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Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring ( reviewed by Tolkien Scholar )
TORN ^ | 10th Dec | Daniel Timmons, Ph.D.

Posted on 12/10/2001 2:57:51 AM PST by maquiladora

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To: maquiladora

Tolkien's house in north Oxford. 20 Northmoor Rd.

61 posted on 12/10/2001 9:13:45 AM PST by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: MarkWar; strela
I have no problem with either of you feeling the way you do... They are your opinions, and though I think they are sad, they are yours to do with as you will...
62 posted on 12/10/2001 9:15:53 AM PST by HairOfTheDog
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To: MarkWar
Thank you for your comments. Would you like to talk about Pilgrim's Progress or Paradise Lost now? Aren't they just silly kids books about things that could never happen? Who cares about what messages they present. Tolkien dealt with only kids issues. The corruption of power, the strength of friendship, mercy and it's consequences. Things adults don't need to learn about or appreciate. Thanks for letting us know what is and isn't important!
63 posted on 12/10/2001 9:22:44 AM PST by Anitius Severinus Boethius
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To: prisoner6
My earlier reply to you was unfairly condesending to football players and I have regretted it for that reason since pushing the "Post Reply" button.
Your quote: Personally it's my view that while quite a few women do appriciate JRRT, and even greater number don't have the mental acumen to grasp it. "The Hobbit" was about as far as their attention span allowed their interest journey.

My Reply: This is such obnoxious drivel. There are a lot of people who fit that category. I guess you have never heard a football player interviewed.

Had I waited, a better example that some males may also not possess the mental acumen to "grasp" Tolkien would appear in this very thread:

And the screwiest thing about the LoTR hype is that people aren't just talking about it as a movie. They constantly present it as some kind of mystical experience, the battle of good versus evil...

HEY -- it's a kid's story about monsters and magic, people! Get real! Look out the window! There are no monsters in real life. There is no magic in real life.

-MarkWar

64 posted on 12/10/2001 9:34:58 AM PST by HairOfTheDog
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Comment #65 Removed by Moderator

To: MarkWar
It would be crazy to market, say, the movie Full Metal Jacket as a kid's film...It's equally crazy to market LoTR as an adult movie because it's TRIVIAL CHILDISH NONSENSE about fantasy creatures in a fantasy realm engaging in fantasy activities.

So...let me get this straight: fiction is automatically for children? And it's impossible to show any real life values through fiction, it's just for entertaining the kiddies? Uh...OK. Whatever.

66 posted on 12/10/2001 10:16:25 AM PST by RosieCotton
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To: MarkWar
Of course, this is all IMHO...

I think you can remove the "H". Humble you ain't.

67 posted on 12/10/2001 10:21:45 AM PST by jrherreid
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To: prisoner6
Just so we're clear....this is your view of women?

I think lots of people, especially women , have no desire to expose their kids or themselves to orcs and Raiths, and all the other dark creatures of Middle Earth. HP was about as deep as they'd willingly go into that forbidding realm .

But from what I've heard from the Mom's and other women in my area, not to mention not just a little input from listeners at the woman oriented radio station where I work, quite a few don't care a whit about JRRT, LOTR, or anything of that genre. Instead they're ready for a "Fried Green Tomatos ".

Personally it's my view that while quite a few women do appriciate JRRT, and even greater number don't have the mental acumen to grasp it . "The Hobbit" was about as far as their attention span allowed their interest journey.

Are you a complete moron or are you just trying to incite a riot among women on FreeRepublic? A large part of my masters degree was spent studying classic mythology and philosophy. (For your clarification the classics predate JRRT by a few thousand years...but I managed to get my simple little female brain around it.

If the "Mom's and other women" in your area really think like the way you say they do then you should move. You're obviously far too smart to work in the company of such dolts.

Posters like yourself make me quite ill.

68 posted on 12/10/2001 10:22:45 AM PST by ReaganGirl
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To: Explorer89
Bump and a ping. How's it going, Exp89?
69 posted on 12/10/2001 10:29:15 AM PST by MrConfettiMan
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To: East Bay Patriot
You know, you've just managed to insult four of my favorite authors. I do not like Heinlein's later writings, but his juveniles, short stories, and a few of his adult novels are really good. Have you ever read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress?

Card's Ender's Game appeals to a certain audience - smart, lonely children and those who remember being smart, lonely children - ie most science fiction writers. I have to conclude that you either did not understand the novel or you sniffed too much glue in sixth grade and have forgotten what it was like to be a child. I do not like most of Card's works; Ender, Speaker for the Dead, Ender's Shadow, and Shadow of the Hegemon are the exceptions. And since he's won both the Hugo and the Nebula for the Ender books, and they're bestsellers, I think your opinion is a minority.

I won't argue over Dune. They got really odd. Frank Herbert was on some drug, I think.

And Tolkien is obviously not for everyone, but for some, it touches something deep down. You may not like our choice, but don't come here and say we're infantile, please.

