Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

[KRSESQ]

I'm embarrassed to admit that the only Tolkien I've read is "The Hobbit." Although the story and characters were intriguing I found the prose a bit effusive for my taste.

Kevin

[Gurm]

KRSESQ,

Yep. The Hobbit was written to be read aloud to a child. That might explain why it was a bit effusive.

- Gurm

[DosFreak]

umm, LOTR came out in the US and the UK the same day. Just like TTT will.

Anyone know if TTT will show the Ent's? I hope not.

About Gandalf:

For those of you wondering why such a great wizard did not use his power more what had already been stated in this thread is true. For more recent evidence of this fact just check out the Bonus CD that comes with the LOTR movie. The Director himself states why Gandalf does not use his power. LOTR is not about Gandalf. It's about Frodo and the Ring.

As for the portrayal of the rest of the party protecting the hobbits. OF COURSE THEY WERE! These are seasoned frickin' warriors here. Each had experienced their fair share of battle campaigns. The closest a hobbit had come to a battle is of e Bilbo and he wasn't even awake for it!

[az]

OK, then let's just say movies are released later in Germany. Even if I want to watch TTT in english (and I want to, of course), I'll have to wait till the german version starts, which is december 19th.

AZ

[Gurm]

Umm... that's the same time it opens in the US and UK.

- Gurm

P.S. SPOILER! Yes they have Ent footage. We at least get to see Treebeard (voiced by John Rhys-Davies, aka Gimli) and they have filmed the Ents marching on Isengard although I dunno if they will show it in the movie, or save it for the DC. SPOILER!

[Lizzard[MPE]]

ok since we are talking about LOTR's. What's your favorite lines from the movie?

mine are:

1. when Arwen says "If you want him, come and claim him!"

2. and when Sam says "I ain't been dropping no eaves, sir, honest"

[Guru]

Originally posted by Gurm
SPOILER!

Nice!

Oh and BTW Dave Eddings rocks! Silke @ Beldin (Don't know what they were called in the English version) aka the thief and Belgaraths brother were my favorites!

And for anyone that has not read the D.E books I recomend doing so and please start from the "Book One of The Belgariad, Pawn of Prophecy" and not one of the "add ones"!

[Gurm]

Silk and... Beldin.

- Gurm

P.S. Favorite lines... were... "Nobody tosses a dwarf!" and anytime they quoted the book directly, which was just amazing. Every line Ian Holm and Ian McKellan delivered.

Ok, I think my favorite line period was (and here Gurm consults his 'Millennium Edition' authoritative 7-volume LOTR) "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. Go back to the shadow! You cannot pass." ... ... "YOU CANNOT PASS!"

[HedsSpaz]

Sigh, I hate it when I join in late on the interesting threads.

I'm going to enter with minor nitpick of my own. There were two things plotwise that really kinda bothered me. The first is when the hobbits first met Aragorn, they arrive at the Prancing Pony and there is a letter waiting for them from Gandalf. It contains a message for them to move onward and that there is a friend who will hopefully be able to help them, you will recognize him because he will know this poem (reads poem about the kings Gondor). Enter Aragorn, he speaks several lines from the poem, they become friends. In the movie they have to take the whole thing on faith, as in, for some reason he just randomly decides to help them.
I don't know why that bothered me but it did.

The second nitpick is the Saruman/Sauron connection, throughout the first two books I always had the impression that Saruman thought that he was under his own control and that he sought the ring to increase his own power, when in reality he was just being controlled, but he still THOUGHT he was acting of his own accord. In the movie Saruman is allied with Sauron, which isn't the same obviously.

Both are minor plot differences that I would have worked differently, but oh well.

Oh, the donkey bit at the entrance to moria was also silly. If they aren't going to explain the backstory as to why Sam was sad that they were leaving him behind then they should have just left the whole thing out.

Anyway, none of this is to say that I don't love the movie. Have already bought the wide-screen dvd, and am anxiously awaiting the Special Edition dvd and the next movie.

Ian

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Gurm
Ahh, ok Drizzt. Some clarifications.

1. Tolkien DID invent the modern concepts of elves, wizards, trolls, orcs, dwarves, hobbits, etc. Most fantasy from the last 50 years is based on his works. Considering that these stories were first developed when he was in the trenches... in world war 1... which was 80+ years ago... it's pretty unlikely that anyone else had come up with these concepts first. Sure, there have always been fairie stories, but Tolkien created modern fantasy.
- Gurm

I don't see the point, here. How can he have invented something that already exists?
He has REinvented elves, I must admit this (apart from him, this is a general thought: why the hell elves have been reinvented tenth of times in the last millenium?).
But, the first wizards I can remembers are from ...err...let's see...about 6000 b.c.
Trolls, orcs and dwarves are common in nordic fantasy since a thousand years or more.

