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Lord of the Trailers

Posted by michael on from the hype-machine-in-overdrive dept.

Kurobara writes: "just thought everyone would like to know that the NEW LOTR trailer is avabile online (stream only for now). I'd give a description but I'll let the trailer speek for itself, suffice to say it rocks ^_^ (spotted on theonering.net)" It's not at all easy to find the new trailer - if you see the flame and ring, you're looking at the old one. First words of the new one are "Legend tells of a ring...". Ah, here we go: Old Wolf writes: "The latest trailer for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring can be streamed here, or downloaded in full. Only Real format at this stage unfortunately. A collection of .jpg stills and commentary can be found here at TORN."

3 of 179 comments (clear)

  1. Spoiler... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5

    Geesh, I could have lived without knowing that Paul Rubens was playing gollum. That's gonna ruin it for me.

  2. About JRRT (was Re:These movies ought to be banned by Cheakamus · · Score: 5
    The Silmarillion represents the real life's work of Tolkien. He started his writings in 1916 (during WW1, while in the trenches), where he wrote the stories of Fall of Gondolin and Turin Turambar. I'm a bit rusty on the sequence of his life, but after the war he was a professor of Old English at the University of Leeds and also served on the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary. Through the 1920s he continued to develop several mythical languages (based upon Welsh and Finnish) that provided the basis for the cultures of his mythologies. During this time he was appointed to a professorship at Oxford.

    When JRRT wrote The Hobbit (published in 1937) he initially did not place it in Middle Earth. Actually the original story was quite different in one crucial respect - Gollum shows Bilbo out after he lost the Riddles game and they part on friendly terms. If you ever find a first edition of The Hobbit you can read the original version of the story - (good luck! B&N had a copy for sale for $12,500!). The Hobbit was so successful that the publishers immediately demanded a sequel. It was at this point that he rewrote chapter 5 (Riddles in the Dark) to set up the story that became The Lord of the Rings.

    The LOTR started in much the same style as The Hobbit, and he struggled for many years with it. He really wanted to publish his epic mythologies, and not to work on a sequel. Towards the later part of the 1940's he got into the swing of it and cranked out LOTR, published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955 (it is NOT a trilogy - it's three volumes of the same tale). It was during the composition of the LOTR that he tied The Hobbit to the mythologies. It also provided a framework for the eventuality of his epic works, later laid down in The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion is actually several books in one:

    • Ainulindalë, the tale of the Music of the Ainur and the creation of Arda (Earth).
    • Valaquenta, the tale of the Valar, in which the nature of each of the Powers is described.
    • Quenta Silmarillion, the longest tale, which gives an account of the history of Arda from its beginnings until the end of the First Age.
    • Akallabêth, the tale of the Second Age, which concentrates on the history of Númenor until its Downfall, and
    • Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, which spans the late Second Age and the Third, telling of the forging of the Rings of Power and their history up to the War of the Ring.

    Tolkien died before he felt thatThe Silmarillion was completed. His son, Christopher, took it upon himself to select from his father's writings all of the material that would constitute a complete story and published it posthumously to his father.

    Reading The Silmarillion for the first time is a fairly brutal endeavor. It's so packed full of information that it took me several readings to really start to grok it. Karen Wynn Fonstat's Atlas of Middle Earth is essential, as is J.E.A. Tyler's reference (the name escapes me, but the second editions includes The Silmarillion content).

    Unfinished Tales contains more detailed information from the stories in The Silmarillion, but they were never deemed to be complete enough to be included in The Silmarillion. Christopher Tolkien's 12 volume series The History of Middle Earth breaks down all of JRRT's writings into chronological order and discusses in great detail the evolution of the stories (well worth the read if you like scholarly studies of fascinating characters).

    Also read The Letters of JRR Tolkien and his biography, both by Humphrey Carpenter, if you want real insight into Tolkien's life and beliefs. He was a truly remarkable man.

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    "If history is correct, the key is to start with some old guy who learned how to win in Montreal."

  3. That domain name by Sebbo · · Score: 5

    Does anyone else keep reading it as "theonionring.net"?

    Mmmm. Onion rings...

    The domain is free, btw, if anyone wants to snap it up and see what WIPO has to say about it.