• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.
I watched all three Hobbit films - and I can remember absolutely nothing about them, except for the closing shot of one instalment, which was of Smaug breathing fire at the camera.

I saw the first LOTR film and maaaaybe the second. The only thing I can really remember is Legolas in tights. :oops:
 
I think it was a grandson that appeared in one of the movies.

Yeah, it was Royd Tolkien so a great-grandson technically.

Daniel Day Lewis

would be a great Feanor

Definitely, but it'd be unbearable to be an actor working with him on the set. Sidenote: I've always felt that people say Tolkien's elves are perfect because the average casual Tolkien fan doesn't read the Silmarillion.
 
Last edited:
Whereas my daughter has a soft spot for Sean Astin's Sam, 'because he's so homely'
I've always assumed he was a sort of stereotypical Tommy Atkins, displaying the cheerful optimism and courage during WWI that impressed the mostly upper class officers.
Probably too simplistic, mostly because my instinct says that it may be something of a myth.
 
Whereas my daughter has a soft spot for Sean Astin's Sam, 'because he's so homely'
I've always assumed he was a sort of stereotypical Tommy Atkins, displaying the cheerful optimism and courage during WWI that impressed the mostly upper class officers.
Probably too simplistic, mostly because my instinct says that it may be something of a myth.

JRRT admitted to basing Sam on the officers' batmen in WWI. He said his batmen were better soldiers than he was, or something along those lines. Then the Shire is based on rural England in the late Victorian era, around the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for that.
The hobbits themselves were famously based on the people of the West Midlands where I live.
More Birmingham side than Black Country I think, although he is recognisable as a character, despite his ooh arr Devonian accent.
Opinions differ, but the Black Country may have got its name from the days when it was a big industrial centre, from the thick black smoke everywhere.
Opinions also differ as to where exactly the Black Country is, which I've always enjoyed, definitely not Birmingham though.
 
Thanks for that.
The hobbits themselves were famously based on the people of the West Midlands where I live.
More Birmingham side than Black Country I think, although he is recognisable as a character, despite his ooh arr Devonian accent.
Opinions differ, but the Black Country may have got its name from the days when it was a big industrial centre, from the thick black smoke everywhere.
Opinions also differ as to where exactly the Black Country is, which I've always enjoyed, definitely not Birmingham though.

In fact, Sarehole, where he grew up, is the inspiration for Hobbiton.
 
The New Shadow of War Trailer Throws a Tolkienesque Kitchen Sink at Middle-Earth

The first game in Warner Bros’ latest Lord of the Rings franchise, Shadow of Mordor, tried to position itself as something that could have ostensibly happened in between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. It played with, but respected, the canon of Middle-Earth. Its sequel, on the other hand, is tossing that out the window for wall-to-wall LOTR madness.

A new story trailer for Shadow of Mordor released today is pretty much a rundown of almost everything Tolkienesque (or at least, specifically inspired by the movies) it can get its hands on, throwing it all in your face as a cavalcade of Middle-Earthen hysteria. Seriously, you’ve got giant spiders, you’ve got Sauron himself, you’ve got orcs fighting men (and women! And even a black guy!) of Gondor, ringwraiths, dragons, what looks like a balrog—the whole kit and caboodle. There’s even a glimpse of one of the craziest things this series has done so far in action: the creation and use of a brand new ring of power.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-new-shadow-of-war-trailer-throws-a-tolkienesque-kit-1795926940
 
Whereas my daughter has a soft spot for Sean Astin's Sam, 'because he's so homely'
I've always assumed he was a sort of stereotypical Tommy Atkins, displaying the cheerful optimism and courage during WWI that impressed the mostly upper class officers.
Probably too simplistic, mostly because my instinct says that it may be something of a myth.

I went to an all-girls school for the last years of primary school and most of high school. Quite a few of my classmates had crushes on Orlando Bloom's Legolas.
 
Maybe that's why he's in The Hobbit. Iirc Titanic achieved mega box office by repeat visits from girls in love with Leo.
Evangaline Lily may have been fan boy totty I suppose, to put it crudely, she's very good, but I just remember thinking "who the heck is that?"
I liked the luminescent appearance of Celeborn and Galadriel when they first appear, another one of those nice touches that Tolkien fans would have appreciated as elves that had seen the light of Valinor.
That subtle referencing of the past seemed to desert Jackson in The Hobbit, over produced imho.
 
I think one of the "issues" with all of the movies are the demands of producers.... action sells so up the action sequences (the Hobbit films were bad/good for this)....no comedy in the books so shoehorn some in (re Gimli and the Ents)

That said some of the realisations were fantastic.... Edoras, the Orcs and Uruk Hai, Minis Tirith, the Balrog.

