Being enough of a Tolkien fan to have written a few blog posts about the good professor's work, I have assiduously avoided seeing any of Peter Jackson's "Hobbit" films. To quote the blurb from the back of the parody Bored of the Rings (which I love, not being a rabid fanboy):
"Those who have any respect for a certain living author won't touch this turkey with a ten-foot battle lance"
Yeah, no "Hobbit" movies for this guy... I didn't particularly care for Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" movies to begin with, and I viewed Jackson's expansion of a relatively slim novel to three films a crass pass for the brass. Regarding the movies, I'd heard some tidbits which convinced me that I was right to avoid these movies. The first movie had too many "roller coaster" type scenes, probably setting up action sequences for video game adaptations. The second movie had a character added to the story which looked suspiciously like a Mary Sue (She's an orphan! She rose quickly from a common birth to a lofty position! She's even a redhead!!!). I am certainly not complaining about the addition of a female character to the movie, but I think that several of the dwarfs should have been female... Melissa McCarthy as Bombur FTW!!! The problem with the "hawt elf chick" insert is Hollywood's insistence that every female character be a Daphne, with nary a Velma onscreen. The third movie was seen as soulless. I didn't watch any of these movies, so why am I writing about them? I don't do the guest-post thing, but I am going to bring in a special guest-star for this post, a friend and co-worker who is a devout Tolkien fan. I warned her that she would hate the movie, but she went ahead and saw it anyway. She sent me a text-message to wish me a merry Christmas, and I asked her the fateful question:
You see that hobbit movie yet?
Oh... worse than you can imagine. I died a little inside
Give it enough time and you'll come to hate Jacko's LotR movies too. I think he just wanted to make a big budget remake of "Hawk the Slayer"
I don't hate him. Just really disappointed. To be fair, I didn't have high hopes for this one.
Just think of the movies as a big budget "Hawk the Slayer" remake and you won't be so disappointed. The end of "Hawk" did leave room for a sequel.
Lol I'm currently watching the "Die Hard" movies in between cooking
Did Jacko at least include Thorin's dying speech to Bilbo? The "child of the kindly west" speech?
Not all of it but most of it. Thorin dies not on the battlefield, but on the mountain fighting Azog. Two words: war pigs
Peter Jackson can eat a bag of dicks. I can't wait until the novelization of the movie comes out, written by that Salvatore guy. Why couldn't Jackson just call his movie "Warhammer: Dwarfs vs Orcs" and leave the beloved children's classic alone?
True! *twitches at the mention of Warhammer* I'm a Warhammer widow ya know. My house has little painted men EVERYWHERE
Anyway, Peter Jackson's not going to poop on my childhood memories of the beloved classic (hell, did his movies even give the eponymous hobbit more than a few scant minutes of screentime?). No need for me to watch his three-course serving of pure CGI cheese. It seems that even my spoofy Ayn Rand/Hobbit mashup was more faithful to the books than these movies.
That being said, I'd watch the hell out of Peter Jackson's big-budget sequel to Hawk the Slayer, and he can add all the "Mary Sue" characters he wants!
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query hobbit. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query hobbit. Sort by date Show all posts
Friday, December 26, 2014
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Review: The Hobbit by Ayn Rand
The notable EPIC FAIL!!! of the film adaptation of Atlas Shrugged is probably due to audience indifference to a film which is sorely lacking in the "WHIZ! BANG! BOOM!" special effects which wow today's moviegoer. While the premise of Atlas Shrugged is rooted in fantasy elements such as "Magic Pony Power Machine" running on static electricity and invisibililty machines, these fantastic elements don't lend themselves to spectacular special effects and box-office gold. Rather than attempting to film Atlas Shrugged as a mass-market film, the producers should have started off with a crowd pleasing adaptation of Ayn Rand's beloved children's classic The Hobbit, subtitled There and Never Going to Come Back.
Ayn Rand's "Hobbit" starts off with the famous initial sentence, "In a gulch in the mountains, there lived a superman". In the first chapter, we are introduced to Bagby Taggins, a comfort loving moocher who is approached by the wizard Randalf to work on behalf of a coterie of dwafish industrialists who are trying to discover the whereabouts of the obscenely wealthy dragon Smayn. The dwarfs are led by the great Threarden, son of Throark, son of Thrand, better known as Threarden Steelshield, because he has developed an impenetrable metal which promises to undermine all the other armories in the world. Threarden is thwarted by various functionaries and bureaucrats, and is facing bankruptcy... his search for the dragon's hoard is a last-ditch gambit to save his finances. Threarden has received a clue regarding the dragon's whereabouts from his father Throark. Throark was a renowned delver who designed a fabulous underground city- finding a vein of unstable rock in the mountain in which he was building his masterpiece, the safety inspectors insisted that he change the plans, leading Throark to collapse the entire tunnel complex.
After a series of misadventures on the road, Bagby Taggins becomes separated from his companions, in perhaps the best-known sequence of the book. Alone in the dark, he confronts an isolated creature named Galtum, who challenges him to a riddle contest- if Bagby were to lose the contest, his life would be forfeit to Galtum, if he were to win, Galtum would consider leading Bagby to safety, though he would not genuinely consider himself beholden to such a weakling. The tension mounts as Rand describes the contest of wits:
Bagby considered his prospects in a riddle contest with this creature. He had spent many idle, mooching days sitting by the fire with friends, matching wits with his parasitical friends. He sadly considered his now-empty tobacco pouch, and began:
"Spark of Prometheus, Fire of Rand,
Yet it can be held in hand!"
