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Welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and I'd
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like to invite you to enjoy the second part of my conversation with Professor Nick Grun.
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So let's talk about the actually film which I've only seen once and I saw it once when I was
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young, like at the time it came out. Yes. Obviously it has a limitation in that it finishes at the
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Battle of Helmstein. They were at money. But what did you think was the strength of that adaptation
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and possibly its weakness if you see that as well? Yeah, when I had the exact same
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experience of you as I saw it when it came out. I went with my school friends. I was bitterly
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disappointed. I was angry about it. I don't mind emitting it. And I didn't rewatch it for many years.
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In fact, there's anyone I began to teach. The Lord of the Ring is today that I thought that I
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it was the responsible thing to do to watch it again. In the meantime, one of my friends from
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school with whom I'd originally seen it was raving about it and saying, oh, it's way better
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than the Peter Jackson movies. Now you're quite right this time. It does finish in the middle.
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It didn't do too badly at the box office, but the backers didn't want to and to continue it.
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Again, we've got a radical filmmaker, another bad boy, if you like, with the film industry.
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Somebody, the Ralph Baxter was famous for Fritz the Cat, which is a sort of this sort of obscene
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cartoon about his sort of hippie lifestyle. So why choose somebody like that? Because they wanted
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to do something different. They didn't want to have a run of the mill Hollywood movie. They wanted
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this list to stand out. They also wanted to carry the audience with them, I think, from the six
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cities. People who had read Lord of the Rings mother, but maybe students and showed them that they
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could then go to the cinema and enjoy a reworked version of it. It doesn't all work. Some of it's
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terrible, but the mix between animation and live action is experimental. In that, I think it
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does reflect Tolkien's own attempts to experiment with different literary styles.
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The technique is called rotoscoping. You actually film live action with real actors,
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and then you superimpose onto that animated characters. He also degraded the film quite a lot
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by scratching it and adding different colors and so forth. A lot of it is quite disorientating
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for the flashing lights and rather hallucinatory scenes. I think at its best, it's flawed.
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It's certainly flawed, but I think it's got some interesting qualities. The most effective
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thing about it is its pace. Again, like the Bournemon film, you actually knew that you actually
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had to make people stay in this cinema. You had to tell the story so you had bang, bang, bang,
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and he got that absolutely right, I think. He got it so right that Peter Jackson uses a lot of his
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changes to the structure directly in the fellowship of the ring. For example, the hobbits are leaving
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in a shower at the same time that Gandalf is going to visit Saraman. That's pretty much seen
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for seeing the back she films and the Peter Jackson films. It's not like that in the book at all.
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We don't know what's happened to Gandalf. We don't find out until they get to Rivendale
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where he's been. But I'm not the first person to point this out by any means, but some of the
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most iconic scenes in Peter Jackson's film, such as the hobbits on the rose when the Black
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Rider comes, they hide under the roots of the tree, for example. That is taken directly from
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Bakshi. Bakshi realised it was no good just having the Black Riders in the background in a few
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mysterious sounds. He wanted to have this very threatening and unnerving almost confrontation
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between the hobbits and the Black Rider. It has shown that this was something very
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eerie and unfamiliar and dangerous, trespassing on the Shire and really get that sense of threat
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across much, much earlier than you necessarily get in the book. In that respect, I think it has
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qualities. To put it another way, the Peter Jackson films would not be the same without the
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Bakshi film. I think in the background material for those DVD sets, Peter Jackson says one
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particular shot he did on purpose to honour Bakshi, which is right at the beginning with the
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party where they're calling out the names of the hobbits and he says proud foot and somebody
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shouts proud feet and there's an image of a man of hobbits foot front with a quite an unusual
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camera angle, which apparently is from the cartoon. I don't remember that one, but I think Peter
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Jackson is being a little disingenuous because clearly the scene underneath the roof of the tree
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is taken straight from it. But I think if you can watch them side by side and you can see how
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consciously you're unconsciously, Peter Jackson is alluding to the Bakshi film. Any sense
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will filmmaker is going to watch the early adaptation, it's like any theatre director. Research
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is earlier productions of a play to see how people have solved certain problems.
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So the one other thing is that we talked about the BBC Radio version that also is directly
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as spied by the Ralf Bakshi version because they take the same actors. They were keen to certainly
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the actor who plays Golem, his name. Peter. I'll have to look at if I should have checked
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beforehand, but I mean he's one of the actors who, I mean it's a great cast for the BBC version.
