The one thing that always makes me laught like hell when it comes to Tolkien and what society made of it is the fact of all the twisted truth, all the glamourised myth surrounding him and his work.
People complain about apadtations stealing "his" ideas or not sticking to the "original Tolkien" lore.
Tolkien was a bad writer in terms of writting and he stole at least 50% of everything that is LotR from all over Europe.
Do you know why Professor Tolkien was so obssesed with dead languages?
He had a speech impediment and could't speak his own language straight. Bullied school boy and stuff.
The so called Tolkien fans, have to say that because I had great conversations with Tolkien fans who acknowledge his patchwork of stolen fragments from all over the place and were actually thankfull if you could point out new sources that Tolkien copied from because they made a difference between the actual work and their taste but the "so called Tolkien fans" know crap about nothing and still believe it all came from Tolkiens "genius" imagination. My ass, and I'm talking about the ass that dances in his den on two legs, a pillow in his mouth and a boner to break moutains. Want me to post a photo?
All of this Tolkien glorification is just mambojambo to me.
PS: If you are interested to read one of Tolkiens main inspiration and still read a very phenomenal book I recommand "A battle for Rom" by Felix Dahn. That's were Tolkien with various other elements like Thederich of Ravenna ... oh wait, no, thats the original, I ment Theoden of Rohann, took the term Elben as a human-halfgod like creature from.
"A battle of Rom" summs up the scientific work of scholar Felix Dahn and his findings on the rule of the Eastern Goths in Italy. That book was written ten years before Tolkien was BORN.
Very good, but you made me chuckle as I imagined your blood pressure rising from 'Crybabies' to peaking at 'Leftie-Libtard Snowflakes'. I got hooked on REH by the Lancer paperbacks and have been disappointed in most things Conan-related ever since. I do like things like your 'Blood and Thunder' book.
RoP episode 1 was worth the time just to see Galadriel kill the ice troll. Too bad they didn't get to forge on northward and fight more trolls and such.
It had a couple of good moments in it, but for my money, they were too few and too far apart. I did like the troll design, and the fight. That was big fun.
I don't like the Fantasy genre at all. Just not my bag. That said, you write darned interesting stuff about it. Thank you! I just watched SAMARITAN a couple nights ago and thought it to be fairly good, but like you, there was stuff coming down the pike you could see way early. Biggest gripe on the whole movie was that the bad guy's reasons for what they were doing was not well defined and seemed to fill the "we need a crazy bad guy" slot.
Great newsletter and darn sorry you were in FB Jail. Lemme know if that happens again and I'll try to smuggle in a file baked in a cake, as called for by ancient tradition.
I wrote a longish review on FB, but I'll share two relevant paragraphs with you to show my reaction. First, criticism canon accuracy aside: My main complaint is the writing isn’t very good. Now they do have a problem with these first episodes in that they have to set everything up for people who haven’t read the Legendarium. That said, some of the dialog is rather bad and rather tone deaf. Pacing is a problem at times. I think there’s only 8 episodes in the first season, and with two down, I’m worried about the development of the story. Maybe they should have channeled some of that production budget into better writing.
Next, addressing the canon problem: From an accuracy viewpoint regarding Tolkien’s Legendarium. There’s very very little. So far it seems like fan fic, vaguely “inspired” by the Second Age, with the fan fic author's own very personal interpretation. Now granted, the producers have a major problem. They can’t use anything from the published Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales. Only what’s mentioned in Lord of the Rings or the appendices. Blame for that squarely rests with the Tolkien estate, which seems that, despite Christopher Tolkien’s death, they’ve still decided not to let any of the other works be touched. However, one has to wonder how smart it is to attempt to adapt something but you can’t mention so much integral material. It’s like deciding to do a Star Wars movie, but you can’t use Jedi, Sith, light sabers, the Emperor, the Senate, or annoying characters designed mainly for merchandising. The result isn’t really Star Wars. Same with Rings of Power.
My bottom line is I found it entertaining so far and will watch more. Do I grit my teeth often? Yes. Am I happy with the adaptation? No. Are there things I like, including some MUS (Made up Stuff)? Yes.
"It’s like deciding to do a Star Wars movie, but you can’t use Jedi, Sith, light sabers, the Emperor, the Senate, or annoying characters designed mainly for merchandising. The result isn’t really Star Wars."
I'll disagree a bit. Rogue One did have Vader and lightsabers and Leia, though I admit they only show up at the end. I felt it was a good prequel, however, and much better tied into Star Wars than the official prequel trilogy.
