Post your "Fellowship of the Ring" reviews here!

EMINEM · Post by **EMINEM** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 8:26 am

The movie is out Decemeber 19, but reviews have already begun to circulate.

This following was written by one of the members of TheOneRing.net (the Gamebanshee of CPRG websites), who gave the movie a 9.5/10 rating. You can read it [url="http://greenbooks.theonering.net/quickbeam/files/121001.html"]here[/url], but be wary of cenematic spoilers. It's still too early to tell amidst the hype how deserving FoTR is of the accolades, but so far the critics have been unanimous in their praise.

Silur · Post by **Silur** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 9:05 am

Hyped rehash of folklore from various cultures... oh, sorry, you mean the movie

Dunno, haven't seen it, but at a guess: Expensive hyped rehash of folklore from various cultures

I'll probably see it all the same, but it doesn't have high priority.

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 9:12 am

Silur, I think you mean expensive hyped CGI.

Though not as hyped as Harry Potter.

Installment 239 of the Harry Potter Quintology, "Harry Potter escapes his own hype."

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 9:22 am

Originally posted by Gruntboy:
Silur, I think you mean expensive hyped CGI.

LOL

@silur and Grunt

Glad to see you both haven't been totally bowled over by the hype

I was watching a programme last night on LoTR and it is going to take them about a year to work on the computer graphics

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 9:29 am

Originally posted by Silur:
Hyped rehash of folklore from various cultures... oh, sorry, you mean the movie
Dunno, haven't seen it, but at a guess: Expensive hyped rehash of folklore from various cultures I'll probably see it all the same, but it doesn't have high priority.

Heh! That pretty much sums up my attitude, though I doubt I'll see it. What got me in the book (and caused me to read it three times over thirty years) was Tolkien's fine understanding of the rhythms and meters in English. He loved language, and it shows. But that's exactly what the movie can't and won't have, since most of that was in the narration. Just my POV.

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 9:32 am

Wow fable, I'm on my second reading within 3 years. Does that mean I'll wake up tomorrow and be 50?

fable · Post by **fable** » Fri Dec 14, 2001 10:38 am

Originally posted by Gruntboy:
Wow fable, I'm on my second reading within 3 years. Does that mean I'll wake up tomorrow and be 50?

If you think it will, please allow me to interest you in this fabulous life insurance policy I just happen to have here...

EMINEM · Post by **EMINEM** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 9:54 am

Rolling Stone has come out with a video review of LoTR. You can watch it [url="http://www.rollingstone.com/mv_videos/playvideo.asp?cid=1329"]here[/url], if you so wish, but again be prepared for some minor spoilers. I thought the review was even-handed and tempered compared to others I've read or seen, but the film critic was clearly impressed by FoTR, called it "a genuine epic," and said it was so beautiful and rich in detail, and replete with contemporary relevance,it deserved multiple viewings.

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 2:41 pm

You can read the Guardian film critic's 2/5 stars review [url="http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_Film_of_the_week/0,4267,618203,00.html"]here[/url] - suffice to say there were several vehemently disagreeing letters on the letters page today

fable · Post by **fable** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 3:16 pm

Originally posted by Georgi:
You can read the Guardian film critic's 2/5 stars review [url="http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_Film_of_the_week/0,4267,618203,00.html"]here[/url] - suffice to say there were several vehemently disagreeing letters on the letters page today

It's a terrible review, IMO, because it isn't a review. It's simply one, long sneer at the *concept* of fantasy--that's all. There's no critquing of acting, directing, writing (for the film), costuming, etc.

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 3:21 pm

Originally posted by fable:
It's a terrible review, IMO, because it isn't a review. It's simply one, long sneer at the *concept* of fantasy--that's all. There's no critquing of acting, directing, writing (for the film), costuming, etc.

It did have a sentence or two on the acting...