Galtum rocked back and forth on his stony perch, and considered the hours when he sat alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. He considered the great things that came from such hours. When he thought there was a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it was proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression. After his pleasant reminiscences, he shouted, "Cigarette!"
Now it was his turn. He considered the weak moocher before him, and intoned in a scathing voice:
"Foe of all Reason, weakening the mind,
Aiding the parasites, helping the blind."
Bagby only had to consider a moment, because he owed much of his looting, idle existence to the unfortunate tendency of his neighbors to demonstrate... "Altruism!"
Pressed for time in thinking of a suitable riddle, Bagby quickly extemporized:
"I sleep all day, I dance all night.
I'm a lousy parasite."
Galtum's contempt was palpable as he acidly intoned, "Moocher." The game was going on too long, this moocher was taking up too much of his time while producing nothing of benefit to him. Galtum now thought it was time to ask something hard and horrible, a riddle that could only be solved with pure reason, a conundrum that would forever escape the addled, sentimental head of the silly creature before him:
"WHAT... IS... A?
Bagby sat in the dark thinking of all the possible values for A, but not one of them could have adequately answered this question. He had a feeling that the answer was quite different and that he ought to know, but he could not think of it. He began to get frightened, and that is bad for thinking! His tongue seemed to stick in his mouth. In order to buy time, he decided to begin phrasing his answer, "A is..." He stumbled over his tongue, and began again, "A..."
Bagby was saved by pure luck, for "A is A" was the answer. No matter what anyone tells you, it is axiomatic that A is, indeed, A. It would be an abhorrent rejection of reason and rationality to characterize A as anything other than A. Bagby's fortuitous answer enraged Galtum, it was just this sort of "Moocher's Luck" which led him to sequester himself away from lesser beings.
Bagby now had to think of a question quickly, in order to forestall Galtum's rage. His hand slipped into his pocket and closed on the 1,200 page manifesto he had found in the passageway leading to Galtum's inner sanctum. His inferior brain unable to formulate a better riddle, he asked, "What have I got in my pocket?"
Galtum hissed, "Wretched louse, you must give us three answers to your sub-standard question!" Bagby quickly assented, not having the rational self interest to drive a harder bargain.
"MONEY!" was Galtum's first answer.
Bagby chortled, "Wrong! Guess!"
Galtum considered other possibilities, "GOLD!"
Of course, this was a wrong answer- a moocher could hardly have the foresight to invest in gold, and would, at any rate, be hopelessly wed to the notion of fiat currency.
Galtum was stumped- while his intellect was incredible, his interests were rather one-dimensional, I am afraid. He considered the hedonistic, immoral figure in front of him and guessed, "Cupcakes, or nothing!"
"Both wrong" Bagby chortled. He had, against all odds, beaten a Superman using his underhanded tactics. The thrill of debasing his moral superior filled him with elation. In a rage, Galtum left his odious presence, moving deeper into his isolated lair. In a spot where he kept the few trivial oddments he kept for his amusement, he sought the manuscript he had written, so he could read from it and reassert his feeling of superiority. Upon discovering that his manifesto was missing from his abode, a horrible realization dawned upon him, "Louse! LOOTER!! PARASITE!!! We curses it! We hates it and curses it forever!!!"
With that, Galtum withrew permanently from the world, letting the criminal leeches fend for themselves.
This sequence is perhaps the best known one from Ayn Rand's Hobbit, though Bagby's encounter with a bunch of giant spiders building a trans-sylvan network of webs across the great Mirkwood forest is also a well-known one. After the forest interlude, the encounter with the dragon kicks the tale into narrative overdrive. The approach to the lair of the dragon is lovingly described by Rand:
The land about them grew bleak and barren, though once, as Threarden told them, it had been green and fair, kept untouched, unused and not even as property, but everybody was kept out so that they would live practically like animals. There was little grass, and before long there was neither bush nor tree, and only broken and blackened stumps to speak of ones long vanished. They were come to the Desolation of the Dragon, which was beautiful to Threarden, because from the most primitive cultures to the most advanced civilizations, man has had to manufacture things; his well-being depends on his success at production. The lowest human tribe cannot survive without that alleged source of pollution: fire. It is not merely symbolic that fire was the property of the gods which Prometheus brought to man, and this gift was echoed by the fortunate gift of the dragon
In his initial foray into the dragon's den, Bagby steals a golden goblet. The theft of the goblet enrages the dragon. On seeing that the goblet has been stolen, Threarden, son of Throark, son of Thrand, has an epiphany, and renounces his association with the looting Bagby:
"There is more in you of evil than you know, child of the 'kindly' West." Threarden sneered, "Some parasitism and some looterism, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a more morally corrupt world. But, moral or corrupt, I must leave it now, and leave the parasites and lice to their own devices."
With that, Threarden left the despondent Bagby shaking with grief and envy.
