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J.R.R. Tolkien

I know we're supposed to visualise Tom Bombadil as rather like this:

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... but ever since reading Bored of the Rings and especially since watching Pulp Fiction, I cannot help but picture him rather more like this:

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Cochise said:
Well, as Tolkien himself said, what some people think are the best bits others think are the worst bits. :)

The Ent bit isn't my favourite either, although I do like the description of Fangorn's house. I find some of Frodo's interaction with Gollum tedious, but I think that's the intended effect. In general I prefer the 'companions' side of the story better than the Ringbearer's, but they both have their moments. I like the Scouring of the Shire which some find a pointless add-on.

Put me down as a wannabe Rider of Rohan, with a hopeless unrequited love for Eowyn ;)
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Yes, the most interesting thing I noted in the film, which in general I enjoyed, especially Jackson's hopeless attempt to deal with the three (at least) endings that T gave the book) is that people are reading different books. I read the book as a fantasy with a deep spiritual and ethical message and a lot of gentle satire on English folklore written by someone with an unending expertise in Scandinavian and early English mythology and poetry. As such he inserts a few battle set-pieces which are described very much in the Scandinavian epic form. Jackson read the book as culminating in really important battles which he spends much too much (very creative) time on as far as I'm concerned. It's a big book. And I think Eowyn is a whiney pain in the neck.
 
Lb8535 said:
Yes, the most interesting thing I noted in the film, which in general I enjoyed, especially Jackson's hopeless attempt to deal with the three (at least) endings that T gave the book) is that people are reading different books. I read the book as a fantasy with a deep spiritual and ethical message and a lot of gentle satire on English folklore written by someone with an unending expertise in Scandinavian and early English mythology and poetry. As such he inserts a few battle set-pieces which are described very much in the Scandinavian epic form. Jackson read the book as culminating in really important battles which he spends much too much (very creative) time on as far as I'm concerned. It's a big book. And I think Eowyn is a whiney pain in the neck.
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I'm really not a fan of the films.
 
I haven't read any of the Scandiwegian sagas that are meant to have influenced Tolkiens work (has any one here?) but I wonder if
they include diversions such as what happens with the Bombadil section.
 
pandacracker said:
I haven't read any of the Scandiwegian sagas that are meant to have influenced Tolkiens work (has any one here?) but I wonder if
they include diversions such as what happens with the Bombadil section.
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They don't, they're fairly formulaic and always story-oriented. I recommend Beowulf if you've never read it. T gave the annual Beowulf lecture at Oxford for something like 40 years and his translation is very readable.
 
Mouldy13 said:
One of the best quotes about LOTR in my opinion is by Terry Pratchett who said if you read it when you're 14 and don't think it's the greatest thing ever written then there's something wrong with you.

If you read it again when you're 44 and still think it's the greatest thing ever written then there's something wrong with you.
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There must be something wrong with me then. I tried to read it when I was 12 and again when I was in my 50's. I couldn't get past those 4 chapters it took the hobbits to walk up that hill. Yet when I was 14 I read The Odyssey and The Iliad and loved them.
 
JahaRa said:
There must be something wrong with me then. I tried to read it when I was 12 and again when I was in my 50's. I couldn't get past those 4 chapters it took the hobbits to walk up that hill. Yet when I was 14 I read The Odyssey and The Iliad and loved them.
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Don't recall that chapter, but I was maybe a year older than you when I first read it and absolutely lapped it up.
No book I ever read since has rivalled Tolkien's supreme skill in compelling the reader to read just a little bit more to find out what is around the next turn of the path.
 
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These could be my favourite Tolkien-inspired artwork.

Peter Klúcik - Illustrations for unpublished version of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" 1990​

"Long-time illustrator Peter Klúcik was asked to illustrate J R R Tolkien's The Hobbit soon after communism fell in 1989. For this project he created around 40 illustrations that were rich in detail and conveyed the mysterious atmosphere of the book very well. But the publishing house commissioning them failed to adjust to the market economy and lost the right to publish the book. A second one approached him, but only for the book's cover. Then a third publishing house appeared on the scene - after the Tolkien-mania prompted by the 2001 release of the first film in The Lord of the Rings sequence -- but this was denied the copyright.

