Give me your LotR questions

[henry quirk]

white gold, wild magic

I enjoyed those books.

me too...been many years since I thought about 'em

[Iwannaplato]

white gold, wild magic

I enjoyed those books.

me too...been many years since I thought about 'em

When I was a kid, my big three was LoR, Dune, and get this, Watership Down. But I suppose I am now potentially hijacking. But one thing these books had in common was something like a fellowship.

[Iwannaplato]

OK, some fussy comments on LoR:
I think it is hard to make Ents work in a movie for adults. I loved them in the books.
Most of the casting was great, I thought. Aragorn, Gandalf, the main hobbits, Legolas, Galadrial, even Agent Smith was a nice choice.
Boromir...didn't work. I like Sean Bean, but I pictured Boromir more like linebacker. But this is where childhood images mess with perfectly good choices.
I wanted more Mines of Moria, and more mood. I loved that part of the books and it ended up too action packed. Though I have this complaint about films in general. Like It Follows, many parts of the Shining. Mood. Give men 98% mood, 2% action. Yah, Yah. I realize this would have made for 40 hours of film.
The dead soldiers Aragorn got in motion in the final battles...same as the Ents. Works better on the page.
Gollum was done well. Repulsive, pitiful.
Bilbo was done well as the charming, once in a while creepy ex-addict. Ian Holm is great in general.

[Astro Cat]

In my opinion, the original trilogy (Fellowship, Two Towers, Return of the King). The Hobbit was a cash grab and immensely departed from the tone in some ways (it is a children’s book so I’m not sure I fault them, but it didn’t make for good adult cinema).

I just checked, and the films I watched were all Hobbit, because they happen to be on Netflix, and I can watch stuff on my daughter's account. It doesn't cost me anything, so I suppose I got my money's worth, even though the films weren't that great. I don't think the proper LotR films are on Netflix.

The original trilogy is much more mature, has tones of hopelessness in adversity (but also great hope), doesn’t overdo CGI like The Hobbit did, etc.

While I don’t expect everyone to be as much of a fan as I am, I do think you’ll enjoy it more than The Hobbit.

[Astro Cat]

OK, some fussy comments on LoR:
I think it is hard to make Ents work in a movie for adults. I loved them in the books.
Most of the casting was great, I thought. Aragorn, Gandalf, the main hobbits, Legolas, Galadrial, even Agent Smith was a nice choice.
Boromir...didn't work. I like Sean Bean, but I pictured Boromir more like linebacker. But this is where childhood images mess with perfectly good choices.
I wanted more Mines of Moria, and more mood. I loved that part of the books and it ended up too action packed. Though I have this complaint about films in general. Like It Follows, many parts of the Shining. Mood. Give men 98% mood, 2% action. Yah, Yah. I realize this would have made for 40 hours of film.
The dead soldiers Aragorn got in motion in the final battles...same as the Ents. Works better on the page.
Gollum was done well. Repulsive, pitiful.
Bilbo was done well as the charming, once in a while creepy ex-addict. Ian Holm is great in general.

I agree with a lot of this. Also, I loved It Follows so much.

[Iwannaplato]

I agree with a lot of this. Also, I loved It Follows so much.

Great!
One thing I missed was Eowyn. I like that actress a lot. But I didn't quite believe her as a warrior. Not that they needed to get Gwendoline Christie or the like. But someone I believed could really slash an orc, let alone a Nazgul. Maybe a month more training with an arms instructor would have done it.

I mean, much of this is quibbling. It was a great cast. But hey, I've been imagining these books since I was a toddler, and a fussy toddler I was.

[henry quirk]

I enjoyed those books.

me too...been many years since I thought about 'em

When I was a kid, my big three was LoR, Dune, and get this, Watership Down. But I suppose I am now potentially hijacking. But one thing these books had in common was something like a fellowship.

I read parts of the first two. Didn't have the stamina to be a completist, though. Never even got thru all of Larry Niven's Known Space collection. At some point I get tired of one, extended universe and look for another (and never get back to the previous one).

Martin's Wild Cards was another I got half way thru, took a break from and never got back to.

[promethean75]

i read the trilogy once and for all while in solitary confinement. and i remember how engrossed in it i was. couldn't peel myself away for even a minute. i would stand up by the door at night and hold the paperback by the light coming through the window.

also read a few of those mandatory classics. i remember almost crying while reading the hunchback of Notre Dame. lotta contemporary authors mostly tho... ken wilbur, steven king, dean Koontz, john grisham, Lovecraft, clyde somethin or other... guy who writes all the ocean/sea based military thrillers. read catch 22 and remember it being one of the greatest books i ever read. toward the end of the bid i read three or four of Tim Dorsey's books and hands down haven't read comedy better than that before or since.

It was one of two main characters, Serge A. Storms that I fell in love with and had to have more of... so I sought any Dorsey out and even ordered/bought those books the prison didn't have. At one point I was laughing so hysterically the guard came up to the door. It was a scene on a fishing boat - let's see if I recall it correctly - where this fuckin owl swoops down and grabs the gas can out of the boat this dude is on. Something like that. Dorsey wrote it so well I literally lost my shit.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

You LITERALLY lost your shit? Really? Did you ever find it? Perhaps the prison guard stole it.

[promethean75]

It depends on what the referent 'my shit' refers to. If we mean my composure, demeanor, character, wits, etc., then yes I literally lost it. But if we mean fecal material or physical property, then no, I didn't literally lose it.

