Sorry I'm late, ladies and gentlehobbits. It's been a weird week.
"They took off their clothes and bathed in the river" If this does not make it into the film, I shall write to the Times to express my displeasure.
I wonder what Beorn'll make of the fact that the Dwarf costumes are 90% fur and leather?
Interesting that Beorn's heard of Thorin but not Gandalf.
"and they all felt that the adventure was far more dangerous than they had thought" … they thought they were going dragon slaying. You know, I'm utterly convinced that nobody had any sort of plan regarding the dragon. Just a nebulous sort of 'we'll deal with it when we get there'. Which is pretty much the Council's approach to the Ring too… 'just start walking in the direction of Mordor and don't abandon the Ring anywhere. Good luck.'
There's something hilarious and wonderful about that to me - and it ties into Tolkien's mantra of hope, I suppose.
“Do we really have to go through?” groaned the hobbit.
“Yes, you do!” said the wizard, “if you want to get to the other side. You must either go through or give up your quest. And I am not going to allow you to back out now, Mr. Baggins. I am ashamed of you for thinking of it. You have got to look after all these dwarves for me,” he laughed.
“No! no!” said Bilbo. “I didn’t mean that. I meant, is there no way round?”
You know, I understand why they had Bilbo (and Sam in LotR) have their crises where they turn back because it creates narrative tension, but I really love Bilbo's stick-to-itiveness. He's almost affronted that Gandalf thinks he would even consider going back, and I love that about him.
Mirkwood is deliciously creepy. I love it. Especially the parallels between Mirkwood and Fangorn, the way the trees are almost sentient and listen in on them as they pass under them. Mirkwood is explicitly creepy, though, were Fangorn is creepy because it's so old - like a remnant of a lost time, I suppose. And the Old Forest.
There's something about forests in Tolkien's work - they're almost always timeless places. Elu Thingol meets Melian in a forest, I think, and winds up staying there for ages (WHICH IS HILARIOUS GUYS. HE LIKE WANDERS OFF - IN MY HEADCANON FOR A PEE BREAK - AND DOESN'T COME BACK FOR LIKE 100 YEARS AND EVERYONE'S LIKE 'WHERE WERE YOU DUDE, WE'RE GOING TO VALINOR' AND HE'S JUST LIKE 'NOPE, I'M GETTING MARRIED.'), Lothlórien is explicitly timeless, Fangorn and the Old Forest are both like pieces of the Old World preserved, and then Mirkwood, which feels like stepping into an entirely different sort of story altogether - as Jenavira said above, it's very Celtic. Plus there's the moment when Bilbo climbs the tree and it appears literally endless to them. There's something really transformative about forests that I find really, really cool.
I guess Tolkien must've changed around the ages - because he says Fili is the youngest here, but he was born TA 2859 and Kili in TA 2864.
UGH. The description of the spider when it's first attacking Bilbo gives me the wiggins every time.
CAN WE TALK ABOUT BAMF!BILBO. He kills a spider with a SINGLE GODDAMN ROCK.
"the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West". … What does this mean, precisely? That the elves that went to Valinor are Faeries? So, there's a rumour that one of Bilbo's ancestors was a High Elf?
Belligerent!Thorin is going to be the highlight of the films for me. Seriously. Amazing.
no subject
"They took off their clothes and bathed in the river"
If this does not make it into the film, I shall write to the Times to express my displeasure.
I wonder what Beorn'll make of the fact that the Dwarf costumes are 90% fur and leather?
Interesting that Beorn's heard of Thorin but not Gandalf.
"and they all felt that the adventure was far more dangerous than they had thought"
… they thought they were going dragon slaying.
You know, I'm utterly convinced that nobody had any sort of plan regarding the dragon. Just a nebulous sort of 'we'll deal with it when we get there'. Which is pretty much the Council's approach to the Ring too… 'just start walking in the direction of Mordor and don't abandon the Ring anywhere. Good luck.'
There's something hilarious and wonderful about that to me - and it ties into Tolkien's mantra of hope, I suppose.
You know, I understand why they had Bilbo (and Sam in LotR) have their crises where they turn back because it creates narrative tension, but I really love Bilbo's stick-to-itiveness. He's almost affronted that Gandalf thinks he would even consider going back, and I love that about him.
Mirkwood is deliciously creepy. I love it. Especially the parallels between Mirkwood and Fangorn, the way the trees are almost sentient and listen in on them as they pass under them. Mirkwood is explicitly creepy, though, were Fangorn is creepy because it's so old - like a remnant of a lost time, I suppose. And the Old Forest.
There's something about forests in Tolkien's work - they're almost always timeless places. Elu Thingol meets Melian in a forest, I think, and winds up staying there for ages (WHICH IS HILARIOUS GUYS. HE LIKE WANDERS OFF - IN MY HEADCANON FOR A PEE BREAK - AND DOESN'T COME BACK FOR LIKE 100 YEARS AND EVERYONE'S LIKE 'WHERE WERE YOU DUDE, WE'RE GOING TO VALINOR' AND HE'S JUST LIKE 'NOPE, I'M GETTING MARRIED.'), Lothlórien is explicitly timeless, Fangorn and the Old Forest are both like pieces of the Old World preserved, and then Mirkwood, which feels like stepping into an entirely different sort of story altogether - as Jenavira said above, it's very Celtic. Plus there's the moment when Bilbo climbs the tree and it appears literally endless to them. There's something really transformative about forests that I find really, really cool.
I guess Tolkien must've changed around the ages - because he says Fili is the youngest here, but he was born TA 2859 and Kili in TA 2864.
UGH. The description of the spider when it's first attacking Bilbo gives me the wiggins every time.
CAN WE TALK ABOUT BAMF!BILBO. He kills a spider with a SINGLE GODDAMN ROCK.
"the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West".
… What does this mean, precisely? That the elves that went to Valinor are Faeries? So, there's a rumour that one of Bilbo's ancestors was a High Elf?
Belligerent!Thorin is going to be the highlight of the films for me. Seriously. Amazing.