Lord of the Rings

Whilst this review video of the entire 6 episodes of 'The Rings of Woke' comes with a warning to sensitive ears that the Critical Drinker is mighty fond of the 'F' word as well as other below the belt language, its actually a highly perceptive and precise demolition job with some astute and valuable observations on the current state of the debauching of culture. It has gleaned over 1.3 million views in under 48 hours so somewhere out there some degree of sanity prevails amongst the silent majority. Its also at times mighty funny!

 
Michael B-C said:
It has gleaned over 1.3 million views in under 48 hours so somewhere out there some degree of sanity prevails amongst the silent majority. Its also at times mighty funny!
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I had no real idea about this TV Amazon LOTR rehash show other than this tread, and now having watched this review of "The Rings of Woke," where one can see the whole of it summed up. So, I take it he doesn't like the film :lol:, moreover, it seems many like it (a majority, I don't know)? Did they say that each episode cost was around 58 million?💸

Forewarned is forearmed.

Now, according to this, each episode of Ertugrul came in at:

"Total cost per episode of this Turkish drama serial is almost $200,000."

That would leave $57,800.00 on the table in comparison.

Ertugrul, as a TV thing, was good (IMO) in a different sort of way.

This following was good, too, and short:

Jenn said:
I think I would much rather watch the Babylon Bee's version of LOTR, at least it would be funny :lol:
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So, I caved after some external pressure to watch the show and that I was possibly being a Tolkien purist (I will not name names) and have to admit after watching the first 4 episodes, if you can:
  • Get over the really bad editing and plot development in the first episode
  • The one-dimensional acting and obnoxiousness of Galadriel
  • The, at times, juvenile dialogue and attempts at being profound without actually being profound
  • Stop asking yourself why elves who are immortal have modern day haircuts
  • Why the elves have lost any sense of majesty and otherwordliness and seem like average people with pointy ears (are they actually Vulcans in disguise?)
  • How an elf can swim across an entire ocean without a lifejacket or at least a wooden plank for support - but you know, its Galadriel and shes infinitely amazing with her singular facial feature and sheer determination to defeat Sauron, so she can do anything
  • Why caucasian parents have African-American children and vice versa
  • Not get upset over the bastardizing of the story of Beren and Luthien, Tuor and Elwing or Aragorn and Arwenn
  • Suspend all expectations and beliefs of this being LOTR in anything but name only
Then the show actually has its moments and would consider it a mid-level fantasy series. The dwarves and Durin in particular have been the best part of the show so far and the cinematography is quite stunning.
 
At the end of last week, I finished to read again the whole LoR book, more than twenty-five years after the first reading.

I'm not sure I remember exactly what that first reading was like and what I retained from it. At the time, I hadn't seen Jackson's films many times and especially I didn't have the understanding I have today of what a world can be (call it Earth or Middle-earth) and of the interactions between different groups, led either by an STS type of will or on the contrary by an STS one: in other words, good or/versus evil.

What I do like in LoR as well as in The Wheel of Time is that heroes do what they have to do to save the Good attacked by the Evil, no matter if they suffer or die from it. This is a lesson that I think we need to keep in mind, because according to the C's, it's not about being saved, but being there to save others. Heroes in these books are there to save others, and they are very good at it!

Anyway, the end of the story is about the transition from the third to the fourth Age, and what was before will not be the same after. It is a delightful, while enlightening reading when one is - like we are now - on the verge of the biggest "storm" the Earth has seen in a long time.

Speaking of storm if you allow me do digress a bit, I started the John Barnes' Mother of Storms, and I can't help but notice that in 1994, he depicts a world in 2028 that looks a bit like the dystopian one the elites want us to live in (at least, after the first 150 pages): AI, self-driving cars, TV programmes interconnected with the five senses via headphones and gloves... and a whole host of other oddities.

I wait for storms to come! :-D
 
Hours I've watched of the Rings of Power 1/4.
Hours I've watched of Rings of Power reviews 20.

I was expecting it to be awful, but it really exceeded all our expectations I think, as it's actually an abomination.

There's only one cure for this and that's to blow the dust of my Tolkien books.
 
Turgon said:
Then the show actually has its moments and would consider it a mid-level fantasy series. The dwarves and Durin in particular have been the best part of the show so far and the cinematography is quite stunning.
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After watching the final episodes, I change my mind and need to watch the LOTR Trilogy, extended editions with the special features to wipe away the stench of Mor... I mean Amazon.
 
MK Scarlett said:
I also watched Tolkien, the movie. Thank you @Michael B-C for talking about it as it is a superbly directed movie, very beautiful visually and intellectually, and above all spiritually. I highly recommend it!
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Agreed, watched it with the kids a few days ago and we've had a really good time including some crying along. It might be a bit of a romanticised version but we get great visuals and a lesson how suffering can be transformed into something great.
 