Wait why am I explaining this to you, and why are you acting like a grammar fascist? Don't you know nobody literally means literally when they say it? Like literally almost everyone who says literally really means figuratively or metaphorically.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

It depends on what the referent 'my shit' refers to. If we mean my composure, demeanor, character, wits, etc., then yes I literally lost it. But if we mean fecal material or physical property, then no, I didn't literally lose it.

Wait why am I explaining this to you, and why are you acting like a grammar fascist? Don't you know nobody literally means literally when they say it? Like literally almost everyone who says literally really means figuratively or metaphorically.

Only if they are a bloody idiot. It's giving the word its OPPOSITE meaning.

[Iwannaplato]

It depends on what the referent 'my shit' refers to. If we mean my composure, demeanor, character, wits, etc., then yes I literally lost it. But if we mean fecal material or physical property, then no, I didn't literally lose it.

Wait why am I explaining this to you, and why are you acting like a grammar fascist? Don't you know nobody literally means literally when they say it? Like literally almost everyone who says literally really means figuratively or metaphorically.

Some people view language as only logical, not understanding that it changes, through use, often meanings changing even radically. Often misheard as a mere intensifier, earlier in recent history, 'literally' has come to sometimes mean sort of its opposite. One could also view it as a trope, but one that is only possibly catching on. It also means something like 'I am not kidding, don't take this as hyperbole'.

Awful, terrific, bully, villain, harlot (this is a trans-word, it had a sex change), resentment have all gone to opposite or near opposite meanings.

And interesting, even dictionaries are starting to include the use of 'literally' as an adverb used for emphasis NOT being literally true.

Cambridge Dictionary

2 - informal
used to emphasize what you are saying:
He missed that kick literally by miles.
I was literally bowled over by the news.

So, this new use is moving in.

But, yeah, avoid using it that way in academic papers. Oh, but that's not relevant.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

It depends on what the referent 'my shit' refers to. If we mean my composure, demeanor, character, wits, etc., then yes I literally lost it. But if we mean fecal material or physical property, then no, I didn't literally lose it.

Wait why am I explaining this to you, and why are you acting like a grammar fascist? Don't you know nobody literally means literally when they say it? Like literally almost everyone who says literally really means figuratively or metaphorically.

Some people view language as only logical, not understanding that it changes, through use, often meanings changing even radically. Often misheard as a mere intensifier, earlier in recent history, 'literally' has come to sometimes mean sort of its opposite. One could also view it as a trope, but one that is only possibly catching on. It also means something like 'I am not kidding, don't take this as hyperbole'.

Awful, terrific, bully, villain, harlot (this is a trans-word, it had a sex change), resentment have all gone to opposite or near opposite meanings.

And interesting, even dictionaries are starting to include the use of 'literally' as an adverb used for emphasis NOT being literally true.

Cambridge Dictionary

2 - informal
used to emphasize what you are saying:
He missed that kick literally by miles.
I was literally bowled over by the news.

So, this new use is moving in.

But, yeah, avoid using it that way in academic papers. Oh, but that's not relevant.

For fuck sake. 'Informal' = 'as used by idiot Americans'.

You missed 'adult human with a penis and testicles = woman.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WID6w4_gtwo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgpAxdAk7aM

Shame on Tolkien and Peter Jackson for not including any non-binary, trans, gay/trans-straight, gender-fluid/non specific, transwoman with/without penis lesbian (did I 'exclude' anyone?) characters. Were they 'inclusive' enough in the human ethnicity department? No? So not only 'transphobic' but bigots as well

[Astro Cat]

It depends on what the referent 'my shit' refers to. If we mean my composure, demeanor, character, wits, etc., then yes I literally lost it. But if we mean fecal material or physical property, then no, I didn't literally lose it.

Wait why am I explaining this to you, and why are you acting like a grammar fascist? Don't you know nobody literally means literally when they say it? Like literally almost everyone who says literally really means figuratively or metaphorically.

Some people view language as only logical, not understanding that it changes, through use, often meanings changing even radically. Often misheard as a mere intensifier, earlier in recent history, 'literally' has come to sometimes mean sort of its opposite. One could also view it as a trope, but one that is only possibly catching on. It also means something like 'I am not kidding, don't take this as hyperbole'.

Awful, terrific, bully, villain, harlot (this is a trans-word, it had a sex change), resentment have all gone to opposite or near opposite meanings.

And interesting, even dictionaries are starting to include the use of 'literally' as an adverb used for emphasis NOT being literally true.

Cambridge Dictionary

2 - informal
used to emphasize what you are saying:
He missed that kick literally by miles.
I was literally bowled over by the news.

So, this new use is moving in.

But, yeah, avoid using it that way in academic papers. Oh, but that's not relevant.

For fuck sake. 'Informal' = 'as used by idiot Americans'.

You missed 'adult human with a penis and testicles = woman.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WID6w4_gtwo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgpAxdAk7aM

Shame on Tolkien and Peter Jackson for not including any non-binary, trans, gay/trans-straight, gender-fluid/non specific, transwoman with/without penis lesbian (did I 'exclude' anyone?) characters. Were they 'inclusive' enough in the human ethnicity department? No? So not only 'transphobic' but bigots as well

Well, technically the Ainur could assume whatever shapes they wanted

[Astro Cat]

The whole “literally ironically being used to mean figuratively” thing is definitely from my generation. I use it that way all the time.