But I agree, it's barely a review at all

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 3:35 pm

I've Read the book(i know i know your talking about the movie) it was extremes for me Flipping brilliant discriptive and well done the rest YAWN Extremely boring stupid and not very wells done at all

thantor3 · Post by **thantor3** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 5:08 pm

Originally posted by craig:
I've Read the book(i know i know your talking about the movie) it was extremes for me Flipping brilliant discriptive and well done the rest YAWN Extremely boring stupid and not very wells done at all

Blasphemer!!! The torches... Get the torches!!

EMINEM · Post by **EMINEM** » Sat Dec 15, 2001 5:34 pm

Got 'im! Now someone get timber, rope, and kerosene. The heretic shall burn, burn, burn! Muwhahahahaha!

EMINEM · Post by **EMINEM** » Tue Dec 18, 2001 9:37 pm

For anyone still harboring some reluctance in viewing LoTR on the screen, click onto this article now!

[url="http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/18/hol.review.rings/index.html"]Eat your heart out, fable![/url]

fable · Post by **fable** » Tue Dec 18, 2001 10:00 pm

Originally posted by EMINEM:
For anyone still harboring some reluctance in viewing LoTR on the screen, click onto this article now!

[url="http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/18/hol.review.rings/index.html"]Eat your heart out, fable![/url]

LOL!

Aleldar · Post by **Aleldar** » Tue Dec 18, 2001 10:14 pm

Originally posted by EMINEM:
For anyone still harboring some reluctance in viewing LoTR on the screen, click onto this article now!

[url="http://www.cnn.com/2001/SHOWBIZ/Movies/12/18/hol.review.rings/index.html"]Eat your heart out, fable![/url]

Shouldn't you be in bed right now, getting sleep. So you don't fall asleep, during a boring movie.

Aleldar · Post by **Aleldar** » Tue Dec 18, 2001 10:17 pm

R. A. Salvatore, author of ASCENDANCE

I've never made a secret of the fact that these books--THE HOBBIT and THE
LORD OF THE RINGS--changed my life. I went to college as a Math major,
and wasn't much of a reader at all. When I was younger, I had read
everything I could get my hands on, but I think that school beat the
reading out of me. Too many irrelevant books that may have been special
to my adult teacher, but to me, had no message worth finding and no
entertainment value at all.

Mathematics, and not literature and writing, became my haven in school,
right into college. And then in my freshman year, 1977, my sister gave
me the Tolkien books for a Christmas present. I had heard of them, but
had no idea what they might be about, and when I asked her, she stumbled
about futilely for an explanation (remember, there were very few fantasy
novels out there in 1977) and then just told me to read them. The
following February, New England got hit with a tremendous blizzard,
shutting down schools for a week. Instead of being housebound at my
parents, I found a way out.

I went to Middle-earth. Wow! I never knew you could read a book like
that! When I got back to school, I immediately changed my major to
Communications/Technical Writing. In this field, I would still have my
haven of math/science courses, but all of my electives would shift to
the field of literature. Because of Tolkien, I truly learned how to
read. Now devouring books instead of wandering through assigned reading,
I learned to appreciate Shakespeare and Joyce, Chaucer and Dante, Mark
Twain and Hemmingway. Tolkien opened the door wide and I jumped through.

When I decided I wanted to try writing a book a few years later, there
was really no choice about which genre I'd enter.

And after all these years, and hundreds of fantasy novels, I've never
found a series to match that one, and I know I never will. Long live
Bilbo! Long live Gandalf!

[ 12-18-2001: Message edited by: Aleldar ]

Aleldar · Post by **Aleldar** » Tue Dec 18, 2001 10:18 pm

China Mieville, author of PERDIDO STREET STATION

I am so not going to make any friends here.

I'm looking forward to the films. Honestly. Peter Jackson's a great
filmmaker, and a big, decent, intelligent fantasy blockbuster is way
overdue. So bring them on.

It's just the books that leave me cold.

I mean, I tried them, I really did. As a kid, as a teenager, as an
adult. First they bored me, then they annoyed me. (I did say I wasn't
going to make myself popular.)

Tolkien's language is coddling, like an ageing relative cooing over a
bored toddler. Cliches snuffle up to us like moronic dogs. 'Fey he
seemed', says J.R.R., 'or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new
fire in his veins', and I'm thinking 'Like _fire in his veins_?' In
Middle-earth, it seems, laughter only comes in 'torrents', and swords
rarely fail to 'flash'. And when an army breaks upon the enemy, you can
be damn sure it'll be _like thunder_.