After reconciling with Smayn, Threarden tells her of Bagby's guilt, and informs her that he will probably hide in a nearby village, whereupon the dragon metes out her justice on this hotbed of moochers. Upon entering the town, the dragon meets with token resistance, a "grim-voiced" man named Branden seeks to thwart the desire of the dragon. While some critics characterized as "ludicrous and laughable" the idea that the population of a town would sit tight and listen patiently to a sixty-page speech by the town's attacker, it is not inconceivable that the overwhelming personality of a dragon would hold the town's residents enthralled. While the dragon has harsh criticism for all of the lice, looters, and moochers of the town, she has an especially virulent scorn for Branden:
The dragon roared, "I am permanently breaking all personal, professional and business association with you, I hereby withdraw my endorsement of you and your future works and activities. I repudiate you, totally and permanently. Your attitude... can best be described as authority flaunting, unserious and, at times, undignified.
"I am shocked to discover that you are consistently failing to apply to your own personal life and conduct, not only the fundamental philosophical principles of Objectivism, but also the psychological principles you yourself have enunciated and have written and lectured about... you admitted that in many respects you are acting on the basis of unidentified feelings!
"The realization that you are exploiting me intellectually and professionally has been bad enough; that you should also attempt to exploit me financially is grotesquely shocking!"
Branden hung his head in grief and shame, withering under the scrutiny of the dragon. Meekly, he let slip the bow and arrow from his hands. The dragon surveyed the town, and pronounced her judgement:
"I consign you to the flame, like the flame wrested from the corrupt, venal gods by Prometheus, brought as the spark to fire the imagination of Man. I cannot suffer such parasites as yourselves to impinge on my existence."
With that, she brought the Promethean gift to the unworthy people of the town, who meekly accepted her judgement and repudiation.
The book ends with the chastened Bagby sitting in the ruins of the town, to wallow in despondency and guilt, having led the profligate life of a parasitical moocher, and idler, unfit to participate in the coming rebirth of civilization under the principles of enlightened self-interest as embodied in the dragon.
Notes: Any phrases "yoinked" from either the good professor or the Queen of the Objectivists have been yoinked for satirical purposes, so my looting constitutes fair use. In finding Rand quotes to paste into the passage regarding the Desolation of the Dragon, I found this quote, which increased the already great disdain and disgust with which I view Ayn Rand.
Also, while this quote was certainly in my mind as I wrote this, the inspiration for the post was a re-reading of The Hobbit, and the realization that, if Ayn Rand had written it, that Samug would probably have been the hero. At any rate, Bilbo would have been condemned for his (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!) appropriation of the Arkenstone to forestall an unjust battle for purely material gain, and Thorin's greed and mulishness would have been portrayed as virtue and Reason, so called.
Ayn Rand's "Hobbit" starts off with the famous initial sentence, "In a gulch in the mountains, there lived a superman". In the first chapter, we are introduced to Bagby Taggins, a comfort loving moocher who is approached by the wizard Randalf to work on behalf of a coterie of dwafish industrialists who are trying to discover the whereabouts of the obscenely wealthy dragon Smayn. The dwarfs are led by the great Threarden, son of Throark, son of Thrand, better known as Threarden Steelshield, because he has developed an impenetrable metal which promises to undermine all the other armories in the world. Threarden is thwarted by various functionaries and bureaucrats, and is facing bankruptcy... his search for the dragon's hoard is a last-ditch gambit to save his finances. Threarden has received a clue regarding the dragon's whereabouts from his father Throark. Throark was a renowned delver who designed a fabulous underground city- finding a vein of unstable rock in the mountain in which he was building his masterpiece, the safety inspectors insisted that he change the plans, leading Throark to collapse the entire tunnel complex.
After a series of misadventures on the road, Bagby Taggins becomes separated from his companions, in perhaps the best-known sequence of the book. Alone in the dark, he confronts an isolated creature named Galtum, who challenges him to a riddle contest- if Bagby were to lose the contest, his life would be forfeit to Galtum, if he were to win, Galtum would consider leading Bagby to safety, though he would not genuinely consider himself beholden to such a weakling. The tension mounts as Rand describes the contest of wits:
Bagby considered his prospects in a riddle contest with this creature. He had spent many idle, mooching days sitting by the fire with friends, matching wits with his parasitical friends. He sadly considered his now-empty tobacco pouch, and began:
"Spark of Prometheus, Fire of Rand,
Yet it can be held in hand!"
Galtum rocked back and forth on his stony perch, and considered the hours when he sat alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. He considered the great things that came from such hours. When he thought there was a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it was proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression. After his pleasant reminiscences, he shouted, "Cigarette!"
Now it was his turn. He considered the weak moocher before him, and intoned in a scathing voice:
"Foe of all Reason, weakening the mind,
Aiding the parasites, helping the blind."
Bagby only had to consider a moment, because he owed much of his looting, idle existence to the unfortunate tendency of his neighbors to demonstrate... "Altruism!"
Pressed for time in thinking of a suitable riddle, Bagby quickly extemporized:
"I sleep all day, I dance all night.
I'm a lousy parasite."
Galtum's contempt was palpable as he acidly intoned, "Moocher." The game was going on too long, this moocher was taking up too much of his time while producing nothing of benefit to him. Galtum now thought it was time to ask something hard and horrible, a riddle that could only be solved with pure reason, a conundrum that would forever escape the addled, sentimental head of the silly creature before him:
"WHAT... IS... A?
Bagby sat in the dark thinking of all the possible values for A, but not one of them could have adequately answered this question. He had a feeling that the answer was quite different and that he ought to know, but he could not think of it. He began to get frightened, and that is bad for thinking! His tongue seemed to stick in his mouth. In order to buy time, he decided to begin phrasing his answer, "A is..." He stumbled over his tongue, and began again, "A..."
