On December 17, 2003, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the final film in the trilogy based on the best-selling fantasy novels by J.R.R. Tolkien, opens in theaters. The film was a huge box-office success and won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, for Peter Jackson. The Lord of the Rings trilogy became one of the highest-grossing franchises in movie history, netting billions of dollars worldwide in box-office proceeds and related merchandise.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in Blomfontein, South Africa, and raised primarily in England. He graduated from Oxford, served in World War I and went on to become a linguist and professor at Oxford. One day when Tolkien was grading exam papers, he reportedly was inspired in a moment of boredom to write across the top of one page, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” From there, he began developing the story into his novel The Hobbit, which was first published in 1937. A sequel, The Lord of the Rings, was published in three volumes between 1954 and 1955. The books are set in a place called Middle Earth and revolve around the adventures of a hobbit named Frodo Baggins, who must destroy a powerful ring and save the world from evil.
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novels produced legions of fans around the world and were was adapted for radio, television and theater. He died at the age of 81 on September 2, 1973, in Bournemouth, England, almost three decades before his work was adapted into the blockbuster big-screen trilogy directed, co-written and co-produced by Peter Jackson. Shot in New Zealand, the trilogy starred Elijah Wood as Frodo, along with a large ensemble cast that included Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett.
On December 19, 2001, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the highly anticipated first film in the trilogy, debuted in theaters around the world. The film received 13 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (McKellen)and collected four Oscars, for Visual Effects, Cinematography, Makeup and Music (Original Score). The second movie in the series, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, opened in theaters on December 18, 2002, and received six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was released in theaters on December 17, 2003; it swept all 11 Oscar categories in which it was nominated.
Peter Jackson, born on October 31, 1961, in Pukerua Bay, New Zealand, first gained notice in Hollywood as the director and co-writer of the 1994 true-crime drama Heavenly Creatures, which co-starred Kate Winslet. In addition to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson directed and co-wrote 2005’s King Kong, with Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody and Jack Black, 2009’s The Lovely Bones and 2012’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (as well as its two sequels).
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Still wish Jackson could have crammed Tom Bombadil into Fellowship. Still, these movies were just unbelievable.
Very true. Nevertheless, the books were even better …. far better, imho.
I remember this Far Side cartoon from long ago; two goats were eating a reel of film … and the one goat says, “Not bad, but I liked the book better.”. It was funny to me at the time.
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This might have made a good QOTD: “What is the WORST film adaptation of a book?”
—- For me, it was without a doubt, hands down, the three movies made about “Chronicles of Narnia”. Absolutely horrifyingly disappointing. The kid actors came across as a bunch of spoiled little British pricks. I actually hated “Peter” about halfway through the first movie. And the “special” effects were amateurish and jejune (look it up, lol).
Starship Troopers was an insult to the book.
Disagree.
>
Just like in the book, use the wrong reasons to come to (some) right conclusions.
But that scene is better than the book, more condensed.
And now that I put that movie besides something absolutely mindblowing I’ve read this morning, it makes me wonder if Heinlein took some hints from that piece of history:
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2020/12/in-his-history-of-the-peloponnesian-war-thucydides-lays-out-the-events-that-precipitated-a-long-enormously-destructive-war-1.html#more
The writeup from History.com, as usual, leaves much to be desired.
Tolkien was influenced by CS Lewis, and vice versa.
Both bonded over the horrors they experienced in the trenches of World War I. Both lost their parents as children. They had no where to go but their imaginations; — in the worlds of Lewis’ Narnia and Tolkien’s Middle-earth there are troubles, wars, deceptions, betrayals, and imperfections galore, and, ultimately vindication as “good” prevails in the end. Their imaginary worlds ultimately reflected their views of the real world.
But, they also had their troubles. Lewis was almost instantly accepted as a great writer. His “Screwtape Letters” were an instant best seller in 1942, for example. He appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in 1947. Meanwhile, Tolkien’s colleagues at Oxford barely tolerated his books, and mocked his story-telling, even when the books started selling well.
Eventually, their relationship soured over some serious theological differences.
Before returning to the Christianity of his youth, Lewis became an atheist. Tolkien was instrumental in “converting” Lewis back to Christianity. But, Lewis adopted Protestant Anglicanism instead of Tolkien’s Catholicism. That shouldn’t have been a huge problem …but, then Lewis resorted to anti-Catholic tones often in his latter books which, of course, deeply offended Tolkien.
Tolkien didn’t care much for the Chronicles. He thought the Christian themes were too strong and too obvious … that Lewis was beating the reader over the head with his sermonizing and dogma. Tolkien preferred a more subtle and mysterious approach in his story telling. In fact, Tolkien was influenced as much by Norse Mythology as he was by the Bible.
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If you’re a Lewis and/or Tolkien fan, you will enjoy this article titled; —– “War, Friendship, and Imagination – How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918”
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The Screwtape Letters are brilliant Stuckey but have you ever read the book by Napoleon Hill called ‘Outwitting the Devil’….the conversation with the devil is on par with Screwtape and in some ways even better and just so eerily valid for the times we live in, the book was written over 70 years ago but was only published recently and I highly recommend it to anyone who is even remotely awake to read it.
Great comment about Tolkien and Lewis….what brilliant minds they had and not like university educated dead shits nowadays.
Another interesting book on the same theme is ‘Lord Foulgrins Letters’ by Randy Alcorn (who is a huge fan of Lewis) but it is set in contemporary times, not as brilliant as the other two but still an eye opener.
I believe we are in the midst of the biggest battle between Good and Evil right now and these books just make so much sense and explain so much to me as to why evil seems to dominate our lives.