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Man, I sure have been missing something my whole life. Listening to the webathon episode of the podcast where he goes over the "Adventures of Tom Bombadil" poem and god drat. I had no idea that entire episode in LotR was basically a great big expansion on that poem, complete with almost all its lines and turns of phrase worked into either Tom's dialogue, dramatic events, or even just narrative metaphors and wording. Goldberry, Old Man Willow, even the barrow-wight, it's all in there. Tom Bombadil was always a mystery to me and I'm sure to a lot of readers, especially those who only know of Tolkien from stuff like D&D and the movies, who think it's all swords-and-sorcery high fantasy stuff, and then they pick up the book and the first real fantastical encounter they have is with this weird singing bearded dude. It's ... well I'm not going to say it makes more sense to me now, but I sure do appreciate the injoke a lot more.
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Oct 26, 2017 12:43
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PMush Perfect posted:I like the idea that there's a finite source of explainable things, and they had to funnel all that unexplained phenomena somewhere, it just happened to be into a druid in rainboots.
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Oct 26, 2017 20:17
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Lotr is great because there's mysteries like that in it. The real world has all kinds of unsolved mysteries. It makes a world feel more real when not everything is explained. I like that we don't know what the Blue Wizards did. I like that Tom Bombadil is a big yellow booted enigma. I like that we have no idea what the hell the tentacle beast near Moria is or why it was there. poo poo like that adds a lot of color to the world and it's fun to speculate.
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Oct 27, 2017 15:01
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Ginette Reno posted:Lotr is great because there's mysteries like that in it. The real world has all kinds of unsolved mysteries. It makes a world feel more real when not everything is explained. I like that we don't know what the Blue Wizards did. I like that Tom Bombadil is a big yellow booted enigma. I like that we have no idea what the hell the tentacle beast near Moria is or why it was there. it’s all midichlorians
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Oct 27, 2017 16:15
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What did Tolkien write about how he felt about "mystery" in his books? I mean, look at all the work he put into creating a world with so many things explained and with causes and sources and so on. Almost everything in LotR has a story, even if the story is just like "its a bunch of caves dug out by monsters no one has ever seen, not even the devil". I think the feeling that a passage like the one I'm alluding to evokes is more similar to how the Bible has stories about, for instance, Jonah and the whale. In lots of bible stories its written all vague and fancy-like, not in a straightforward way thats meant to elucidate all the details, etc. But people don't talk about the bible as a thing full of unexplained mysteries that add to the coolness of Christianity. In fact, texts are often referred to as "bibles" when they cover extensively a certain material. Giving you all the important facts and stuff. I went to church for my entire childhood and went to sunday school for most of it, too. I read a whole lot of the bible, especially the parts that were actual stories and not just a big list of boring poo poo like psalms or all those letters in the end between gospels and revelations. I read Lord of the Rings at basically the same age (like 8 to 12 I think).
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Oct 27, 2017 20:22
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The Old Testament and the New contain parables and allegories mostly aside from propagandized versions of actual history and made believe history . Tolkiens works do not save for eru being god in a general sense .
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Oct 27, 2017 20:26
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euphronius posted:The Old Testament and the New contain parables and allegories mostly aside from propagandized versions of actual history and made believe history . Tolkiens works do not save for eru being god in a general sense . That's not what I meant. I meant the style of writing.
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Oct 27, 2017 20:36
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SHISHKABOB posted:What did Tolkien write about how he felt about "mystery" in his books? I mean, look at all the work he put into creating a world with so many things explained and with causes and sources and so on. Almost everything in LotR has a story, even if the story is just like "its a bunch of caves dug out by monsters no one has ever seen, not even the devil". From somewhere or other in Letters: quote:As a story, I think it is good that there should be a lot of things unexplained (especially if an explanation actually exists); And elsewhere: quote:Part of the attraction of The Lord of the Rings, is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new attainable vistas are again revealed
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Oct 27, 2017 20:43
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skasion posted:From somewhere or other in Letters: Thanks, I know I've read that before.
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Oct 27, 2017 20:45
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Ginette Reno posted:Lotr is great because there's mysteries like that in it. The real world has all kinds of unsolved mysteries. It makes a world feel more real when not everything is explained. I like that we don't know what the Blue Wizards did. I like that Tom Bombadil is a big yellow booted enigma. I like that we have no idea what the hell the tentacle beast near Moria is or why it was there. I totally agree and it's great that we can make what count as educated guesses towards all of the mysteries - it's plausible that the tentacle beast is an ancient corrupted maiar like the Balrog, or any number of other things that you could probably find textual support for. None of the mysteries seem out of place at all and it reinforces that what we know of Middle Earth is all filtered through the Elves and ultimately Hobbits who wrote it down.
