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An Interview with JRR Tolkien and Other Tomfoolery
Lord of the Links writes: "These wackjobs pretend to interview JRR Tolkien with a ouija board as well as slapping together other nonsense, like photoshopped Ringwraiths from the movie doing bizarre things. I laughed once or twice, especially the diary by Gollum. The girls side left something to be desired, but the script revisions were kinda funny. If you feel like feeding into the Lord of the Rings hype, check it out."
Hey now, ouija boards are serious business. I wouldn't go calling this "pretending".
"The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for 'entrepeneur'." -George W. Bush
This makes me wonder, what do The Britians (Monty Python accenting) call African Americans?
It depends on what their names are.
Is "photoshop" falling into common usage as a word meaning "to digitally modify [an image]" similar to the way "xerox" is now synonymous with "photocopy"?
Indeed. This usage has existed for a good 5 years, anyway.
Personally I'd rather hear them referred to as "gimped Ringwraiths".
If I heard "gimped Ringwraiths", my first thought would be of Ringwraiths who'd had their ankles broken, or perhaps had had polio as children.
Anyway, "gimped" won't be replacing "photoshopped" any time soon. Gimp will have to break out of the Open Source ghetto first, and I don't see that happening. The serious graphics professional accepts no imitation for Photoshp. Period.
What bollocks.
All stories have baddies that can be distinguished in someway from the protagonist. It's human nature, not racism. Racism is when this is taken to extremes.
Tolkien was a devout Christian. Actually, he was the person who brought C.S.Lewis to Christ. As such, he's probably in Heaven right now, and not likely to be reached via Ouiji Board. Instead, it may well be that C.S.Lewis's "friend", the demon Screwtape, may be up to his infernal tricks. Kind of like "on the Internet, No one know's you're a Dog!"
You may not get to find out what Tolkein would have thought about any film version of his works, but two good books for getting a feel of Tolkein are:
The Inklings
and
The Personal Letters of J.R.R. Tolkein
both by Humphrey Carpenter. I read Inklings this summer and found it fascinating (includes stuff about C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, too). Letters is a bit harder to plow through, but good sampling reading.
Incidentally, anyone know when those animated "Hobbit" and LOTR films were made? (late 70's? Early 80's?) I'll bet people had some bad things to say about those. I remember orcs singing cheesy songs like "Where there's a whip ! There's a way !"
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
The "interview" with Tolkien and the other Ring-related stories on that site were dreadfully boring. The funniest thing I saw was a smallish picture of Gary Coleman as "Merry".
Lord of the Rings is just about hype but Star Wars is nowhere near being hype? IMO talking about "hype" for LotR is tantamount to saying this is a flash in the pan bereft of any aesthetic merit.
George Lucas promised to film the prequels back to back and release one each year for three years. What's fat minivan dad up to now? Five years until he does another prequel? What? Lucas doesn't want to produce a piece of shit and needs to take his time creating special effects and developing plot which still falls far short? Effects in TPM were no better than what was seen in Harry Potter, the plot was non-existent despite Lucas' PR making spoof posters of "Plot Does Matter". Peter Jackson has created an awe inspiring movie with a richly textured plot which effectively conveys themes of friendship and sacrifice incorporating fantastic visuals and effects which enhance the movie without taking center stage or obviously being computer generated.
Lord of the Rings is news for nerds, whether on film or paper, and it still doesn't have a topic devoted entirely to this phenomenon. Lord of the Rings is highly deserving of this, and in light of 1999, moreso than Star Wars.
I knew a guy of Indian decent who'd been born in Kenya. When he heard of the African-American group on campus, he went to join up. He was surprised to find that he was the only one there from Africa.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Someone mentioned in a reply to an earlier article that the casting for Boromir was poorly done, because the actor really wanted the role of Aragorn.
:)
Well, having just finished reading Two Towers, I'd like to point out that Boromir himself was jealous of Aragorn's status.
The casting seems appropriate then, doesn't it?
"Black", usually.
Trouble with adding "token blacks" is that LotR is set in a medieval-type world. So there's not going to be a multi-ethnic Shire, any more than Britain in the Middle Ages was. The only way to cover this would be to make one of the major tribes black - elves, Riders of Rohan, whatever. But then note that black skin serves the single purpose of protection against sun, and the whole of LotR takes place in a cold-temperate area. For the sequel "Sauron does Africa", blacks certainly would feature. But for LotR, the only place they appear is amongst Sauron's crew (the Haradrim, IIRC).
Grab.