70 posted on 12/10/2001 10:30:02 AM PST by JenB
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To: ReaganGirl
I think MarkWar would like to know why you got a Masters Degree in "made-up stuff" (mythology and philosophy) and didn't make a better use of your time watching Full Metal Jacket.
71 posted on 12/10/2001 10:31:12 AM PST by Anitius Severinus Boethius
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To: diotima; LurkerNoMore!; Howlin; Commonsense; Ms. AntiFeminazi
Sexist ping to Post #8 and my reply at #68.
72 posted on 12/10/2001 10:35:25 AM PST by ReaganGirl
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To: ReaganGirl
I probably wasn't the best person to ping to this. I never got into LOTR. The book bored me to tears, I finally put it down and swore never to pick it up again.

Fried Green Tomatoes was okay, but I certainly wouldn't have paid to see it.

Give me Bruce, Arnold, or Carrey anyday. ;)

Last movie I watched more than once - Pulp Fiction. I could watch it 100 times and still pick up something new. That's my idea of entertainment. :)

73 posted on 12/10/2001 10:44:21 AM PST by Ms. AntiFeminazi
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To: Anitius Severinus Boethius
Well, I hardly consider the dialogues of Plato and Aristotle "Made up stuff." Even if you want to characterize mythology as "Made up stuff" you'd be surprised how much it has influenced western civilization.

I did in fact see full Metal Jacket and thought it a great film. I enjoy movies quite a bit but prefer to read because my feeble female mind is far superior in creating the characters and the scenes than most Hollywood film makers can rival.

For the record...I did see Harry Potter with my hubby yesterday and thought that it was wonderful. My nephew is too young now but I'll collect the books for him and give them to him when he's old enough for us to read them together.

74 posted on 12/10/2001 10:44:49 AM PST by ReaganGirl
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To: Ms. AntiFeminazi
The point is that there is a HUGE difference in you reading something and deciding for yourself that it's boring and being generalized by our friend prisoner6 into a group that's too stupid to understand the writings of JRRT.
75 posted on 12/10/2001 10:54:41 AM PST by ReaganGirl
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To: ReaganGirl
As for my beliefs, I have a dog-eared copy of Hamilton sitting on my end table at home. MarkWar, however, thinks anything you can't see by looking out the window is for children. You wouldn't agree with that, would you?
76 posted on 12/10/2001 11:09:33 AM PST by Anitius Severinus Boethius
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To: Anitius Severinus Boethius; RosieCotton
>I think MarkWar would like to know why you got a Masters Degree in "made-up stuff" (mythology and philosophy) and didn't make a better use of your time watching Full Metal Jacket.

[laughs] Good ones. But, you know, Full Metal Jacket was "made-up stuff" too.

I hate to mix threads, but since you brought up the title "Paradise Lost" in your reply to me, have you seen the movie "Scream 3?" One of the characters in that movie is named "John Milton." And, as the characters attempt to puzzle out all the plot difficulties, one of them observes, "Milton's the key to all this!" (If you've visited my thread inspired by my _first_ post to a LoTR thread (Movie Subliminals -- The Rate of God (Accident? Purposeful?)) , SCREAM 3 is the movie that begins with a character named Christine being killed by a character named Roman... (For lurkers who don't know "Paradise Lost" it's a rather absurd attempt to re-tell sections of Genesis in the "style" of the Illiad.))

Anyway, back to this thread, I didn't think my point was too obtuse or very strained. There are widely accepted notions for what passes as "adult stuff" and what passes as "kid's stuff." Unless nobody told me, there are no hard and fast definitions of such things, but hard and fast definitions are not needed.

I only mentioned Full Metal Jacket as an example of _real_ adult stuff to contrast it with the attempt to pass off LoTR as adult stuff.

Mark W.

77 posted on 12/10/2001 11:18:19 AM PST by MarkWar
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To: MarkWar
HEY -- it's a kid's story about monsters and magic, people!

Ummm, have you actually read the books?

Its about good vs. evil, and not the cheesy Hollywood version of good vs. evil either. The setting is almost besides the point.

I'm sorry but from your comments it sounds like all you know about LOTR is what you've seen on those Burger King comercials. This ain't Willow on a grander scale.

78 posted on 12/10/2001 11:23:23 AM PST by ICU812
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To: Anitius Severinus Boethius; MarkWar
You two remind me of old men in a deli. You're both saying pretty much the same thing...you just like the sound of the argument.

LOL

Now prisoner6 is another animal all together. He's the "I like my women barefoot and pregers" type. Probably make the little woman wear an apron with her pearls like June Clever. That way he can imagine that he's a real man like Ward instead of the little guy like the Beeve.

79 posted on 12/10/2001 11:26:34 AM PST by ReaganGirl
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To: ICU812
>...Its about good vs. evil, and not the cheesy Hollywood version of good vs. evil either.

Ummm, it's tempting to say that ANY TIME you have characters who are intrinsically evil (i.e., monsters of any kind) -- as opposed to people who are evil by choice -- then you're talking about cheesy Hollywood stuff or one-dimensional kid's stuff. I wouldn't offer that as a hard & fast rule -- Dracula isn't really kid's stuff and it's not cheesy, yet he's a monster -- but it's a good guideline and, in the case of LoTR, I think it holds up.

Mark W.

80 posted on 12/10/2001 11:33:10 AM PST by MarkWar
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