Michael B-C said:
I doubt you'll be disappointed Alejo. The dark irony is that the producer's who were immense Tolkien fans bent over backwards to try and make the film as respectful and true to the spirit of Tolkien as they could on a measly $20 million budget, (as well as hiring a highly accomplished Finish director, Dome Karukoski, who brought a distinctively magical poetry to the way he filmed it which he layered with a beautiful, stirring soundtrack by the accomplished Thomas Newman), but this wasn't enough for the Tolkien estate which refused to take part in the film's preparations and then waited to just prior to its opening before releasing a film killing statement:



Having read several Tolkien biography's I think this film is highly respectful and serves the spirit and heart of what Tolkien stood for on a very limited budget (and is essentially true to his life story). It doesn't attempt to do a Peter Jackson because it hasn't the budget to pull it off but rather instead focuses in on the inner world and poetic spirit. It's a film not a biography and as such must make a film not spend its time exactingly going through biographical data. But once the estate stepped in that gave cart blanche and most reviews damned it with the faintest of condescending praise, meaning that the audience it was aimed at stayed away in droves. Because the estate had spoken...

This is the same estate who whilst claiming they were seeking to protect the legacy of JRT had by then sold the rights to the appendices of LOR to of all parasitic corporations Amazon, for the tidy sum of $250 million, knowing full well when they did that they would have no power to approve or participate in the making of the series. But they sure as hell authorized it, in effect prostituting their inherited legacy for a immense dump of cash.

As the old saying goes, what do you expect from a pig but a grunt, so I looked for nothing less than what we've got from from Amazon. But the estate should roast in Helheim for this betrayal.
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Thank you for the Tolkien recomendation Michael I'd ignored it thinking it would be a butchered story of his life.
Can I also recommend an overlooked short story by Tolkien 'Farmer Giles of Ham' a wonderfuly fun story that I'm sure would put a smile on any face both young an old.
I grew up playing in the forge at Sarehole village where my grandparents had a house and like Tolkien fell in love with Nature there playing in the river and forge and on the land around Sarehole It is with little surprise to me how much it appears in Lotr and the Hobbit.
 
The Hobbit trilogy was for many a sadly missed opportunity. The bloating out of the story to fill 3 films when the single book length material only ever suited a one off film left most Tolkien fans of whatever age sorely disappointed if not enraged, especially by the intrusion of such grotesque additions as the pre-woke woke three way love triangle, not to mention the love in between Galadriel and Galdalf, the constant click bating in relation to dragging in prequel elements to the LOR and all that endless exposition by way of negative return CGI montages. The result was a giant, sprawling mess that left me wanting it all to be over before the second part had barely begun! Despite this and under my daughter's insistent direction, every year in the build up to Christmas we dutifully sit down, grit our teeth, and grind our way through the trilogy as a precursor to the extended, genius level LOR films; by the timer the endless seeming dirge is over it takes me quite a while to actually start to rid the bad taste left in the mouth by the Hobbit disaster and enjoy the LOR films once more.

Well not any longer!

Ever since their digital release, many a fan has attempted to edit the three releases down into a single film in an effort to rediscover the authenticity and vision that Jackson did achieve but which lies hidden beneath the weight of so much extraneous garbage. To date none of these have particularly succeeded because of a lack of skill, diligence and shall we say a confusion between authenticity and the need to maintain rhythm and tone within a film medium (let alone maintain narrative continuity). Also, the task of taking out so much bad material interwoven with the great is a monumental task and in most cases the drastic surgery required only serves to jar transitions and eventually sink the main body of the story.

At last, however, someone has succeeded and produced close to the best possible realization of what the editor rightly calls a one-movie masterpiece.

Having sat through this version (coming in at 4hours 20mins as opposed to the near 8 hours of the original) with hardly a gripe and with an unexpected level of pure joy, I heartily recommend it to those in need of a lift of spirits. The first 35 mins in particular are beautifully constructed and capture with real sensitivity the layering of the growing relationships and purpose between one hobbit, a bunch of random seeming dwarfs and a certain wizard. Having built up this foundation step by step - with nothing bothersome intervening - I found myself for the very first time truly invested in a much loved childhood story that suddenly felt dignified, mature and lived in.

See what you think. The link below is to the explanation as to the approach taken by the very enthusiastic compiler. Don't be put off by his slightly manic presentation; his editing and story rhythm is assured (especially in keeping the flow of the outstanding score by Howard Shore) and seeing as achieving what he sets out to do is nigh on impossible, the minor and occasional leaps he has to take in the edit are entirely forgivable and hardly detract at all from his promise of returning the arch of the story to its source potential.