And, just to have some full fantasy before Tolkien there is the Breton cycle and Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen"

Originally posted by Gurm

2. He created an entire world, and put people in it. That's new and revolutionary. Eddings did the same thing, but few other authors do that. They usually write a story about characters. Tolkien wrote a story about a world that already existed in his mind. Not only did he create the world, he created the creation of the world, and an entire mythos and history for the world since the beginning of time and all the way to the end of time.

3. He created languages for every race and subrace in his books. Each region has its own dialect, and he wrote all of them down. Everyone's name MEANS something. Hobbit names are very different from human names, because their language has changed over the eons.

And, for those two points, I'm with you. Even if Egyptians, Greeks, ancient Romans, Babilonian, Celtics and a few other hundreds civilization and single authors did this before him, there are two point in positive for Tolkien in my view:
1) It is a massive work, biggest and detailed as no one never did before (apart from a few Bible pieces here and there, but not so astonishing wide however)

2) Every Engineer or bored programmer can write huge a list of place, names, invented words and so on. But Tolkien has given to all a meaning, and that's a very important thing.


However, all those work loose of importance because...

Originally posted by Gurm

4. Every event that happens is laid out for a reason. This series (Lord of the Rings) is merely a pivotal year in the eons of history of Middle Earth.

Argh!
A brief explanation: before reading Eddings and Brooks I was a big fan of Tolkien. I loved the fact of having an entire world, totally detailed, where the adventure took place.

But...
One day, years ago, I started reading the Shannara saga from Terry Brooks. And a bell sounded into my brain. There was something strange in the way Shannara's world changed having political evolution over the years (book time), enviromental problems, economical changes, and so on. It was strange, but I didn't understand too much the feelings.

A couple of years ago, then, I start reading Eddings books. And the bell ring again, while I started thinking that there was something strange in Tolkien works.

In recent times, reading the Belgarath's book, I've understood what was that feelings.


Tolkien works is like if a God one eon wake up, build an universe, fill it with planets and stars, fill planets with rich environment, hundreds of being, and the give life gift to only a man.
This man rise alive, goes to the bathroom, piss.
The end.

In a few words Tolkien universe is totally fake, it's dead in itself, it's not working!

The world Tolkien has build, simply, is totally static. There is no evolution in it. There is no reason for none of the action that happen on it.

In my opinion, the world Tolkien has created is "plastic".


(Sorry, I can't explain better than this )

[Wombat]

In a few words Tolkien universe is totally fake, it's dead in itself, it's not working!

The world Tolkien has build, simply, is totally static. There is no evolution in it. There is no reason for none of the action that happen on it.

In my opinion, the world Tolkien has created is "plastic".

Then you've missed some very important pieces. LotR is in itself the story of a revolution. Even within those pages the world changes dramatically. How about the final exit of the elves? Drastic changes of government? I think you must have fallen asleep instead of reading.

[Gurm]

Shannara is... a post-apocalyptic middle-earth. Everything Brooks writes is stolen lock stock and barrel from Tolkien. I like Brooks, but without LOTR, Shannara wouldn't exist.

And of COURSE he was influenced by earlier works. He was a big fan of the ring cycle, and he did one of the most important English-language translations of Beowulf EVER.

The man did have multiple PhD's, after all. Didn't get 'em for free.

- Gurm

[BuddMan]

To Drizzt:

Though Tolkien never really like allegories, there are many in LOtR related to his own life. He grew up in the beginning of the Industrial Age in Europe and witnessed the beautiful country lands he grew up in to be turned into smouldering factories, etc, and this is reflected greatly in LOtR's (lands being ruined, etc). So though the LOtR's is a fantasy tale, it has a lot of truth in it.

[KvHagedorn]

I love Eddings. I have read all ten books in the Belgariad/Malloreon cycle, plus the Belgarath and Polgara books TWICE. His books are so likeable because everything is so familiar, and the wonderful banter between the main characters just makes it a very easy read. Eddings wrote the things to sell a ton of books, and he succeeded.

Saying that, Eddings pales next to Tolkien. Tolkien writes with a love of English and its antecedents that very few authors in history have matched. To say that the world he created is plastic is as wrong as you can be. Drizzt, you say it wasn't realistic because there was no evolution. You are very wrong here. The decline of the Numenoreans and the Elves is your evolution. And how sadly it mirrors the present day! Technology and its horrors are represented by Saruman creating the Uruk-Hai and ripping down a forest in the process of his warmaking. You are not seeing things from Tolkien's point of view, which is that our souls and the magic within ourselves is more important than these things and is endagered by them in very real ways. And, by the way.. have you ever tried to imagine life as an Elf? Elrond was around for thousands of years, immortal. How quickly do you think political and social evolution would happen in a world dominated by an immortal race? Not very quickly at all.