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Here are the useful adresses and resources I could find, on all what produces happiness (personnal or social), peace, living in harmony, poetry, beauty, harmony... Ressources are gathered in blocks by topics, with links toward similar subjects or pages.
TO EXIST ON THE INTERNET, LINK AND BE LINKED!
Last update on May 30, 2016
There are already more than 20 years ago that I read «The Lord of the Rings». In the 1980's it was confidential, and it circulated among ecologists and communities to nourish their dreams. So if today it has a big world success, it makes me smile, a little from condescension, and much because I am sincerely happy to see this marvellous story available for everybody.
Composed by Howard Shore, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra
Caution: Dramatic or tragic themes are dangerous to hear for depressive people.
The Fellowship of the Ring
The main theme, short, moving and pathetic, links together all the music which describes the various episode of the first book, pristine nature, lyric drama or fight, elfic poetry... In «Aniron», the marvellous elfic voice of Enya sings Arwen Undomiel's love for Aragorn.
The two towers
The return of the King
With my opinion the big problem with these movies is that there is too much influence of the fight video games style (understand in giving much more importance to ugly things than on nice ones) in place of the epic style of the books. There is however enough nice things in the books, the songs of the Elves, the beauty of Rivendel or of the flowery Lorien, that we hoped to see more. This is my criticism, see here a more extensive criticism (left menu, see «movie goer's guide»).
The music of Howard Shore is really fantastic, and it made of these movies a true opera. There is much to bet that if will remain THE music of Middle Earth. Interventions of other artists such as the elfish voice of Enya harmoniously enrich this choice. (If somebody knows how to get the Elves song in the Shire, please tell me)
The casting is good and very likely if we compare to the books. Their play is convincing and matches well the story. No doubt that they will remain THE faces of the story. Only criticism, there are not enough lesser roles. For instance there was no need to replace Glorfindel by Arwen.
The scenery are also well done and coherent with the books. But the style is too dark, too grey, not enough light. For instance Edoras is convincing, but the inhabitants of Rohan and Minas Tirith are really austere, all dressed in black. We even see Elves in black! The grey world of Peter Jackson is not that of Middle Earth.
The beauty and poetry of the elvish world, and even of the Shire, appear only in the first movie of the series, and we no more find them in the two others. Clearly this was not the main concern of the movie makers.
The distortions of the story are the obvious defect of the movies of Peter Jackson. Right, to put a book in a movie always requires to adapt the story. But not to distort it. The movie maker can add scenes which have more impact on the screen that in reading. For instance the Eowyn song, or in the first movie the very beautiful love scene between Arwen and Aragorn, which make forget many others on a theme however really worn. We can pardon benign deformations when the result is staggering, for instance the army of the deads into the Pelennor Fields. But Peter Jackson goes much too far, to the point of making the plot uncoherent: Arwen in the place of Glorfindel, Sarumane manipulating the Caradhras, Elves at Hornburg, Arwen going to Valinor, Frodon at Osgiliath, Frodon throwing Sam or falling into the Crack of Doom... all this added to the unavoidable short cuts of a movie adaptation. It is really a pity, and even sometimes painful to discover. In place of adding these useless and cumbersome episodes, it would have be much better to spend time in episodes which are heavily missing, for instance the adventures of the four hobbits with Tom Bombadil, perhaps the most picturesque of all what Tolkien imagined.
At last all this psychology of TV series which misrepresents certain characters could have been avoided.It is perfectly ridiculous, shocking and completely incoherent. In reality, the Elve Arwen has a pure and uncompromising love, and, in the free world of the Elves, never Elrond would have tried to make her to change her heart. Aragorn is not only the heir of the Elve Luthien, but also of the Goddess Melian, and it is perfectly ridiculous to allot him with the indecision of an antihero. The Hobbits have benign defects who make them endearing in their way, without no need to add this craftiness which appears nowhere in the movie. Boromir the honest is torn by a dilemma worthy of a Greek tragedy. Faramir is precisely the only man never to be seduced by the ring, and this places him very far above the teenager psychology allotted to him in the movie. Treebeard is a being of a great wisdom, there was no need to laugh of him. The subtle shift of feelings between Gimli and Legolas is eluded or caricatured, when Smeagol is analysed in details, as if he was the main character of the movie. The stress is too much on fighting scenes, and anyway there are too much shouts and grimaces, even out of battle scenes. All this will please the adepts of video games, but will be regretted by all who love Tolkien's world.