The show notes contain a direct link to his edit as a single HD 8GB file so you can even download and keep. Seeing as he put over 2 years work into this, fair play to Ed I say with much respect and gratitude. A rewarding antidote for all true fans of Tolkien following the recent Amazon monstrosity.

 
I started reading Lord of the Rings for the first time in 20 years or so.. You can just feel the goodness of Tolkien's spirit exuding from the pages, I reckon. I love how otherworldly it feels to me, in a way no other fantasy books I've read do. Otherworldly isn't really the right word. It just doesn't feel like something made up by a modern person... When he writes about magic rings it does not feel like some device contrived to be cool or interesting or drive a plot, it feels like he's describing a real piece of technology which isn't quite understandable by us (or by the characters in the book). I felt the same way about the magic rings in C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew. Never read any other books with magic artifacts that felt this way.. I don't know how to describe what I mean.. Maybe it's just because I read these as a kid before any other such books, maybe it's because of the difference in language from the era these were written...

Anyway. Here's a little thing right from the start, which I'd forgotten about, which I now see I'd always really liked and aspired to be like: How Gandalf seems to very much operate on principles of free will..

'Clearly the ring had an unwholesome power that set to work on its keeper at once. That was the first real warning I had that all was not well. I told Bilbo often that such rings were better left unused; but he resented it, and soon got angry. There was little else that I could do. I could not take it from him without doing greater harm; and I had no right to do so anyway. I could only watch and wait....'
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'All the same,' said Frodo, 'even if Bilbo could not kill Gollum, I wish he had not kept the Ring. I wish he had never found it, and that I had not got it! Why did you let me keep it? Why didn't you make me throw it away, or, or destroy it?'
'Let you? Make you?' said the wizard. 'Haven't you been listening to all that I have said? You are not thinking of what you are saying.'
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Michael B-C said:
The Hobbit trilogy was for many a sadly missed opportunity. The bloating out of the story to fill 3 films when the single book length material only ever suited a one off film left most Tolkien fans of whatever age sorely disappointed if not enraged, especially by the intrusion of such grotesque additions as the pre-woke woke three way love triangle, not to mention the love in between Galadriel and Galdalf, the constant click bating in relation to dragging in prequel elements to the LOR and all that endless exposition by way of negative return CGI montages. The result was a giant, sprawling mess that left me wanting it all to be over before the second part had barely begun! Despite this and under my daughter's insistent direction, every year in the build up to Christmas we dutifully sit down, grit our teeth, and grind our way through the trilogy as a precursor to the extended, genius level LOR films; by the timer the endless seeming dirge is over it takes me quite a while to actually start to rid the bad taste left in the mouth by the Hobbit disaster and enjoy the LOR films once more.

Well not any longer!

Ever since their digital release, many a fan has attempted to edit the three releases down into a single film in an effort to rediscover the authenticity and vision that Jackson did achieve but which lies hidden beneath the weight of so much extraneous garbage. To date none of these have particularly succeeded because of a lack of skill, diligence and shall we say a confusion between authenticity and the need to maintain rhythm and tone within a film medium (let alone maintain narrative continuity). Also, the task of taking out so much bad material interwoven with the great is a monumental task and in most cases the drastic surgery required only serves to jar transitions and eventually sink the main body of the story.

At last, however, someone has succeeded and produced close to the best possible realization of what the editor rightly calls a one-movie masterpiece.

Having sat through this version (coming in at 4hours 20mins as opposed to the near 8 hours of the original) with hardly a gripe and with an unexpected level of pure joy, I heartily recommend it to those in need of a lift of spirits. The first 35 mins in particular are beautifully constructed and capture with real sensitivity the layering of the growing relationships and purpose between one hobbit, a bunch of random seeming dwarfs and a certain wizard. Having built up this foundation step by step - with nothing bothersome intervening - I found myself for the very first time truly invested in a much loved childhood story that suddenly felt dignified, mature and lived in.

See what you think. The link below is to the explanation as to the approach taken by the very enthusiastic compiler. Don't be put off by his slightly manic presentation; his editing and story rhythm is assured (especially in keeping the flow of the outstanding score by Howard Shore) and seeing as achieving what he sets out to do is nigh on impossible, the minor and occasional leaps he has to take in the edit are entirely forgivable and hardly detract at all from his promise of returning the arch of the story to its source potential.

The show notes contain a direct link to his edit as a single HD 8GB file so you can even download and keep. Seeing as he put over 2 years work into this, fair play to Ed I say with much respect and gratitude. A rewarding antidote for all true fans of Tolkien following the recent Amazon monstrosity.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the recommendation! This edit was downright awesome.
 
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