Bagby was saved by pure luck, for "A is A" was the answer. No matter what anyone tells you, it is axiomatic that A is, indeed, A. It would be an abhorrent rejection of reason and rationality to characterize A as anything other than A. Bagby's fortuitous answer enraged Galtum, it was just this sort of "Moocher's Luck" which led him to sequester himself away from lesser beings.
Bagby now had to think of a question quickly, in order to forestall Galtum's rage. His hand slipped into his pocket and closed on the 1,200 page manifesto he had found in the passageway leading to Galtum's inner sanctum. His inferior brain unable to formulate a better riddle, he asked, "What have I got in my pocket?"
Galtum hissed, "Wretched louse, you must give us three answers to your sub-standard question!" Bagby quickly assented, not having the rational self interest to drive a harder bargain.
"MONEY!" was Galtum's first answer.
Bagby chortled, "Wrong! Guess!"
Galtum considered other possibilities, "GOLD!"
Of course, this was a wrong answer- a moocher could hardly have the foresight to invest in gold, and would, at any rate, be hopelessly wed to the notion of fiat currency.
Galtum was stumped- while his intellect was incredible, his interests were rather one-dimensional, I am afraid. He considered the hedonistic, immoral figure in front of him and guessed, "Cupcakes, or nothing!"
"Both wrong" Bagby chortled. He had, against all odds, beaten a Superman using his underhanded tactics. The thrill of debasing his moral superior filled him with elation. In a rage, Galtum left his odious presence, moving deeper into his isolated lair. In a spot where he kept the few trivial oddments he kept for his amusement, he sought the manuscript he had written, so he could read from it and reassert his feeling of superiority. Upon discovering that his manifesto was missing from his abode, a horrible realization dawned upon him, "Louse! LOOTER!! PARASITE!!! We curses it! We hates it and curses it forever!!!"
With that, Galtum withrew permanently from the world, letting the criminal leeches fend for themselves.
This sequence is perhaps the best known one from Ayn Rand's Hobbit, though Bagby's encounter with a bunch of giant spiders building a trans-sylvan network of webs across the great Mirkwood forest is also a well-known one. After the forest interlude, the encounter with the dragon kicks the tale into narrative overdrive. The approach to the lair of the dragon is lovingly described by Rand:
The land about them grew bleak and barren, though once, as Threarden told them, it had been green and fair, kept untouched, unused and not even as property, but everybody was kept out so that they would live practically like animals. There was little grass, and before long there was neither bush nor tree, and only broken and blackened stumps to speak of ones long vanished. They were come to the Desolation of the Dragon, which was beautiful to Threarden, because from the most primitive cultures to the most advanced civilizations, man has had to manufacture things; his well-being depends on his success at production. The lowest human tribe cannot survive without that alleged source of pollution: fire. It is not merely symbolic that fire was the property of the gods which Prometheus brought to man, and this gift was echoed by the fortunate gift of the dragon
In his initial foray into the dragon's den, Bagby steals a golden goblet. The theft of the goblet enrages the dragon. On seeing that the goblet has been stolen, Threarden, son of Throark, son of Thrand, has an epiphany, and renounces his association with the looting Bagby:
"There is more in you of evil than you know, child of the 'kindly' West." Threarden sneered, "Some parasitism and some looterism, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a more morally corrupt world. But, moral or corrupt, I must leave it now, and leave the parasites and lice to their own devices."
With that, Threarden left the despondent Bagby shaking with grief and envy.
After reconciling with Smayn, Threarden tells her of Bagby's guilt, and informs her that he will probably hide in a nearby village, whereupon the dragon metes out her justice on this hotbed of moochers. Upon entering the town, the dragon meets with token resistance, a "grim-voiced" man named Branden seeks to thwart the desire of the dragon. While some critics characterized as "ludicrous and laughable" the idea that the population of a town would sit tight and listen patiently to a sixty-page speech by the town's attacker, it is not inconceivable that the overwhelming personality of a dragon would hold the town's residents enthralled. While the dragon has harsh criticism for all of the lice, looters, and moochers of the town, she has an especially virulent scorn for Branden:
The dragon roared, "I am permanently breaking all personal, professional and business association with you, I hereby withdraw my endorsement of you and your future works and activities. I repudiate you, totally and permanently. Your attitude... can best be described as authority flaunting, unserious and, at times, undignified.
"I am shocked to discover that you are consistently failing to apply to your own personal life and conduct, not only the fundamental philosophical principles of Objectivism, but also the psychological principles you yourself have enunciated and have written and lectured about... you admitted that in many respects you are acting on the basis of unidentified feelings!
"The realization that you are exploiting me intellectually and professionally has been bad enough; that you should also attempt to exploit me financially is grotesquely shocking!"
Branden hung his head in grief and shame, withering under the scrutiny of the dragon. Meekly, he let slip the bow and arrow from his hands. The dragon surveyed the town, and pronounced her judgement:
"I consign you to the flame, like the flame wrested from the corrupt, venal gods by Prometheus, brought as the spark to fire the imagination of Man. I cannot suffer such parasites as yourselves to impinge on my existence."
With that, she brought the Promethean gift to the unworthy people of the town, who meekly accepted her judgement and repudiation.
