Lord of the Rings

for a thousand page fantasy, LOTR is actually light on names tbh

frustratingly little is said about Cirdan The Shipwright

im not one of our scholars of the rest of the legendarium but he may well show up in some of the other scraps

shipwrong moar laik

círdan does very little iirc, basically arrives in the shipyard in the [whateverth #whocare] age, starts building ships to leave again, sucking air in over his teeth any time an elf turns up to say i'm going back west in june have a ship for me then

also he looks after one of the three elven rings until gandalf arrives then hands it over pronto (which again is not a wearisome task imo)

i need to write these things down on my hand in biro for when my kids ask

mark s with the typical bourgie disdain for the overheads and planning schedule required for oceanic travel imo

i am merely following tolk's lead here

the elf payment plan is cloudy at best, everyone has treasure hoarded or weed for sale

everyone else i mean

Are the elf ships reusable? I forget.

everybody's tolkien don't @ me

i imagine when they reach the blessed west they just fall apart like a clown car in the circus, seeing as at a key point in the voyage theyve had to FLY

also who is going to bring them back, after the istari there is no traffic whatsoever in the other direction

See those ships? I built those ships with my own two hands. And do they call me Cirdan The Shipwright? Do they fuck. But you shag just one sheep...

Well, the things I miss when I'm asleep.

thread

1) A stranger than fiction Roman ring mystery thread: this enigmatic Roman gold ring was found in a ploughed field near Silchester in 1785. The square bezel has a portrait of the pagan goddess Venus, inscribed backwards SUNEV for use as a signet ring by the owner. Curiously... pic.twitter.com/Ls0QcDVNzq

— Gareth Harney (@OptimoPrincipi) July 10, 2020

Yeah we were just discussing it over in our blog network channels -- an interesting supposition but not a conclusive argument I think.

watched the first film last night with my other half (she'd never seen it). Very strange seeing this again 20 years after it first got released(!). I remember thinking it was absolutely marvellous when it first came out, like the future of epic entertainment was spooling out in front of me.

I have to say, while some of the seams are a bit more visible than they used to be (certain scenes look very green-screened/super-imposed, and the bit where Cate Blanchett's character is declines Frodo's offer of the ring now comes across as unintentionally hilarious), it does hold up for the most part. I still found the scene in the Dwarf mines with the Balrog very exciting.

I was much more aware this time round of a lack of female characters and no people of colour (save, as my partner pointed out, from the Orcs, which is certainly problematic).

as well as the orcs the getup of the sallow-skinned human followers of Sauron is sort of a pan-asian hodgepodge. samurai bedouins. id assume this is an issue with the source material, though ive never read LOTR.

i watched the trilogy for the first time 2 years ago at christmas. i enjoyed them very much but there is a bit of an issue with overlong battles in the second and third films, did find my mind wandering a little bit when it just becomes monotonous. i do think the films also do look very shit in parts, but there's some millennial nostalgia in me for the early 00s visuals so i wasn't too bothered by it

the orcs and their “black speech” very turkish/central asian to my ears in the book

gollum is often called a little “black” fellow

it’s not great

iirc the nazgul are often called “Black men” by fearful naive hobbitses who don’t know who they are; when i read the story to my kids i translated as “Black rider” in real-time which still isn’t great but at least to my mind emphasises the rider-ness, the horses, the black cloaks etc rather than their actual bodies (of which there is none actually iirc apart from the GLOWING EYES) (no, not “gloin” eyes quiet in the back)

Definitely an issue with the source material - I imagine the offending passages are easily findable online with a simple search for “Tolkien racist”.

I personally don’t find Tolkien’s eurocentrism too problematic; given his era it’s very mild, IMO. But as a middle-aged white guy, I’m happy to be overruled on this.

I like the recent trend of race-blind or race-positive casting in historical & fantasy movies, but 20 years ago the approach/context was very different. I’ve heard that the upcoming Amazon “set in the world of middle earth” series will take the contemporary approach.

Tracer Hand OTM

I have to say, while some of the seams are a bit more visible than they used to be (certain scenes look very green-screened/super-imposed, and the bit where Cate Blanchett's character is declines Frodo's offer of the ring now comes across as unintentionally hilarious)

All true and notable at the time tbh

Yes the other peoples and lack of girl warriors is from the fantasy book written in the early-middle last century by an aulfella

I would say that "black men" for nazgul is v v v readable as in fallen/evil members of the overall race of men tbh tho

Wheel of time series looks to be addressing the inbuilt issues here as they develop for screen, tho obv the issues jordan wrote in between the genders are legendary to readers too

Galdalf kills the Goblin King in the Soviet version of THE HOBBIT, 1985. pic.twitter.com/7Mp2pRHKJo

— Humanoid History (@HumanoidHistory) January 18, 2021

Lol how have we not heard about this til now

It's exactly like I always imagined as a kid. ;_;

watched the second and third films back to back last night. noticed how the orcs coded a lot "whiter" by the third film, but they managed to go unnecessarily orientalist in the final epic battle scene with the oliphaunts and their riders

Forgot to chime in on this earlier! But suffice to say, yeah, issues are existent while at the same time the source material could have been a lot worse. (His big 'out' in many ways was the flash of thought about the dead Haradrim warrior that Sam has in TTT, transposed in the film to a short speech by Faramir -- basically wondering if said dead warrior was truly evil, had been threatened to participate, etc. I read that as mostly a war veteran (from the winning side, of course) thinking back on his experiences and what he saw.)