The biggest crime for me (apart from the presentation of the Ents) was making Gollum cough the "gollum" sound instead of it being a swallowing noise as stated in the book. New Japanese translations of the books since the films use a transliteration of the name Gollum but the original Japanese translation called him "Gokkuri" which is their onomatopoeic word for a swallowing noise. My personal theory is that, in extremis, Gollum has often swallowed the ring in order to keep it safe, that's why he "gollums" a lot when talking about his "precioussssssss"
 
Interesting ideas regarding the old sushi fan. Gollum issues aside I thought Andy Serkis was perfect casting, indeed the casting director should have got an Oscar imho, so many actors were a great fit.
I'm glad Christopher Lee will be remembered by a new generation of film goers, he tore up the screen, as he always did, older fans will remember him as Dracula, in the Hammer films and he did a lot of promoting and cajoling people to watch The Wicker Man, arguably the greatest horror of the 70's.
I suppose my gripe, which may be a fault in the book as well is the disconnect between the dread reputation of the Witch King of Angmar and the Nazgul generally and the fact that Aragorn was able to fight off four of them atop Amon Sul. Puzzled me that.
 
He didn't really fight them off, they wounded frodo and then they waited till the morgul blade done it's work, they where then just waiting to strike in the lonely wilderness where they where strongest.

They didn't account for an elf that had seen the light of the two trees, the movies really messed that bit up
 
He didn't really fight them off, they wounded frodo and then they waited till the morgul blade done it's work, they where then just waiting to strike in the lonely wilderness where they where strongest.

They didn't account for an elf that had seen the light of the two trees, the movies really messed that bit up

Yeah, but that's because Glorfindel only appears briefly in the book and Jackson needed a way to introduce Arwen and set up the romance between her and Aragorn. I think the only adaptation to actually use Glorfindel was the 1954 BBC radio one. A full-blown musical adaptation where the songs all used Tolkien's words is something I'd like to see.
 
Last edited:
my copy of beren and luthien still has not arrived. thats what you get for being loyal to foyles, next time i will order from amazon.
 
We don't have a dedicated Tolkien thread yet...

Actually, I've just remembered this one - http://forum.forteantimes.com/index.php?threads/tolkien-as-truth.3069/#post-51036 ("Tolkien as Truth") - which explores, in a meandering sort of way, some of the real places and characters that may have influenced JRRT.

I don't think there's enough meat in either thread yet to justify the existence of both. In any case, there's naturally much overlap between the two. What does everyone think? Should we ask for a merging? There's also a "Tolkien and paleontology" thread somewhere...
 
i think it would be best if all Tolkien stuff was dumped here .
 
I think the reasons given for the excision of the Bombadil section was that it didn't add anything to the story and slowed down the action. Regrettable imho but I understand the need for commercial considerations and for those who haven't read the books to understand the film.
If it had been included, they, like those who have read the books would have wondered what that was all about. Debate over who or what Bombadil is continue, theories abound, and ultimately he's a character Tolkien felt was important enough to include but left deliberately enigmatic, perhaps he was representing something Tolkien couldn't really articulate, more of a 'feeling' rather.
 
Once again, thank Wodin for wikipedia!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Bombadil

I like the idea of having an enigma, someone who remembers the arrival of the Elves and in the whole story of the War of the Ring only shows interest in the Ents. Something deep and ancient, not obvious, but everpresent and visible only to those that know how to truly see.
 
i think it would be best if all Tolkien stuff was dumped here .

I am going to leave them as separate threads.

That one has a specific thesis; this can be the compendium.
 

Can I say I knew what that would be as soon as I saw the link?
Really interesting but not that likely to be *the* inspiration for the ring. That's probably Andvaranaut --- Andvari's Loom, the ring from the Volsung/Nibelung cycle (where my username comes from) and a whole lot of other magic rings from folklore and myth. John Rateliff has a whole section about the ring in History of the Hobbit.

I think the reasons given for the excision of the Bombadil section was that it didn't add anything to the story and slowed down the action. Regrettable imho but I understand the need for commercial considerations and for those who haven't read the books to understand the film.
If it had been included, they, like those who have read the books would have wondered what that was all about. Debate over who or what Bombadil is continue, theories abound, and ultimately he's a character Tolkien felt was important enough to include but left deliberately enigmatic, perhaps he was representing something Tolkien couldn't really articulate, more of a 'feeling' rather.

He apparently started out as a doll belonging to Michael, JRRT's second child. JRRT wrote a book called The Adventures of Tom Bombadil for his aunt.
 
Last edited:
I think the omission of The Scouring Of The Shire would have particularly riled Tolkien, he saw evil in part as the desire of others to boss people about and taken as a whole with the Silmarillion it's notable how evil diminishes in every age, culminating in the pathetic and spiteful actions of Saruman attempting to dominate a gentle and harmless people.
I think that's why it's in the book but without the entire history the films couldn't express this idea.
 
Back
Top