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You've got Bill Nye in there, for example. William Nye, yeah, I took me long time
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putting him together with the Bill Nye that we all know. They certainly did carry through
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some of the same actors. So there is a clear connection going from Bakshi to the BBC version and
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then on to the Peter Jackson versions. Peter Woodthorpe. That's it, thank you to Google for
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providing me with that answer. So Peter Jackson, obviously everybody listening to this, I
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would think almost everybody will have watched it at some point. Huge achievement.
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It's amazing, it's an amazing achievement. Huge huge achievement. And I think it's reset a lot
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of people's mental furniture for what Middle-earth looks like, for better or for worse.
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Well I think the work that people like Alan Lee and John Howdyd is phenomenal.
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The visualisation and the detail, particularly in the Lord of the Rings films, actual tangible
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material physical quality is breathtaking. So when I criticise it, I usually think I'm criticising
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something which is like improving upon something good. So there'll be various choices I would have
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done differently. But that's totally with the, I don't underestimate the enormity of the task
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that they had. But there is a sort of connection between Bournemann, Bakshi and Peter Jackson.
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In there were both, all three of them are kind of slightly odd directors to choose.
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Yeah, yeah. Because Peter Jackson came from his sort of comedy horror.
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Yeah, sure. So what would you say where the,
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it says so much to say, but should we just pick a couple of things which you think are the
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areas which really worked in terms of giving us a 21st century version of Tolkien. These were,
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if people remember, these came out right at the beginning of the century. Yeah, yeah.
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They sort of set Tolkien up for this century. And what do you think is the room for improvement,
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the place you'd like to see reimagined or revisited if someone else takes on this task?
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Yeah, it's interesting. I'm going to be controversial and say that the, one of the things
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that Peter Jackson does very well, he makes changes that you don't notice. So those readers who might
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only have a passing familiarity with the book, they might have read it when they were younger,
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that they won't notice, for example, that the, the film begins, as it quite rightly should,
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I think we're making a film. It doesn't begin with a long expected party. It begins with the
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forcing of the rings and then the battle of the last alliance. And that's exactly how back
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she begins his film as well. So straight away, it gets you into an area of the plot that gives the
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viewer some ground on which they can stand. Otherwise, it would be rather, I think, impenetrable
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just to begin, I mean, hobbits with a party of somebody we'd never heard of before,
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and so forth. But more than that, the word so that Gennadryl speaks right at the beginning about
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the world is changing. She never says those words. They're said by tree bid at the end of the book.
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But Peter Jackson, the Philippa Bauernes front, Fran Walsh, his co-writers, were very good at
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recognising that you could use Tolkien's words in different contexts. And that's one of the great
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pleasures, I think, of going back to the book after becoming familiar with the films
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that you see the characters in a different light. When Grima Wormtong has that deeply unsettling
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attack on Owen, and he says that what have you been thinking during the night?
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A bit of watches of the night. A bit of watches of the night, thank you,
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yes, I should have marked it up on this. It's Gandalf who says that in sympathy in the book.
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It's not Grima Wormtong, who's saying it is a way of, it's a predatory way.
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So you realise that the language is in fact multifaceted, that these lines, these words can be
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understood in different ways. I think the Peter Jackson is very effective at doing that.
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There are lots of big changes. Again, you just don't notice unless you're following
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the films with the book. I think the thing that I was most disappointed by was there was no scaring
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of the shire, which I think is a crucial scene because it adds that bitterness to the triumph.
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I remember when I saw the fellowship of the ring, Frodo looks into the mirror of Galadriel,
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we've already discussed that, and he sees what looks like the scaring of the shire. I thought
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great, they're going to include that, that's very courageous, but of course they don't.
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On the other hand, Peter Jackson did step back from some of his more radical changes,
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and you can some of the scenes that he started shooting, but then deleted, included
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Harragorn having a duel with Sauron, which I think would have been a mistake.
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You know, Sauron has to remain remote after he's defeated when he first loses a ring.
