The valar, the angelic powers of the world who entered Ea to fulfill the vision of Illuvatar. There they made the lands, the seas and the stars. They made the sun and the moon, and fought Melkor for the mastery of the earth. And above all; they made the lands habitable for the children of Illuvatar. But with the coming of elves and men their guardianship was wrought with troubles, and their actions were often strangely inadequate and unperceptive.
We will take a closer look at why the valar understood the elves but a little, and men not at all, and how this led them to make truly disastrous decissions. The mighty vala Ulmo was however often opposed to Manwes strategies and together with Mandos he showed great foresight and wisdom in his dealings with the children.
Where did the valar make their worst mistakes, and what was their greatest successes? How did their strategies change over time and who do you think did the most to aid elves and men in their wars with the dark powers? Why did the valar lay down their guardianship when the numenoreans attacked Valinor?
We will also debate the events leading up to the dispatchment of the istari to middle earth, and explore the links between the wizards and specific valar.
Join us in #thehalloffire as we try to decide whether the valar were wise councels or strategic dimwits.
Suggested reading: The Silmarillion – Ainulindale, Valaquenta and chapters 1,2,3,6,8,11, and 24 Unfinished tales – The Istari Morgoths ring – Of the coming of the elves
Upcoming discussions: May 31/April 1 Return of the King Book V, Chapter 8 – The Houses of Healing
Times: Saturday Chat: 5:30pm ET (17:30) [also 11:30pm (23:30) CET and 7:30am Sunday (07:30) AET]
Sunday Chat: 7:00 pm (19:00) CET [also 1:00pm (13:00) ET and 3:00am (03:00) Monday morning AET]
ET = Eastern Time, USA’s East Coast CET = Central European Time, Central Europe AET = Australian East Coast
Do you have a possible topic for Hall of Fire? Drop us a line at halloffire@theonering.net.
Translated for us by Thorbjørn Hein: On Sunday December 14, when Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has its galla premiere, the event won´t take place at Imperial (the biggest movie theatre in Denmark) as it usually does. Instead, the galla is taking place in Tivoli (the well-known, 160-years old amusement park/garden in central Copenhagen)!
SF Film (distributor of the films in Scandinavia) today informs that the galla premiere of the third and last Lord of the Rings movies will take place in the Tivoli Concert Hall on December 14.
Traditionally, it is the Imperial Theatre that is opening its doors at the huge galla events in Denmark, but SF Film wished to round off the succesful Lord of the Rings movies in a magnificent way in the old garden in the the heart of Copenhagen.
Of course the last film has to be ended with a big bang. The coorperation with Tivoli, Inc. gives us a wholly unique opportunity to arrange a really special galla premiere, which could easily become the biggest film event in Denmark ever. Besides the movie being shown in the Tivoli Concert Hall, which can hold 1300 invited guests, the garden itself will be transformed into a wondrous Lord of the Rings universe, accessible for fans and other guests in Tivoli, says Michael Fleischer, CEO at SF Film.
For the third year in a row the entire galla premiere profit goes uncut to the Danish Red Cross.
The Lord of the Rings. The Return of the King premieres for us common mortals on Wednesday December 17.
ATTENTION MILWAUKEE/NORTH SHORE ringers. Here is a heads up from Ringer L:
I just wanted to let the people at TORn know that on May 20th, at 8:00 pm, the Nicolet High School Knights Orchestra will be performing their last concert. The second to last song at this concert will be a medley of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring songs by Howard Shore, which include: The Prophecy, Concerning Hobbits, A Knife in the Dark, and The Breaking of the Fellowship. I bought the Full Orchestra score, and convinced my teacher that we NEEDED to play it! If you could just let the Milwaukee/North Shore Ringers know that this concert is going on, that would be awesome. I know it is short notice, but I just had the idea of e-mailing you guys as of today. The address is: Nicolet High School, 6701 North Jean Nicolet Road Glendale, Wisconsin 53217
Ringer Irascian sends in this report from the May 17th SFX Magazine Awards ceremony:
SFX magazine, the UK’s biggest selling science fiction/fantasy monthly magazine, held its award ceremony last night (17th May) and Lord of the Rings swept the boards. The awards are based on reader votes. Here’s what LOTR won…
Lord of the Rings:The Two Towers – Best SF or Fantasy Film (other nominations: Donnie Darko, Attack of the Clones, Spider-Man and Minority Report)
Viggo Mortensen – Best SF or Fantasy Film Actor (other nominees: Elijah, McKellen, Tom Cruise and Toby Maguire)
Peter Jackson – Best SF or Fantasy Film Director (other nominees: M Night Shyamalan, George Lucas, Sam Raimi and Steven Spielberg)
The Two Towers by Howard Shore – best SF or Fantasy Film Music (beating Donnie Darko, Attack of the Clones and Spider-Man)
The Official Guide to The Making of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy by Brian Sibley – Best SF or Fantasy-Related Non-Fiction Book (other nominees were for Farscape Companion, Once More With Feeling, James Bond The Legacy and Angel Casefiles)
Lifetime achievement awards went to Christopher Lee and James Doohan (Scottie in Star Trek).
