I think the same thing every time I follow the news these days.
7 Likes
I’m going to regret picking up this thread, but here goes…
LOTR may have it’s faults, but I don’t think this is one of them. The One Ring ™ had no intelligence of its own, but it tended to warp the minds of those that bore it, making them jealous. The more powerful you were, the more it would pervert you. You could take the route of Gandalf or Galadriel, and refuse to touch the thing. You could be completely indifferent to it, like Tom Bombardil, but that means you could not be trusted not to hand it to the first person who asked. If you asked Gwalior to take the ring to Mount Doom, the ring may give him other ideas, even if he does not put it on. Hobbits seemed to be content with their lot, and relatively immune to the ring’s influence, but as you approached Mount Doom, even that protection was not enough.
So, how would you manage it? The best solution I could come up with is…
Tell Frodo that Gwalior will take him to Mount Doom, or as close as he can. It is vital that Gwalior knows nothing about the ring, because he may be intercepted, particularly when he is the only flying thing in Mordor, and in full view of the Dark Tower. If that happens, Frodo must continue on foot. Gwalior must know nothing, so he cannot betray the mission.
Tell Gwalior to take Frodo to Mount Doom, and drop him in it. He’s expecting to be taken there, but the last bit has to be a surprise.
That, and not having the fellowship living it up on expenses in the House of Elrond for months, and I could probably have had the thing sown up by about page 70.
2 Likes
I have been assuming it only affects humanoid species.
I like your scenario, though, but I would suggest using Tom Bombadil, thus getting rid of one of the most irritatingly twee characters in fiction.
Much easier to sell the film rights, too. There’d be some chance of making a screenplay out of it that made some kind of sense.
1 Like
Damn, I was just coming in here to point that out. I really enjoyed that movie, easily one of my favorite documentaries of all time, and it made me miss something that was never made really hard, especially because I’m with Rob: Lynch’s Dune sucks even though Lynch is a fantastic director. Oddly enough, my parents, who are old gen X, liked it enough to buy a copy, which is how I watched it. They did prefer the scifi channel adaption though.
EDIT:
Sucks probably isn’t the right word, but I don’t particularly like it. My reaction when watching it was “Wow, that makes no sense as a standalone movie” followed by “I don’t think I ever need to watch that again”, although this thread is making me reconsider the latter.
1 Like
History shows that aristocracies rarely manage to be united for more than a very short time. Co-operating with others isn’t how they got there in the first place. Their automatic reaction is to pick off the weakest and defer to the strongest just long enough to go round the back and stick a knife in.
In fact, aristocracies seem to prefer a monarchy to strike some sort of balance.
Nowadays we use terms like “psychopath” and “sociopath”. The old words were “noble” and “high born”.
1 Like
Dune came out in 1984 btw
You see, you’ve read the book, haven’t you?
1 Like
The sci-fi channel’s Baron was much better presented and portrayed than in the Lynch version, although ‘evil’ did not punch through as much as ‘charm’ in the former.
A greater truth has never been told.
1 Like
Every time I think of Lynch’s Dune, I see Chani using a weirding module. Would it have been so hard to skip the module and just go with a martial art the Fremen weren’t experienced in? I really hate dislike that module thing.
2 Likes
Trying to teach a bunch of extras to do kung fu would probably have ended up looking cheesy as fuck. Maybe these days you can do something with CGI, but the modules were a reasonable compromise that avoided stretching believability - and a combat style being revolutionary in that way in the movies could easily have stretched believability to its limits even in a film like that.
1 Like
The average (unladen, American) eagle IRL has a cruise speed of 30 mph. They aren’t fighter jets. They are also a lot larger. The hobbits blended in amongst the orcs, and came by hidden paths. Eagles would be far easier to detect.
Weirdly gay? No. He was a homosexual and pedophile. He specifically liked young nubile boys. He also had sexual encounters with the nephews.
This. Exactly this.
If filmmakers can put out a call for extras with horses and get hundreds of them, it’s not too far of a stretch in thinking a call for those who practice the martial arts wouldn’t go unmet.
When the Fellowship is trying to get over Cahadras, they are defeated by a snowstorm, which is attributed in part to Sauron. ‘His arm has grown long indeed,’ said Gimli, ‘if he can draw snow down from the North to trouble us here three hundred leagues away.’ The narrator allows us to believe it is the nature of Cahadras, yet Tolkien did seem to allow an idea of the disembodied ‘will of Sauron’ in much the way that an unavenged murder brings misfortune on the whole community in Greek tragedies. In this way, the influence of Sauron as some disembodied but malevolent force that can influence mountains, but does not report back to its sender.
Lest you mistake me for a Tolkein scholar, I shall admit I was a puzzled by Gandalf’s actions later in the same chapter. Gandalf magically lights a fire to keep the hobbits from freezing during a winter storm and says: ‘If there is any to see, then I at least am revealed to them, I have written Gandalf is here in signs that all can read from Rivendell to the mouths of Anduin.’ Right. Way to go, Mister G. Ten out of ten for style. But, this is hardly the time or place. Years later, I realised Gandalf was speaking figuratively. blushes
I think Frodo suggests Tom Bombardil for the ring bearer. He is supposed to be some unknowable, primordial power. But you are right: he does seem like a refugee from an Enid Blyton book.
1 Like
Afghanistan? I’ve always assumed Arrakis is Iraq, given the name. In control of vast reserves of a resource that makes transportation possible. With Fedaykin (er, Fedayeen) guerilla troops.
1 Like
The One Ring does have a mind of its own, it’s explicitly and overtly said as much in the books. It is an extension of Sauron’s will, but it is not Sauron himself. The ring answers only to Sauron’s will and it’s goal is to serve it’s master and will warp the minds of those near it to get itself closer to Sauron or to further his goals. Again this is flat out said so in the books.
“A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it.[…] It was not Gollum, Frodo, but the Ring itself that decided things. The Ring left him.”
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Shadow of the Past, p. 73
And [Saruman] deemed that the Ring, which was Sauron's, would seek for its master as he became manifest once more; but if he were driven out again, then it would lie hid. The Silmarillion, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age, p. 362
4 Likes
I am a philistine. I thought Lynch’s Dune was terrible. Hokey and silly. I haven’t seen it since it came out in theaters. Maybe I’d like it better now?
Tell, don’t show!
Paul and Channi’s love grew
