It’s the convention season in the States, and the Mythopoeic Society’s Mythcon is on this weekend offering a contrast to the high-octane frenzy of things like Comicon. It’s a four-day event where people take time to examine (and define!) the whole genre of fantasy in great depth. People present papers on scholarly topics, and panels are convened to explore the landscape of fantasy in different directions. It’s all very low-key and relaxed, with little knots of people gathering in the shady arcades of the Clark-Kerr campus to argue about different editions of the Silmarillion etc. The breadth of knowledge amongst the Mythcon attendees is really amazing.
Tomorrow I’ll be more involved since there’s an interview with Philippa Boyens, one of the scriptwriters for the LOTR films, followed by a showing of the LOTR trailers and also of a section of an earlier Peter Jackson film, Heavenly Creaturs. After that, TORN’s Quickbeam and I will be on a panel talking about the movies from the fan perspective. More reports on that tomorrow.
Category: Old Special Reports
From: Mike
Rolling Stone just came out with it’s ‘Hot Issue’ and under the heading Hot Buzz, there was a blurb on the movie, here goes:
Given the dismal state of Hollywood blockbusters, the most exciting large-scale moviemaking anyone saw this summer was a twenty-minute peek at New Line’s big year-end spectacle, “The Fellowship of the Ring” – the first chapter of the filmed trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic saga, “The Lord of the Rings.” People practically had to be strip-searched to get into the preview screening (Cali wears red boxers -Xo), what with the studio’s fear of cameras that could sneak the footage onto the Internet. Judging from the bit that was shown, director Peter Jackson has made a film rich in action and atmospherics, one that will certainly give “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” a hard fight for bragging rights as 2001’s top adventure-fantasy. What gives “Ring” the sharper edge is a fourteen-minute segment in which Frodo’s fellowship must pass through the Mines of Moria. It’s here that Jackson kicks into high gear with swords, arrows, vicious Orcs who look like cave trolls, and the computer-generated Balrog, a romping, stomping, fire-breathing, forty-foot tall chunk of living stone that leaves you saying, “Show me this movie now.” -Peter Travers
From Ringer Spy Crowolf
I got to sneak a peek at the rule book and some of the minis at a local event recently. The rules are chock full of photos from the movie and the miniatures. From my quick perusal it looks like the rules will be up to the high gaming standards of GW’s other products. While many of the minis were on display at Games Day 2001, I finally got to pick them up and look at them close at this local event. The details are exquisite! I got to look at all of the Fellowship minis and several Moria goblins and high elves. I felt like poor Smeagol when I had to give them back.
From Times Higher Education Supplement
Wizard guides out of our Middle-earth
Verlyn Flieger
03 August 2001
Fantasy worlds of good and evil, black and white, provide a balance lacking in life. Hence our insatiable appetite for Harry Potter, TheLord of the Rings, Star Wars et al, says Verlyn Flieger.
In an age of impoverished belief, emphatic materialism, cultural fragmentation and erosion of assumed values, the increasing popularity of mythic fantasy in books and films should come as no surprise. Myth is what connects us to the world around us. It shows us our place in the scheme of things. Even though (or perhaps because) it now comes more often packaged as fantastic fiction than as creed, it seems we still reach out for myth. The fantastic mode, in the past more often employed in books for children than for adults, seems to free authors from the constraints of observable reality precisely to comment on that reality and enable us to see afresh. Four decades or so ago J. R. R. Tolkien found it expedient to declare that his books were not intended for children; but that if he had not written them in the style of children’s books, people would have thought he was “loony”.
That some 40 years later the perceived problem no longer exists is almost certainly due in large measure to Tolkien himself and to the readers who found in his work something they had been looking for without realising it. Paradoxically, Tolkien satisfied a hunger that no one knew existed and at the same time created an appetite for more. That hunger is for mystery and magic in a world where virtual reality has become an IOU for real enchantment. Our ever-accelerating, technology-oriented, computer-chip culture has created a need for its opposite, something intangible but not imperceptible, an element missing from modern life and sought in a certain kind of literature. This is what fuels the inter-galactic special-effects films, the ever-more fantastic role-playing games, the endlessly proliferating fantasy trilogies.
The enormous popularity and commensurately profitable sales of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, together with the undeniable, enduring popularity of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, might cause one to ponder how what used to be called fantasy became mainstream fiction and whether the mainstream has changed direction or fantasy has been charted inaccurately all along. Authors such as Tolkien and Rowling – and C. S. Lewis and Ursula Le Guin and Alan Garner and E. Nesbit among others – once categorised as writers of “children’s” or “young adult” literature, easily cross the line into “adult” literature. Or perhaps they demonstrate the obvious fact that there is no longer (or perhaps never was) a line. The platitude that “we are all children at heart” will not do. The desire for fantasy is no more typical of children than of adults. The audience for the above-cited writers and others like them is not characterised by age but by taste, and the taste is shared by more – and more disparate – readers than might have been supposed.
