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Lord of the Rings: Two Towers Reviews Rolling In
flogger writes "After the first showing of The Two Towers, the reviews are now coming in. They are positive and SPOILER FILLED. Reviews can be found here, here and a short one here." Don't say you weren't warned. I'm not reading them. I finished re-reading TTT saturday, and am ready to see Ents walk.
Like, there is something not in the books?
I really wish the media would stop trying to cash in on the events of 9/11. I think this title will upset many people.
What was wrong with The Lord of the Rings II?
Just a heads up to all the peps out there it holdin' down. If you buy the special edition super ultra limited DVD box (with the bookend thingies), enclosed is a free pass to see TTT in the theaters, or theatres depending on your pondsidage.
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
What have the world come to when the submitters warn the /. crowd about spoilers in a LOTR movie. Doesn't the entire /. crowd know it by heart?? It ... makes me sad.
Look a monkey!
...I've never read the books.
Where can I get the Cliff's Notes?
Turns out Frodo is Sauron's son.
seriously, some movies I'll see no matter what the reviewer says,
LOTR is one (three) of those.
I'll read the reviews solely for the purpose of getting other people's take on the movies. Like the "discussion" part of an article comes after
the "results" section.
I know it sounds sick but hey
Working for necessity's mother.
Well that's ruined that bit for me.
After seeing the first movie, which wasn't bad, I can wait.
In fact, it is entirely possible that I will wait until the "Final" movie is released and get the "Super Mega Ultra Complete (untill the Sequel/Prequel) Boxed Set Collectors Version Directors Cut" and waste a whole week watching it.
Or I might just keep my money in my pocket and read a good book.
Three reviews given, not one of them seemed to be from an unbiased perspective. When I read the first two, I began to think the writers were masturbating as they typed. And the third one, being from 'theonering.net', didn't seem a reliable source of an impartial view either.
Isn't it possible to find a review from someone who isn't an obsessive zealot? I'm interested in finding out how good the film is, and I'm not going to get that from someone who has decided he's going to enjoy the film before he's even seen it.
Secondly, what is the point in having spoilers in a review? The whole point in a review is that you can find out how good the film is, so you can decide whether to see it or not. By giving away what happens in the film, you sort of take away the fun in watching it in the first place. Most reviewers seem to get by reviewing films without giving away every single thing that happens, why can't these reviewers?
Looks like I'll just have to see what the Filthy Critic says, although if he does review it it probably won't be up till February, and then he'll spend 90% of the review talking about his personal problems.
the spoiler obsession, born of the Internet's fan-geek culture, is the enemy of real criticism, real discussion and maybe even real thought.
Andrew O'Hehir, at Salon.com
Best Slashdot Co
IIRC "that book" wasn't 'a book' but 'two books', and wasn't called "The Two Towers" at all, until the publisher made JRRT make them into one. He searched for a title and came up with Two Towers, though apparently never gave real explanation as to which were the two towers in question. It is speculation (albeit educated specualtion) that came up with potential explanations of the towers. Google should come up with some stuff about this for those with a bit of time to wade through all the film related links!
Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
... who reads some reviews only after seeing the movies ?
Why do you do that?
So you know whether or not you liked the film?
Szo
Red Leader Standing By!
I thought it was sad that they put pictures of Gandalf the White in the trailers (at least in the UK they did). It does mean that some of the impact will be lost on those who haven't read the books...
Trailers are evil and spoilery.
because I'm stuck in Germany at the moment and I sure don't speak enough German to understand TTT!
I can't even read this article because of the spoilers!! Anyone know of any English movie-theatres around Cologne/Dusseldorf area?
He who defends everything, defends nothing. -- Fredrick The Great
The name comes from the 2 towers that are central to the second (really 3rd and 4th) book. The first half (book 3) revolves around Saruman and the tower of Isengard.
The second half (the 4th book) revolves around the trek of Sam and Frodo to destroy the one ring, whose power was used to build the foundations of the mighty tower of Barad-Dur.
