How long will LOTR be? what would you like...

The movie´ll need a comic relif, but it could be achieved following the books way: sharing out the comic lines between different characters: Pippin, Merry, Sam, Barlyman, Treebeard... and also Gimli. Gimli has some funny lines in the books but he has also a number of the best treasures of LOTR, IMHO. Anyway, i admit it´d be a valid resource if Jackson decide to make a comic Gimli. No problem. My point was only that i think (in spite of Eruve´s comments) that a comic Gimli will change the way for aproaching to this character for new generations. Eruve: my personal experience about the cartoons. I have seen no Tolkien based cartoon. I havev read no Tolkien based comic. Not that i´m against them, but i haven´t had the chance (and i havent look for that chance). Well, to the point: past december 31 i saw 5 minutes of the cartoon at TV and i recall that Legolas had pointed ears! I have never thought that elves could have pointed ears (that´s why i began that thread). I think all of you have seen the comics or the cartoons, and obviously they have influenced you. Better? Worse? I don´t know. But cartoons have altered LOTR in some points for those who have seen them.

Say what you will, I am not one who wants to see the great works of Tolkien changed. Sure, I realize it is impossible to convert them to the screen perfectly, but I personally want a movie that will be a good companion to the book, a visualization of the story. I don't want a different version. Tolkien is a genious, and the story he wrote is perfect. Minor changes are necessary for the making of a movie, but I really think that making unnecessary changes is just wrong. That's my two cents.

I'm with you, Tater!

Minor nit: ALL of Tolkien's races come from the east. That's all I want to say on the subject of WASPs. As for humor, I think Boromir has the best line in the book. Can anyone guess what I'm referring to? It's a bit condescending, but I think it shows Boromir can appreciate the irony in a very dangerous situation. It gives him a little depth.

OK, I'll give it a go... Is it where the Fellowship is trying to find the West Gate of Moria, while escaping from Wargs, and Boromir says, "I do not know which to hope, that Gandalf will find what he seeks, or that coming to the cliff we shall find the gates lost forever."?

yes, i thought also in that quote. Last time i read it i was surprised by that comment, but it seemed for me more sarcastic than humorous.

Yeah, I don't consider that quote all that humourous, either, but it was all I could find without rereading BookII in its entirely. Aren't I sad that I even had to skim through just to find that???

i went directly cuz i had read it recently, but you were faster posting.

Sorry, but that's not the quote. Think of when they are carrying the boats past the rapids at Sarn Gebir in "The Great River".

... I always thought Tolkien gave a germanic nobility to the Elves... Which could bring us to the subject of racism: who are those elephant-riding people in TheReturnofTHeKing? African-like? That is a recurrent subject, wheter one agrees or not, and I wonder how they will be depicted in the movie...

"We need sleep, and even if Agagorn had a mind to pass the Gates if Argonath by night, we are all too tired-except, no doubt, our sturdy dwarf." Is this the quote you are refering to MM?

aah, that´s better... BTW, have any of you checked the poll at TOR.N. It´s about the best comic relief character in LOTR. I found very weird the results, but that´s how people see it...

Anduin, yes, that was the quote. Boromir was poking fun at Gimli, who had been bragging earlier about how the Dwarves were so tough, and Gimli was nodding off as Boromir spoke. I've always loved that line, though it is a bit mean.

Juntel, the elephant riders are actually modelled after either the warriors of ancient India or the Carthaginians (who would be semites). Alexander introduced elephant warfare to the Mediterranean world after he encountered elephants with armies furher east in Asia, and elephant warfare spread throughout the Middle East and north Africa. So it was never associated with Black Africans. It was really a Greco-Macedonian-Indian practice. Tolkien was by no means racist. He was simply portraying a war between many peoples, and not all the people on the "good" side are white, nor all the people on the "bad" side dark.

Thanks for clearing that up for me Michael; next time I'll have a copy of LotR in my hands I'll look at that passage and think of Hannibal! (I had forgotten about him)

I feel the word 'racist' would be strong, and what I was articulating had more to do with the "unsalvation" of the non-Elf-friends than any skin color. Without being ""racist"", there was still a high-minded favoritism to the West because of their relations with the Elves and Valar. I challenge anyone, Martinez included , to vouch that Tolkien could have sociologically placed Aman in the East WITH the same original conceptions (as in BOLT II) that England had at one time been Tol Eressae. (Obviously the geography majors will step forth and say that that would make no thematic sense, but my challenge is on the sociologic aspect.) I'm also trying not to alienate anyone. But I disagree with sterilizing history, and perpetrations are no anthem in case some genius thinks to essay that. That Tolkien did not have a racial agenda is obvious; that he did not have a religious agenda is obvious, but does Everyone agree that his work, his private world until brought to light, was utterly devoid of racial underpinnings? Do your worst Martinez!

To my knowledge all cosmogonies are written from an ethnocentric point of vue. So when Tolkien built his world, did he build it from an omniscient point of vue, or did he try to include the usual subjective veil of some "guardians of the tribe's history"? E.g. when we read The Silmarillion, should we think this book as the "word of god", or a very old and therefore degraded story of the glory of what was? In this case, racial underpinnings, ethnocentrism (..cism? cisism? bah, wtf!) might not be a mere accident, but a litteral necessity (adding "credibility").

Isn't this what a large part of the books are about? I mean, the whole Gimli/Legolas thing is about overcoming racial and cultural background to achieve friendship. And Arwen and Aragorn! The fact that all the "free peoples" participate in the war gives it a strong feeling of interracial awareness and respect to me. Though I've always felt sorry for the orcs. If they were raised and taught to be civilized, couldn't they be basically like anyone else--aside from extreme ugliness? I know Morgoth twisted their minds and bodies, but could he twist their spirits? Well, I'm sure all you experts have an answer to that one.

No experts here. Just adamant aficionados.

Some of you may hate me for saying this, but I believe that all of us have prejudices and stereotypes, especially when it comes to race. Tolkien was in no way perfect, no one is. I don't have my books near by, but I do remember a passage where dark skinned men were seen doing slave labour for Sauron. Tolkien grew up in a society that had treated blacks as inferior for many years, it would not make sense if he did not have these stereotypes.