When the super-sophisticated Noël Coward died in 1973, he had The Enchanted Castle, E. Nesbit’s classic “children’s” book, open on his bedside table. Likewise, the extraordinary, largely unpromoted success of The Lord of the Rings was not just a 1960s phenomenon, but a continuing trend, one that those who confuse fantasy with escapism may not have caught up with. The fact that at the century’s end numerous polls in the United Kingdom found Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to be the top choice as the greatest book of the century produced cries of outrage from the literati. They either had not been paying attention to what ordinary people read and why, or they did not care.
Fantasy literature and the huge appetite for it are signs of the times, indications of a deeply felt need for the assurance that the world is more than random chaos, that it has a transcendent meaning, albeit not a wholly optimistic one – perhaps its being not a wholly optimistic one is one of the attractions. Fantasy’s darker side seems to be what draws many readers. In the ongoing Harry Potter series, it is embodied in the evil wizard Voldemort who, after years of impotent lying-low, is poised to take over the world. Tolkien’s Dark Lord, Sauron, his design for the subjugation and domination of Middle-earth frustrated by a yard-high Hobbit from the provinces, is vanquished for the Third Age, but not forever. It is part of Tolkien’s point that Sauron has been defeated before, but keeps coming back. He was beaten in the Second Age, and will need to be fought again in ages to come. Evil never completely disappears, and has a tendency to pop up just when good seems to have the upper hand. For all its Hobbit jollity, Tolkien’s book is more sombre than many readers may at first perceive. Much that is beautiful and treasurable is lost forever in the War of the Ring. The book’s hero, Frodo, pays for his efforts to destroy Sauron’s Ring of Power not with his life but very nearly with his soul, and is saved only by grace and Gollum. Even saved, he is wounded, sick and maimed. He finds that he cannot go home again, but must leave his beloved Shire and indeed sail away from Middle-earth altogether if he is to be healed.
This is not a happy ending, not even upbeat. But Frodo’s Middle-earth, like our world, is not an upbeat world. It is, however, a world with meaning, even if that meaning is sometimes cruel. It is a world in which ordinary individuals can affect not just the future of human events but the balance of the natural world that surrounds those events, and have the secure knowledge that they are a part of and contribute to that balance. We need that knowledge.
This is what keeps us coming back to The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, to Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy and Alan Garner’s The Owl Service. With unparalleled affluence rubbing elbows with abysmal poverty, with technological improvement making it less and less necessary for us to speak to one another face to face, we have lost a sense of who we are and where we belong in a world we no longer know very well. The function of myth is to give us that sense. And a function of fantasy fiction is to give us myth in a myth-impoverished world.
Verlyn Flieger is a professor in the department of English at the University of Maryland at College Park.
Defenders of The Ring up in arms at myth in the making
Bill Welden and Jo Alida Wilcox
03 August 2001
The film of Tolkien’s classic is courting controversy but creating a mythology, say Bill Welden and Jo Alida Wilcox.
Once upon a time, in the rash boldness of his youth, J. R. R. Tolkien set out to create a mythology. As he said later, this cycle of myths would range “from the large and cosmogonic, to the level of romantic fairy-story… and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama”.
Peter Jackson’s film version of Tolkien’s masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, due to be released in December, is already making cinematic history. With a budget of more than 5,000 times Tolkien’s annual salary at the height of his career, there is plenty of wielding going on; and not just of paint and music and drama. Photo-realistic computer animation, only ever a dream during Tolkien’s lifetime, has finally put realisation of his vision within reach.
For Tolkien, a mythology was a collection of stories unique to a culture: stories about creation, about gods, about history and about heroes. His stories, although not mythology in this sense, are now as well-known as those from ancient Greece to which the word “myth” was first applied. There is even a broader definition where The Lord of the Rings may eventually fit if it continues to grow in popularity. Jackson’s films could contribute, if they are as successful as all the signs indicate.
Tolkien was inspired by the epic poetry of the Scandinavians, the Finnish Kalevala and the Norse Eddas, and hoped to create something of the same sort for England. But it is doubtful that a cycle of stories with these ancient motifs could ever serve as a mythology for our times. The world has changed since the 13th century, and is now changing so fast that a mythology that speaks to our generation might not even serve for our children.
