Tolkien Expert Unimpressed With Rings Trilogy Films

[Snaga]

I will be broad minded and accept the smiley you posted with your comment as an indication that you were "joking".

Yes I was joking. I thought your flippant remark meritted a response in kind.

By the way you said earlier that Flieger "has written a number of well thought out and critically astute books on Tolkien". Does this mean you have read some of her writing? I found citations from journals, but not books. What else has she had published?

 

[Mrs. Maggott]

Yes I was joking. I thought your flippant remark meritted a response in kind.

By the way you said earlier that Flieger "has written a number of well thought out and critically astute books on Tolkien". Does this mean you have read some of her writing? I found citations from journals, but not books. What else has she had published?

Yes. I have one of her books, but I'll have to shift the debris to find it. I also think she has written at least one other and I shall try to get the title of that as well. When I have the info, I shall post it.

 

[Greenwood]

Hitler was appointed Chancellor but only after he had been voted into office by German voters. He certainly wasn't brought in off the street and made Chancellor!

What "office" are you referring to? It was a parliamentary system. No one party received a majority in the general vote. President Hindenberg, who personally detested Hitler, was prevailed upon to appoint Hitler Chancellor with the promise that he would never have to personally work with Hitler and with the, I still say cynical, and most certainly mistaken belief, that Hitler could be controlled. It was all engineered by von Pappen who thought he could be the power behind the scenes.

However, this is all way off-topic. If you wish we can discuss it via PM's.

 

[Snaga]

Yes... way off topic!

I'd appreciate that Mrs Maggott. I have in fact unearthed a lengthy and interesting review of a book by her: "A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Road to Faerie". See this link: http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/birs/bir76.htm#flieger

Certainly an interesting topic, and worthy of a thread elsewhere I should think.

 

[simbelmyne]

He was appointed Chancellor by a cynical few powermongers who thought they could control him. In the last elections before he took power the Nazis may have recieved a plurality of votes but they did not receive a majority.

While you are completely correct (as I'm sure you know already) that Hitler was not voted in as president of Germany, he was voted in as the leader of the German Workers Party in 1930 and began winning landslide elections, which led to him running for president against Hindenburg in 1932 - and the vote was so close that there was a run off election where Hitler got 44% of the vote, which led to Hindenburg, etc. to chose him as chancellor. After Hindenburg's death, there was no question H was his successor. So, I still think we are both right...although I also see why you would say otherwise

 

[jallan]

Snaga posted:

Does this mean you have read some of her writing? I found citations from journals, but not books. What else has she had published?

Pertinent books by Verilyn Flieger:

1. Logos and Language in Tolkien’s world
2. A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Road to Faerie
3. Tolkien’s Legendarium: Essays on the History of Middle-earth

 

[joxy]

The explanation that Saruman is powerless and is not a problem any more was good enough for the majority.

The discussion about a historical majority that could be established, one way or the other, by examining the records,
has diverted attention from this original claim.
As in many previous examples, it is clearly impossible to establish whether a majority thought the explanation was good enough. Another contributor has shown that in one instance, with a small sample, those for whom the explanation was good enough were in a small minority. I suggest that in a population consisting of people who were familiar with the two previous films, and Saruman's importance in them, it is quite probable that the vote, if it could ever be taken, would go the same way as in that small sample.

 

[Ol'gaffer]

By majority, I refer to the movie going audiences who, let's face it, are in the age groups of 14-25 average. What number of these people do you think have read the books? What number do you think have studied the history of M-E? I know that it pains you to hear this, but the MAJORITY of people in this age group seldomly read! I'm in High School currently, and out of the nearly 2000 people in my high school, the largest in Finland, I can say that many of the people do not read! I've spoken to numerous people in this school, many who know the other people, and the image that I've gotten is that the majority only view these as films! They couldn't care less about the "real" books or stuff like that. They'd rather view them as films. And even people that I've spoken to, numerous of them purists, have said that the Saruman scene was handled very well and did not bother the MOVIE experience at all.

 

[Mrs. Maggott]

Heavens! I thought it was only the American educational establishment that was attempting (and succeeding) in producing generations of semi-literates fixated on the moving image and nightly TV talking heads as the only means by which they accumulate information and knowledge!

Can Big Brother be far away, one wonders!

 

[joxy]

Ol'gaffer, your own experience is very interesting but you're doing an awful lot of extrapolating from it!
I quoted the experience of a small number of people in which those who were satisfied were in the minority; you quote a larger sample in which they are in the majority. Neither of these examples tell us anything about the wide world; nor do your experiences about the composition of cinema audiences and the reading habits of young people.
As Tolkien was particularly attracted to the Finnish language, I hope that FOTR has been given a good translation, and that in fact it does have a substantial readership, though if your high standard of English is widespread I suppose the translation is not needed.
btw "seldom" is an adverb already; it doesn't take an extra "-ly".