Lol! I'm inclined to agree.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/11/the-silmarillion-by-jrr-tolkien-audiobook-review-the-lord-of-the-rings-andy-serkis full review

Actor Andy Serkis narrates the posthumously published prelude to Tolkien’s epic masterpiece – a dense yet rich compendium of meticulously crafted lore

The origin story of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion is drawn from a collection of manuscripts written over several decades by JRR Tolkien, and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977 with the help of the fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay. The foreword, written by Tolkien Jr, explains how outlines of these stories existed “in battered notebooks extending back to 1917 … often hastily pencilled”, and how the task of collating and editing them was “so complex, so pervasive and so many-layered that a final and definitive version seemed unattainable”.

The stories include the legend of the creation of Eä, the world taking in Valinor, Beleriand, the island of Númenor and Middle-earth, and a history of events leading up to the First Age. In this era, Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, is at war with the High Elves, who are intent on recovering the Silmarils, three gemstones stolen by Morgoth that contain the light that illuminates Middle-earth.

The actor Andy Serkis, famed for playing Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit and Lord of the Rings film series, is the narrator, bringing his customary clarity, gravitas and an impressive range of voices to Tolkien’s often dense prose. These stories are rich yet complex, and the listener’s enjoyment will depend on their knowledge of the Tolkien universe and their ability to absorb a whole new set of people, places and legends (I’d advise having the text, with its maps, family trees and glossary, to hand). The Silmarillion shows how The Lord of the Rings was merely the endpoint of a far bigger and richly imagined story by the master of high fantasy.

• The Silmarillion is available via HarperCollins, 19hr 24min

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/4172937

He is not a hobbit, neither a man, but what is he? Is he a dwarf? A wizard? A god? Something else entirely?

“Eldest, that’s what I am… Tom remembers the first raindrop and the first acorn… He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless - before the Dark Lord came from Outside.”

https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Tom_Bombadil u/ptman@sopuli.xyz

He’s a merry fellow, bright blue his jacket is and his boots are yellow. u/bloodfart@lemmy.ml

Tom represents the incomplete knowledge of mankind and our pre-modern inability to firmly grasp the natural world we live in (and to some extent our continued struggle).

The fantasy world of Middle-Earth is in most ways supernatural to our own. So how much more incomplete would our understanding and knowledge of it been?

Tolkien was a professor of language and mythology and steeped in the ancient epics of the Anglo-saxons and Norse cultures. His career was putting together what these people knew and how they saw the world, but also what they couldn’t understand and how they explained their ignorance.

Others here are hinting at what Tom is, but not why he is. He’s a manifestation of ignorance. That’s why pinning him down is so tricky. It’s like pointing at a shadow with a flashlight. u/s_s@lemmy.one

extract

"Prime Video’s The Rings of Power explores the Second Age of Middle-earth, which is set millennia before the movies, and follows the story of Sauron’s initial rise to power, the creation of Mordor, and the forging of the great rings... And according to Kate Hawley, the costume designer for Rings of Power, a big part of her job was to find a way to honor what has come before in the world of Middle-earth while charting a new path—one that has never actually been represented onscreen before.

As for the Second Age covered in The Rings of Power, Tolkien never specifically set any of his books during that time period, though he made frequent references to the events that took place during it.

“I think we approached [everything] in a very organic way to relate more to the First and Second Age feeling that we were wanting to create. It has a sort of rawer quality to it,” she says.

“You look at the elves and Valinor and the vanity and everywhere you read there’s talk of jewelry and discussion about it. He talks about elves being born on shores of pearl and he doesn’t necessarily mean that in a literal way, but he’s always talking about ways to reflect the light and those qualities. There’s jewelry everywhere woven into clothes.”

Asked to avoid “a huge amount of prosthetics” when coming up with their ideas for what Second Age dwarves should look like, Hawley and her design team decided to emphasize “character more than anything.”

The last known photograph of J.R.R. Tolkien is taken, in front of his favourite tree, the Pinus Nigra (named Laocoon), at the Botanic Garden in Oxford, 9th of August 1973.

A formidable cast journey through folk via Bollywood to pop – not to mention mountain treks and orc attacks – in a compressed revival of the 2007 musical

First seen in the UK in 2007 at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane – a 1996-seat theatre – the show is revived at the 220-capacity Watermill. This means that Simon Kenny’s design and Anjali Mehra’s choreography are a theatrical equivalent of stunts designed to find how many people can fit in a Mini.

...During the long sections inside the tiny theatre, they cram in battles, orc attacks, treks across land, over mountains or through caves and lavish production numbers involving 20 actors or musicians (several performers also play instruments).