With these 2 structures featured heavily, there seems little other reason how Tolkien came to the title.
"The Two Towers gets as near as possible to finding a title to cover the widely divergent Books 3 & 4; and can be left ambiguous- it might refer to Isengard and Barad-dur, or to Minas Tirith and B; or Isengard and Cirith Ungol (1)." [Letter #140]
Taken from JRRT's letters. You will easily find many more references on google.
"I am not at all happy about the title `the Two Towers'. It must if there is any real reference in it to Vol II refer to Orthanc and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. But since there is so much made of the basic opposition of the Dark Tower and Minas Tirith, that seems very misleading." [Letter #143]
You see?
Try NetBSD... safe,straightforward,useful.
well, i also read review after i see a movie that i liked. i think it's interesting to read other opinions, and there's the possibility that they will discuss a point that u missed (like an obscure reference). i guess i could just read to some forum but professional reviewers are generaly more agreable to read.
I hate you Taco, I hate you! I was avoiding all those spoilers and reading the spoiler-free Slashdot frontpage and you tell me that ENTS CAN WALK!?
I don't wanna see that movie anymore.
There used to be a English Movie house, just next to the train station. Might check if its still there. I was plesantly supprised that when movies opened in the US it opened there at the same time. Course that was 16 years ago... But im sure there is still a english movie house in Munich, as many Muncher's prefer to hear the movie with the origional voices.
You're right, they should have totally changed what is probably the most read story of the 20th century so that it fits into your definition of what a "Hollywood" movie is supposed to be. Maybe Peter Jackson and New Line gave the audience a little more credit than you apparently deserve.
LOTR is not a trilogy and the following movies are not sequels. It's one huge novel/movie that is divided into three parts for convenience.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
I'm not reading [the reviews]. I finished re-reading TTT saturday, and am ready to see Ents walk.
I thought the Ents were supposed to be the big SPOIL-able thing in this one.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Talking about the fight scene in Helm's Deep:
"...made ATTACK OF THE CLONES look like it was shot in a barn with hand puppets."
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
Also, if you talk about Microsoft, write Microsoft or MS, not Micro$oft, M$, MicroShit, MicroShaft, MickeySoft of any variation of these.
Is Micros~1 acceptable?
I read the book so obviously nothing surprises me but I was a bit irritated reading the second review(i didn't finish it) and it started giving a scene by scene account of the movie, I didn't want to read a summary of the screenplay.
The thing I want to know, Is if Enya did sing /write another set of songs for this movie and if she will for the next.
I really like "May It Be", and I still think she deserved an award for it.
So, did she?
errera hunamum ets
Don't say you weren't warned. I'm not reading them. I finished re-reading TTT saturday, and am ready to see Ents walk.
:)
Since when the editors read the articles anyway?
Uh... "one huge novel"? Where'd you get that idea?
It was originally supposed to be 6 books when he wrote it but the publishers, at the time of the original printing, wanted to save money on printing costs and force readers to buy more of the series all at once. They combined books 1 and 2 into one book, 3 and 4 into the next, and 5 and 6 into the last.
Karma: NaN
Aint It Cool acts like it is slashdotted. Linking to an aintitcool.com story on Slashdot is only pouring more gasoline on the fire.
Well it really is just one story that has been somewhat arbitrarily broken into three sections. Tolkien originally wanted it to be on *big* book but the publisher insisted, rightly IMO, that it wouldn't sell if it wasn't in more digestible chunks.
That being said each of the six 'books' (each book in the trilogy is divided into a pair of 'books') has *some* resolution though sometimes an unhappy one and for obvious reasons usually a "cliffhanger"). At the end of the first book they make it to Rivendell, at the end of the second (the end of FOTR) the fellowship is broken, etc. By ganging up two 'books' into one book or movie you sort of dilute the feeling of resolution because half of the FOTR takes place before the fellowhip is even formed so it's disolution is less satisfying as an (cliffhanger) ending. Which makes me wonder if they could have pulled it off as six two-hour movies. Each movie would feel a little more complete on it's own by telling a smaller but more satisfyingly resolved story. They certainly seemed to have enough footage and even though I really liked FOTR I have to say 3.5 hours for the director's cut starts to get overwhelming/tedious. From a mercenary standpoint for the studio that is twice as many movie tickets/DVD/merchandise sales.
