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Post by DE Sinclair on Jan 14, 2018 23:26:22 GMT -5
I picked up a copy of the Hobbit (complete with the Tolkien art) form my local library and started a reread of it today between shifts while I sat out the ice storm at work and ate lunch. Got as far as the slaying of the Goblin king and the escape of the dwarves from the goblins before I had to clock in for the second half of my split shift. I'd forgotten how fast-paced the book is especially in relation to how plodding the films were (and I've only seen the first and half of the second Hobbit films never got to the rest). I've been re-reading part of The Hobbit these past couple of nights too. I started at Bilbo and the Dwarves' arrival at Laketown and read up until the book's end. It is a brisk read, but I love Tolkien's charming prose style in that book. Just wonderful stuff. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if the film adaptation of The Hobbit had just been one 3 hour film and stuck as closely as possible to the book text, with all of its action and humour, it would've been a much better film. I would've rather seen that one 3 hour movie than the three bloated ones I did see. Plus that crazy stuff that they added like the battle with the Necromancer. The book didn't need it, and the movies didn't either. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2018 14:23:14 GMT -5
So Amy came home with a pair of the Funko Rock Candy figures from the Lord of the Rings line yesterday, and they have taken up residence on the Tolkien shelf, guarding Minas Tirith...  It's Arwen...  and Eowyn...  -M |
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Post by Confessor on Feb 5, 2018 10:03:33 GMT -5
A couple of Tolkien-related things I own that I had forgotten to mention in this thread are two framed pictures that hang in my living room. These were kinda hard to photography because of glass reflections, but I have this beautiful painting by Ted Nasmith, of Gandalf talking to Bilbo Baggins outside of Bag End at the start of The Hobbit, which I absolutely love...  My photo doesn't really do it justice. Here's what this painting should look like...  And I also have a framed map of North West Middle-earth...  |
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Post by berkley on Feb 6, 2018 17:24:59 GMT -5
So Amy came home with a pair of the Funko Rock Candy figures from the Lord of the Rings line yesterday, and they have taken up residence on the Tolkien shelf, guarding Minas Tirith... It's Arwen... -M I don't remember how Eowyn looked but going by the Arwen looks like these were based on the films, as you'd expect. Actually, now I think of it, were there any LoTR figurines before the movies came out? |
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Post by berkley on Feb 6, 2018 17:39:07 GMT -5
A couple of Tolkien-related things I own that I had forgotten to mention in this thread are two framed pictures that hang in my living room. These were kinda hard to photography because of glass reflections, but I have this beautiful painting by Ted Nasmith, of Gandalf talking to Bilbo Baggins outside of Bag End at the start of The Hobbit, which I absolutely love... My photo doesn't really do it justice. Here's what this painting should look like... This Nasmith painting is pretty nice and looking at more of his stuff online I'd say he's one of the few Tolkien artists I've seen, apart from Tolkien himself, who captures something of the atmosphere I get from the books. The only jarring note for me is the white picket fence, which to my eyes looks like it belongs more to a 20th-century North American family's yard than to Middle-Earth. |
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Post by Confessor on Feb 6, 2018 17:51:58 GMT -5
The only jarring note for me is the white picket fence, which to my eyes looks like it belongs more to a 20th-century North American family's yard than to Middle-Earth. Oh, I don't know. It's not uncommon to see fences like that in villages in rural Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, which were the real life inspirations for The Shire. |
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Post by berkley on Feb 6, 2018 18:23:31 GMT -5
The only jarring note for me is the white picket fence, which to my eyes looks like it belongs more to a 20th-century North American family's yard than to Middle-Earth. Oh, I don't know. It's not uncommon to see fences like that in villages in rural Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire, which were the real life inspirations for The Shire. I suppose we always bring our own sensibilities to things like this. Being from where I'm from, I pictured something a little more like this  or maybe even this, only in better condition:  |
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Post by berkley on Feb 6, 2018 18:28:27 GMT -5
Here's another style you sometimes see:  Of course, these are all in rural areas while the Shire is actually a thriving township, so I suppose the more regular painted picket fence is actually more suitable. But we can't control our instinctive responses so there you go. That reminds me, what does everyone think of the NZ landscapes in the movies? |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 6, 2018 18:47:33 GMT -5
berkleyThe only LOTR action figures before the Jackson films that I know of were based on the Bakshi animated LOTR movies. These...  which were pulled from the market due to the lukewarm reception the animated movie got and thus are quite pricey. There were some made for role playing games...   then there are collectible figurines like these the Royal Daulton figurines from 1979...  and the Danbury Mint line of figures from 1995...  so yes, there are figures that pre-date the Jackson movies. -M