...speech and score sometimes feel more competitive than complementary.

The songs, though, move with enjoyable eclecticism through folk via Bollywood to pop, echoing the musical backgrounds of the Indian/Finnish/Anglo-American compositional team of AR Rahman, Värttinä, and Christopher Nightingale.

But the cast is a blast.

The original London run is more known for losing money than winning friends. On a stage about 30 times smaller – with budget presumably reduced proportionately – this spectacle of compression, by aiming small, brings big rewards.

extract

“The Battle of Maldon, together with The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth,” edited by Peter Grybauskas. “The Battle” is a fragment of poetry from the end of the first millennium that Tolkien translated from Old English.

...the history of Middle-Earth that Tolkien was working on at the same time, “The History of the Hobbit” includes five different “phases” of the book’s creation, many, many plot notes, and a scheme that shows original word choices along with Tolkien’s final text—which was sometimes penned in on top of rubbed-out pencil.

“Tolkien in the Twenty-First Century: The Meaning of Middle-Earth Today” by Nick Groom. This fascinating book explores “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” from their genesis through all the different major adaptations of the Tolkien “legendarium.”

The reader will learn a great deal about the licensing of Middle-Earth, a realm I thought I already knew fairly well. There were plans for a “Lord of the Rings” film starring the Beatles, for instance, directed by Stanley Kubrick. Another fever dream of a movie would have had Galadriel seduce Frodo, and a 12-minute animated monstrosity released in 1966 has a princess named Mika and a dragon named Slag.

Each of these very different books offers a brilliant peek or deep dive into very different aspects of the man who changed speculative fiction forever. Choose your own adventure into the world of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Link

Hardly anyone can understand what J.R.R Tolkien is saying in resurfaced interview | Ladbible

Or: 'Shut up!'

Title text: No, we actually do have a woman who's basically part of our fellowship. She lives in Rivendell, you wouldn't know her.

From TolkienBooks.net:

Songs for the Philologists is perhaps the rarest and most difficult to find Tolkien-related publication (although Sir Orfeo could also state a claim). It began life as a set of duplicated typescripts prepared by E.V. Gordon in 1922-1926 for the amusement of English students at Leeds University. These typescripts included verses by Gordon and Tolkien, as well as other traditional songs in Old and Modern English and a variety of other languages.

In 1935 or 1936 Dr. A.H. Smith of University College London, formerly a student at Leeds, gave a copy of one of the typescripts to a group of students to print at their private press. The group included, amongst others, G.T. Ilotson, B. Pattison and H. Winifred Husbands. The booklet was printed in hand-set type as an exercise on a reconstructed wooden hand-press.

Dr. Smith later realised that he had not asked for permission from Tolkien or Gordon, so the completed booklets were not distributed. University College was bombed during the Second World War and the press, and most of the stock of printed items, were lost in the ensuing fire. Evidently some copies of Songs for the Philologists survived - those retained by Smith and the students who printed them. The number that survived the fire is unknown, but is undoubtedly very small - according to one report "more than thirteen".

This is a poem that Tolkien wrote about a noble couple that wanted to start a family, and the corrigan that meddled with their dreams.

Link to site

direct large image link

extract

Tolkien disliked Shakespeare so much that he once expressed regret at referring to one of Middle-earth’s races as Elves. While elves “is a word in ancestry and original meaning suitable enough,” he wrote to a friend in 1954, “the disastrous debasement of this word, in which Shakespeare played an unforgivable part, has really overloaded it with regrettable tones, which are too much to overcome.” Although he does not specify any plays, Tolkien must have had A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Merry Wives of Windsor in mind. Both present elves as whimsical, lighthearted creatures who live in enchanted woods — a far cry from noble beings inhabiting the dark and dangerous forests of Middle-earth.

Ironically, the greatest influence Shakespeare had on The Lord of the Rings resulted from Tolkien wanting to rewrite a plot line he felt Shakespeare mishandled. In addition to the poorly worded prophecy concerning Macduff, Macbeth is also promised that he “shall never vanquished be until the Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill shall come.” Later in the play, Macbeth watches his life flash before his eyes as an army of trees marches on Dunsinane. Except they aren’t trees; they are soldiers hiding underneath branches and foliage.

Tolkien was deeply disappointed at this revelation, which installed in him the desire to “devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war.” He did just that in The Two Towers when Middle-earth’s Ents — walking, talking tree-like creatures — besiege Saruman’s stronghold of Isengard to take revenge for the deforestation that fueled the wizard’s war machine.