That's funny, there are so many similarly bad reviews out there it took me a while to realize this was a parody site.
hehe i was just up in Montreal and saw those. I dont speak french, so i couldn't tell if you it said free ticket or not.
Check out my sysadmin blog!
It's still relevant. Micros~1 still uses the old ISO-9660 (or whatever it is) CD format that forces 8.3 and they still have all their download files in cryptic, uselessly named 8.3 filenames. It's 2002, yet for naming conventions, Microsoft is still in 1992.
Here's a hint, world! No one uses DOS anymore! We don't need 8.3 filenames!
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
To calibrate my opinions against specific other people's opinions on a known movie, so that if I'm ever wondering about a movie in the future, I know who to turn to for a review.
Quite effective, actually.
I wish I could remember the article you stole that from. Possibly its your and you are just reusing it, but I hate it when people kharma whore off of other peoples funny comments.
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?
We need comic relief in epic movies as much as we need Jar Jar Binks to show up in The Return Of The King. IMHO it is atrocious to have humor in any serious work of epic scope. I never felt that Gimli served that purpose in the novel and I certainly despise this act by Peter Jackson.
Here's a hint, world! No one uses DOS anymore! We don't need 8.3 filenames!
Actually, they're kind of convenient, and even with long filename capability it's nice to have shorter file names sometimes when you have to revert to a pure command prompt (no mouse) for whatever reason. Linux's * autocomplete filenames feature is very useful. c:\progra~1\borlan~1\projects or c:\progra*\borlan*\projects is much faster than typing out the whole thing.
I wish you could have a file with two names; one enforced short length for speed/convenience, the other a 255 char descriptive, either of which could be used to call the file. Maybe database-based file systems will solve this. (yeah you can do it with hard and soft links in linux, but it's not automatic)
$8.95/mo web hosting
- Gandalf is dead or missing
:puts fingers in ears:
He's dead, you see him falling to his death.
He's dead! nah nah nah nah nah nah I'm not listening he's dead nah nah nah nah nah nah
Never confuse volume with power.
yes indeed, the reviews have a lot of spoilers that people who've read the book would be well-advised to avoid. The lightsoutentertainment review in particular is not recommended if you have read the book- I'm very disappointed that I read it because it makes the movie sound *too* different from the canon, and I'd prefer to go in without any significant expectations, either way.
In any case, it looks like TTT rocks and I can't wait to see it!
So long, and thanks for all the Phish
You really do have this, with the two discs. I had that same feeling when I watched the Extended version. I just watched it in two blocks of time. I hope future extended version are also done the same way. Initially I was annoyed at the 2 DVDs for the one film, because I have to change discs. Now I hope the other two are done the same way. Essentially you get a disc per book for a total of 6 near 2 hour movies.
Movies review YOU!
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
Good point. But if you are using Windows and _not_ using 4NT or something like cygwin that gives you a *nix-type shell then you get all the hassles you deserve.
Filename completion rules!
I'm pretty sure that something like "c:\progra*\borlan*\projects" works fine with cmd.exe if the wildcards reduce to a unique filename.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
However, the books are not sequels to each other, the story is one single continuous tale. The story does not wrap up a tidy conclusion at the end of each of the 3 or 6 "books." If you read Tolkien's comments, he wanted them all bound together, but the technology to bind 1216 pages did not exist at that time.
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
A little off topic, but I have a question for LOTR fans. I've just finished the book, down to the very end. But seeing the map, there's something bothering me about the logic of the story
In the map, I can see that Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, the Cross Road, Minas Morgul, Cirith Ungol, and then Mt. Doom went almost in a straight line. So, it's only logical for me that the great battles should take place somewhere in this line, rather than far north in Morannon.