After all that, Klúcik made a decision: "I have had it with illustrations. I am going to paint!" He switched from illustration to painting, and since then he has been creating a fantasy world of mysterious animals using oil on canvas. He finds inspiration in the real animals he sees in books and on television documentaries, such as tigers, zebras, and rhinos. To these images he applies his wild imagination, twisting their bodies and playing with their fur and colours until they are transformed into new, unknown creatures living in fantastic surroundings.

Before he gave up illustration, Klúcik created pictures for around 40 books, including Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. But the book that enabled him to expand his imagination the most and brought him to the path he later set out on was the last one he illustrated - Tolkien's The Hobbit. From the evil-looking but funny hairy squirrels to the curly tails on the flying dragons, it was an easy transition to his dreamed-up world inhabited purely by animals."

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Images stunning but too large to post here; see link for many:
http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2020/04/peter-klucik-illustrations-for.html
 
Yithian said:
These could be my favourite Tolkien-inspired artwork.

Peter Klúcik - Illustrations for unpublished version of J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" 1990​

"Long-time illustrator Peter Klúcik was asked to illustrate J R R Tolkien's The Hobbit soon after communism fell in 1989. For this project he created around 40 illustrations that were rich in detail and conveyed the mysterious atmosphere of the book very well. But the publishing house commissioning them failed to adjust to the market economy and lost the right to publish the book. A second one approached him, but only for the book's cover. Then a third publishing house appeared on the scene - after the Tolkien-mania prompted by the 2001 release of the first film in The Lord of the Rings sequence -- but this was denied the copyright.

After all that, Klúcik made a decision: "I have had it with illustrations. I am going to paint!" He switched from illustration to painting, and since then he has been creating a fantasy world of mysterious animals using oil on canvas. He finds inspiration in the real animals he sees in books and on television documentaries, such as tigers, zebras, and rhinos. To these images he applies his wild imagination, twisting their bodies and playing with their fur and colours until they are transformed into new, unknown creatures living in fantastic surroundings.

Before he gave up illustration, Klúcik created pictures for around 40 books, including Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. But the book that enabled him to expand his imagination the most and brought him to the path he later set out on was the last one he illustrated - Tolkien's The Hobbit. From the evil-looking but funny hairy squirrels to the curly tails on the flying dragons, it was an easy transition to his dreamed-up world inhabited purely by animals."

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Images stunning but too large to post here; see link for many:
http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2020/04/peter-klucik-illustrations-for.html
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They are amazing but why to hobbits (and elves?) have to have pointy ears? I'm sure Tolkien never said anything about pointy ears in fact it may have been difficult to tell the difference between men and elves other than some sort of indefinable air due to the elves immortality and, for high elves, power.:omr::ranting:
 
Tunn11 said:
They are amazing but why to hobbits (and elves?) have to have pointy ears? I'm sure Tolkien never said anything about pointy ears in fact it may have been difficult to tell the difference between men and elves other than some sort of indefinable air due to the elves immortality and, for high elves, power.:omr::ranting:
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I like those - does anyone else see a slight style resemblance to Hunt Emerson's work?
 
Tunn11 said:
They are amazing but why to hobbits (and elves?) have to have pointy ears? I'm sure Tolkien never said anything about pointy ears in fact it may have been difficult to tell the difference between men and elves other than some sort of indefinable air due to the elves immortality and, for high elves, power.:omr::ranting:
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I don't think Tolkien ever drew or painted a hobbit in sufficient detail to show a good view of the ears, but in a letter to Houghton Mifflin, he described a hobbit for an illustrator: "I picture a fairly human figure, not a kind of 'fairy' rabbit as some of my British reviewers seem to fancy: fattish in the stomach, shortish in the leg. A round, jovial face; ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'; hair short and curling (brown)."

This does clearly state some pointyness of ear for hobbits, and imply more of the same for elves. However, a web site that provides this quote says Tolkien may not have been specifically referring to the elves of his mythology by using the word "elvish".
 