The book ends with the chastened Bagby sitting in the ruins of the town, to wallow in despondency and guilt, having led the profligate life of a parasitical moocher, and idler, unfit to participate in the coming rebirth of civilization under the principles of enlightened self-interest as embodied in the dragon.
Notes: Any phrases "yoinked" from either the good professor or the Queen of the Objectivists have been yoinked for satirical purposes, so my looting constitutes fair use. In finding Rand quotes to paste into the passage regarding the Desolation of the Dragon, I found this quote, which increased the already great disdain and disgust with which I view Ayn Rand.
Also, while this quote was certainly in my mind as I wrote this, the inspiration for the post was a re-reading of The Hobbit, and the realization that, if Ayn Rand had written it, that Samug would probably have been the hero. At any rate, Bilbo would have been condemned for his (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!) appropriation of the Arkenstone to forestall an unjust battle for purely material gain, and Thorin's greed and mulishness would have been portrayed as virtue and Reason, so called.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Storks, Not Orcs!
So, it seems that the little hobbitses of Flores Island had to deal with very large storks as well as Komodo Dragons. The science blogger Laelaps has a post about the storks of Flores, and riffs on Island effect, and the sensationalist accounts in the popular press (with our need for monsters to tantalize our imaginations).
Oddly enough, classical Greek sources describe wars between Pygmies and cranes... who knew what Homer could have known when he composed the Iliad?
Speaking of hobbitses, and islands inhabited by huge, flightless birds, the slayer of things that suck issued a challenge at Snark Central to write a poem about a certain "fat hobbit-hugging bastard":
There is a guy whose medium's film,
From a strange Antipodean land.
Whining that his profit margins kill'm.
And the labour costs are out of hand.
The Queen, being rich, done made him a knight,
But the working folk think he's a dastard.
Yet beard-boy still says the money is tight,
The fat, hobbit-hugging bastard.
Oddly enough, classical Greek sources describe wars between Pygmies and cranes... who knew what Homer could have known when he composed the Iliad?
Speaking of hobbitses, and islands inhabited by huge, flightless birds, the slayer of things that suck issued a challenge at Snark Central to write a poem about a certain "fat hobbit-hugging bastard":
There is a guy whose medium's film,
From a strange Antipodean land.
Whining that his profit margins kill'm.
And the labour costs are out of hand.
The Queen, being rich, done made him a knight,
But the working folk think he's a dastard.
Yet beard-boy still says the money is tight,
The fat, hobbit-hugging bastard.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
A Faithful Custodian of His Father's Legacy
Today's bummer news concerns the death of Christopher Tolkien at the age of 95. Young Tolkien was the custodian of his father's literary estate and the creator of the Middle Earth Phenomenon out of his father's copious notes. I'm a Tolkien fan, but I'm not a completist by any stretch of the imagination, so I 'tapped out' after The Silmarillion, when all of the interminable 'Unfinished Tales' and 'Whole Middle Earth Catalog' volumes started hitting the shelves. By then, the Good Professor's prose had prepared me to read the Eddas and Kalevala, which is what I believe the Good Professor intended. Still, the massive body of work Christopher Tolkien assembled from his father's copious notes is the perfect model for anyone interested in fantasy worldbuilding, dubbed subcreation (PDF) by the Good Professor, down to the various languages he invented for the inhabitants of his world. Almost as much as his father, Christopher Tolkien was responsible for the creation of Middle Earth, even down to drawing the left-justified fantasy map (WARNING: TV Tropes, serious timesink danger) which has passed into cliche status.
I was tickled pink to read that Christopher Tolkien wasn't a fan of Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' movies, dismissing them as juvenile puncho-puncho-run-run: “They gutted the book, making it an action movie for 15-25 year-olds, and it looks like The Hobbit will be the same.” My take on the movies is that they looked fair but felt foul, and that Peter Jackson's real intention was to make a big budget remake of Hawk the Slayer.
Christopher Tolkien was a faithful custodian of his father's legacy, and the intellectual property which, perhaps not for the better, codified the 'Epic Fantasy Industrial Complex' for a myriad of lesser writers. While collating and editing his father's notes, he managed to release the contradictory writings which demonstrated how his father's 'canon' was shaped and re-shaped. Mythology is a messy business, even when written by Just One Guy. The hunger which the reading public received the body of work which went ever ever on is a testimony to the power of that creation, and the need for escapism in a world as callous as ours. Christopher Tolkien lived well, he served his family well, and he served the reading public well... without him, would his father's legacy have achieved such eminence?
I was tickled pink to read that Christopher Tolkien wasn't a fan of Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' movies, dismissing them as juvenile puncho-puncho-run-run: “They gutted the book, making it an action movie for 15-25 year-olds, and it looks like The Hobbit will be the same.” My take on the movies is that they looked fair but felt foul, and that Peter Jackson's real intention was to make a big budget remake of Hawk the Slayer.
Christopher Tolkien was a faithful custodian of his father's legacy, and the intellectual property which, perhaps not for the better, codified the 'Epic Fantasy Industrial Complex' for a myriad of lesser writers. While collating and editing his father's notes, he managed to release the contradictory writings which demonstrated how his father's 'canon' was shaped and re-shaped. Mythology is a messy business, even when written by Just One Guy. The hunger which the reading public received the body of work which went ever ever on is a testimony to the power of that creation, and the need for escapism in a world as callous as ours. Christopher Tolkien lived well, he served his family well, and he served the reading public well... without him, would his father's legacy have achieved such eminence?