Even back in the day, such a catalogue of sub-Wagnerian pomposity would
hardly have read as scintillating. And it's ironic that the schoolboy-
toy-soldier, swaggering it articulates was shown to be a monstrous lie
in the very war that Tolkien had fought in, the lessons of which he had
obviously forgotten.

Tolkien wrote the tap-root text for fantasy set in a neverland of
Feudalism Lite, where Good and Bad are absolute, and moral and political
complexities conveniently evaporate. In Middle-earth, the Good look the
part, and the Evil are ugly. Elves are noble, Dwarfs are good
salt-of-the-earth types. In this world, conveniently enough, social and
ethnic pigeonholes are actually true. This is a paean to Order and
Reasonableness, to the status quo: threats come from outside. This
profoundly conservative view is a lie.

There's a reason I can't stomach this stuff. Tolkien described the
function of his fantasy as one of 'consolation'. In other words, it
becomes a point of principle that this literature mollycoddles its
readers. What's wrong with escapism? Tolkien asks: jailers hate
escapism. Of course as Michael Moor**** has pointed out, this is
precisely untrue. Jailers love escapism. What they hate is escape.

Sometimes I feel like I'm being too harsh. I mean, Shelob--how cool is
she? The Balrog--that's a monster and a half. And whatever else, Tolkien
above anyone else systematised his secondary world, and thereby
developed a fascinating new technique in fantasy. We all write in his
shadow: even those of us who dis the old man are engaged in an Oedipal
struggle against the biggest daddy of all. We might as well admit it.

But then just as I think I'm being too hard on J. R. R., I remember the
most excruciating, the most painful, the most tooth-achingly awful hymn
of praise to village idiocy ever committed to paper. I remember Tom
Bombadil. And I realize that if anything, I'm being too gentle.

[ 12-18-2001: Message edited by: Aleldar ]

Aleldar · Post by **Aleldar** » Tue Dec 18, 2001 10:19 pm

James Clemens, author of WIT'CH GATE

I picked up THE HOBBIT reluctantly when I was in seventh grade. The
cover looked lame, all pastels and with stylized trees and vague images
of barrels floating down the river. I was more a pulp reader at the
time: Doc Savage, the Shadow, Edgar Rice Burroughs, early Heinlein. So
what was all this hubbub about Middle-earth and midgets with hairy feet?
Why would anyone want to read such rubbish?

However, much to my annoyance, a well-read and respected friend kept
shoving the book in my face. "You must read this!" His eyes were wild
and glassy, his hair in disarray.

So eventually, to calm his feverish ranting, I succumbed to his pressure
and did just that. Sprawled on my parent's sofa in the living room, I
cracked the book and took my first steps into Middle-earth. My guides,
Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey. I quickly became immersed in the
lore, the history, the lands, the peoples, the runes, the horrors, the
triumphs...I literally became lost in the story, swept away in a flood
of adventure that carried me through the entire THE LORD OF THE RINGS
trilogy.

Twenty-five years later, I don't know if I ever fully came out of
Middle-earth. A part of me is still lost in that other land, unable to
escape. I have only to close my eyes and be transported back to
Rivendell, to Hobbiton, to the trackless Mirkwood, to ash-strewn Mordor.

At times, I find myself shoving my tattered and dog-eared copy of the
THE HOBBIT at someone else, some stranger on a street corner. "You must
read this!" I insist. He throws coins at my feet and flees. But still I
persist, searching for someone else to draw into Middle-earth, like some
crazed Marine recruiter.

Great books do that to you. It's not that you want to share them. You
simply must. You have no control. And THE LORD OF THE RINGS is such a
story. It is timeless piece, with a joy and resonance that will speak to
readers for all the ages to come.

So find a copy, read it, tell a friend.

There is always room in Middle-earth for one more traveler.

[ 12-18-2001: Message edited by: Aleldar ]