When Frodo arrived in the Black Gate of Morannon, Gollum argued that Sauron's attention would be concentrated in the north. 'He thinks no one can come to the Moontower without fighting big battles at the bridges, or getting lots of boats which they cannot hide and He will know about'. Off course Gollum was probably lying, but to me that statement was very ridiculous. After all, though he had enemies all round him, Minas Tirith was the nearest and that path was the most logical
When finally the Captains of the West captured the Crossroad (without big battles at the bridges, nor lots og boats), they again make a ridiculous move by riding north for several days to knock Mordor at their 'front door'. Off course Gandalf supposedly try to drive Sauron's attention away from Cirith Ungol where Frodo would pass, but actually he should know (by Faramir's account) that at that time Frodo was long gone from the pass
And then a logical move for Sauron is to take back the Crossroad (instead of moving his army to the north) and then either chase the silly army from behind of attemp another strike at Minas Tirith. After all he still outnumbers his enemies many time over at that point
Well, that's what's bugging me, hope someone could give a logical explanation
According to Time Peter Jackson fought with the studio to pick up the second film exactly where the first left off, as if you just stepped out for a popcorn refil without any voice over or flashbacks.
But it seems to me that some people missed the conflict and resolution of Fellowship even when the director ADDED AN ADDITIONAL SCENE OF DIALOG BETWEEN ARAGORN AND FRODO TO MAKE THE CONFLICT EXPLICIT! The conflict is that the ring corrupts everything that comes near it making the Fellowship its self a threat to the quest. The resolution is that Ringbearer tries to go alone.
There have been a few comments (generally joking) about the two towers name and its similarity to the world trade center disaster. I think it is bogus, of course, but the wtc group seems to be trying as hard as they can to fuel the fire. Did anyone notice that the unveiling of the new WTC Plans will occur on the same day LOTR is being released? Who's the genius there?
-Sean
--ngoy
- Frodo discovers that Arwen is his sister, hence clearing the way for Aragorn. And to think that he kissed her. Eeeuw.
- Cute low-tech nature-loving freedom-fighters defeat the Uruk-hai stormtroopers by dropping trees on them. Like that's believable!
- Pippin gets even more annoying: "Meesa think Strider doosna know about second breakfast"
And... of course... at the very end...Gollum is kicking Frodo's ass ("and now, young Bagginsses
I think Lucas has a good plaigarism case against Tolkien.
I went ahead and pooped.
Just want to keep slashdot apprised.
"And like that
In the book it's 17 years.
Well written reviews don't just state whether the movie was good or not. They have insights, background on directors/actors. If you only look at a thumbs up or a thumbs down on a review then you probably are the type of person who thinks movie reviewers are useless.
The special edition DVD of FOTR improves on the passage of time. It adds a few scenes of 'filler', that each are only maybe one minute long each, but the help to promote the feeling of more time passing. There are two or three camping scenes that show that what looked like one day in the theatrical release is really longer. To me, the biggest point that shows how much time is really passing is when the barkeep in Bree says "Haven't seen him in 6 months." Assuming Gandalf stopped on his way TO the Shire the first time, that's still a multiple month journey each way. (I'm guessing 1.5-2 months on horseback, 3-5 months by foot, based on that one line. I don't remember how long it is in the book.)
Plus a whole new 'marsh' sequence is added when the four hobbits are following Aragorn, which shows that the trip from Bree to Rivendell was MUCH longer (they passed through a whole different kind of terrain.)
Yes, in the book, a few years passes between the party and Gandalf's return to Bag End to tell Frodo to leave. That passage of time isn't very well explained in the movie, but it is lightly implied with all the riding around Gandalf does.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
From the look of the comments posted so far, it appears that nobody has read the reviews (even though they argue that those who have read the books shouldn't have to worry about spoilers.)
Or isn't that how slashdot always works?
