For years, the topic of Balrog wings has been hotly debated by Tolkien experts and geeks alike. Due to the ambiguity of his writing, the debate over whether a Balrog has physical, touch-with-your-hand wings or not depends, as with quite a lot of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, on the mental image of every single individual. Even Peter Jackson made sure that Weta created a Balrog that appealed to all spectrums of the debate, in an attempt to give the fans the best adaptation of Tolkien’s work possible without restricting the individual’s ability to create their own Middle-Earth with their imagination, as generations before have.
We have the chance to discuss the Balrog now after seeing the big screen interpration of it in Fellowship of the Ring: why not use it? Now’s a good time as any to bring back that debate of ‘wings of shadow’ versus physical wings. Where do you stand? Do you believe that Tolkien had actual wings in mind when he wrote the ‘Bridge of Khazad-Dum’, or did he deliberately write it so that fans could debate the subject, like right now? Is it good to have a bit of mystery in Lord of the Rings? Or do you think its a topic not even worth talking about? This weekend, come join us as we discuss one of the oldest arguments in the history of Middle-Earth itself.
Upcoming Discussions
Mar 23 & 24: The Nature of the Ring of Power
Mar 30 & 31: FotR and the Oscars
Apr 06 & 07: TTT – The Riders of Rohan
Apr 13 & 14: LotR, Stereotypes & Racial Class
Apr 20 & 21: The Two Towers – The Motion Picture
Apr 20 & 21: Literary Merits of LotR
Place:
#thehalloffire on theonering.net server; come to theonering.net’s chat room Barliman’s and then type /join #thehalloffire .
Saturday Chat: 5:30 pm ET (17:30) [also 11:30 pm (23:30) CET and 7:30 am Sunday (07:30) AET]
Sunday Chat: 7:00 pm (19:00) CET [also 1:00 pm (13:00) ET and 4:00 am (04:00) Monday morning AET]
ET = Eastern Time, USA’s East Coast
CET = Central European Time, Central Europe
Questions? Topics? Send ‘em here.
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The Filmtracks website shows that their LOTR filmscore review is still the most popular review and the LOTR soundtrack CD is also still the customer favourite. The review is worth reading. [More]
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‘Videos of this year’s Oscar nominees for Best Film are being sent to US troops in Afghanistan. Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Hollywood showman Johnny Grant are sending them to boost morale. The tapes are of A Beautiful Mind, Gosford Park, In The Bedroom, Lord Of The Rings and Moulin Rouge.’ [More]
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LOTR opens in India in 2 days’ time, and elsewhere it is doing well. [More]
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“Just to let u know, FOTR releases all over India on the 15th of march. MTV is running a contest with tickets to NZ as the main prize. Also, oneearth.org is running a promo of theirs with the theme ‘The power of one’. The music from the FOTR trailer is used in it.”. – Neville
“I’m an Air Force wife, living on Okinawa Japan. Went to see FOTR at our local theater this Saturday – most of the shows looked to be sold out 🙂 ! They are also selling awesome souviners at the theater – our favorites were the “Wraith-topped” pen and the “Lothlorien Leaf” pin (much smaller than the real ones, but very nicely made!) I hope it plays for awhile, since the base theater has limited showings of each movie! – Octavia Caputo”
Taiwan: “The comment that most interested me was that people did not understand the history as portrayed in the beginning of the movie. They found it fast paced and difficult to follow. My personal opinion is that the Chinese subtitles must have been poor! What did impress me was that everywhere you go now you can see Chinese version of the Books and people are buying and reading the story. The Harry Potter syndrome had people buying those books in throngs! Now with this LOTR out, common folk are interested in knowing more about the story. The Taiwanese in general are great book lovers and by the time the next installment comes out I am sure that there will be a lot more people who will find it enchanting. Overall the movie has had an average response here, not bad but not outstanding.” – Colin Bolger
“Hey there,
I noticed you were interested how the Lord of the Rings movie was faring out in India and China. I thought I’d write in about how it’s doing in Kuwait (that tiny little country in the middle east south of Iraq, if you were wondering).
“I saw the movie twice already, once on the movie’s opening day, (two weeks ago), and once this last Wednesday). Both of the theatres were some of the largest in Kuwait, housing over 200 people, and at both times, it was a full house, which is extremely rare to happen regularly here! Also, a lot of people are discussing the movie in school, and have either already seen it or expressed intent on seeing it. While it definitly won’t get the cult status it has in America (Kuwait is a small country, with only a small percentage that can speak English fluently), it is definitely doing well here.”
Khuffie
“And just to give a Brazilian scoop, here´s how everything is going: Before all the promotion and expectations started, the books were always hard to find, and there were very few people who had read it or planned on reading it someday. Nowadays on every bookstore you find it at the same moment you enter. The complete edition has been the best selling fiction book now since the time the movie opened; “Unfinished Tales” is now at number three (note: this book wasn´t available in Portuguese until February/2002) and “Two Towers” is at number 10. The other two books up until last week were at the top 10 also.
The movie is a great hit. It opened on January 1st and this week it held the seventh place in the weekend top-ten. It has grossed more than Harry Potter and will continue on doing a good job at the box office. Warner (distributor of LOTR:FOTR here in Brazil) hasn´t made an official statement about the “Two Towers” preview, but apparently it will be available on March 29. More news yet to come. So there you have it. Hope you enjoy the news. Take care and keep up the good work!” – Gabriel from Rio de Janeiro – Brazil
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Telchristiel writes: Macbeth, which was to run at The Strand theatre in London and feature Sean Bean (Boromir) in the lead, has been cancelled. No explanation given.
(It is interesting to note that many stagings of Macbeth have ended early or never even gotten off the ground due to mysterious reasons…there is an old tale of a Macbeth curse… -Xo)
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