The awards that LOTR was nominated for but didn’t win were Best SF or Fantasy Actress (both Liv Tyler and Miranda Otto were nominated) and Best SF or Fantasy Author (where J.R.R. Tolkien was, rather bizarrely given the way the movies swept the awards, beaten by Terry Pratchett !).
There were unfortunately some disappointments for LOTR fans who attended this event hoping to see their favourite celebrities. Brian Sibley was the only award recipient who appeared on the night. Christopher Lee who had been expected to appear to accept his lifetime achievement award, and Billy Boyd, who had been scheduled to collect the other LOTR awards, were both “no show”s. And a video acceptance speech from Howard Shore couldn’t be shown to the assembled audience because of a breakdown in the awards video equipment. ——
Fearing for what Denethor will do in his madness, Pippin has searched out Gandalf at the gates of Minas Tirith. At the turn of the tide, Gandalf must leave the battle and go to the citadel to face the steward of Gondor. Meanwhile in the Tombs, Beregond is fighting Denethors servants over the life of Faramir.
How has the use of the palantir poisoned the stewards mind? How does Gandalf try to win Denethor back to reality? What do you think about Denethors end?
Loyalty and obedience to authority are highly valued virtues in The Lord of the Rings, but in this chapter Tolkien shows us how bad blind uncritical obedience can be. How do you compare Beregonds acts with those of Denethors personal servants? And what about the murder of the porter, can that be justified?
Join us in #thehalloffire as we take a look at Return of the King book V, Chapter VII – The Pyre of Denethor.
Times: Saturday Chat: 5:30pm ET (17:30) [also 11:30pm (23:30) CET and 7:30am Sunday (07:30) AET]
Sunday Chat: 7:00 pm (19:00) CET [also 1:00pm (13:00) ET and 3:00am (03:00) Monday morning AET]
ET = Eastern Time, USA’s East Coast CET = Central European Time, Central Europe AET = Australian East Coast
Do you have a possible topic for Hall of Fire? Drop us a line at halloffire@theonering.net.
Review of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (FOTR, TTT and ROTK) Audiobook on CD
Narrated by Rob Inglis
Complete Unabridged Trilogy of LOTR, total hours 52, 46 CDs
Produced in 1990 by Recorded Books TM
Reviewed by Jan.
I had originally asked the folks at TORN if they could let me know if they had reviewed any audio book versions of the Mr. Tolkien’s books and, if so, what were their thoughts of it. As they had no review on file, they asked me to put one together. I presume my overall enthusiasm for the audio book kind of came oozing out.
To be honest, I found many more articulate and profound “customer” reviews at the Amazon.ca site where I purchased my audio book. These reviews were instrumental in my decision to spend my hard earned money on what some would assume is a frivolous gift to myself. The overall deciding factor was the fact that this a completely unabridged version.
In a word, Rob Inglis’s narration of LOTR is amazing. And I will make a feeble attempt to describe it. The most interesting thing I found was that when listening to Rob Inglis, it is surprising to find how many different “voices” he can come up with to distinguish all the characters and how eerily similar they are to the characters in the movie version. But, they are not acted up so much that one would find it “corny”, but only just enough to keep your interest.. Even a lowly guard or hobbit in the shire is given enough of a different accent or inflection in the voice to make it unique from all the others. When not in character, his narrative voice is strangely similar to Mr. Tolkien himself. He has a wonderful way of letting you know how much he embraced this story as his own and wanted to share it with everyone.
Rob Inglis does so much more than just narrate, he sings the songs, recites the poetry, races along with the action and does a Gollum voice that makes your skin crawl (as it should). The orcs are putrid, and Frodo and Sam are more and more pitiful the closer they get to Mordor. He makes you feel their pain and fatigue all along their arduous trek. Tom Bombadil just skips along as he likes and Treebeard goes on and on forever. To summarize, I found the all characters are as you would imagine with only as much exaggeration as required to make them believable. Where Mr. Tolkien does not care to use contractions in his writings, Mr. Inglis doesn’t mind substituting them in the readings. I would not have noticed except when reading and listening at the same time.
If I had to choose my favorite from the original books, the movies or the audio book, of course I would choose the original books, but having read, listened or watched all three many times I really have no favorite. They all have their own redeeming qualities, depending on ones mood or preference and shouldn’t really be compared (or scrutinized) so closely as to take away from one or the other, but be enjoyed for exactly what they are. They are simply their own versions of a classic and should be treasured accordingly. In retrospect, I would never have read the books if I had not seen the movie first. The movie version gave me the visual I needed to wrap myself up in the books and the audio version takes me deeper into the books than my imagination could ever have done. Thank you Mr. Tolkien, Mr. Jackson and Mr. Inglis for taking me along for the ride, I am enjoying it each and every time.
P.S.
I have only recently received my copy of The Hobbit Audiobook on CD and only listened to it quickly once, but because it is produced by the same company, unabridged and narrated by Rob Inglis, I do not hesitate to recommend it also.
Translated for us by Thorbjørn Hein: On Sunday December 14, when Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has its galla premiere, the event won´t take place at Imperial (the biggest movie theatre in Denmark) as it usually does. Instead, the galla is taking place in Tivoli (the well-known, 160-years old amusement park/garden in central Copenhagen)!