...he may have had more in common with the Bard than he cared to admit. In addition to their mutual interest in the fantastical, both men were deeply connected to the English countryside — a country that gave them a deep appreciation for the simple things in life. For Shakespeare, this manifested in the bawdy humor and the unorthodox wisdom of characters such as Falstaff. For Tolkien, it found expression primarily through the Hobbits, whose humble existence rendered them immune to the corrupting power of the One Ring.

This fantastic artwork is by Ruben de Vela. I think the sense of scale and immense power are remarkable.

But Earendil came, shining with white flame, and about Vingilot were gathered all the great birds of heaven and Thorondor was their captain, and there was battle in the air all the day and through a dark night of doubt. Before the rising of the sun Earendil slew Ancalagon the Black, the mightiest of the dragon-host, and cast him from the sky; and he fell upon the towers of Thangorodrim, and they were broken in his ruin. The Simarilian chapter 24

I came to the realization that while Durin's Bane likely hid shortly after the War of Wrath and missed the events of the Second Age entirely, Gandalf might not have been the first Ring-bearer it encountered.

Would Durin VI have had his Ring when the Balrog was first unearthed? I see no reason for this to not be the case, but I can't find any reference one way or another. Further, would his son Náin I also have, after Durin VI was killed?

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/954190

As the title says, I brewed a Brown Wheat Ale with Applewood-Smoked Leaf Hops. This was my first time using smoked hops and I'm happy with the result. They imparted more of a subtle smoke flavor than smoked malt. Recipe is available here if anyone is interested.

I was thinking of watching The Hobbit withthae family, but my opinion is that The Hobbit trilogy is a big, bloated, unwatchable mess. I found a Reddit post highlighting some fan edits to remove the bloat and thought I'd post it here too (below). Have you all tried any of these? Any you'd recommend?

There are a lot of Hobbit fan edits floating around online. Too many, actually. But after seeing a post on r/movies the other day about yet another edit being released, I thought it might be helpful to provide a list of some of the best and/or most popular ones. That way it’s not as confusing or overwhelming for those of you looking for an alternate take on Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy.

This is not an exhaustive list, nor is it intended to be. Some edits will not be listed, such as Topher Grace’s fan edit, since no one besides Topher (that I know of) has actually seen it and does not exist anywhere online. Special thanks to u/DanielU92 for originally compiling a list of edits a few years back!

Full Disclosure: I am the editor of the Maple Films cut aka J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Obviously my own edit is my personal favorite, but there are many solid edits out there that have done different things with the source material than I did. Something that I cut might still be in another version, and you might decide you like that one more!

So here goes. I’m going to sort them by release date. I will also indicate if these are listed on www.fanedit.org. Being listed on their Internet Fanedit Database (IFDB) is a big deal because they have to vet submissions and require a certain level of quality with fan edits. It’s an excellent site to join...tons of awesome fan edits can be found there (and not just for the Hobbit). Other than that, no direct links!

• THE TOLKIEN EDIT: This was the one that started them all. Released while the Battle of Five Armies was still in theaters, it received a lot of press for being the first fan edit of the Hobbit trilogy. However, the audio/visual quality was quite poor. All of the footage from the Battle of Five Armies actually came from a pirated screener DVD, which looks awful on any screen. The editor stated that he did most of the editing “over the weekend,” which I can assure you is not a lot of time for a project this big. Lots of sloppy cuts without regard for pacing or decent audio transitions. Running time: 4hrs 30min Release date: January 2015 Special Features: Box art IFDB: Not listed

• THERE AND BACK AGAIN: DAVID KILLSTEIN’S HOBBIT EDIT This was the first 3-hour edit to make headlines. On a technical level, it is assembled with much more care than The Tolkien Edit. I recall watching it and thinking it moved a little too quick for my taste, but others out there seemed to dig the faster pace. Unfortunately, Killstein and his edit were both nuked off of the internet and I can’t seem to find a copy of it anywhere. Possibly still floating around on torrents somewhere. Running time: 3hrs Release date: January 2015 Special Features: Unknown IFDB: Not listed

• THE HOBBIT: THE SPENCE EDIT Out of all the Hobbit fan edits besides my own, this is probably my favorite and the most well-assembled. Spence is a veteran fan editor and his goal was to imagine what Peter Jackson might have made if they decided to turn the Hobbit into a single film. It’s not a book-accurate edit...Beorn is completely gone and we still have Radagast and some of the Dol Guldur plotline intact. No special features that I know of either. Even so, it is still worth checking out. Running time: 3hrs 25min Release date: April 2015 Special Features: Digital copy IFDB: https://ifdb.fanedit.org/the-hobbit-the-spence-edit/

