At Comic-Con this year I got a chance to see two brand new figures from Asmus Toys. First is a special version of Gandalf the Grey coming in their Crown Series. This Gandalf includes a boat-load of items including a awesome base with the gate and party-sign leading into Bag End. You can get this extremely awesome version of Gandalf for $350 and he’s due to ship between January and March of next year.
The other new item is a great looking version of Theoden. The detailing of the armor itself is incredible and he also comes with a load of extras such as Herugrim with sheath belt, and forearm and calf pieces. Fans can grab Theoden for $190 and for those who hate to wait, this piece will be available between August and October of this year. Both of these figures will look awesome in any collection and give lucky fans plenty of display options.
Comic-Con 2019 has come and gone. However that doesn’t mean our coverage of the show is done. Today we have our booth tour coverage of all the goodies that our friends at Weta Workshop brought with them to Comic-Con 2019.
Minas Morgul, Dark Galadriel, and Gandalf and Frodo riding on Gandalf’s cart are not available for order yet. But once they are, you can count on us to let you know. Hope you all enjoy the booth tour and corresponding pictures.
Today sees the Digital Release of Dome Karukoski’s biopic “Tolkien”. Available now on all the usual digital platforms, the film is also set to be released on Blu-ray & DVD on August 6.
If you purchase the digital release from iTunes, you will own the film in both High Definition and 4K Ultra HD (although you will need an Apple TV device and a compatible 4K television to watch it in the latter format), along with all the bonus features that will also be available on the Blu-ray.
These include an Audio Commentary by director Dome Karukoski, a First Look Featurette, Photo Gallery and Deleted Scenes with Commentary by Karukoski.
Out latest review covers not one but two statues from out friend at Weta Workshop. The two statues we will be looking at come from The Hobbit Trilogy and specifically The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. During the final sequences of the film, we get to see some Elves and Dwarves joining forces. To depict this, Weta made individual statues covering a single Mirkwood Elf as well as a pair of Iron Hills Dwarves– but the two statues come with a twist. You can switch out the shoulder armor of one of the Dwarves and combine them to make one massive statue. You can also get both statues individually for $449 with an edition size of 750.
Appropriately, there are a lot of complex emotions and thoughts to unpack after watching the latest film to tackle Middle-earth, TOLKIEN.
Let’s get this out of the way: If you have more than a passing interest in J.R.R. Tolkien or his works, you should view the film. You should view it in theaters and you should view it without knowing too much of what is going to unfold — and I will do my best to withhold spoilers, but some are inevitable if I am going to offer fair commentary on the film.
Let’s also get this out of the way: The next person who says “It’s not a documentary,” to me or anyone else with criticisms of the film’s portrayal of Tolkien’s life can go straight to Angband. This quip attempts to dismiss completely valid, rational views of the film, most often the assumed position that someone is about to say film isn’t accurate. Feel free to disagree with criticism, but don’t insult the discussion with a patronizing deflection or insinuate that there were two choices: either documentary accuracy or giving up all hope of accuracy and accepting anything.
Watching TOLKIEN was a powerful emotional experience. As J.R.R. has done for so many, he has profoundly influenced my own life. His words touch us on a deep level. His works laid the foundation of so much else that came after, most definitely including the biggest fantasy property on the block at the moment, GAME OF THRONES on HBO, that is something of a reply to Tolkien from George R.R. Martin. STAR WARS would certainly not exist as we know it without Tolkien. Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons and so much else grew from the field he plowed. The Professor is a giant that looms above us all.
So when Nicholas Hoult and Harry Gilby combine to portray Tolkien as a child and as a young man, it was unexpectedly moving; just the simple act of putting Tolkien on screen was powerful. It is a reminder that the nearly mythical professor was scared, lonely, insecure, sad, frustrated, desperate, drunk, charming, combative and impulsive.
Not only does Tolkien live before our eyes but his best mates from his young years, the boys essential to him during his formative era, all live and walk and breathe before our very eyes. In fact the film makes all of them immortal in a way, a reality that I imagine would have tickled Tollers.
