Fellowship of the Rings

Well tomorow is the day that the first of the Lord of the Rings movies opens up nation wide and amazingly enough the theater in my town that has proven to suck more then Monica Lewinsky on many ocasion is actually getting it on opening day.

So I'm there, right at the first showing, and maybe the second one also.

I have been looking forward to seeing a full fledged J.R.R. Tolkien movie, not just the cheap animated ones they did many years ago. I was hoping like hell if they did they wouldn't ruin such an amazing set of books. I was a bit skeptical when I heard who the director is, since the only thing he has done up to now is cheap, b-rated movies.

Got me a bit panicked actually, thought it was going to be another Dungeons and Dragons movie incident all over again. Great idea, shitty ass movie and plot dominated by flashy, non-authentic weaponery and costumes and way to much CGI.

With a great sigh of relief, which I swear I heard echoed world wild by the thousands upon thousands of Tolkien fans, after I saw the first trailers.

It looks fucking amazing.

Then I saw a behind the scenes on it that made me feel even better and start gaining respect for this director for how much he paid attention to even the tiniest of details.

The entire trilogy was filmed in New Zealand for its lush, green lands, rolling hills, and breath taking moutain peeks. He even found a perfect location for Hobbiton, the first town you come across in the books/movie, and home of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. He then built the little hobbit homes in the sides of the rolling hills and planted crops and flowers all over, a year in advance to let it grow and weather.

For the weapons and armor, he sought out blacksmiths trained in the arts of ancient weapon making, so no shiny new swords that could have only been made in the last century or armor that glistens and shines like aluminum foil. No matter how many extras there where, he made sure very last piece of armor and weapon to be authentic as possible.

He put all the main actors in combat training classes for six months with a wide assortment of trainers teaching to not only be comfortable with the weapons they will wield, but also to be competent with them.

He even had the actors who played elven parts be tutored by linguistic teachers to learn the elven language of Tolkien's creation. Not only learning the language itself, but getting the dialectic right with a almost anal like attention to every last detail.

He even did something unheard of before when he filmed all three movies all together without a break between them. It took two full years to get all the filming done. They went through two birthdays of every member of the cast while filming in that awe inspiring terrian.

I'm blown away by this already, and I haven't even seen the movie yet. I have not felt this good about a movie I haven't seen yet in god knows how long.

My only complaint thus far is the over comercialization of the movie...mostly the Burger King glasses for sale. I swear Tolkien is probably fidgeting in his grave over that one. It cheapens something so spectacular, dirties up something so amazing. But, its a small complaint in comparison to all the postive things I have seen thus far.

I remember when I was first introduced to J.R.R. Tolkien's work. It was something like twelve years ago while I was playing a game session of Dungeons and Dragons.

Yeah, I'm a role playing geek and I love it.

Back then I used role play with a priest who was the head of his church, and we held our game sessions within the house he lived in that was supplied by the church.

This to me was the ultimate weapon versus anybody who would say that D&D was satanic.

DUMBASS: You play Dungeons and Dragons, are you satanic or something?

ME: Yeah, sure I'm satanic, so is the catholic priest I roleplay with in the house of god. Of course I'm not you fucking moron!

Of course D&Ds image wasn't helped out much by a very old supplement of it called Eldritch's Wizardy with a demon on the cover sacrificing a naked woman. Or the incident back in the seventies with a group of University of Michigan students who where live action role playing in a abandoned cave network, only to have it collapse in on itself and kill all of them. Or, the biggest negative publicity in my eyes, the movie Mazes and Monsters starring Tom Hanks. Where Tom played a Mazes and Monsters geek who goes slowly insane and thinks he is really his character who heads out on a dangerous quest and nearly leaps to his death off the twin towers because he believed he had a spell to be able to fly.

but...I'm off my point.

During one of these game sessions, some how the first Tolkien book, The Hobbit, was brought up in the conversation. I had never heard of it to the stunning amazment to everyone else in the room. Father O'donnel, the catholic priest I mentioned, found a old copy of The Hobbit for me and just gave it to me as a gift. I read it and fell instantly in love with the book. I still have that copy on my book shelve and I go back once and awhile and delve head first into his beautiful world of Middle Earth.

As some added extra information on Father O'donnel, this is also the same man who got me intersted in taking Tae Kwon Do classes with him, since he saw a add in the newspaper for classes at the college and wanted to get back into it. He also drove a limited edition sports car thats speedometer reached 180 MPH and he liked to show you it can reach that speed on the back roads. Plus he owned a jeep he loved driving around in winter and whipping dougnuts in the sloshy snow on corners. And had a pension of swearing on occasion to the shocking suprise to me and all my friends.

He has got to be the coolest priest I have ever and will ever come across in my life I swear.

My only other regret with the Lord of the Rings movie is that there was no full fledge theatrical creation of The Hobbit which Rings is the sequal too. I think to many people who will see the Trilogy will miss out on this if they haven't read the book and are now refusing to read the books so to not have any of the enjoyment of the movie taken away from them. Which I can see why, but at least read The Hobbit to get an idea who is Bilbo Baggins and how it all started.

Intersting note about The Hobbit, it was not orginally intended to be a book. It was Tolkien making up a nightly continous bed time story for his children. It was so good, he decided to put it to paper and have it published, to the happiness of millions of people world wide. The Lord of the Rings where the first books intended to be a book, but where not intended to be a trilogy, but in order to break up the large book, he made into three.

I'm just full of usefull information....

Full of something else, but we'll save that for another day.

It's about time - Wednesday, Jul. 07, 2004
An Honor for Chrome - Friday, Feb. 20, 2004
A great loss - Monday, Oct. 20, 2003
a terrible announcement. - Tuesday, Sept. 09, 2003
Chrome speaks: - Friday, Sept. 05, 2003