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
The party was a special occasion -- Bilbo's 111th birthday (or "eleventy-first", as he so eloquently put it), and Frodo's 33rd birthday, which was a hobbit's coming-of-age (after passing his/her "tweens", the hobbit's irresponsible years). Bilbo's age was not without note -- hobbits were not usually that long-lived, and eleventy-one was a special number, quite apart from the fact that he was beginning to approach the Old Took in years.
Together, Bilbo's age and Frodo's age made another remarkable number, 144, or one gross, and so 144 guests were invited to a special insiders' party.
After that, 17 years passed, until Frodo was hitting 50, which (IIRC) was when Bilbo started having his adventures.
All this from memory, without having a reference in front of me. Gosh, I really am an obsessed fan.
"I wished I'd worn a tie so I could strangle myself."
I'll be nice and warn you that there is a third movie going out christmas 2003, so you know what to do with the ties you are going to receive this christmas.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
It's almost never noted that this is a revival of the format in which all the great (and not-so-great) English novelists of the 19th Century were usually published. They were called "triple deckers" in the jargon of the time. Most novels from authors like Jane Austen, Edward G.E. Bulwer-Lytton, or Charles Dickens were originally published in this form.
And the brethren went away edified.
--- Stop the world! I want to get off!
Well these jokes do seem to have a bit of life left in them after all, touche!
Jeremy
Here ends the first part of the history of the War of the Rings.
The second part is called The Two Towers, since the events recounted in it are dominated by Orthanc, the citadel of Saruman, and the fortress Minas Morgul, that guards the secret entrance to Mordor...
This is found on page 529 of the 1987 reprinting of the Unwin Paperback (ISBN 0-04-823185-1).
I'm not sure if Tolkein wrote those words himself, or if they were added by his publisher, but unless Tolkein said something to the contrary, they are probably as canonical as anything.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
It's really a very poorly written article. At times it was difficult to tell if he was talking about the movie or the books, and in either case hadn't paid very close attention. In the book, the people called "wild men" were good guys, without whose aid the Rohirrim never could have relieved the seige of Minas Tirith. They did this despite the fact they had been unjustly persecuted (the word used is "hunted") for many years by the Rohirrim, largely on account of their race. This is as explicit a condemnation of racism as you'll find in any epic work.
The peoples the article seems to be incorrectly denoting "wild men" were "Southrons" and "Easterlings". Now, the thing is that Tolkien made absolutely no bones about his work being an English story written primarily for the English and drawing on legends and motifs of northwestern Europe. The Rohirrim the article objects to so much simply reflect the "heroic" mould of English legend; their culture (with a few exceptions) is modelled closely on that of the Anglo-Saxons and their language is exactly the Mercian dialect of Old English. In Tolkien's history the Southrons and Easterlings were primarily responsible over the long course of the Third Age for the decline of Gondorian power in repeated invasions that often took advantage of internal political turmoil or moral decay. (Gondor, incidentally, isn't all that far south. It's capital is conceived of as being roughly at the latitude of Venice. It's still well north of the tropics.) The best real-life analogues here are the Huns and Mongols (for the Easterlings) and the Moors (for the Southrons). Their invasions of Europe have the curious character of being both historical and legendary. Consider, for example, all the personal legends about Atilla, or the Chanson de Roland. It's for the legendary associations that, as "bad guys" in Lord of the Rings, they have a certain resonace with Western European readers, and it's this resonance that makes them so effective.