And all of this is entertaining and beautiful but …
Watching TOLKIEN was a frustrating, and in some moments, an agonizing experience and I don’t mean in the midst of the drama lost in the story and characters but rather outside the drama and about the drama. And yes, I do get it. Screenwriting is hard. Putting a powerful, emotionally relevant story on screen is hard. The story of J.R.R. Tolkien is hard. Story telling about an period with less data about the man is hard.
But Tolkien was a real life person. Some living now, knew him then, and he left behind letters and notes, video, audio recordings and war and school records. So when the film’s writers David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford, and director Dome Karukoski, chose to tell the story in a way that ignores those records and turns instead to fantasy, it is troubling at the least, distracting and frustrating.
SPOILER but (seriously, film spoiler ahead) the film chooses to depict Tolkien going for something of a walk in the midst of fierce fighting during the Battle of the Somme. He is obsessed, if not crazed, with the idea of finding his friend.
In reality 2nd Lt. Tolkien didn’t abandon his fellow soldiers and instead fulfilled his duty as a signaler for a battalion of infantry, sending instructions and trying to help communication in the chaos of fighting and dying across no man’s land.
Soon after he contracted trench fever — typically via lice — and was taken off the front. One of the most common symptoms of the ailment is leg pain — not quite the disease to inspire tench walking.
This isn’t a small shift in a man’s history, this is a massive, unneeded change about important characterization in the man and developments in the myth he created. There was already drama, conflict and characterization present in the actual history. If only the filmmakers had trusted the story of J.R.R. Tolkien instead of needing to make a fantasy story to replace it.
The film suggests Tolkien had a sort of fever dream during this walk and had visions of his future stories. Some will shrug this off, and he did start writing as he was away from the front, but a hallucinating Tolkien instead of a crafting Tolkien, especially when there was a set-up for it, is less effective. Yes, this can all be viewed as metaphorical, but it can also be viewed as a bad trip that became a good story.
Those aren’t the only inaccuracies; we are treated to a wildly different start of some important writing, that is definitely not an improvement (and from a filmmaking only viewpoint, it feels glued on at the end.) But it also avoids the opportunity to depict The Professor being the a professor. We are robbed of a very on-the-record Tolkien moment of inspiration that changed everything, only to have it replaced by a weakened moment, of problematic motivation.
I will resist the temptation, for spoiler’s sake, to say more and this essay isn’t the place to create a checklist of wrong history, but suffice it to say, some will.
To say that another way, just as big of a problem as being inaccurate about a real person’s story is that the inaccuracies — or straight up fantasy — robs us of getting to know the man, and the man is pretty interesting. The man didn’t need embellishing. And to be clear, I am not objecting to filling in some gaps and I credit the movie for doing that effectively in spots.
I object, as others will, to replacing the known record with storytelling fancy.
Others may legitimately raise concerns about structure or pacing, and while that isn’t something to be ignored, for me, those are forgivable.
None of this is to say there isn’t a fine story with a beautiful love-story in it. There is definitely that. And some dose of fancy or manufacturing of details is certainly inevitable and understandable. But manufacturing important things that contradict what is known is frustrating.
There is heart and abundant beauty present to be sure. In fact, there is a beautiful film here for you to catch in theaters, but it is too often a fantasy film about a real person as much as it is the story of that person.
Those knowing little about Tolkien will walk away “educated” and will perhaps find some emotional connection. Hopefully they will wish to learn more and pick up one of several great books about the man, which the director, a fan, has undoubtedly read. But this is TORn, not a collective that knows little about Tolkien.
Karukoski directed something beautiful. The acting is excellent. The lighting and shooting is beautiful. The music is wonderful. The tone is occasionally modern for a period piece but all of that is effective and emotional and there is much to praise.
But we aren’t going to get some other Tolkien biography anytime soon — this is it. We are rewarded with beauty and with pieces of Tokien and we are frustrated by the fantasy depiction of a man — and a story — that deserved greater purposeful fidelity.