Thing is, whatever they've done with the property, it's not what they've done with it but how they've promoted it.
The huge investment into it means they can only double-down on the stance. They wanted to exploit a huge fan-base and didn't have the rights ... er ... access that Jackson did. Jackson did a series of movies; Amazon wants a series.
To use a catchphrase from the '80's ... "Milky milky!"
I'll hoist my colours - I don't really care. I loved watching the Jackson treatment, I've read the books - including the Silmarillion as a bet - I've even played the table-top RPG. But I wouldn't pay to watch anything involving it; money, guys, money!
So, where does that leave us?
If you criticise the work, well-reasoned, you are still an -ist! A lot of money has been put into this, including bribing the Tolkien Society, so-called influencers and paying for internet commentators who know nothing of Tolkien to produce pseudo-experts to tell everyone that they are stupid and Amazon is brilliant!
 
Stormkhan said:
Thing is, whatever they've done with the property, it's not what they've done with it but how they've promoted it.
The huge investment into it means they can only double-down on the stance. They wanted to exploit a huge fan-base and didn't have the rights ... er ... access that Jackson did. Jackson did a series of movies; Amazon wants a series.
To use a catchphrase from the '80's ... "Milky milky!"
I'll hoist my colours - I don't really care. I loved watching the Jackson treatment, I've read the books - including the Silmarillion as a bet - I've even played the table-top RPG. But I wouldn't pay to watch anything involving it; money, guys, money!
So, where does that leave us?
If you criticise the work, well-reasoned, you are still an -ist! A lot of money has been put into this, including bribing the Tolkien Society, so-called influencers and paying for internet commentators who know nothing of Tolkien to produce pseudo-experts to tell everyone that they are stupid and Amazon is brilliant!
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We are veering into culture wars territory, I essentially agree with you but don't really want to stoke that. I have no little to no interest in the series and it is likely that any version of it would hold little or no interest to me. It will likely be a very expense damp squib which will quickly be forgotten, sadly Amazon have money to burn and it makes little difference to them, they can piss away hundreds of millions or even a billion+ on this and much else.
 
eburacum said:
Tolkien was not averse to retconning his legendarium significantly as he grew older. One interesting change was the addition of Galadriel to the history of the Noldor; before Galadriel was added, the history of the Noldor was definitely skewed towards male characters. By the time of the publication of LotR Galadriel had become the most important elvish character in the Third Age and most significant survivor from the First Age. But she didn't even exist in the earlier versions of the Silmarillion.

I am quite happy to accept a whole new legendarium based around the Second Age - Tolkien did little work on this era, and what little he did was inconsistent and inconclusive.
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Well okay, but then all it can be is “Tolkien inspired”, and in essence is more similar to Game of Thrones. It is perhaps a bit cheeky therefore to make such a direct tie in.
 
Amergin said:
Well okay, but then all it can be is “Tolkien inspired”, and in essence is more similar to Game of Thrones. It is perhaps a bit cheeky therefore to make such a direct tie in.
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It's absolutely Amazon wanting their own "Game of Thrones", they had to get "Lord of the Rings" in the title for maximum brand recognition and exposure.

I watched the two longer trailers, quite liked them in themselves, at least more than I expected to. However, both are selling the atmosphere of impending doom/threat - which makes sense in any trailer, you want to create tension and anticipation. However, this is a prequel to LOTR and the Hobbit, which does make it a bit of a damp squib: you know where is is going. I appreciate that it takes place thousands of years prior to either but there's still a similar issue. I suspect that the GoT spinoff which will debut this year will have similar challenges.
 
Game of Thrones was popular as it was fantasy but far darker than Tolkien.
Amazon saw GoT, wanted that precious money, so chose to make Tolkien more like GoT ... which shows how producers really miss the point and don't understand the product they exploit.
 
Stormkhan said:
Game of Thrones was popular as it was fantasy but far darker than Tolkien.
Amazon saw GoT, wanted that precious money, so chose to make Tolkien more like GoT ... which shows how producers really miss the point and don't understand the product they exploit.
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Less shagging too, no one in Middle Earth does shagging. Not even Sam and Mr Frodo.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
Less shagging too, no one in Middle Earth does shagging. Not even Sam and Mr Frodo.
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Oh, I don't know. Sam seems to get lucky at the end, where there's a village party and he meets a buxom young lady.
 
Ogdred Weary said:
Less shagging too, no one in Middle Earth does shagging. Not even Sam and Mr Frodo.
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According to LOTR, Sam and Rosie had thirteen children.
Unless you are suggesting that Hobbits are capable of parthenogenesis, then there clearly was a fair bit of Hobbity rumpy-pumpy involved.
 
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