And this brings up another part of the problem. By drawing on the sources I mentioned above, Tolkien successfully inculcated the "feel" of a traditional epic in his work. In such tales, the line between good and evil is very clearly drawn. The good have no flaws, and the evil have no redeeming characteristics. This draws some to automatically assign this quality to Lord of the Rings, but it in fact is not there. No group of people in it is morally unambiguous. Aragorn's technologically advanced ancestors, the Numenoreans, were from an isolated western island. When they arrived in Middle-earth it was to exploit its resources, which they did to disastrous effect -- just ask Treebeard -- and as they fell into a moral decline they became brutal oppressors of the indigenes. This is one of the main causes in Tolkien's history for the traditional antipathy of the Southrons, at least, to Aragorn's race, and why they were so willing to listen to the Numenoreans opponent Sauron, who concealed his own ulterior motives. After the Atlantis-like sinking of Numenor and the establishment of Numenorean kingdoms in Middle-earth they became stagnant, a curious combination of Byzantine and Egyptian, as much concerned with the embalming of the dead as with the well-being of the living and more interested in antiquarian knowledge than new discoveries. The Elves weren't exempt either; they didn't even belong in Middle-earth anymore. Those who remained were the ones who refused the summons to the home of the gods after the end of the First Age. It was their seeking after power to preserve Middle-earth in an image of the places they remembered -- in fact, to retard its development -- that they became seduced by Sauron into the forging of the Rings of Power, which is what sets up the problem situation in Lord of the Rings in the first place. The Rohirrim had a past spotted with racial intolerance. Besides the Druadan ("wild men") they also despised on racial grounds the Dunlendings, whom they had largely displaced from their ancestral homes. Of this oppression they reaped bitter fruit more than once. Not even wizards, who are actually of the race of the gods, are free from moral difficulties. Five were originally sent to Middle-earth, but only one, Gandalf, fulfilled his mission. The others became mostly irrelevant to the struggle, and one, Saruman, went completely to the bad. (If Tolkien's color-coding were as reliable as all that, it would have been Saruman the White who persevered, while Gandalf the Grey -- a color that should indicate moral ambiguity -- would have fallen.)
And Sauron (of the same kind as the wizards, incidentally) wasn't necessarily evil, not in the beginning, or at least he may have been motivated by impulses that were essentially good. It's his method of achieving that good that led him into the evil of dominating others by force. To the extent that any other character in the book does the same thing, they are morally tainted as well.
I don't know what "wearing black" has to do with anything. The writer of the article should have noted that in the book, the livery of the White Tower in Minas Tirith was a mostly black uniform, and that Aragorn's banner was mostly black as well. Obviously, color is not always the moral indicator it's made out to be.
Nor is the South to be exclusively associated with evil. It should be remembered that Lord of the Rings was an afterthought to the main body of the mythology Tolkien had developed, and in the mythology the far North (and West of any surviving lands in Middle-earth) was the home of the great primeval evil, of whom Sauron was just a servant.
Orcs aren't human and aren't intended to resemble any humans all that closely except in a very degraded way. The article's complaints about them are artifacts of the movie; the book mentions neither dreadlocks nor very dark skin. And the movie presents a version of their origin that Tolkien considered among several others, but never actaully settled on. The origins of the Orcs were (ironically, considering their importance to the narrative) very difficult to work into his story, and Tolkien never found a satisfactory solution.
The whole racial and moral situation Tolkien presents is far more complex than it's sometimes made out to be, and it actually models the real world with some fidelity. As a white man of Northern Europe, though, he can scarcely be blamed for writing his stories from the point of view of a white man of Northern Europe. Although there was every indication that he was well aware of the multitudinous failings of his own race, he was too well-versed in history to believe that it was as uniquely fallible as it's often made out to be these days, and so failed to be embarrassed by it. And I think it's this presently unfashionable lack of embarrassment that so offends many of his detractors more than anything else.
And the brethren went away edified.
Some guy named Tolkien spoiled the whole movie about 50 years ago, and I think most people here have already seen it.
There is a difference between the words "book", "novel", and "volume".
See here under definition 1 d of book:
'a major division of a treatise or literary work'
LOTR was always 1 novel consisting of 6 books. Tolkien wanted it printed in 1 volume, but the publisher insisted on splitting it into 3 volumes, each with 2 books.
-chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Be serious. Spoilers? The books have been available for quite a long time. Reminds me of those people who walked out of the theater after the first movie grumbling about not knowing what happens next...
After all, Sauron lives in the White House and Saruman lives in London.