• THE HOBBIT: THE TWO-HOUR EDIT by FIONA VAN DAHL This one is a fast and wild ride. Fiona literally cut a nine-hour trilogy down to two hours! Obviously this is not for book purists, but it’s probably the closest we’ll ever get to seeing what Topher Grace’s two-hour cut might be like. Editing quality is decent and the pacing is insanely fast...I simply missed a lot of the scenes she removed. But it might be good for those of you that liked how brisk the Rankin/Bass animated Hobbit film was (I know there’s some fans out there). Running time: 2hrs Release date: November 2015 Special Features: Digital copy IFDB: Not listed

• J.R.R. TOLKIEN’S THE HOBBIT aka THE MAPLE FILMS EDIT A four-hour edit, split by an Intermission right where Jackson originally intended to split the Hobbit when it was still two films. This is meant to be as faithful to Bilbo and the spirit of Tolkien’s book as possible, while still telling a complete story for the screen. The edit also features some unused music by Howard Shore, and has been color corrected to match the look and feel of the LOTR trilogy better. I didn’t include the White Council/Dol Guldur subplot, but I did release a companion film that focuses on those scenes. I feel it distracts from the main story, but on its own works as an interesting spin-off. Running time: 4hrs 20min Release date: December 2015 Special Features: Digital/Bluray/DVD. Box and disc art. 5.1 surround. Subtitles. IFDB: https://ifdb.fanedit.org/j-r-r-tolkiens-the-hobbit-maple-films-edit/

• THE HOBBIT: IRONFOOT EDITION This one is actually two separate films with their own titles: An Unexpected Journey and There and Back Again. These were the original titles for the Hobbit when it was still going to be just two movies. They are both 150 minutes each, so together you have a five-hour version of the Hobbit. Some silliness is removed (Smaug chasing the dwarves) but other ridiculous moments remain (the extended CGI chariot sequence). A list of all the changes are on the editor’s site. Running time: 5hrs Release date: January 2016 Special Features: Digital/Bluray. Box and disc artwork. IFDB: https://ifdb.fanedit.org/the-hobbit-ironfoot-edition-part-i/

• THE HOBBIT: THE BILBO EDITION Originally released in June 2015, the editor (u/DanielU92) went and made some updates and fixes, eventually releasing his final version in February 2016. The edit is of high audio/visual quality, and narratively follows a fairly close path to the Maple Films cut. This is where a lot of edits in the 4-hour range come down to personal preference in terms of what’s been cut and what’s been left in. I’d put this one right behind Spence’s edit. Running time: 4hrs 33min Release date: February 2016 Special Features: Digital copy IFDB: Not listed

• THE HOBBIT or THERE AND BACK AGAIN by L8wrtr This is another one I have not seen yet, but it is one of the more popular Hobbit edits on www.fanedit.org. It’s a bit longer than most at 344 minutes long, and is actually split into two separate volumes. Again, I haven’t seen it but given its length, I imagine it retains a good chunk of the trilogy’s story while still getting rid of the mutually agreed-upon annoyances (Radagast, Alfrid, love triangle, CGI antics). Running time: 5hrs 44min Release date: February 2017 Special Features: Digital/Bluray. Box and disc artwork. IFDB: https://ifdb.fanedit.org/hobbit-or-there-and-back-again-the/

• THE HOBBIT: THE ORIGINAL TWO FILM STRUCTURE Excellent audio/visual quality, with nice custom Bluray menus and some special features. My main issue with this fan edit is its length...six and a half hours! There’s still too much cartoonish nonsense, too many extraneous subplots and characters that distract from the main story. Legolas still does his gravity-defying CGI acrobatics, Radagast still gives us some unwanted pothead humor, etc. There’s a reason the best Hobbit edits are around the 3-4 hour mark...this one awkwardly splits the difference between the original films and the much leaner and cleaner versions out there. Running time: 6hrs 35min Release date: August 2018 Special Features: Digital/Bluray. Box and disc artwork. Interactive menus, more. IFDB: https://ifdb.fanedit.org/hobbit-the-original-two-film-structure-the/

So there you have it. A variety of fan edits at a variety of running times, from two hours up to six and a half. Everyone has their preference, and there are plenty of people who would rather just watch the originals! That’s fine too I guess. Personally I would pick any one of these edits over the bloated original releases. Have fun researching and finding your favorite!

It starts a little slow as Boromir makes his journey, but things pick up later as more people start moving around.

If nothing else, I learned a ton about what was actually going on.

Kind of crazy how much Gandalf moves around throughout the whole thing. Eru really should have given him wings.