Thursday, August 20, 2020
Hope Trumps Cynicism
Last night's convention speech by Barack Obama really brought home the degree to which our nation has fallen. Just hearing an intelligent, compassionate man delivering a unifying speech highlighted how stupid and divisive the current Occupant of the White House is.
The Trump campaign is banking on the cynicism that Barack Obama mentioned... one of his big campaign pitches in 2016 was aimed at African-American voters: "What the hell do you have to lose?" We know the answer now- over a hundred-and-seventy American lives, millions of jobs, the esteem of allies worldwide.
Joe Biden isn't quite the orator that Barack Obama is, he's got a reputation of being a gaffe machine. Biden never misses a word, though, when it counts... I've never heard him misspeak when addressing a funeral or memorial service. The Tor Books website has a post about Meriadoc Brandybuck in LotR, which reminds me that Joe Biden has a hobbit-esque streak: "But it is the way of my people to use light words at such times and say less than they mean. We fear to say too much. It robs us of the right words when a jest is out of place."
I've had several conversations online, and spoke at some length with my mom, about the role that Joe Biden will play if he wins the election- he will largely play the role of Healer-in-Chief, the kindly, empathetic figure who can work to reunite the body politic, the peacemaker who can reassure our allies that we are back on the right track. Barack Obama articulated the importance of Hope in the face of an election that increasingly looks rigged, cynicism about the validity of the electoral process only helps Trump. Biden cannot be a transformational figure such as Obama was, but he can act as a decent steward, one who remembers the values that, to use the cliche, made America great, and can rely on his younger proxies to make damn sure that the values that our society claims to embody apply to all people.
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Fellowship of the Bad Ex-Boyfriends
I figured I needed a change of pace from the All-COVID All the Time posting, a sort of funny diversion from the typical litany of awfulness. Last week, writer Alex Arrelia started a funny Twitter thread about the male (are there any other?) characters of The Lord of the Rings as bad ex-boyfriends:
I shared it with several of my Tolkien nerd friends, and our general consensus was that it was hilarious, but that it was more about the movies. I am on record stating that I am not a big fan of the movies... I seriously think that Peter Jackson really wanted to make a big-budget reboot of Hawk the Slayer, but knew that no studio would greenlight it. At any rate, the LotR bad-boyfriends thread leaves out characters from the books that never made it to the movies. I figure that Tom Bombadil would be a good choice, but would end up just being 'Tim Benzedrine' from Bored of the Rings, plus some incel type tried to portray Bombadil as a good catch. Maybe Barliman Butterbur would be a better choice:
Forgets birthdays and anniversaries
Basement taken over by home-brewing setup
Inferiority complex with regard to tall, brooding types
I know Beorn was a character in The Hobbit, but he'd also qualify:
Sneaks out to bear bars at night
Questionable home decor
Tendency to take in large groups of weirdo wayfarers
The whole thread is a hoot, but the guy who elaborated on Shadowfax was the winner.
Fuck it. I’m doing it: Men of Middle Earth as bad ex boyfriends who ruined your life:
— Alex Arrelia (@AlexArrelia) May 12, 2020
I shared it with several of my Tolkien nerd friends, and our general consensus was that it was hilarious, but that it was more about the movies. I am on record stating that I am not a big fan of the movies... I seriously think that Peter Jackson really wanted to make a big-budget reboot of Hawk the Slayer, but knew that no studio would greenlight it. At any rate, the LotR bad-boyfriends thread leaves out characters from the books that never made it to the movies. I figure that Tom Bombadil would be a good choice, but would end up just being 'Tim Benzedrine' from Bored of the Rings, plus some incel type tried to portray Bombadil as a good catch. Maybe Barliman Butterbur would be a better choice:
Forgets birthdays and anniversaries
Basement taken over by home-brewing setup
Inferiority complex with regard to tall, brooding types
I know Beorn was a character in The Hobbit, but he'd also qualify:
Sneaks out to bear bars at night
Questionable home decor
Tendency to take in large groups of weirdo wayfarers
The whole thread is a hoot, but the guy who elaborated on Shadowfax was the winner.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Bad News for Readers
There are heroes who fly under the radar by virtue of their ubiquity, and we lost one this week. Betty Ballantine, who helped to introduce high quality paperbacks to the United States, died at the age of ninety-nine. Along with her husband Ian, Betty imported Penguin paperbacks from the UK and formed Bantam Books and Ballantine Books. The name 'Ballantine' has always formed a big part of my bookshelf contents, the Ballantines introduced authorized versions of such SFF classics as The Hobbit and Fahrenheit 451 to the American reading public.
Ballantine Books also published the stellar Ballantine Adult Fantasy (check your dirty minds!) Series, which was edited by Lin Carter, who was a hack writer but an outstanding editor, even curator, of literature. The series included novels and short story collections by such favorite authors of mine as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Evangeline Walton, Katherine Kurtz, William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen, and Poul Anderson. The series forms a perfect introduction to the Literature of the Imagination of the early-to-mid Twentieth Century.