Some great points, Troyce, thanks for sharing. I know you remember that deluge of books that came out in the 1980s, sort of on the heels of D&D, that were all trilogies, about nameless evils in far away lands, and the plucky band of misfits who are conscripted to make the long journey to thwart them, and all that kind of thing. They were all fan-fic versions of Tolkien with the serial numbers filed off. Dennis McKeirnan comes to mind, but there were so many others.
That's what this feels like.
Now, as you point out, thanks to the advances in technology, lots of the series looks like the early days of Dungeons and Dragons, come to life. The stranger who fell from the sky looks like he was designed by Dave Trampier, straight out of the cartoon strip, Wormy.
Oh, it started in the 70's. I got Sword of Shannara my senior year of high school (76-77) and it was a total Tolkien ripoff, with Allanon the wizard (I guess Gandalf got a drinking problem). Then the Brothers Hildebrandt, after doing all the Tolkien and Shannara illustrations, decided to write their own illustrated ripoff, Ushurak. Then came McKiernan. I remember his claim of writing the Silver Horn Duology and selling that first, and then telling is publisher to wait, he had an idea for a trilogy that he wanted to put out first. That's not how it happened. I talked with an editor once, who told me he had written the Silver Horn books specifically as a tale of Moria being retaken after the events of LOTR. He was told by the publisher he couldn't do that because he didn't have the rights, so he wrote the Iron Tower trilogy with the serial numbers only lightly filed off. Totally actionable plagiarism in my opinion and I still don't know why Christopher Tolkien didn't sue. I do think, however, Silver Horn was a good story about the retaking of Moria and was rather good fanfic.
McKiernan was quite readable, wasn't he? I didn't realize Shannara was late seventies, but that makes perfect sense. By the time I was looking for stuff to read in that vein, it was everywhere...for me, that would have been around '81 or '82. And it stayed in print For.Ev.Er. back then.
The one thing that always makes me laught like hell when it comes to Tolkien and what society made of it is the fact of all the twisted truth, all the glamourised myth surrounding him and his work.
People complain about apadtations stealing "his" ideas or not sticking to the "original Tolkien" lore.
Tolkien was a bad writer in terms of writting and he stole at least 50% of everything that is LotR from all over Europe.
Do you know why Professor Tolkien was so obssesed with dead languages?
He had a speech impediment and could't speak his own language straight. Bullied school boy and stuff.
The so called Tolkien fans, have to say that because I had great conversations with Tolkien fans who acknowledge his patchwork of stolen fragments from all over the place and were actually thankfull if you could point out new sources that Tolkien copied from because they made a difference between the actual work and their taste but the "so called Tolkien fans" know crap about nothing and still believe it all came from Tolkiens "genius" imagination. My ass, and I'm talking about the ass that dances in his den on two legs, a pillow in his mouth and a boner to break moutains. Want me to post a photo?
All of this Tolkien glorification is just mambojambo to me.
PS: If you are interested to read one of Tolkiens main inspiration and still read a very phenomenal book I recommand "A battle for Rom" by Felix Dahn. That's were Tolkien with various other elements like Thederich of Ravenna ... oh wait, no, thats the original, I ment Theoden of Rohann, took the term Elben as a human-halfgod like creature from.
"A battle of Rom" summs up the scientific work of scholar Felix Dahn and his findings on the rule of the Eastern Goths in Italy. That book was written ten years before Tolkien was BORN.
Off to new adventures.
“Crom is our local nature spirit. He roots for us and urges us not to give up!” -Conan the Adventurer, animated series
The Prosecution rests, your honor.
Ha!
Very good, but you made me chuckle as I imagined your blood pressure rising from 'Crybabies' to peaking at 'Leftie-Libtard Snowflakes'. I got hooked on REH by the Lancer paperbacks and have been disappointed in most things Conan-related ever since. I do like things like your 'Blood and Thunder' book.
RoP episode 1 was worth the time just to see Galadriel kill the ice troll. Too bad they didn't get to forge on northward and fight more trolls and such.
It had a couple of good moments in it, but for my money, they were too few and too far apart. I did like the troll design, and the fight. That was big fun.
“Village of the Damned fan gathering”…for the win.
You might appreciate this Dork Tower thread of Tolkien deciding to adopt his weekly Inklings RPG into a novel.
First comic here: http://www.dorktower.com/2012/06/18/novel-game/
That was awesome! Thanks for the linkage.