Our next podcast episode will be about orcs in general and my cohost Oriana, who is leading the discussion, has thoughts and a half. The last one she led was on Eowyn and it's one of our best episodes, I think.

https://www.megaphonic.fm/bythebywater/20

That glorious Russian epic is here with subtitles. Best Smaug Ever.
https://archive.org/details/TheFantasticJourneyOfMr.BilboBagginsTheHobbit

Just watched the first one (extended) with one of my kids. Wouldn't change a frame. I maintain it is some sort of miracle that these movies turned out as well as they did.

Would agree. *sense deems's wrath* Would still agree. But would also definitely say that the first film is the one that works best on its own.

Why on earth (middle or otherwise) would you need any of them to work on their own?!

Well the first one in particular absolutely had to sell the whole thing to start with. Which it did, and I think the ending scene, particularly between Sam and Frodo, is astonishingly well done. As for the middle one, that was more the creative team going nuts about how best to create a film that had a 'proper' ending, so they sure felt it had to end on a particular note. Not the one I think I would have done but hey, I'm not a filmmaker.

That glorious Russian epic is here with subtitles. Best Smaug Ever.

71 mins! That's how you do a Hobbit film, Mr. Jackson.

I agree from now slightly dusty memory that the first LoTR is the best, and also has the best extended edition.

Look

Its the best of the three, and maybe its almost as good as you couldve hoped for (hobbiton through to reaching rivendell, moria, sundering are miraculous tbh)

But anything with elves is not just not-great, it's bad. Add in the terrible darby o'gill banshee on blanchett (seriously that scene has to be up for future correction) and youve already got enough to say that "wouldnt change a frame" is gushing beyond what's sensible

Its the kind of easy management that let him off to do the rest the way he did- increasingly unbothered by performances or plot/pacing from the books (which, while possible to improve upon for a trilogy, were never going to be improved upon by jackson & partners tin ears) and focused more on director's ego and his SFX company

Im not here to berate ilxors, honestly im not, but the end result of praising forays into shite when a limited-but-useful clown like jackson is given power is what you got with the hobbit

And the cost isn't having to watch the hobbit, because what moron watched the hobbit, its the movies that you can see us having had if someone had taken a good hard grip on his neck during an initial showing of his first well-padded cosplay elf scene and hissing "cut. yr. kiwi. amateur. dramatics. out"

I think you’re understating the amount that Viggo Mortensen sells the whole thing; his entrance (iconic!) and the death of Boromir are two of my favourite scenes in the trilogy.

xp you’re right and you should say it

Viggo is absolutely *critical*

Aragorn, sam, frodo, gandalf- all nailed. Thank god because very quickly out of that lot you start to get into tbh the poorer harry potter movies territory

Mortensen himself agrees with me obv. Cool guy.

Sean bean is here to do a job and does it well, as he pretty much always does tbfttstbc

I’m pretty biased on this because I love Hugo Weaving but I liked him as Elrond even though I feel he was a bit miscast...? Idk, all the elves are terribly weak sauce as you say. Also, Christopher Lee was great.

You can pick out lots of good casting, highlights etc even after FOTR (wormtongue, david wenham, all of rohan is good imo, i like that the elves is cockney sleeeegs, etc) but agreed that as soon as hugo weaving feys on set you immediately get the message that jackson hasnt gotten elves qua tolkien, hes in a very different elf place and is pawing for air before going off and making up scenes with zombies and werewolves to make himself feel better

I mean the frustrating thing is that sam neill was right there, ffs. and at least quasi antipodean

and id agree w/u that even saying that he is as good as we get with elves like

Josh in Chicago: drops rock into bottomless well just to see

Ned: pls do not-

Me, from depths: did some cunt just praise peter jackson

I like Sam Neill, but idk where you’d situate him! HW is also quasi antipodean lol? He’s spent like half his life in Australia.

See we’re getting along so well itt, makes u think. Unless you’re going to start on how Tom Bombadil should have been included, cos my book challop is fuck that guy, I’m so glad he got left out.

Honestly the Hobbit is shockingly bad, I had to stop watching it after about 45 minutes and it’s absolutely shocking despite the amounts of money lavished on it. That they stretched it out to three films is among the worst of his crimes.