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Tolkien often stated his dislike of allegory. But he was a devout Catholic, and Middle-Earth was supposed to be our own pre-history, so of course it's essentially a Catholic vision of existence.
I took your post to mean that the phrase "bandy crooked words" made no sense. But if you were simply saying that the words weren't spoken clearly enough to be understood, then I did in fact misread you, and I owe you an apology, which I'm happy to give.
Well said! There's a certain realness to tangible things that we don't get from the digital. And if I like a program or a movie on DVD, I'll be watching it more than once over the years.
It's a perfectly cromulent expression.
Seriously, it's not an uncommon phrase in older literature, and quite recognizable to anyone reasonably well-read.
No, he's supposed to be (and is, according to the mythos of Middle-Earth) an angelic figure incarnated in a flesh-&-blood body, as are all the Wizards. He's of the same order of such angelic figures as Sauron & the Balrog, only the latter of course have fallen (or, rather, chose to rebel & fall).
A wonderful & insightful analysis! In a way, the Powell-Pressburger film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp deals with that same transition from the Victorian code of honor to the more complex & morally murky world of the 29th Century. These two film would make an interesting double feature exploring that theme.
This discussion is wonderfully hilarious. :)
I've got a feeling it'll come to that! :)
I've sometimes wondered if the cubs are allowed to exist as semi-feral in one specific area of the city because of adolescence & the natural streak of rebellion that arises then. They can live out their intense emotions & frustrations, then as they get just a little older, they return to the mainstream of the city.
Not insisting on this, just suggesting one possibility. :)
Seeing as I've got ever-growing shelves of DVDs, I understand your point. :)
I like having the film in a tangible form. And streaming can always be cut off. At the very least, I want hard copies of my favorites on hand.
I like your ideas for Radagast on film. :)
This sense of mystery is Romantic to the core. :)
Ugh! Radagast deserved far better than that. Again, a distrust of the author's worldview in that regard & a failure to respect it. Radagast himself is only spoken of in the books, yet even in those brief passages, I get a sense of someone worthy to stand beside Gandalf & a pre-corrupted Saruman, someone with his own very deep & rich well of knowledge. And of course it's his sincerity & trust that enables Gandalf's rescue from Orthanc, by sending the Eagle to carry his message (in the books, of course). And again, Saruman's scorn for that sincerity is precisely what sets that rescue in motion.
I think Tolkien was wise in that regard. There are so many sequels, prequels, sidebars & spinoffs to stories today ... yet nearly all of them diminish the power of the original, rather than adding to it. What was wonderful about the original is watered down by being "improved" with unnecessary fine-tuning or retconning. Everything doesn't have to be explained down to the most minute detail. A sense of mystery, of there being something more beyond the boundaries of what's been told, is far more effective.
One of my favorite examples: adding the scene of Roy Neary inside the mothership at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Whatever special effects were put onscreen, they couldn't possibly have the same sense of awe & mystery that Roy entering the ship gave us, with each one of us imagining what might await him. And attempting to show that only diminished that sense of awe & mystery.
In a nutshell. :)
Boromir's subsequent sacrifice gives us the positive aspect of the worthy warrior, something that Aragorn recognizes, respects, and acknowledges. Not only does Boromir redeem himself, his wrong action has that unexpected result mentioned by Gandalf, working good in the long run. And I would expect that in the Fourth Age, Boromir will be remembered for that redemption.
"Radagast should have tapped deep into those Celtic, British Isles roots and looked like a druid of old, some dangerous nature god, as unpredictable as the seasons, and stalwart as an oak."
What a perfect description!
Precisely. And add Sam's comment that Faramir reminds him of Gandalf, to emphasize the parallel. Boromir followed after his father in seeing the Ring primarily as a weapon—understandable, given the threat of Sauron & their desire to defend Gondor. Their intentions were good—but as with Gandalf in rejecting it, it was that very desire to do good with the Ring that ensnared Boromir. Faramir, having been a student of Gandalf's, and being more of a scholar than his brother, had learned enough not to trust that specific desire to do good by using something evil—the end did not justify the means, and the means would most certainly have led to a very different & disastrous end.
While I would love to have seen Tom Bombadil, that would have been extremely difficult to get right. If the films had been an even longer mini-series, perhaps ... but even then, the key would be to show the immense power & knowledge beneath the merriment & rhyming, the sense of Tom as indeed this eldest & earliest of powers in Middle-Earth. And considering what a ghastly caricature Peter Jackson made of Radagast the Brown, I'm just as glad that Tom wasn't portrayed.
I've always seen Radagast as having the quality of a St. Francis in his love for the natural world, albeit a Merlin-like St. Francis, the Merlin of The Sword in the Stone as he instructs young Wart by turning him into various animals. Radagast's perceived simplicity (so mocked & scorned by the likes of Saruman) is actually sincerity in its purest form, a sense of oneness with the birds & animals he loves & cherishes & studies, and from whom he learns.
If a film adaptation is faithful to the heart & soul of the original story, it should stand the test of time. If it changes that heart & soul to suit the current trends, even though they don't suit the original story, then time will not be kind to it. Even when an adaptation champions views that I wholeheartedly agree with, I don't want that to be at the expense of the original's vision. Either tell your own brand-new story, which might well be something I'd enjoy on its own merits, or be faithful to vision of the original. (Again, there's room to make changes in going from page to screen, without losing that original vision. The depiction of Arwen in the films works beautifully, without rewriting the essence of the character.)
There can be exceptions to this, of course, if the director and/or writer(s) are making a film as a comment on & a riposte to the original story, as in Kiss Me Deadly, for instance. But that sort of thing comes more easily to the darker & morally uncertain world of noir in the first place.