Oolite Bulletins

By "from The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales" what of course I meant is, that Peter Jackson has no doubt read these and has been *imagining* a lot with his writers...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

Tolkien was already working on the whole history of Middle Earth (which became The Silmarillion) so that he could write LotR, from that he extracted The Hobbit to tell to his son Christopher as a lightweight fun story before bedtime.

Um. OK, I'm not entirely 100% sure about this, but from my memory of reading the 6-part book set of the notes and history of the creation of the Middle Earth universe, Tolkien's major work was always the SIlmarillion. He set out to create a British mythology to equal that of the Norse, Greek and Roman mythologies and to that end crafted the tales that became the Silmarillion. The Hobbit came out of stories he used to tell his son Christopher based on the stuff in his mythology and was never originally intended to be published until the whole thing came up at one of his writing group meetings with other alumni like CS Lewis. He published it, not taking the whole thing seriously, and it became a major bestseller much to his chagrin. He was then asked to write a sequel to it and began work on another children's book before quickly finding out that he didn't want to write another kids book so negotiated with his publisher to make it an adult book instead. They reluctantly agreed, and the LOTR trilogy was born, much more closely tied in to the Silmarillion mythology.

I think that if the Tolkien Estate found any directly referenced Silmarillion stuff in the trilogy there would be law suits aplenty. I don't really know what the deal is between Jackson, the publisher and Tolkein Inc, but I imagine it would have to be fairly flexible to allow for some bleed over from LOTR/Hobbit stuff to Silmarillion/Tales stuff since it's all wound together.

Incidentally, I didn't get to the cinema. Mrs Selezen was too ill to go.

And the quest for LOTR watching has failed. She has said she doesn't want to watch the films before seeing the prequel. Fair comment, I suppose.

Selezen wrote:

Incidentally, I didn't get to the cinema. Mrs Selezen was too ill to go.

And the quest for LOTR watching has failed. She has said she doesn't want to watch the films before seeing the prequel. Fair comment, I suppose.

That's too bad - I hope she feels better right quick. My wife is actually reading all the books now. She started the Hobbit just before all the hype and is now working on the first LotR installment. I think Smivs came up with some good advice for when Mrs. Selezen is ready to see it - get in some pipeweed and some ale and enjoy a day in ME .

Tickets booked for Friday for myself and Mrs DaddyHoggy - only in 2D as Mrs DH's eyes don't work for 3D and she throws up.

Hope Mrs. Selezen feels better soon.

I'll be seeing it avec les enfants in the new year, after the hoi polloi are out of the way! I hate crowded cinemas. Wish I could buy the blu-ray now. (Grumpy)

Cheers,

Drew.

When I booked the tickets for Friday (yesterday) - kids are still at school - so it will be mostly sans children (private schools - of which Newbury has several have already broken up) - the 11yo is v. cross - she's studying Mordor at school and wants to see it too - so there may be a 2nd trip in the New Year.

We also booked the first tickets in the who screen...

DaddyHoggy wrote:

...the 11yo is v. cross - she's studying Mordor at school...

Mordor! We got the Industrial Revolution - kids today don't know how lucky they are

Smivs wrote:

DaddyHoggy wrote:

...the 11yo is v. cross - she's studying Mordor at school...

Mordor! We got the Industrial Revolution - kids today don't know how lucky they are

Depending on who you read, LotR - Saruman/Sauron is a study of the Industrial Revolution (all devouring machinery etc...)

Yeah, but mine was all seed-drills and looms, no fiery furnaces in the bowels of the Earth! Maybe my teacher was just a bit dull...

I went to see the movie yesterday with Mrs. Thermonuklear(she hasn't read the book yet o_O). Great movie, too much fighting and general mucking about though. I had a hard time to not think of Bad Taste/Braindead at times.
I liked the beginning more than anything else, poor Bilbo and the looming threat of adventure... My favourite part of the book was loyally ported to the screen. Funny how martin Freeman is playing a reluctant adventurer again! First the Hitchhiker's Guide and now this. I hadn't even thought how similar Bilbo and Arthur Dent are in some aspects.

All-in-all 4/5 stars, could have done better without the constant fighting.

Thermonuklear wrote:

I went to see the movie yesterday with Mrs. Thermonuklear(she hasn't read the book yet o_O). Great movie, too much fighting and general mucking about though. I had a hard time to not think of Bad Taste/Braindead at times.
I liked the beginning more than anything else, poor Bilbo and the looming threat of adventure... My favourite part of the book was loyally ported to the screen. Funny how martin Freeman is playing a reluctant adventurer again! First the Hitchhiker's Guide and now this. I hadn't even thought how similar Bilbo and Arthur Dent are in some aspects.

All-in-all 4/5 stars, could have done better without the constant fighting.

Several reviews I have read have pointed out that in the book the dwarves are good, but it's Bilbo's smarts that gets them out of trouble - but in the film the emphasis has switched to Thorin and his Ninja Dwarves and Bilbo has suddenly become a competent fighter who has been turned into a bit of bumbler who is actually dragging the dwarves back (thus negating the point of the book that Gandalf gets the dwarves to take Bilbo BECAUSE of his cleverness!)

Will know for myself tomorrow.

Interesting take. My take on the Bilbo arc is that Gandalf knows that Bilbo is the right man for the job but up until the incident with the Dwarves all being tied up Bilbo himself doesn't know what he's capable of - it's that incident that helps him realise his potential (admittedly with the help of the ring).

The dwarves are quite scathing of Bilbo's bumbling in the first half of the book as I remember but they learn considerable respect after he rescues them all.

Excellent start to the trilogy As a Tolkien fan, there is nothing bad I can say really Going to see again tomorrow with my nephews

Enjoyed the first hour - right up to the encounter with the 3 trolls in fact, it alternates between silly and violent after that (what have they done to Radagast!?)

Weaving in some of the back-story from LotR Appendices was handled quite well in the most - discussion between Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf and Saruman was done well (especially when you think Christopher Lee was too ill to leave Blighty and he's CGI'd into those scenes)

Serkis and Gollum steals the show.