We can look at these movies, and even whose who love Tolkien's world could have pleasure to see them. But it is incredible that such deformation could have be accepted by criticists! I recommend the long versions, as long supplements compensate the missing episodes of the short versions, but without repairing the deformations..
«The Fellowship of the Ring,the best of the three despite deformations and lapses. Short version: 2 DVD recommenced long version: 4 DVD and The music by Howard Shore and others.
«The two towers», exaggerates the defects of the first. Short version: 2 DVD recommended long version: 4 DVD and The music by Howard Shore and others.
«The return of the King» goes more logical, even in keeping with the incoherences of the second. Short version: 2 DVD recommended long version: 4 DVD and The music by Howard Shore and others
I have a dream: to do like with Star Wars: in some years the movies of the previous episodes, Bilbo, see the Silmarilion, With the Valinor Light trees, the fall of Gondolin, the War of Wrath, the fall of Numenor... But such a work would have to be done by epic artists, not by video games fans.
(Added in June 2015) But such a work would had to be done by epic artists, not by video games fans. At which point some are unable to heed any criticism? (Added in May 2016:) Well, I still bought the film... just to realise that it was the first of a new trilogy. And Peter Jackson's dark Elfs did not enticed me to buy the two others. What I heard or saw on youtube no more.
Part 1: The Community of the Ring - Part 2: The Two Towers - Part 3: The Return of the King - The Hobbit
«The Silmarilion» and all the other books to really understand the magical world of the Middle Earth. For serious fans, also read: «The adventures of Tom Bombadil», «The Histories of Middle Earth», «The lost tales», which are drafts of the Silmarilion, difficult to read, often uncompleted or contradictory, but with sometimes more details.
To know more, see the Encyclopaedia of Arda (Elfic name of Middle Earth)...
And, did you knew, The Middle Earth, It was Europe in Ancient Times, before the upheavals at the end of the 4th age, which gave it its today aspect, where it lost nearby all its magic (nearby, heyhey!) So the regions of Harlingdon and Forlingdon (around the Grey Havens) seems to match with the today Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany... which could explain that there are still elfic words in Celtic languages, see peoples with elfic blood, and elfic voices such as Enya... The war of the Ring is due to have happened in 4000 BC, (with an uncertainty of some years) and, curiously, it is at that time that archaeologists place the beginning of our civilizations. Probably during the 4th Age the world was bent another time, as it already was at the time of the fall of Numenor, forbidding any access to any archaeological remnant of the first 4 ages. Tolkien himself stated that we probably entered the 7th Age in 1945, at the fall of the great enemy at that time. But, if we do no more meet the material appearance of sauron today, his spirit is still here, and his influence is still visible on weak minds who still try to grasp on the world to bring us all into darkness. I even see a kind of new ring, with 239 nucleons, you see what I mean, bringing incredible power and danger, indestructible except in the fire which created it...
Tell a new resource, a modification, an omission...
I indicate these resources for their interest, but without any waranty on their content that I do not control. (and which can be modified without my notice)
(January 1st 2013) I created these pages in the beginning of the Internet, when we had to «surf on the web» to find sites. Then came Google and others, which made this search miraculously simple. So, for ten years I did not really updated these pages... However, since some years, I note that relevant sites are less and less visible in these search engines, hidden by an increasing number of verbiage pages supported by powerful financial means. And surreptitiously, the vital network of links which formed «the web» has disappeared: we no more control Internet! So I say to everybody:
TO EXIST ON THE INTERNET, LINK AND BE LINKED!
Then I put these pages back in action.
Do not hesitate to create links toward these pages, or to tell me interesting links.