I have a confession to make. I’ve become a relatively bitter Tolkien fan in the past 20+ years. Since founding TheOneRing.net with Corvar, Tehanu and Xoanon, I’ve gone through a devolution of my own personal fandom, that was neither apparent at the time, nor welcomed as a result. You see, when we started, so many ages ago, I had read The Lord of the Rings religiously every year since age 13. Every single year. It was a welcome escape from the challenges of 13-year-old-boy-dom. After all, I was a pretty damn awkward kid. I looked forward to the summer when I’d pore through the pages of Tolkien’s master work, and be whisked away on a journey in which I felt I was passionately participating.
When the idea of TheOneRing.net came to fruition, I was able to get that same satisfaction through simply enjoying the dawning of the internet age with other Tolkien fans online. I consumed everything and anything that was shared, written, argued, engaged, etc. That become my cup of Tolkien consumption for many years, lasting through the end of The Return of the One Party. Yes, through those years, I did not read a word of Tolkien – but the thriving community of TheOneRing.net kept me more than fulfilled.
Then came the in-between years – we can call them the dark times – that time when our personal interests fall to the side as we build up our family and professional lives. (Don’t get me wrong, those are great things on a personal level, but for my Tolkien fandom, that time was pretty dark.) I didn’t read a word of Tolkien, and I didn’t consume the output of the community that had sustained me for so many years. The significance of Tolkien in my life took a back seat.
Along came the excitement and rush of The Hobbit films! A return to the grandeur of the early 2000s, a thriving community engaged with a new vision…or was it really? The reality for many of us old-timers (BTW – I’m not ‘THAT’ old), was that the venture through The Hobbit films felt a bit more like Thorin’s struggles (*cough* gold fever) than true excitement. For me – and maybe not for you – it felt forced … non-organic. The community still thrived, however, and a whole new generation of Tolkien fandom was born.
But for me … I was done. Well, obviously not ‘done’ done. But I had reached my limit. I hadn’t read a word of Tolkien for years … decades … and I saw too much behind the curtain of the ‘business’ of Hollywood gleefully to ignore the obvious truths that evade most. (We won’t go into those here – let’s just say, behind the curtain is pretty ugly.)
Then comes the news of a biopic of Tolkien. *roll eyes* This bitter Tolkien fan immediately thinks, ‘Oh great. How are they going to diminish the legacy of one of the greatest authors and minds of all time? Will they make him out to be a racist? A religious zealot? Pull out some other horrific tidbit of information that could attempt to ruin a legacy?’ Yea, bitter. ‘What modern sensibility will we crucify Tolkien with today?’
Pretty sure that is as bitter as bitter gets. (Was anyone else there with me?)
When I was offered an opportunity to see Tolkien at the Montclair Film Festival in Montclair, NJ last night, I was just as bitter. It was cool that I would get to go see it early, but I was pretty well set for something annoying. Yes, a few other staff had already seen it and set praises upon it, but this bitter old fan chalked that up to youthful enthusiasm for community relevance. (Sorry folks, but that’s the truth!)
What I saw on the screen last night was quite unexpected. It was inspiring, tearful, joyful and engaging. It was exquisitely directed, and skillfully acted.
What I saw on the screen was a story I hadn’t known. It was obviously not just a reporting of Tolkien’s life; no, this was a unique interpretation of a famous life, pieced together from a relatively undocumented time. This is something that engaged this bitter fan from the first scene of WWI hell, to a realistic conclusion well before Tolkien’s published fame.
This is NOT a geek film. This is NOT a greedy attempt to piggy back on the success of LOTR, Hobbit or other fantasy films. This is a wonderful work of cinema that not only fully re-charged my interest in learning more about the one who started it all, but also my interest in re-reading the books.
Today, I made sure that The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit books are front and center on my Kindle app. Guess what I’ll be reading later?
Congratulations to director Dome Karukoski (My new hero?) on an amazing film, worthy of the name of ‘Tolkien.’
At Comic-Con this year I got a chance to see two brand new figures from Asmus Toys. First is a special version of Gandalf the Grey coming in their Crown Series. This Gandalf includes a boat-load of items including a awesome base with the gate and party-sign leading into Bag End. You can get this extremely awesome version of Gandalf for $350 and he’s due to ship between January and March of next year.