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Oct 27, 2017 21:45
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SHISHKABOB posted:What did Tolkien write about how he felt about "mystery" in his books? I mean, look at all the work he put into creating a world with so many things explained and with causes and sources and so on. Almost everything in LotR has a story, even if the story is just like "its a bunch of caves dug out by monsters no one has ever seen, not even the devil". protestantism
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Oct 28, 2017 11:26
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Smoking Crow posted:protestantism qhwat
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Oct 28, 2017 18:36
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Oct 28, 2017 19:49
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SHISHKABOB posted:qhwat the idea that the bible isn't full of unexplained mysteries is a protestant idea
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Oct 28, 2017 21:43
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The tentacle beast is clearly Smeagol's grandmother.
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Oct 29, 2017 03:34
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the tentacle beast will be shelobs sister in the next shadows game (complete with bouncing titties)
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Oct 29, 2017 15:43
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Smoking Crow posted:the idea that the bible isn't full of unexplained mysteries is a protestant idea Religious people are loving weird.
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Oct 29, 2017 16:29
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SHISHKABOB posted:protestants are loving weird.
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Oct 29, 2017 18:52
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sweet geek swag posted:The tentacle beast is clearly Smeagol's grandmother. Do we want to know preciously what kind of eggs he taught her to suck?
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Oct 29, 2017 19:02
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Exhibit B!
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Oct 29, 2017 21:39
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SHISHKABOB posted:People are loving weird.
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Oct 30, 2017 00:12
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http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2017/11/tolkien-estate-and-warner-brothers-to.html LOTR tv series being shopped around studios currently with "an up-front rights fee of $250 million and a guaranteed per-season budget of between $100 and $150 million, which would exceed the record-setting $100 million budget of Game of Thrones in its last three seasons." Apologies if this is already being discussed elsewhere on SA, and if it is, could you link me to the thread? 
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Nov 9, 2017 08:12
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Hedrigall posted:http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2017/11/tolkien-estate-and-warner-brothers-to.html I don't want this.
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Nov 9, 2017 12:36
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Just make a drat Wheel of Time anime instead.
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Nov 9, 2017 13:12
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Hedrigall posted:http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2017/11/tolkien-estate-and-warner-brothers-to.html If the Tolkien Estate is actually involved this could be really interesting, but somehow I doubt they are. Chris is like 100 years old and probably just wants to die in peace before another Shadow of Bullshit game comes out.
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Nov 9, 2017 13:18
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I spent breakfast thinking about this and the only Middle Earth show I actually want would be a serial set in Hobbiton and take place in the years between The Hobbit and Fellowship. Just Bilbo feuding with the Sackville-Bagginses, Merry and Pippin in hijinks stealing from Farmer Maggot and getting chased around. Nothing actually related to the big events happens, except when Bilbo has to pull out the ring to foil Lobelia's scheme to make him sit through a frightfully dull tea. skasion posted:If the Tolkien Estate is actually involved this could be really interesting, but somehow I doubt they are. Chris is like 100 years old and probably just wants to die in peace before another Shadow of Bullshit game comes out. I recently bought the Beren and Luthien book for my wife, and in doing so really realized that Christopher Tolkien is ancient. I kind of knew it intellectually, but I hadn't really internalized that he was actually 93 and it's very possible this is the last book we'll get from him. He has been such an amazing curator and shepherd for his father's work. We wouldn't have nearly as much of the work without him. 
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Nov 9, 2017 15:25
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Ashcans posted:I would guess that it is coming from the people who currently hold the show rights and not the estate. The way at least some of the coverage has been presenting it is that the estate currently IS the holder of the tv rights and are shopping them around to Amazon or Netflix or whoever. That seems a bit odd to me since the film rights have belonged to Saul Zaentz’s company for donkeys years, but I guess conceivably when the rights were initially sold, tv licensing wouldn’t have seemed as important and so got missed out? Or maybe it’s just crappy reporting. e: Also, I’m gonna come out and say that I would gladly watch a three-season, say thirty episode LotR show. If they manage not to poo poo things up with endless bloat or a bunch of fan fiction, I think the material is definitely strong enough to keep me watching — as long as they don’t base the visuals on John Howe, Alan Lee, or Ted Nasmith’s art. Those are all good and cool artists, but we already know what they think Middle-earth looks like. Give me an adaptation inspired by Roger Garland (rip) or something! skasion fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Nov 9, 2017 |
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Nov 9, 2017 15:46
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skasion posted:The way at least some of the coverage has been presenting it is that the estate currently IS the holder of the tv rights and are shopping them around to Amazon or Netflix or whoever. That seems a bit odd to me since the film rights have belonged to Saul Zaentz’s company for donkeys years, but I guess conceivably when the rights were initially sold, tv licensing wouldn’t have seemed as important and so got missed out? Or maybe it’s just crappy reporting. So that would be, what, about half the total runtime of Jackson's extended cut? (Just kidding, thirty one hour episodes would be almost three times the total runtime of Jackson's LotR, or slightly less than half the total runtime if you add on all three hobbit films.) In theory I'd like to see a Scouring of the Shire but in practice I think Jackson's films are going to be extraordinarily difficult to match and will end up making any other attempts look really bad by comparison.
