[ Daily Tolkien / Lord Of The Rings ] Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the wargs of fandom!

Suite 101 ^ | December 18, 2002 | Michael Martinez

[JameRetief]

Your Daily Tolkien Ping!

Coming from many sources, these articles cover many aspects of Tolkien and his literary works. If anyone would like for me to ping them directly when I post articles such as this let me know. Enjoy!

[JameRetief]

The Daily Tolkien articles:

        ARTICLES 1-10

        ARTICLES 11-20

21) The Merchants of Middle-earth by Michael Martinez

22) Dear Gandalf ... by Michael Martinez

23) Why did Bilbo choose Frodo as his heir? by Ron Kittle

24) Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the wargs of fandom! by Michael Martinez

[JameRetief]

There is some good analysis of characters and I thought that it worked well as both a review, and a Daily Tolkien. Too bad he had to go on his anti-smoking rant at the end. Ah well.

[ecurbh]

Ring Ping!!

[HairOfTheDog]

Yeah - that was rather strange! Otherwise good!

[Mudboy Slim]

"Seriously, Folks, Who DID Kill Ron Brown...and WHY?!!"

There are 5 houses in a row...the Englishman lives in the Red house...the Spaniard owns a dog...Coffee is drank in the Green House...the Russian drinks tea...The Green House is to the right of the Ivory House...the Old Gold smoker owns snails...Kools are smoked in the Yellow house...the man in the middle house drinks milk...the Norwegian lives in the first house...the Chesterfield smoker lives next to the man with a fox...The man who smokes Kools lives next to the man who owns a Horse...the Lucky Strike smoker drinks orange juice...the Japanese man smokes Parliaments...the Norwegian lives next to the Blue House.

Each man is of a different nationality, has one-colored house, one type of Pet, smokes one brand of smoke, and one drink.

Which man owns the Zebra?
Which man drinks water?

The first five FReepers to FReepMail the correct answer to me will win a "You Are Not Alone...FreeRepublic.com" bumper sticker and a signed copy of the never-been-released "Top Secret: Bootleg!!" audiocassette and a signed copy of CosmicBox's debut CD!! Then, YOU COULD BE included as Guests of Honor on an upcoming thread in which we rip Terry "The PUNK" McAuliffe a new one!!!

Let the games begin...MUD

[2Jedismom]

Good article! Odd stuff about smoking at the end, must be a liberal.

[Notforprophet]

Other than his rant about tobacco, this is a good review. BTW - who says the 'Shire weed' is tobacco, anyway? Didn't the Beatles claim it was pot? Maybe it is something else altogether.

[Destructor]

"Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the wargs of fandom!"

More like: "Cry 'Sequel!' and let slip the geeks of boredom!"

[The Iguana]

If anything, it's a little too fast-paced for the first 30-40 minutes. But I couldn't see any way to tighten it up or slow it down. Peter had to give the audience the equivalent of "Meanwhile, back at the ranch" three times in a row. He tackled part of that problem by having Aragorn figure out what happened to Merry and Pippin (as in the book but with visual cues to the audience). I was very reminded of Prince Humperdink in "The Princess Bride". I almost expected Viggo Mortensen to pick up a bamboo phial and say, "Iocaine powder. I'd stake my life on it."

I immdiately whispered the same phrase to my wife at that moment. She just about lost it.

[The Iguana]

Let's take a look at one of my pet peeves: Peter Jackson's Middle-earth is way too much like Medieval Europe. Tolkien's Middle-earth bears little resemblance to Medieval Europe, and drew upon many classical (pre-Medieval) and modern (post-Medieval) influences, from Greco-Roman history and mythology to Victorian/Edwardian England.

I've argued this point before with Martinez.

I understand where he's coming from but the fact remains that Tolkien, for all his descriptiveness, really does not give us all that many clues as to the precise apparel and architectural stylings of much of Middle Earth.

We really have not seen enough of Gondor to know just exactly how its culture will be depicted - a classical flavor or a medieval flavor? Or something not quite in either realm?

Osgiliath certainly had the smell of Roman or Byzantine ruins - but we'll have to see what ROTk has in store for the living Gondor.

[BradyLS]

Of course, no one really cares what the purists think. Frankly, I don't, either. It's a good movie.

Don't let that line fool you. Based on my exchanges of arcane Tolkienalia with him in an on-line discussion group, Martinez is the text-book definition of "Tolkien purist." He's aware that the movies aren't the books AND that they're popular, so I'm willing to bet his amaiable tune would be different if the reviews were not so rosy.

[BradyLS]

Osgiliath certainly had the smell of Roman or Byzantine ruins - but we'll have to see what ROTk has in store for the living Gondor.

Gondor seemed very much like the Byzantine Empire with Minas Tirith representing Constantinople, IMO.

[artios]

Tobbacco is critical for the return of the king - it explains why and how Sauraman gets his grip on the Shire. Why do we need to PC Tolkien? We don't. Light up and blow rings all you wizards, kings and shire-folk.

[SuziQ]

More like: "Cry 'Sequel!' and let slip the geeks of boredom!"

The troll has arrived!

[The Iguana]

Brady,

Oh - I certainly agree.

Frankly, his favorable reviews of the movies shocked me.

[The Iguana]

Gondor seemed very much like the Byzantine Empire with Minas Tirith representing Constantinople, IMO.

Tolkien himself once made a similar observation.

If I have time I'll look it up.

From what I've seen of Gondor I can't complain at all about Jackson's vision. It's about what I imagined - if not better.

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

Peter Jackson's ROTK will not include The Scouring of the Shire, so it does not matter (re: the Saruman/tobacco linkage). However, PJ still has to dispose of the Palantir and deal with Saruman in some fashion, so we may yet get to see Merry and Pippin smoking their pipes and sleeping off their big meal at the ruined gates of Isengaurd when Gandalf, Theoden, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli arrive. I assume PJ is planning to start ROTK with this scene; otherwise it is hard to imagine how he will reunite Merry and Pippen with the others, or how he will dispatch them by three seperate routes to the battlefields of Minas Tirith.

[Vast Buffalo Wing Conspiracy]

In the extended version of the FOTR DVD, somewhere (it might have been in the commentary tracks) one of the techies remarks, during the scene where Gandalf arrives at Minas Tirith to research the archives regarding the One Ring, that Peter Jackson wanted them to make Minas Tirith look like "Constantinople in the morning".