We have, in fact, become a culture in search of a mythology; and in this quest we seem to come back, repeatedly, to the movies. The most successful, just like the ancient myths, are the ones that nourish us in a way our daily routine does not. When Joseph Campbell, author of The Power of Myth, asked why his son had gone to see Star Wars so many times, he replied: “For the same reason you have been reading the Old Testament all of your life.”
Star Wars is certainly not a myth in the traditional sense. It is not about our heroes or gods, and it is not ancient. It does have a mythic power, reflected in its popularity; but, at this point, it is no more than a proto-myth: if it continues to appeal to new generations, in 100 or 500 years, it may eventually pass into the realm of mythology.
There have been several attempts recently to relax the definition of myth so that Star Wars fits inside; but if “myth” comes to mean simply a widely popular story with fantastic elements, it will have lost its special value for illuminating the cultural psyche. Even if we allow that a myth does not have to be ancient, it must still belong to, and be a product of, its culture. Star Wars does not, and is not. To be the product of a culture, it is not enough for a story simply to be told: it must be re-told, again and again. With each re-telling the story changes, emphasising what is important to the storyteller and discarding what is not. If the changes resonate with other storytellers, they will be taken up and passed on. Eventually, only what is important to the culture will remain.
Contemporary film is the most powerful vehicle yet devised for taking a story to many people, and there is a strong incentive to produce films with mythic appeal in order to recoup the necessary huge investments; but the medium of film discourages the sort of re-telling required to create a myth.
For one thing, film-making is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. For another, visual presentation of stories leaves less to the imagination, which is the spark that fires the process of storytelling. The power of the film image may itself discourage would-be storytellers from taking the story, making it their own, and passing it on.
Finally, the relatively new concept of intellectual property rights means that re-telling a story without the agreement of the owner is not just difficult, but illegal. And film-makers, who have huge investments in their properties, are aggressive in discouraging others from trying their hand at the same story.
Yet despite all these obstacles, The Lord of the Rings is now being re-told as a film; and Peter Jackson is doing just what needs to be done if the story is to become myth: he is telling his version and not Tolkien’s version of the story, which has led to controversy.
At the centre of the furor is the character of Arwen, an elvish princess who plays a minor role in the story as Tolkien wrote it. Jackson has decided that the film will have broader appeal if Arwen is a romantic lead, and has given her a bigger role in the film. This broader appeal does not, however, seem to include many of Tolkien’s existing fans, who would like the story left as it is, and have written extended angry essays, sent petitions with thousands of signatures, and in many cases refused to see the film when it comes out.
Changes such as this, and their judgement in the court of cultural opinion, are at the heart of the process of mythopoeia, the creation of myth. Tolkien describes this process as a cauldron where individual stories are added as ingredients to the soup of mythology. As he wrote in his essay On Fairy Stories, “this pot has always been boiling, and to it have continually been added new bits, dainty and undainty”. Though some do not approve, The Lord of the Rings has now, in fact, been added to the pot.
It is worth mentioning that, in Tolkien’s opinion, to be added to this cauldron was “a considerable honour, for in that soup were many things older, more potent, more beautiful, comic, or terrible”. It remains to be seen how much Tolkien’s story will change as it boils. If the fans are right and his work is the stuff of myth, most of the experimental changes will, in the end, evaporate.
Tolkien eventually gave up his ambition of creating a mythology for England, and turned for much of his life to the more humble task of writing a long story “that would hold the attention of readers, amuse them, delight them and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them”. In fact, this lesser ambition is closer to the true heart of mythology; and, in achieving it, Tolkien may have taken a first step forward on the path to realising his earlier and higher goal.
If The Lord of the Rings does achieve mythic status, it will owe something to Jackson’s film: this December millions of people will get a glimpse of Tolkien’s world for the first time. Many will buy and read the book, and many again will read it to their children. The story will continue to be re-told.
For now, we can do only what we would have done in any event: read (or go to the movies) and share, as we are moved, the stories that amuse and delight us. It is not ours to decide what will be mythology for our children’s children. Only time will tell.
Bill Welden and Jo Alida Wilcox have been studying and writing about the works of J. R. R. Tolkien for 20 years. Welden is one of several Tolkien language experts consulted in the making of New Line Cinema’s film of The Lord of the Rings. Welden and Verlyn Flieger are taking part in the 32nd Annual Mythopoeic Society Conference at the University of California, Berkeley, August 3-6.
Fabius Fëadûr sends along word that the Argentinian Tolkien Society have been invited to view the 26 minutes of LOTR seen at Cannes. I’m not 100% sure this is accurate, as I heard that the footage was taken from Cannes, shown in New York, and flown back to NZ in a sealed safe, and if it is true, New Line should let some OTHER unfortunate soul who could NOT make it to Cannes to watch this footage! (me! me!)