I don't like the Fantasy genre at all. Just not my bag. That said, you write darned interesting stuff about it. Thank you! I just watched SAMARITAN a couple nights ago and thought it to be fairly good, but like you, there was stuff coming down the pike you could see way early. Biggest gripe on the whole movie was that the bad guy's reasons for what they were doing was not well defined and seemed to fill the "we need a crazy bad guy" slot.
Great newsletter and darn sorry you were in FB Jail. Lemme know if that happens again and I'll try to smuggle in a file baked in a cake, as called for by ancient tradition.
Glad I signed up for the email newsletter!
I'm glad, too!
I wrote a longish review on FB, but I'll share two relevant paragraphs with you to show my reaction. First, criticism canon accuracy aside: My main complaint is the writing isn’t very good. Now they do have a problem with these first episodes in that they have to set everything up for people who haven’t read the Legendarium. That said, some of the dialog is rather bad and rather tone deaf. Pacing is a problem at times. I think there’s only 8 episodes in the first season, and with two down, I’m worried about the development of the story. Maybe they should have channeled some of that production budget into better writing.
Next, addressing the canon problem: From an accuracy viewpoint regarding Tolkien’s Legendarium. There’s very very little. So far it seems like fan fic, vaguely “inspired” by the Second Age, with the fan fic author's own very personal interpretation. Now granted, the producers have a major problem. They can’t use anything from the published Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales. Only what’s mentioned in Lord of the Rings or the appendices. Blame for that squarely rests with the Tolkien estate, which seems that, despite Christopher Tolkien’s death, they’ve still decided not to let any of the other works be touched. However, one has to wonder how smart it is to attempt to adapt something but you can’t mention so much integral material. It’s like deciding to do a Star Wars movie, but you can’t use Jedi, Sith, light sabers, the Emperor, the Senate, or annoying characters designed mainly for merchandising. The result isn’t really Star Wars. Same with Rings of Power.
My bottom line is I found it entertaining so far and will watch more. Do I grit my teeth often? Yes. Am I happy with the adaptation? No. Are there things I like, including some MUS (Made up Stuff)? Yes.
"It’s like deciding to do a Star Wars movie, but you can’t use Jedi, Sith, light sabers, the Emperor, the Senate, or annoying characters designed mainly for merchandising. The result isn’t really Star Wars."
That's almost my description of "Rogue One."
I'll disagree a bit. Rogue One did have Vader and lightsabers and Leia, though I admit they only show up at the end. I felt it was a good prequel, however, and much better tied into Star Wars than the official prequel trilogy.
Some great points, Troyce, thanks for sharing. I know you remember that deluge of books that came out in the 1980s, sort of on the heels of D&D, that were all trilogies, about nameless evils in far away lands, and the plucky band of misfits who are conscripted to make the long journey to thwart them, and all that kind of thing. They were all fan-fic versions of Tolkien with the serial numbers filed off. Dennis McKeirnan comes to mind, but there were so many others.
That's what this feels like.
Now, as you point out, thanks to the advances in technology, lots of the series looks like the early days of Dungeons and Dragons, come to life. The stranger who fell from the sky looks like he was designed by Dave Trampier, straight out of the cartoon strip, Wormy.
Oh, it started in the 70's. I got Sword of Shannara my senior year of high school (76-77) and it was a total Tolkien ripoff, with Allanon the wizard (I guess Gandalf got a drinking problem). Then the Brothers Hildebrandt, after doing all the Tolkien and Shannara illustrations, decided to write their own illustrated ripoff, Ushurak. Then came McKiernan. I remember his claim of writing the Silver Horn Duology and selling that first, and then telling is publisher to wait, he had an idea for a trilogy that he wanted to put out first. That's not how it happened. I talked with an editor once, who told me he had written the Silver Horn books specifically as a tale of Moria being retaken after the events of LOTR. He was told by the publisher he couldn't do that because he didn't have the rights, so he wrote the Iron Tower trilogy with the serial numbers only lightly filed off. Totally actionable plagiarism in my opinion and I still don't know why Christopher Tolkien didn't sue. I do think, however, Silver Horn was a good story about the retaking of Moria and was rather good fanfic.
McKiernan was quite readable, wasn't he? I didn't realize Shannara was late seventies, but that makes perfect sense. By the time I was looking for stuff to read in that vein, it was everywhere...for me, that would have been around '81 or '82. And it stayed in print For.Ev.Er. back then.