Apparently, Ms Ballantine also had a trickster's streak in her as well:
One memorable Ballantine release was inspired by a hoax. In 1956, nighttime radio personality Jean Shepherd was telling listeners that they should ask for a new novel called “I, Libertine,” by Frederick R. Ewing. Bestsellers at the time were based in part on requests at bookstores, and demand was so high that “I, Libertine” appeared on some lists.
But, as Shepherd’s fans knew, and the public only later found out, neither book nor author existed. So Ian Ballantine convinced a friend, science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, to write — and write quickly — an actual “I, Libertine.” Shepherd, who provided the book’s outline, recalled years later that Sturgeon worked so hard he fell asleep before he finished the manuscript. Betty Ballantine stepped in and handled the last chapter, and “I, Libertine” went to print.
For the record, Theodore Sturgeon is best known for Sturgeon's Law, now commonly rendered as "ninety percent of everything is crap". Betty Ballantine, along with her husband and her staff, made sure that ninety percent of her company's output was most certainly not crap. Just looking at my library will fill me with gratitude for her long, storied (ha!) career.
Ballantine Books also published the stellar Ballantine Adult Fantasy (check your dirty minds!) Series, which was edited by Lin Carter, who was a hack writer but an outstanding editor, even curator, of literature. The series included novels and short story collections by such favorite authors of mine as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Evangeline Walton, Katherine Kurtz, William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen, and Poul Anderson. The series forms a perfect introduction to the Literature of the Imagination of the early-to-mid Twentieth Century.
Apparently, Ms Ballantine also had a trickster's streak in her as well:
One memorable Ballantine release was inspired by a hoax. In 1956, nighttime radio personality Jean Shepherd was telling listeners that they should ask for a new novel called “I, Libertine,” by Frederick R. Ewing. Bestsellers at the time were based in part on requests at bookstores, and demand was so high that “I, Libertine” appeared on some lists.
But, as Shepherd’s fans knew, and the public only later found out, neither book nor author existed. So Ian Ballantine convinced a friend, science-fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, to write — and write quickly — an actual “I, Libertine.” Shepherd, who provided the book’s outline, recalled years later that Sturgeon worked so hard he fell asleep before he finished the manuscript. Betty Ballantine stepped in and handled the last chapter, and “I, Libertine” went to print.
For the record, Theodore Sturgeon is best known for Sturgeon's Law, now commonly rendered as "ninety percent of everything is crap". Betty Ballantine, along with her husband and her staff, made sure that ninety percent of her company's output was most certainly not crap. Just looking at my library will fill me with gratitude for her long, storied (ha!) career.
Monday, September 17, 2018
No Trip Like the Nostalgia Trip, by Which I Mean the Fantasy Trip
The Tor Books site has a fun post about the 1977 Television special presentation of the Rankin/Bass animated film of Tolkien's The Hobbit.
I recently watched the animated film< and I believe that it holds up well. The character design is inspired by the illustrations of Arthur Rackham, a personal favorite of mine. Here's the Rankin/Bass version of Thorin and Company:
They look similar to Rackham's depiction of Henry Hudson and his crew from Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle:
The animation in the film was done by Japanese company Topcraft, a precursor to Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli. The voice acting, featuring such Bastard favorites as Paul Frees and Don Messick, was excellent, with a standout performance by 'stand up tragedist' Brother Theodore as Gollum:
Yeah, not to badmouth Andy Serkis, who did a credible job as this creepy junkie analogy, but this is the real deal. Also, Peter Jackson put WAAAAAAAYYYY too much of this character in his movies.
Veteran actor Richard Boone also did a bang-up job as Smaug, perfectly portraying the arrogant, jaded dragon as a bully and a braggart playing cat and mouse with an unknown intruder:
The film, released in 1977, was a watershed moment in nerd culture, as the Tor piece asserts. A good portion of the kids viewing it ended up picking up the celebrated 1977 Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set and fantastic literature crystalized into a sub-Tolkienian orthodoxy... though it must be said that, judging from his gloriously purple prose, Uncle Gary was more of an A. Merritt fan.
Now, speaking of both nostalgia trips and fantasy trips, this year is seeing the resurrection of role-playing game The Fantasy Trip, which author/designer Steve Jackson was able to regain control over after it was killed off by an unscrupulous publisher who let the IP languish rather than sell it back to Mr Jackson at a reasonable price. This game, based off of a couple of skirmish-simulation microgames, was a favorite to play during short school breaks due to its speed and simplicity. I played quite a bit of it at school, and became adept at finding the more outré character builds while everybody else was stuck in that mighty sword rut... you see, I was also a big A. Merritt fan.
I recently watched the animated film< and I believe that it holds up well. The character design is inspired by the illustrations of Arthur Rackham, a personal favorite of mine. Here's the Rankin/Bass version of Thorin and Company:
They look similar to Rackham's depiction of Henry Hudson and his crew from Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle:
The animation in the film was done by Japanese company Topcraft, a precursor to Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli. The voice acting, featuring such Bastard favorites as Paul Frees and Don Messick, was excellent, with a standout performance by 'stand up tragedist' Brother Theodore as Gollum:
Yeah, not to badmouth Andy Serkis, who did a credible job as this creepy junkie analogy, but this is the real deal. Also, Peter Jackson put WAAAAAAAYYYY too much of this character in his movies.