I´m from Argentina, i´m a memeber of the Argentinian Tolkien Society (Asociación Tolkien Argentina, ATA) and i are invited to view the Cannes´ Trailer this Thuesday 7, yes, New Line Cinema is represented by Warner in Argentina and they will play the 26 minutes trailer, the great one. I will be there, i am a Tolkien fan, and i will write something to you about this.
Another thing, in August 18 we´ll do TheTolkien 2001 our great party about the writer, there´ll be live music, fan art, movie trailers, middle-earth products, and much more, in 1999 and 2000 we do that and more than 2000 people come to us.
Greetings — Quickbeam here.
For all of you attending be sure to check this out! Today at 3:00PM (Central) Decipher will bust out at Gen Con Game Fair with a special promotional event for their new Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game. This is an invitation only kind of deal, so stop by the Decipher booth (#1015) and ask for a pass to the event. They have warned us that space is limited.
At the recent San Diego Comic Con Tookish and I learned how to play…. and frankly we had a blast! This is your exclusive first look at how the game works; and what you can expect later in the year when it is released nationally. This is only a small taste, dear Ringers, for to give away too much would ruin the surprise.
I assume that if you’re sniffing out this kind of news then you must already be familiar with the grand-daddy of all TCGs, Magic: the Gathering. It’s the one that started it all, being both a groundbreaking game design and a revolution in the gaming industry. If you are a non-initiate and have NO IDEA how these card games work, then let me offer a bit of background. It works sorta like this:
(a) decks of cards are used to represent characters and/or creatures,
(b) the table is gradually filled with more cards as players duke it out,
(c) you must strike a balance between card strategy and the luck of the draw,
(d) you can play and also collect, as the cards are all uniquely different.
Decipher’s new game reflects the most familiar parts of Magic but there are some radical new game mechanics, too. If you know your way around any other TCG you’ll find this one easy. But a total newbie will need to wrap his brain around it for a bit. Granted, this report is written with the newbie in mind.
Set up for two or more players, each combatant deals out their hand. You will have both “Good” characters (with folks like Elves, Men, Dwarves, etc.) and a slew of “Evil” minions such as Orcs, Trolls, and Ringwraiths.
On your turn, you have the chance to play out special cards that are members of your Fellowship. Supporting cards like Hobbits and Dwarves will bolster your group. It’s very helpful to get some unique weapons into the hands of your characters: there is a card for Sting and one for Gimli’s Axe, for example.
Your opponent will get the chance to play evil Orcs and Trolls against you. And if your opponent can afford them, the Nazgûl will make an early appearance at his whim! When these deadly cards are dealt, you are in for a fight; which is executed in a series of combat phases. This is where it becomes a game of simple math, a construct of numerical values that determines a winner. If you look at your cards, each has a number determining “Strength.” If your card’s Strength number is greater than the enemy’s then you win the combat. Those certain special weapons I mentioned before will change the numbers to your winning advantage. Protect Frodo at all costs, making sure he is not killed or wounded, by using his Companions for protection.
Yes, there is a card for The One Ring, but you will cause yourself so much trouble if you make the Ringbearer vulnerable by using it!
Different cards represent traveling through the lands of Middle-earth, one for each location. There are many to choose from and each step forward causes different effects in the Fellowship’s journey. Take my word for it, be VERY careful at the Bridge of Kazad-dûm.
The best part of Decipher’s game (and it really is a fascinating twist) is that each player gets to alternate both Good and Evil throughout. This saves you from the boring rut of always playing the same side in your games. You have to switch your brain at every turn: as your Fellowship cards progress your opponent will waylay you with nefarious Orcs. On the next round when HE is advancing Frodo, YOU get to stomp him with Trolls. Very refreshing change to the old Magic formula!
There is also something called a “Twilight Pool.” No, no, I can’t say anything else about it… but it is a remarkable new function I’ve never seen before in all my years of TCGs. Believe me, clever ideas like this are what make gaming fun.
The art and design work is lovely. The folks at Decipher revealed the new cards to myself and Tookish in a private meeting, in advance of ANYONE… but soon we hope to give TORN fans the first chance to see them. Each card features a color still photo from Peter Jackson’s film trilogy, and the surrounding designs are intricate and beautiful. Colors and emblems help differentiate cards of Elven, Dwarven, Mortal, or Orcish cultures. The new iconography is what impressed me the most. After we publish the artwork you’ll see what I mean. Watch this space!
And for you lucky fans who are attending Gen Con, don’t miss the preview events, as it is sure to be terrific. I wish I were there to sit down and play a round with you!
Much too hasty,
Quickbeam