'THE RETURN OF THE KING' Triumph Tinged With Regret in Middle Earth

nytimes.com ^ | December 16, 2003 | ELVIS MITCHELL

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

Gandalf said "fools hope" not "false hope". He was poking fun at himself. He certainly didn't lose hope.

[BradyLS]

Gandalf said "fools hope" not "false hope". He was poking fun at himself. He certainly didn't lose hope.

That's good. Fool me to be taken in by a false reviewer!

[boris]

I am driven to repeat my one-line review of the trilogy:

If I see one more albino ectomorph, I'll puke.

Actualy the trilogy wasn't bad, and far more faithful to the books than Hollywood usually does.

Prediction: A "prequel" will be made of The Hobbit, the one starring the young Bilbo Baggins...

--Boris

[boris]

BTW, why hasn't Jesse Jackson started to raise hell over the fact that all the good guys are essentially Caucasian, and the only "beings of color" are the Orcs and associated other evil creatures?

--Boris

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I saw ROTK this past weekend and it was the first film I have seen in a LONG time where the audience actually applauded as the final credits were rolling.

The scene where Eowyn slays the Witch King's dragon actually elicited a number of "Oorah!"s from the packed house.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Ditto that. He said "Fools hope".

[Destro]

That is true and was done on purpose. The Lord Of the Rings was invented by Tolkien to create a mythology for his people the Anglo-Saxon northern European peoples. That Africans were not included in that mythology is not his problem or their concern.

The elves represent what the Greeks and Romans were for the barbarian middle age peoples-refined long lived-advanced-and distant. Orcs are perverted elves and based on European myth of goblins and yes those creatures are swarthy but only because they dwell in drakness not because they represent African Blacks. That is as far as my nerdiness will take me. But Orcs probably stand for Mongols/Huns/Arab raiders/Turks.

The Battle of Helms deep was based outright on the last seige of Constantinople by the Turks complete with jihad refrences-use of gun powder - janissary stand ins were the Uruk-hai, etc.

[LadyDoc]

many pointed to the fires sending for help as "roman"...but last week on the history channel, they mentioned when the Spanish armada came against England, there was such a signal system of hilltop fires, and that the news of the Spanish invasion fleet spread thru england in just a few hours after they were spotted...

Another British reference.

Tolkien mentions it (although the "news" is brought first by messenger in the book, and later the flares were lit). This is another visual scene that does not strike one in the book, but translates to a great movie scene