I tried to read it and got past exactly ZERO pages. I re-read the same few paragraphs about 20 times and decided life's too short for this. I've never even considered giving it another try.
I've heard that for many readers familiar with LOTR it's best to read it in reverse, i.e. read the 3rd Age stuff toward the end of the book first, then the 2nd Age stuff, etc.
I may be in the small minority in liking Water World. Granted, it is mostly the designs and action set pieces I like. Plus a really good score.
John Carter of Mars was a very forgetable film. I think the 5th Element nails that sort of pulp scifi tone much better.
I really like the 13th Warrior.
That is the first time I've ever hear of the two being compared as the same kind of film. I see the two films as fundamentally different, but art criticism is a funny thing, so you be you.
Rather interestingly, Depp received some praise for his portrayal of Tonto from the Aboriginal Community, most notably from Comanche Nation Chairman Wallace Coffey. I'd call it a "controversial" choice.
Yeah, I think it's less cut-and-dry than a lot of people want to make it. There's real subtlety and commentary going on in how the character is written and how Depp plays it.
That said, a talented Native actor could have dinner equally and even more interesting things with it.
The Hobbit movies were trash. (Okay, I've only seen the first two. I might someday watch the third one just to watch the battle that supposedly makes up half the run time.)
There's a reason they're as bad as they are. The studio canned director Guillermo del Toro and his two movie plan at the last minute and dragged Peter Jackson in to do them instead as three movies. Poor old PJ had to make most of the crap up as he went along. And boy does it show.
Jackson was not keen on directing it himself, and the plan was for two movies, until during
filming the studios said they wanted three. You can't do that and get good movies, although there's probably some exception in the history of film-making I'm not thinking of.
I enjoyed the first Hobbit movie despite its many flaws. But with the other two movies it all fell apart, and it became painfully obvious that this should have been two movies at the most.
There are a few fan edits that trim the trilogy down to 2 movies, or even 1, and it makes for a much better viewing experience. The fan edits cut all of the fan service, unnecessary cameos and everything with Legolas. It turns a bad trilogy into a some what passable film.
I watched a 4 hour and 20 minute fan edit recently and, aside from a couple of slightly jarring cuts that no one else in the family noticed, it was thoroughly enjoyable.
Funny even though I read the Hobbit, watched the animated movie, had the picture book based on the movie and went to play of it all as a kid, I never realized it was written as a childrens book. I just kind of took it as a book everyone read. Guess Im just oblivious to the finer points of life sometimes.
I know Token wrote it ostensibly for his kids, but did he think of it as a "children's book"? It does not read that way to me as an adult.
That's how I look at it. I honestly don't care if it gets Tolkien "right" or not, as long as it's good fantasy. I see a lot of potential in this project, using a very rich setting to tell a mostly-new story. I hope they keep the fan-service to a minimum.
I feel the same way. I don't expect a faithful adaptation, just an "inspired by" version of some cool stuff from the 2nd Age.
Hobbits don't exist in Middle Earth in the 2nd Age. They do not even move west and settle the Shire until midway through the 3rd Age. So if there is even one of them in this series, that will be a serious screw-up.
I'm not sure if we know whether they existed or not in the 2nd Age - they just don't enter into
anyone else's reckoning until the 3rd Age.
Pretty sure that is already confirmed. Any of the Elves, except younger ones like Arwen, could be in it because they are immortal and have been around since the 1st Age.
But we can also be pretty sure there will not be any Wizards, no matter how much Ian wants to play Gandalf again, since they were not sent to Middle Earth til the 3rd Age? Of course, that is assuming that the entire series stays in the 2nd Age.
The beings who became the Istari were around in some form during the 2nd Age, so...maybe we'll see them?
Well, I do love Cate. Can't really have too much Cate Blanchett.
Her otherworldly approach to Galadriel is one of my favorite things in those movies.
p.s. I don't know what Tolkien's socio-political views were, or what they would be today, but he was basically a traditionalist and a Romantic, so everything in his work is strongly hued with a sense of decline and devolution. Each successive Age was a further "Fall" from the primordial purity of Aman. Yet Aman still exists as the archetypal "golden country" beyond the bounds of the earth, and the peoples of Middle-earth find peace and well-being to the degree to which they live in harmony with this archetype and divine order. This jives with ancient and esoteric views, as well as that of Gnosticism, or the Ages as the Indian Yugas.
That said, we don't know how Tolkien would have written stories set in later Ages. LotR ends with the beginning of the Fourth Age, which he said was roughly 6,000 years ago. Many myths speak of a return, or a "rise" back up, or a creating of a "New Eden" on Earth. But Tolkien's stories take place during and after the "falling away" phase. I would like to think he would have a somewhat optimistic view, but who knows. I think he felt deep sorrow and even anger at the negative elements of industrial civilization, and loved the natural world.
Tolkien started writing a 4th Age story, and what little he wrote is in the last History of Middle Earth volume. He abandoned it because, IIRC, it ultimately seemed anti-climactic and sort of depressing, with orc cults and the like developing. Perhaps too prophetic.