Veteran actor Richard Boone also did a bang-up job as Smaug, perfectly portraying the arrogant, jaded dragon as a bully and a braggart playing cat and mouse with an unknown intruder:
The film, released in 1977, was a watershed moment in nerd culture, as the Tor piece asserts. A good portion of the kids viewing it ended up picking up the celebrated 1977 Dungeons and Dragons Basic Set and fantastic literature crystalized into a sub-Tolkienian orthodoxy... though it must be said that, judging from his gloriously purple prose, Uncle Gary was more of an A. Merritt fan.
Now, speaking of both nostalgia trips and fantasy trips, this year is seeing the resurrection of role-playing game The Fantasy Trip, which author/designer Steve Jackson was able to regain control over after it was killed off by an unscrupulous publisher who let the IP languish rather than sell it back to Mr Jackson at a reasonable price. This game, based off of a couple of skirmish-simulation microgames, was a favorite to play during short school breaks due to its speed and simplicity. I played quite a bit of it at school, and became adept at finding the more outré character builds while everybody else was stuck in that mighty sword rut... you see, I was also a big A. Merritt fan.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
A Childhood Icon Gone
It was with sadness that I read of the death of Arthur Rankin, Jr, one half of the holiday special juggernaut Rankin/Bass Productions. Rankin/Bass produced numerous films using both stop-motion and traditional animation... some of Rankin/Bass traditional animation team in Japan eventually joined animation powerhouse Studio Ghibli. I can think of no better memorial to Mr Rankin than a selection of videos from his body of work.
Perhaps the best known Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated special was 1964s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Here's the poignant-yet-hilarious "Island of Misfit Toys" scene from the show:
Here's an interesting "psychedlic" number from 1970 "superhero origin tale" Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the clip is a mixture of stop-motion and traditional animation techniques... that mean Mitteleuropäische chap at the beginning of the clip is Rankin/Bass villain par excellence Burgomeister Meisterburger, portrayed by Bastard favorite Paul Frees:
In my opinion, the greatest song in the Rankin/Bass songbook was Heat Miser's paean to himself in 1974's The Year Without a Santa Claus:
From 1974's Twas the Night Before Christmas, here's Even a Miracle Needs a Hand sung (!) by Joel Grey:
Moving on to 1977, the Rankin/Bass production of The Hobbit played a huge role in my lifelong foray into nerdery. Peter Jackson can go suck eggs, this is the real deal (with bonus Thurl Ravenscroft content):
Oddly enough, while Rankin/Bass didn't get the rights to film the entire "Lord of the Rings", they did get the rights to film a woefully truncated version of the third book after Ralph Bakshi's total LotR cockup. Oddly enough, the 1980 cartoon version of The Return of the King has a much more nuanced view of the villains than Jackson's movies for "grownups" did. In this number, the orcs come across sympathetically:
Pity the music wasn't orchestral... I blame the disco era for that.
In the 80's the one standout Rankin/Bass production was The Thundercats, a sci-fi/fantasy mashup which featured a bunch of furries in fighting an undead antagonist straight out of a Robert E. Howard pulp story (without the gratuitous Howardian racism):
I wasn't aware of this, but in 2001 (after I'd given up my TV machine), Rankin/Bass produced a Christmas special with an African-American cast led by Eartha Kitt and Gregory Hines- Santa Baby. Nice to know that they made a show portraying a black family. Sadly, I haven't been able to find out much about it in this cursory retrospective. I could have included so many more great clips.
Thanks for the body of work, Mr Rankin... Christmas would not have been the same without you and Mr Bass.
Perhaps the best known Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated special was 1964s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Here's the poignant-yet-hilarious "Island of Misfit Toys" scene from the show:
Here's an interesting "psychedlic" number from 1970 "superhero origin tale" Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the clip is a mixture of stop-motion and traditional animation techniques... that mean Mitteleuropäische chap at the beginning of the clip is Rankin/Bass villain par excellence Burgomeister Meisterburger, portrayed by Bastard favorite Paul Frees:
In my opinion, the greatest song in the Rankin/Bass songbook was Heat Miser's paean to himself in 1974's The Year Without a Santa Claus:
From 1974's Twas the Night Before Christmas, here's Even a Miracle Needs a Hand sung (!) by Joel Grey:
Moving on to 1977, the Rankin/Bass production of The Hobbit played a huge role in my lifelong foray into nerdery. Peter Jackson can go suck eggs, this is the real deal (with bonus Thurl Ravenscroft content):
Oddly enough, while Rankin/Bass didn't get the rights to film the entire "Lord of the Rings", they did get the rights to film a woefully truncated version of the third book after Ralph Bakshi's total LotR cockup. Oddly enough, the 1980 cartoon version of The Return of the King has a much more nuanced view of the villains than Jackson's movies for "grownups" did. In this number, the orcs come across sympathetically:
Pity the music wasn't orchestral... I blame the disco era for that.
In the 80's the one standout Rankin/Bass production was The Thundercats, a sci-fi/fantasy mashup which featured a bunch of furries in fighting an undead antagonist straight out of a Robert E. Howard pulp story (without the gratuitous Howardian racism):
I wasn't aware of this, but in 2001 (after I'd given up my TV machine), Rankin/Bass produced a Christmas special with an African-American cast led by Eartha Kitt and Gregory Hines- Santa Baby. Nice to know that they made a show portraying a black family. Sadly, I haven't been able to find out much about it in this cursory retrospective. I could have included so many more great clips.
Thanks for the body of work, Mr Rankin... Christmas would not have been the same without you and Mr Bass.
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