Link of the Day [12.28.12]

broderic on December 28, 2012

J.R.R. Tolkien was a genius. Not for creating the history of Middle Earth. But for creating the languages of the people of Middle Earth.

Today’s link brings you to a thorough study of all the languages Tolkien devised. All of them. Once you see what he did, you’ll understand why he created Middle Earth. He needed to hear his languages. He had to create a place for their use. Elves and men, dwarves and orcs, hobbits and ents all had their own tongue. Tolkien created one for each of them. All of them different, and yet some of them the same.

Genius.

http://folk.uib.no/hnohf/

The Guilt Trip

broderic on December 27, 2012

The Guilt Trip is the kind of movie you watch with your mom on a lazy Saturday afternoon. It’s not offensive or embarrassing. It is an affirmation that we all love our mom no matter how crazy she makes us.

3 of 5 stars.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

broderic on December 27, 2012

Originally, when you came to Tolkien at a young age, you read The Hobbit first which offered a glimpse of Middle Earth. Searching for more, you then read The Lord of the Rings, which filled in large chunks of Middle Earth, the latter Ages. If you were adventurous and persistent, you would read The Silmarillion and/or Unfinished Tales which expanded Middle Earth, its history, and its cosmology. That was the traditional way if you approached Tolkien through his books.

Now children are exposed to Tolkien from the Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. They already know Middle Earth, Frodo, Gollum, and Gandalf. They just don’t know Bilbo. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is supposed to rectify that. It was supposed to take the big and epic and make it smaller; a personal journey, Bilbo’s adventure, There and Back again. Unfortunately, it expanded the personal to epic proportions placing it squarely in Jackson’s epic world missing what Tolkien was telling in the tale of Bilbo Baggins.

Jackson’s Hobbit film took the appendices and included them for this film. It includes the stories that were background to Bilbo’s adventure. Remember when Gandalf disappeared for several days? He went to the White Council. Yeah, they filmed that. You remember when you wanted to know about other wizards. Yeah, they included Radagast and his rabbits. Now I don’t remember if Tolkien described it, but I think remember a picture of that.

Including all of that, you forget that it was Bilbo’s journey. When he went and had himself and adventure. The Took in him took him across Middle Earth. But Gandalf is there soaking in everything. The movie forgets it was Bilbo’s journey. While it is not bad, I wish it had been more of Bilbo’s tale.

I’m hoping Peter Jackson doesn’t get to do The Silmarillion. I’m hoping that it will be an animated film.

3 of 5 stars.

May All Your Christmases Be …

broderic on December 24, 2012

There’s nothing better than to cozy up to a Yule log burning in the chimney and finding a dead Santa. Happy Season’s Greetings from you good blog buddy! Stay safe and have a great holiday.

It's the end of the world!

broderic on December 21, 2012

Well is it over? The world, I mean. Has the apocalypse come? And if it has when’s it leaving. Soon I hope so that we can all get back to Christmas.

The world doesn’t end. It will keep going and going long after we humans are gone. Then it will burn up in the expansion of the solar shell, burnt up in a fireball for all we care. Yes, I did contradict myself. Who cares? It will be over anyway.