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Lord of the Rings

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SamIam
Apr 05 2002
03:16 pm

I know that he would have hated it but I’m doing it anyway because he couldn’t write anything but “Christian” books because he was one. He was instrumental in the conversion of C. S. Lewis. Though his books are not allegorys, and I’d be the first one to say it, but at least as a Christian writer you can only simply mirror “the story” and mirror his story does.

Besides that, it depends on what you mean when you say “Chistian”. I meant that they have nothing objectable when looking from a Christian world view, nothing about ehe character of people (and hobits, and elves, and etc.) is destorted (in the way of how we react and how we are totally sinful; for that matter even Gandalf, one of the embodiements of good could still be tempted by the lure of evil and was afraid he would be overcome by it).

Simply, I don’t mean what he intended, I mean what IS. I believe that non-Christians can write “Christian” literature, though true Christians, cannot write “secular” literature.

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Norbert
Feb 15 2002
09:53 am

I wish I knew how to spell the sound of Homer Simpson drooling.
I’ve read Lord of the Rings three times (still a novice) and love it more with every reading. The movie was very well done. I can’t imagine it being better unless Liv Tyler went away and it was 12 hours long. Two Towers is my favorite part of the series so I’m really looking forward to next Christmas.
I certainly wish the literary world would be more appreciative and accepting of fine fantasy literature.

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laurencer
Feb 15 2002
10:31 am

so, who has read tolkien’s Lord of the Rings? i’m two hundred pages from the end and i’m finding it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the book.

if you have read the book (or at least the first volume), what did you think of the movie?

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Ryan
Feb 15 2002
11:36 am

Howdy friends,

i finished reading the triology for the very first time just recently. i had for a long time been a skeptic of fantasy books, mostly because of the dungeons and dragons playing, basement hovel dwelling stereotype nerd mentallity that sometimes goes along with fantasy fiction. But, i must confess, i am now kind of a big fan of it all, especially Tolkien. I really liked the movie too. I saw it twice and was so excited. I can’t wait for the next one because it is going to be so full of orc blood and kick ass Legolas archery. Yes. And I like Harry Potter, but that is all ripped off from Tokien anyhow. cheers.

Any Stienbeck fans out there?

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BBC
Feb 25 2002
04:53 pm

Tolkien is great stuff. One of the things that struck me most about the movie was that when the good characters were drawn into a situation where violence was the only way out, they didn’t seem to glory in the violence, but set about it with a kind of grim determination. That is unusual (at least in modern cinema.)
I also love that the strongest character in the book is Frodo, who is, of course, physically the weakest. Seems almost Biblical — unlikely hero and all that.

Yup, I like Steinbeck. Grapes of Wrath and Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights particularly so.

Finally, in this year’s Best American Essays, there is this incredibly cool essay by Reynolds Price called something like, “Letter to my Godson Concerning God” Amazing that such a thing could be published in a general publication. Makes me hopeful about stuff.

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SandyWilbur
Mar 04 2002
05:23 pm

My wife’s father, a botany professor at Boston University, found Tolkien in the early 1960s, and gave us a set. It sat around for awhile, then I started on it about 1970 and fell in love with it. I remember reading all three aloud to our kids, by oil lamp at our isolated camp in northern New Hampshire. I scared everybody with my wonderful impressionistic treatment of Gollum – Yeess, My Precious. Since then, I’ve read them a half dozen times. They never get old.
I saw the first movie attempt, the animated one, and was really disappointed. I’ve had trouble with all my favorite fantasies put to the screen, because I conjure up my own ideas about what people and scenes are like, and they are too personal for movie makers to catch. Fantasy characters too often come out like the bar crowds in the “Star Wars” movies (which, by the way, I love, except for the bar crowds). Having said that, everything I’ve heard about the new Tolkien effort makes it sound excellent, and I expect to see it soon.

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Alice
Mar 10 2002
03:44 pm

When I lived “up north” I used to read all three every winter. I miss hibernating! I re-read them for the first time in a very long time in anticipation of the movie and enjoyed dwelling there all over again. Found The Return of the King to be signicficantly more profound in its spiritual analogies than I remembered. I’ve seen the movie twice and would like to go back a third time….for me it added increased dimension to some of the characters and brought them to life in a special way. Gandalf especially became more delightfully real—the orcs, goblins, etc. more evil than my imagination could conjure—Gollum, exactly as I pictured him. Well done.

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SamIam
Apr 03 2002
06:54 pm

I have read all of the Lord of the Rings books including the Hobbit many times, maybe even 6-7 times each.

And I got a group of my friends to go together to see the movie the day it came out.

I have the same predicament, when I pick them up, it’s “bye bye 5 hours,” or more.

I have also struggled through the Simerilion twice. It’s a hard read, but it was worth it.

I thought the movie was excellent, not only in keeping true to the story and over-all feel of the Lord of the Rings books, but also they kept one of my favorate parts of the LotR trilogy: they didn’t distort the VERY Christain message(s) in it.

The two major things that I didn’t like about the movie was the increased role of Arwen, it seemed very streached just to get a “love story” going within the movie. The only other major thing that I have qualms with is the change they made in Saruman’s (sorry if i misspelled his name) character: they made it seem as if he was under the influence of the dark lord Sauron directly through the palinteer. In the books it was the lure of the power of the ring that drove him to his evil wishes and he apposed Sauron, wanting the ring for himself.

Ahh. I love LotR

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danrueck
Apr 05 2002
06:27 am

You should know that Tolkien would be appalled to have his writings described as “Christian”. This is something on which he and CS Lewis disagreed strongly. Lewis loved allegory. Tolkien hated them. He (in his own mind at least) was creating myths, religious myths perhaps, but he didn’t intend his myths to point toward or symbolize similar Judeo-Christian stories. Whether they do or not is another question altogether.

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BBC
Apr 06 2002
12:50 pm

I think Tolkien would have objected to anyone calling his work allegorical, (see his _Letters__)but I’m not sure he would have objected to someone calling it Christian. I think he just would have looked back at the person with a very perplexed expression on his face.

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GoDrama
Apr 09 2002
06:14 pm

YEEEEEAAAAAAAH BUDDY!
GO LORD OF THE RINGS!
I saw it and did like it, however I only got to see it once and would have liked to see it again for more reference. I guess the parts that really bugged me was the 1. lack of character development (which I understand because it’s a movie and they had a limited time span, but it’s just not as cool as the book) 2. The whole Liv Taylor gets a bigger part thing, Arwen wasn’t the one who really rescued Frodo from the Wraiths. . . was she?