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Post by Confessor on Feb 6, 2018 19:23:48 GMT -5
That reminds me, what does everyone think of the NZ landscapes in the movies? I liked them. Or, at least, none of them jumped out at me as being wildly different from what I imagined while reading the book. The Shire in particular looked almost exactly like the Shire I'd been seeing in my mind's eye for all those years reading the books. The Misty Mountains and the plains of Rohan too seemed really on point. |
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Post by berkley on Feb 6, 2018 20:58:46 GMT -5
And I also have a framed map of North West Middle-earth...  What do all our LotR fans think of the extended maps produced later by other people? There are a few I've seen online that try to show pretty much the whole of Middle-Earth, not just the part shown in the maps that Tolkien made for the books himself. I don't know if they're from the Atlas of Middle-Earth or were just made up by fans. I'm definitely curious about what the rest of the world would look like but not suer how well-supported they are by Tolkien's writings. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Feb 8, 2018 11:14:36 GMT -5
And I also have a framed map of North West Middle-earth... What do all our LotR fans think of the extended maps produced later by other people? There are a few I've seen online that try to show pretty much the whole of Middle-Earth, not just the part shown in the maps that Tolkien made for the books himself. I don't know if they're from the Atlas of Middle-Earth or were just made up by fans. I'm definitely curious about what the rest of the world would look like but not suer how well-supported they are by Tolkien's writings. Regarding fantasy maps I am ambiguous. I absolutely love maps that help make better sense of a story, and when I first read The Silmarillion (in a French version, without any map) I really wished I had one of Beleriand. Tolkien's map of the First Age, when I finally found one, was a blessing, although I would have preferred it if it had included Valinor and Cuivenen. When it comes to extensive maps made by other people, even well-intentioned, I am extremely critical. Karen Fonstad's work in the Atlas of Middle-Earth I consider excellent and very welcome, because its role is clearly to enhance our understanding of the Tolkien's texts; apart from some very roughly located places whose position is not certain, the entire thing is pretty much devoid of speculation and is therefore a work of scholarship far more than fan-fiction. Fancy maps that place every town, city, river and mountain named in passing in a story (in arbitrary spots, usually) I absolutely cannot stand. I thoroughly hate the complete world maps made for the Conan adventures, for example. Not only do they impose some fan's arbitrary view of someone else's world's geography, but they also make said world smaller. The beauty of incomplete maps like Tolkien's or Howard's, frustrating as they are, is that they leave much to our imagination. We, like the characters in the stories, don't really know what hides beyond the horizon. To describe everything in minute detail just kills that sense of wonder, which is pretty silly when the whole idea of fantasy novels is to enhance said sense of wonder! |
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Post by Confessor on Mar 8, 2018 13:47:05 GMT -5
I just remembered the other day that I hadn't mentioned one of my favourite LOTR-related things, which is Swedish musician Bo Hansson's 1972 album, Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings...    The album was Hansson's debut solo release and had been issued in his native Sweden in 1970, under the title of Sagan om ringen (which is the title of the book in Swedish; literally, "The Saga of the Ring"). The album was then licensed to Charisma Records in 1972 and released over here and in America. There was a big advertising campaign for it on UK television and it ended up being a pretty good seller, reaching #34 on the UK Album Charts and eventually being certified as a gold record. It also came with an LP sized photograph of J.R.R. Tolkien himself as an insert...  As well as the original 1972 LP, I also have the album on CD, which features the original Swedish Sagan om ringen cover artwork...  The cover artwork of the original British release is kinda interesting, in that it features a rather bizarre interpretation of Tolkien's characters and world -- note the weird Buddha-like depiction of Sauron in the clouds and also the weird, green, cabbage-like creature to the left of the open palm (is that meant to be Gollum???). Musically, the album is a purely instrumental record and is full of mind-expanding, psychedelic, oil-blob weirdness, along with some rather overblown ideas, which were perfectly in keeping with the era of Progressive Rock. There's Moog synthesizer madness aplenty and some rather acid rock sounding guitar in places too. In short, it's great! Whether it actually evokes Tolkien's book is up for debate: I say that it does, but my wife says not. Decide for yourself... |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 8, 2018 13:54:35 GMT -5
Although Tenniel might be mistaken for an Elvish name, the illustration above is from the wrong English fantasy book!!! |
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Post by Confessor on Mar 8, 2018 14:02:36 GMT -5
Although Tenniel might be mistaken for an Elvish name, the illustration above is from the wrong English fantasy book!!! It is indeed. I've no idea why Charisma chose Tenniel's illustration of the Mad Hatter for its releases, but it's one of my favourite record label designs ever. |
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