a real, live action actor as Gollum, even if it means applying old fashioned masks and what not. You can’t do Gollum justice with GCI, I am sorry, nothign more than you can with a CGI Gandalf (and the role of Gollum is, arguably, the most complex one in the story).
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the movies are movies and ok as such. the beef I have with them are the changes they made in the story and with some carachters which were un called for.
Faramir in the book is there to remind us all that not even humans are totally corruptable. He does not even want the damn thing in the book nor he wants to stop or delay Frodo. That is the idea: if you are good and honest, the ring has no power on you. And there are those who are like that.
Arwen and the sword was I think a big blunder. Arwen is more powerful than swords in the book because she is who she is. She is after all, the grandaughter of Galadriel. They tried to explain it in the extended dvd but I was not convinced. Looked like they did not trust in her.
As much as I dis like the heavy CGI in any movie, I can’t see how else or who could have pulled off Gollum. That actor should have been anorechtic for the beginning. I did not see a problem with Gollum other than he was better in the first movie. They softened him up too much. He did, after all, eat babies in the book, like Gandalf tells.
I would have liked to see Ghan buri Ghan and those guys! They after all were also one of the oldest guys in the story and survivors of the Dark Times.
But they should have done so long movies that no studio would have accepted them so this was a compromise. Decent one too.
Well, one more thing: Moria was too sunny and open place for my taste. The very beginning of the Moria part is like I saw it myself, the one right after they go in. After that: too much space and too much light. After all, it was a really dark place in the book, so dark that Balins tomb looked in their eyes like a brightly light room.
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Oh, don’t get me started on Faramir! Ok, I admit it, I did have a crush on the guy (did I type this out loud?) But seriously, he was one of my favourite characters and they changed him… They made Aragorn refuse the ring and not Faramir. They made Faramir look just like an ordinary man (meaning: easily corruptable), and quite similar to Boromir. (While they are meant to be total opposites).
As for Gollum, it was a tricky situation. No mask could do the justice or seem realistic enough. So CGI was a logical thing to do. Still, I would prefer an unrealistic mask WITH a good actor (because it’s a complex, dramatic role!), than realistic CGI. Plus, they did make Gollum a bit one dimensional.
And the casting was a bit off at places… Eliah Wood, cute kid, but not enough of a caliber for Frodo. Sean Astin, same. Please, don’t hate me for this, but couldn’t they find British actors?
PS- All this LotR discussion… I wonder what would happen if the book wins in “island books” poll. What would we be discussing then?
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Yeah, if I remember correctly, Aragorn does not even want the damn thing and does not even take it up in a conversation unless someone else does.
Both director and screenwriter said that they wanted to make it clear that the ring is so evil that no one can resist it, which is the opposite what Tolkien says in the book. The most humble, hobbits, can resist it and some humans can too, Faramir for example. Tom Bombadil does not even think about it twice and it has no effect on him at all.
So what Tokien said was that most of those who have somekind of power, Galdriel and Gandalf included, are easily corrupted presicely because they have the tremendous power to be corrupted. Also, those who are wicked, like Smeagol was, can be corrupted by the Evil. BUT, not all and not every one! It is a choice: do you want the One ring or not? It is up to you.
I think that is a very. very important message in the book. Not everyone, nor all are corrupted or can be corrupted. In the movie they twisted this into: every one will be corrupted if possible. Did not like that at all.
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Hmmm… It wasn’t really like that in the movie, Sam. They did make it seem Aragorn (of all people) could resist the ring without a problem. Remember, Frodo offered it to him and he refused it! It was so out of character for Aragorn! And then they made Faramir look evil and corruptable, which ruined his character for me, and he was one of my favourite characters in the book.
Also, Sam. I don’t quite remember the movie, but Sam was unaffected by the ring. Hobbits generally are resistant, and it takes a time for the ring to start affecting them (it hit Frodo during the journey, plus, I believe Sam was even more resistant due to his gentle and naive nature).
There is no enough words to express my admiration for Sam, my favourite character, his complexity, his behaviour and his heart. The moment when he takes the ring after Shelob, and then realizes it makes no sense without Frodo, and goes back for him, it’s my favourite moment in the book (and probably one of the favourite I’ve ever read, in any novel). I remember virtually trembling and shaking while reading that part for the first time; I remember where I was sitting and everything. So powerful.
Like I already said, to me, Sam is the true hero of the novel. And I don’t think they handled his story and journey well in the movie.
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@mira; I know, but in the book it was so. Aragorn knew that he would have the palantir and have to do with that. No use to weep after the ring. Nor he wanted it. And they did change Faramir too. Yep.
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All in all, while the movies were incredibly beautiful and nice, I guess, I don’t think they truly did the novel justice.
The only thing that rocked was the music; it managed to capture the spirit of the novel the way the rest of the movie couldn’t.
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