Lord of the Rings

I have to say I got curious as well, now.

They linked to a pirate site

Ah. Well, considering how e-book versions of Tolkien are pretty cheap, there doesn't seem to be a need to go looking on pirate sites for them.

Film. It was a film site. We were discussing the documentary.

If it's the new Tolkien film you're talking about, it's not really a documentary. It's supposed to be at least partially fictional. Biopic might be the better term.

Right, it is all the rage these days to have partially fictionalized documentaries about famous people.

In any case it's definitely against the rules to link to pirated sites for movies that are literally just released, and in general easy to get through legal means.

But yeah, is the movie actually any good? Has anyone here seen it yet?

Biopics aren't really my thing, so I haven't seen it.

I'm sure I will see it at some point, but probably not in the theater. I've got young kids and making it to the theater is a bit of a production.

Clamavi de Profundis at it again with a original composition that basically sounds like a national anthem for the Seven Dwarvish Clans:

It's particularly impressive how the song is divided in two halves, one more sounding quieter and more celebratory of smithing and one sounding like a full-on war march.

"When the hammer's boom! / sends the monsters to their doom!"

Clamiavi de Profundus are exceptional at dwarf songs. Their Song of Durin, Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold, and The King Beneath the Mountain are awesome, as is their March of the Ents. (Though going by the description in The Hobbit, I’d prefer for ‘The King Beneath the Mountain’ to be a bit faster and more major-key.)

I’m amazed by how much good music of Tolkien’s LOTR poems there is. Here are a few of my other favourites:

The Lay of Earendil by Adele McAllister

Galadriel’s Lament. I love this version because there’s so much power behind the voice, not just beauty and mournfulness; it really feels like Galadriel.

Song of Nimrodel by Yolanda Mott. She’s got the most beautiful voice.

Sam’s Song in the Orc-Tower by Yolanda Mott

Legolas’ Song of the Sea by Yolanda Mott.

Edited by Galadriel on Jun 3rd 2019 at 11:44:57 AM

CDP's "The Song of Beren and Luthien" is also amazing. One of my favorites of theirs.

I listened to the Ents and Entwives song by them yesterday and damn it makes me want to reread the whole beautiful series.

One of their works that move me the most is the Fall of Gil-Galad. Very short, but it packs so much impact in these few verses the book showed us. It really brings the character of Gil-Galad to life with the sheer sorrow they sing his epitaph.

"...And where he dwelleth, none can say. For into darkness fell his star....in Mordor, where the shadows are."

The deep bass voice they picked (and the fact the song is sung from a third person, e.g "an Elven-King") made me go into Wild Mass Guessing mode and picture King Durin III/IV fighting alongside Gil-Galad (there is mention of a smaller number of Durin's Folk fighting alongside the Last Alliance) and singing this as the elves carry whatever's left from Gil-Galad from the battlefield.

Their work really made me envision the more "musical" world Tolkien had in mind for both the Hobbit and LOTR. It also makes me wish Amazon would hire them for their upcoming series.

Edited by Gaon on Jun 7th 2019 at 5:21:44 AM

I just found the BBC audio play of The Lord of the Rings on YouTube and it’s fantastic! The voice acting for the different hobbits in the Shire is very, very well done, and it has the best rendition of The Voice of Saruman I’ve ever heard.

And in some parts Gandalf sounds so much like he does in the films that it’s uncanny. I think Sir Ian McKellan has listened to this.

Edited by Galadriel on Jun 9th 2019 at 9:02:06 AM

Would that be the '81 version with Ian Holm as Frodo and Michael Hordern as Gandalf? Yes, it is very good. My only criticisms are that it's sometimes difficult to tell what is supposed to be happening in some of the action scenes. Like when the Balrog shows up. That's not really an issue with someone who knows the books well, of course. Some of the sound effects are also a little too '80s electronica, like the eagles or the horses of the nine riders.

The acting is all top-notch, and the adaptation is very faithful to the book. Denethor is a much more tragic figure than his film version, for instance. It's also nice to hear many of the songs and poetry from the book, and in their correct place in the story. Still no Tom Bombadil, though.

I have the 2002 CD version. I also remember listening to some of it, particularly the Weathertop episode, back when it was originally broadcast on NPR in the US in the very early '80s. The Ringwraiths freaked me out, but after all I was only 8 or so at the time.

Fun fact: Peter Woodthorpe - who played Gollum, and Michael Grahm Cox - who played Boromir, had played the same roles in Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings three years previous.

Yes, it’s the ‘81 version, with Ian Holm and Bill Nighy as Frodo and Sam. I’m through 11 of 13 episodes and really enjoying it. The confrontations between Gandalf and the Witch-king of Angmar and betwen Eowyn and the Witch-king in “The Battle of Pelennor Fields” was a real treat.

The adaptation/editing work is excellent - they cover everything in the books, and retain most of the dialogue word-for-word. The cuts (no Bombadil or Barrow-Downs; Journey to the Cross-Roads is skipped; Ride of the Rohirrim is skipped) are all in places that don’t affect the coherency of the narrative.

And Peter Woodthorpe does an amazing job of Gollum. He may even be better than Serkis, and Serkis is very, very good.

Edited by Galadriel on Jun 12th 2019 at 12:52:23 PM

Andy Serkis is a great actor in any role he plays, and Gollum is what made him famous, but Peter Woodthorpe gets much more time playing the role in the radio play. That gives him much more room to work. I think his Gollum is perhaps even more pitiable.

Bill Nighy, I might note, has the best singing voice in the cast. He does some great a cappella singing as Sam in "Gil-Galad was an Elven King" and "In Western Lands Beneath the Sun".

I wonder what Bilbo's adventures were like between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Yeah it would be interesting to know, as far as we know he stuck to the Shire in that time, sometimes trekking along the road, talking with elves and the dwarves sometimes visited him too.

I see him now taking young Frodo with him to introduce to the elves like "Hello there this is my young relative" xd

We would have heard if he had run into any significant danger, no doubt, so I think they were just extended hiking trips around Middle-earth, visiting old friends (I think he visited the Lonely Mountain once more at least, and IIRC Balin visited Bag End again).

I doubt he ever strayed down further south than the Gap of Rohan however, given that Gondor and Rohan were still very much surprised by the existence of Hobbits when they came down during the War of the Ring.

Yeah the end of the Hobbit has Balin visit Bilbo a few years after the big adventure. Actually I can kinda see Bilbo getting most of the heavy duty adventuring out of his system as in that scene he says he's glad to be just a random everyhobbit without the world on his shoulders. (That fell on Frodo, poor thing.)

Well, I'm pretty sure he visited the Lonely Mountain once again during his trip immediately following his 111th birthday, and came back over the Misty Mountains to eventually settle in Rivendell. That was always meant to be his last big trip before settling down into a quiet retirement.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Jun 14th 2019 at 12:38:28 PM

The end of The Hobbit says that Bilbo had "many hardships and adventures" on the return journey from the Mountain to the Shire, but because he had Gandalf with him, and Beorn for much of the way, that he was never in great danger. So he had at least some adventures that are not recounted.

The Lord of the Rings seems to say that Bilbo didn't leave the Shire between his return from The Hobbit and his 111 birthday party. Gildor the elf and his people say they saw both Bilbo and Frodo "often", though, so there were at least some meetings between Bilbo and the elves in those years, possibly within the Shire. Bilbo himself tells Frodo that after the party he got to Rivendell "without much adventure", went on to Dale (where he found Balin had left for Moria before he got there), and then returned to Rivendell and stayed.

Edited by Bense on Jun 14th 2019 at 8:40:55 AM