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Nov 9, 2017 16:17
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I hope at least one season is entirely with Tom Bombadil and Goldberry in the old forest
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Nov 9, 2017 16:18
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:So that would be, what, about half the total runtime of Jackson's extended cut? I'd like to see any of the Shire at all, honestly. The first half of Fellowship is an amazing slow burn that Jackson's movie bolts through in less than 90 minutes. You barely get a sense of what Frodo's life or character is like before he's being rushed off to save the world. In some ways I think a drawn-out, episodic take on the story would work better than feature films. That per-season budget estimate is around the same ballpark as the budget for any of the Jackson movies though, so you'd definitely need to stretch the money a bit.
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Nov 9, 2017 16:29
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It blew my mind last time I re-read FOTR to remember that seventeen years pass between Frodo getting the ring and him setting out. I've been poisoned by the film montage with Gandalf looking all concerned in the Gondor library where they wrap those 17 years up in 30 seconds. Please give me Tales of Hobbiton Amazon.
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Nov 9, 2017 16:34
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I also suspect that a tv series won't do as well because everyone has seen the movies and read the books and knows what happens. A big part of the GoT phenomenon is that the books were doorstoppers relatively few people read, and the series wasn't finished, so there was ongoing suspense. It's kinda amazing to me how even among my nerd circle friends how many had not and still haven't read the books, just watch the show. That's been broken for LotR by the films, and they can't do much to create suspense by changing the books around without losing the fanbase.
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Nov 9, 2017 16:40
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the fanbase will hate-watch every minute of whatever the studio vomits onto the television screen. the fanbase doesnt matter
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Nov 9, 2017 17:18
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Also I’m pretty sure everyone already knew the ring gets destroyed and the king returns before the Jackson movies. “THE NEW GAME OF THRONES” is a stupid goal to chase because GoT was lightning in a bottle but if it’s a good show people will watch anyhow.
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Nov 9, 2017 17:24
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I'm sure the abundance of romance and sex scenes in LOTR will make it popular with many
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Nov 9, 2017 17:30
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skasion posted:Also I’m pretty sure everyone already knew the ring gets destroyed and the king returns before the Jackson movies. You'd think, but . . . surprisingly, no. Like, I grew up in the 1980's and 90's and just knowing who Frodo was back then was a powerful and rare cultural identifier (especially pre-internet). Geek culture was not mainstream then and the Jackson movies did a lot to break that wide open. I'm trying to think of a good analogy to explain it but things are just so different now. Peter S. Beagle wrote in the introduction to the 1960's mass market LotR paperbacks that (paraphrasing from memory) meeting someone else who had read the books was like meeting another member of a secret society, and I remember that same feeling in the 90's; even in high school and college, when I started meeting people who had read LotR, I didn't know a single other person who had read the Silmarillion. How many people do you know now, not counting the internet, who have read the Silmarillion? Imagine if those were the only people you knew who had read LotR, and the internet didn't exist. All that changed with the internet and then when the Jackson movies came out. I remember taking friends to see it and watching them freak the gently caress out when Gandalf died because they literally had no idea that was a thing that was going to happen. Basically kids these days don't even realize how good they have it, in my day being a nerd was real Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Nov 9, 2017 |
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Nov 9, 2017 17:43
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Yeah. I've actually talked about this in this very thread before. The LOTR and Harry Potter movies made fantasy cool. Everyone knows what an orc is now, we've all got pretty similar ideas on what a dwarf is, etc. Before LOTR/HP were in theaters, fantasy was almost entirely considered either nerd poo poo or kiddy poo poo. Even the pillars of the genre at the time, Labyrinth and Neverending Story, couldn't do much to stop that.
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Nov 9, 2017 17:54
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If they want it to be the new Game of Thrones, they should adapt The Children of Hurin.
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Nov 10, 2017 00:37
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Bongo Bill posted:If they want it to be the new Game of Thrones, they should adapt The Children of Hurin. Agreedo but no one has the media rights for it .
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Nov 10, 2017 00:40
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Christopher should sell the rights to The New Shadow; give the studio something to slap a recognized brand on but nothing of any real value to screw up.
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