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BBC Rerunning Radio Lord of the Rings
Motor writes "I'm not sure if I'm doing the BBC website a favour by mentioning this, but BBC Radio 4 is, from Saturday the 5th of January, running their excellent radio serialisation of The Lord of the Rings in thirteen, one hour weekly episodes. I'm not sure how much load the streaming system can handle though :)"
Make a note of it, and save 'em. The LotR radio show is very acclaimed.
I find it very interesting the way Ian Holm plays Frodo in the Radio adaptation, and later Bilbo in the movie.
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
ZBS and American/Canadian Radio drama company also resells the LotR CDs in the US. So you can watch it anytime you want and at $70 for 13 CDs is a pretty decent deal.
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http://216.122.251.79/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Scr
They also have the Hobbit and their orignal productions of Jack Flanders and Ruby the Galatic Gumshoe.
"His[Mankind's] heaven is like himself: strange, interesting, astonishing, grotesque." -Satan "Letters From Earth" Mar
For those Free Software enthusiasts of you out there who don't want to install RealPlayer, the BBC is trialling Ogg Vorbis live audio streams. The BBC Radio 4 stream can be found here.
If you use this service, please take the time to tell them that you appreciate their support of open standards as the service is still tentative.
I bought the box set of the LotR radio play many years ago and
have enjoyed it many times. One of the landmark radio
dramatisations featuring a superb cast: Ian Holm as Frodo (who
played Bilbo in the Jackson movie); Sir Michael Horden as
Gandalf; John LeMesseurier as Bilbo; and Robert Stephens as
Aragorn. It also features Peter Woodthorpe as Gollum, who
incidentally also played that character in the animated movie.
A matter of opinion of course, but I consider it a superior
adaptation than the recent film. While Jackson's effort is very,
very good, it (through necessity) betrays the book in many ways
resulting in a superficial version of the story. The BBC
dramatisation on the other hand, leaves the subtleties of the
story intact, resulting in a more rounded experience. The only
ommission of note is the absence, as usual, of Tom Bombadil.
If you have never heard a radio play, do yourself a favour and
have a listen to this.
There's also a set of CD's from an American dramatization that isn't nearly as good.
The BBC version is awesome.
Kevin
So I sat down to work one day and fired up the mp3 player. Two hours later I realized that I had done NO WORK! I had simply sat there basking in the glory of this production.
I usually listen to music when I work at home and don't find that distracting at all.
Unfortunately I also found this Lord of the Rings things completely addicting. I found myself looking for excuses to listen to it. Luckily it is only 13 hours long.
I think that I should have saved this for commuting and caused some accidents.
Lasers Controlled Games!
Between the two LOTR Movies and this radio adaption, the radio plays by far stick to the story line, almost to the letter. Obviously they have to abridge it somewhat, but the most important parts of the story are maintained in excellent detail.
While not disappointed with the new movie, I was somewhat dismayed by their attempt to rush more important aspects of the story and drag out those parts that play little role. LOTR is, more than anything, about the growth of the characters. How these small, fat, lazy hobbits go on an adventure and when they return they run the evil out of their homeland. How a dirty rugged old ranger ends up becoming king, and how a dwarf and an elf, both with much inbred conflict with each other, manage to become lifelong friends.
The cave troll did not take 3 minutes to dispatch in the book. It was an orc chieftan who skewered frodo, not a troll. Frantically, the party ran from that room, carrying Frodo (whom they believed to be dead) with them. Gandalf attempts to seal the door with a spell, only the Balrog fights him back with magic and almost destroys him. All this was missed. Instead they have to spend precious time on the character development of Arwen, who doesn't get more than 5 minutes in the books anyways.
And at the end, we don't have the troublesome Aragorn. In the books, he was distraught because he didn't know what path to follow, and then everybody gets separated, Boromir dies, all the hobbits disappear, and the fate of frodo and sam is unknown. Aragorn is forced to make a decision on who they follow and choose to pursue Merry and Pippin.
Galadriel warned against betrayal in the party. Yet there was no such warning. Oh, the book hinted about Boromir's desire for the ring, but up until the very minute he tried to steal it, Frodo only thought that Boromir wanted them to keep it safe at Minas Tirith, and not to walk it into the enemy's hand. However, the rest of the party did not desire it so, and none of the rest of them were a risk. This is shown most prominantly in the "Samwise the Strong" segue in the third novel when Sam is tempted by the power of the ring while he holds it for a while, and yet manages to overcome it with barely any thought on the matter.
But anyways.. No need to overanalyze this. The radio plays are GOOD. Listen to them if you can.
-Restil
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If you want to listen over the net make sure you listen to the Ogg stream because it's higher quality than their Real streams, and Linux friendly.
As a nice Christmas gesture the BBC cut the bitrates down across the board on their terrestrial Digital Radio (DAB) service a couple of days ago, LoTR's will be on Radio 4 which is often found at 80kbps Mono MP2 now, instead of 192kbps stereo, the FM signal is now of superior quality.
A note to all those people who are interested in buying a DAB tuner (all 3 of you!), don't bother, unless they resurrect the bitrates you might as well just get a decent FM tuner, the quality will be better. Another decent technology ruined.
I was a little shocked as to how the movie decided to spoil just about every element of uncertainty with a character simply outright SAYING something that was supposed to be discovered later on. The radio shows were far more adriot at keeping things suspenseful.
Spoilers!!!!!
-Gandalf simply TELLS Frodo that Biblo has gone to live with the elves: in the books this is a wonderful surprise to Frodo.
-Gandalf learns of the Palantir early, for no reason, instead of discovering it at the end of The Two Towers
-Galadriel simply tells (or pretty darn strongly implies) to everyone that Boromir will try to take the Ring
-As mentioned, Aragorn feels no confusion as to what to do about Frodo.
I felt that most of this simply drained excitement and mystery out of the plot for no puropse (in most cases WASTING time instead saving it, by requiring more exposition). Maybe they had some reason, but I can't see it yet. I also thought that for a movie short on time, spending whole minutes in slow-mo reaction shots was a bit silly (Frodo getting stabbed by the troll for like five minutes, Sam drowing in slow motion) as well as deadening the pace at crucial moments. Despite Peter Jackson being totally non-Hollywood, it was SOOOO Hollywood.
The radio plays, of course, had no such temptation to cliche, which is interesting: are there really as many major radio-show cliches as there are movie cliches?