As to comparisons with the Middle East: surely you must see you're projecting backwards. Nowhere in either LoTR or in Tolkien's ancillary writings can anything be found to show he had that region in mind in relation to Mordor. As the movies show, Mordor also bears a passing resemblence to parts of New Zealand, and some attention to the book reveals it wasn't particularly hot outside the environs of the volcano either. The part of Middle-earth that maybe corresponds to the Middle-east by intent is south of Mordor, although we find it inhabited by Moorish rather than Arabic analogues. (Since we find corsairs there as well, which brings to mind the pirates of the Barbary Coast, it's perhaps better to think of it as analagous to North Africa.) In any event, your proposed metaphor breaks down in that Sauron was the aggressor, and that the white men (who lived just as far or farther south and not very far at all west) were fighting a defensive war, not to "liberate" Mordor but to prevent Sauron from gaining dominion over the known world.
Whether or not it's right to "tar entire races with the same brush", it's a sad fact that pretty much everybody does exactly that except in those rare cases where there is some moral imperative not to. Worldwide, that is a rare thing, you know. If we must regard this as a lesson for the "kids", I don't think the fact that many people do think this way (although we ought not) is a bad one to learn.
As I said at some length before (with numerous illustrations), I don't think Tolkien's portrayal of the world was as black-and-white as you seem to think. But sometimes -- not always and not often, but sometimes -- the world does work that way. Even leaving Iraq aside, I'm sure you can come up with a relatively recent example or two.
There are very few Christian metaphors in LoTR; you've mainly read into it things that simply aren't there. Frodo might be made to stand for a Christian on his spiritual path, but he certainly does not stand for Christ. Note that he was overcome by temptation at the end. That's not something a devout Roman Catholic like Tolkien would have made a Christ-analogue do. I'm not going to bother with the rest of it. I don't have the time. And although you seem certain of your conclusion, you seem less certain about the specifics. I can't argue with such a phantom.
I don't find the morality of LoTR particularly dubious. It is, of course, a fundamentally Christian one. I can't see what your problem with it is unless you simply object to the source. As a Christian myself, you can hardly expect me to agree.
And the brethren went away edified.
According to the commentary and the biography of Tolkien in the extended DVDs, Tolkien absolutely HATED his works to be represented allegorical. That was one thing he was very adamant about and he wanted the works to stand as they are. For instance, it mentions how some people used the Ring as an allegory for nuclear weapons during that era and Sauron as Hitler, etc. which got the author pretty riled.
The closest intention Tolkien had was of producing an original English myth, since as a professor he knew that a lot of the English legends and folklores were actually bastardizations of the imports from other countries (like the idea of King Arthur). So yeah it would definitely seem Anglo since he inteded it to be very Anglo-centric material. Just as a ancient Chinese myth would be China-centric. But you can't say they are maliciously racist.
BTW, I couldn't read that article - the link didn't work for me.
I guess they figure that Helm's Deep and the Ent smackdown is enough for one movie. Shrug. Either way it should kick copious amounts of ass.
Dyolf Knip
First of all, I can't wait to see TTT for myself. I really liked FOTR, and actuallly hadn't read LOTR before I saw it. I've read the book a couple of time since, and ditto on Silmarillion. Speaking of which, in retrospect, I found the Silmarillion to be even more interesting than LOTR. Maybe its just me, but I sure would love to see another trilogy based off of the Silmarillion. Maybe I just have a deep fascination with the elves and the elvish languages, but I thought the Silmarillion was enthralling in a whole different way than LOTR. To be fair, I had to read LOTR first to appreciate the Silmarillion, which I would suspect is a common statement for those who have read both. I think it would be incredibly cool to have even more advanced CG re-enact the music of the ainur and the days of the 2 trees in Valinor. Hell, if the movie makers wanted to get really greedy they could split the Silmarillion up into probably 10 - 16 episodes, which would be just fine by me, provided of course that each episode was released every 4 months or so... ;-)
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its