Tag: J.R.R. Tolkien

When Will We See The Rings of Power? The Challenge With LotR on Streaming.

All I can hope for is that Amazon Prime is committed to producing Rings of Power in full.

rings of powerSpoiler Alert

The only issue I have with Amazon committing to bring more Lord of the Rings to life concerns what parts of J. R. R. Tolkien’s appendices are key to the shaping of The Rings of Power? I appreciate the fact the X-Ray feature links to additional material to help folks understand the source, and if its supposed to segway to the films, its not teasing at anything yet!

This multimedia company is promising to produce five seasons. As long as they can deliver the episodes on a timely basis, I’ll be watching. I don’t mind a soft ten month break, but any longer can be tough.

As a casual fan, the ring-verse which portends the future can’t be altered; we know the finale–about how the One Ring must be destroyed to save all of Middle Earth in the main series, which takes place in the far off future. As for The Hobbit, there’s no Sméagol–I’m fairly sure he isn’t born.

To see how it all begins is based on the indexes and notes Tolkien scribed. However, not everyone wants to read the unfinished tales and compendiums to understand where everything fits. And I’m glad showrunners John D. Payne and Patrick McKay are attempting to unpack all of this scholar’s works into a serialised format.

The first two episodes are heavy. A lot of introductions are needed to bring fans back up to speed, and what we see has to establish who are the good guys and the bad. Or, in this work’s case, is fated to fall to the might of Sauron when he returns.

Continue reading “When Will We See The Rings of Power? The Challenge With LotR on Streaming.”

Where are the Ties that Bind the “Fellowship of the Lance” in DC’s Legends of Tomorrow?

Fellowship of the Lance

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

* Spoiler Alert

There are times DC’s Legends of Tommorrow is simply coasting on a riptide of fun bits for geeks to take interest in. Tried as I might, to see if there was anything great about the last two episodes “Land of the Lost” and “Moonshot,” there was not much to truly write about as special. All it did was show how the team still needs to figure themselves out, spotlight Victor Garber’s musical talent in more than one episode and retrieve parts of a mystical weapon. The latest had something which spoke to me since I am a King Arthur enthusiast and I wondered who would play J.R.R. Tolkien. Jack Turner (Stitchers) does a great job at bringing to life an interpretation of this author whom I’ve admired since reading Lord of the Rings in high school.

Like the seminal books, some series require a Deux et Machina to give a saga a particular focus. After a slow start, the season unveiled an item to focus on. In the aptly titled, “Fellowship of the Spear,” the team is still divided like the fragmentary weapon and there’s more development in seeing what Rory (Heat Wave) is going through. I love his backstory and the obvious parallels he has with Gollum/Sméagol is a huge easter egg I’m sure many have picked up on. The way it is being handled suggests he has it in control in one episode and others, there’s not enough to see he is still struggling with it. Is his hallucination real? Apparently so, and I’m wondering at which point in history did the Legion of Doom take Snart from? My guess is that it was sometime in the past, before he and Rory joined the Legends. He’s all snark, pardoning the pun.

Also, the pieces of how each episode ties in (aside from searching for the spear) as a whole looks better when seen in sequence than left to viewers to wait week after week. I’m looking forward to seeing how the final two episodes are going to play out in the next two weeks. “Doomworld” will obviously look at a remade world but is “Aruba” in reference to a particular island in the Caribbean or something else?

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The Hobbit and The Battle for Box Office Dollars

The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies in how it’s presented is a let down simply in the fact that it is not a self-contained product.

The Hobbit

Just how in the name of Sauron can Peter Jackson fall from grace? He did great with The Lord of the Rings trilogy by crafting a wonderful world that’s interesting from beginning to end. Viewers are left waiting with bated breath for the next film. The same can be said for The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, but in how it’s presented, the let down is simply with the fact that it is not a self-contained product. Multi-part movies are better when each unit offers something new to the plate to make the whole meal fulfilling. In this film’s case, what’s presented as a conclusion to Bilbo’s tale feels like one half of a six-course meal.

The Hobbit should have stayed a duology as Guillermo del Toro intended that’s self contained than a trilogy which Jackson believed he can expand upon. He believed that he could add to the narrative from the material J.R.R. Tolkien wrote later and make it work. To see Jackson’s team of writers create Tauriel as a new character is fine. But to fill in the gaps of the Hobbit story with moments never written about felt awkward. It felt unneeded since all it does is to establish what’s to come in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. When there is a sixty year gap between trilogies, some viewers will be left asking so what happened during that time?

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The Fantasy and Freedom Found with The Flight of Dragons

Peter Dickinson’s The Flight of Dragons looks at the mythical origins of the creature and postulates how they may have evolved based on real life science.

The Flight of Dragons Book Cover
This book is available for those who know where to look.

Not since 30 years ago has there been a worthy look at the nomenclature of dragons. Author Peter Dickinson and illustrator Wayne Anderson crafted the brilliant The Flight of Dragons. It’s a book that’s sadly forgotten. This unique tome and movie based on it looks at the mythical origins of the creature and postulates how they may have evolved based on real life science.

Literary observation and historical research fills the pages. The read is like that of a textbook. Dickinson draws upon centuries of research from clerics to theologians to explore the habitat and biology of a dragon. In what he gleams from various novelists, especially from Tolkien to McCaffrey, the ideas presented here read like something Charles Darwin would write.

Some readers might liken this work to that of On the Origin of Species. The prose is sometimes difficult to read, and whats presented is nothing like the Book of Dragons, as penned by a youthful Hiccup in the animated series How to Train Your Dragon. In the novels, Fishlegs is responsible for chronicling what they discover. His version gives stats and descriptions alongside illustrations. In Dickinson’s version, the drawings are phenomenally detailed. It’s doubtful that Hiccup will ever dissect a beast just to explain how the digestion system works.

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The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug, Production Diary Day 11

In this production video director Peter Jackson covers additional photography for Hobbit’s movie 2 and 3.

The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro.

Starring Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Cate Blanchett and Orlando Bloom.

In Theatres December 13, 2013.

Official Website

Source(s): Peter Jackson

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