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So I think all in all, it's a huge success, but I would have liked to have seen
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the scaring of the shire because it's, you end up with his very long farewell, and I know the
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book has several endings, but the film is just got this very long sequence of everybody
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saying goodbye and getting weepy. And that's also because, you know, us as viewers are saying goodbye,
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we've been, you know, when we first saw it, we've had to, you know, we've spent three years
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watching these, these, these movies. So it's partly reflecting the experience of the viewer in
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in quite an interesting way, I think, but I'd have liked to just had a little bit of the sort of
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bitterness at the end to, to go with that sort of sweetness that the Jackson wants to end with.
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Yes, I think perhaps that's why the next adaptations should be something like a TV series
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because they'd have the canvas to do that. And you could have its own
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couple of episodes, even if you're doing a multi-season thing. It would be interesting to see.
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For me, the key thing, I think the casting is very good.
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I don't like the choice of having Elijah Wood as Frodo, not because there's ain't wrong with
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Elijah Wood. It's just by choosing someone who's beautiful and very young, takes wrenches the
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character of Frodo, who is mature and has his own heroism and thoughts. And he's just more
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interesting in the book than he is in the film. And it does look odd, all these grown-ups sending
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this basically child soldier off the border. That's not how it feels when you're reading Frodo in
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the book. So I would have preferred or would like to see. I mean, it's fine, leave that adaptation,
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it's darn it's great, it's got lots going for it. But I would like to see a future adaptation,
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in which treats Frodo more like the sort of Martin Freeman age of actor.
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That's interesting, that's really interesting.
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Less of the Anginua broad feel to him, but someone who is
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part of, it would make his sort of collapse even more interesting, because that's how it sort of
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mentally collapses later. That's what I would like to see different. That's really interesting.
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See why they did it, because there's all sorts of, you don't want someone who conflicts with
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Aragorn being, you want to change, you know, I can see why they chose that, but for me I would
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much prefer to see Frodo as Frodo from the book. Okay, we're so much to say here, we haven't even touched
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on Hobbit, so Nick have at the Hobbit and tell me similar to what you've just said about Lord
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of the Rings, what you felt was right, what was wrong. Yeah, the Hobbits are very different
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beasts to the Lord of the Rings films, and Peter Jackson and his co-rights, I think I do
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being deliberately playful. I mean, obviously it's an extravagance to make a three-movie
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series out of a short children's book, and they have to invent a lot as well, and they
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play so much, not this time with the material props, which are such a strength of the Lord of the
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Rings, but there's so much that it's a computer-generated imagery, and so you get these stupendous scenes
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of the Smow's Horde, which is just tons and tons and tons of gold, which was sort of
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record-global economy, if it was ever let out and amounted, but I think that he's really wanting
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to show you things that you can't really imagine. He'd done that once before in the Lord of the
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Rings, and in fact, I was in two minds with it to go and sit when it I heard about it until I saw
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a South Bank show when they had some of the scenes from Ising Gods. I just thought this is amazing,
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this is a visualisation here, it's incredibly impressive, until of course I went to see it,
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it was pleased that I did. I think Peter Jackson is trying to do something similar, but at the next
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level in the Hobbit, so everything is sort of far bigger, there are many, there are thousands
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more in the arm, the whole thing is protracted, it's much sort of longer experience, and I think
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that's fine, I don't see a problem with that, that the movie's grossed almost as much as the Lord
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of the Rings ones did, so in financial terms there is success, how they aged it's well probably not,
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but I think they have enough sort of interest, and again, you can't really legislate and say to
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people, well you can't read the book until you've read the book, for example, so all of these
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adaptations are becoming part of an ever-growing Tolkien world, and viewers and readers will enter
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it at different different points, I think, because of the ubiquity, particularly of the Peter
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Jackson films, you really have to accept that they are part of this Tolkien multiverse now,
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and I mean I'm trying to look for the positive aspects, rather than the negative ones, because
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people do love them, my children, for example, really enjoy the Hobbit films, they're both
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read to Hobbit several times, but they like the imaginative playfulness, they also like the fact
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there's a very strong female character, so I think the introduction to Ariel is essential
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for a 21st century audience, but they did make the interesting decision to keep all of the dwarves
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as well, and try to give them different characters, some of them in the book aren't nearly so well
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well-developed, and they also do keep the darkness of characters getting slain at the end,
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which is of course what Simon C. S. Lewis said about it, it begins like a children's story and ends
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like a Norse saga, and that combination of different styles of different moods and tones,
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I think is something that Peter Jackson sort of succeeds in conveying.
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One of the things that I suggest to my book, the way that Tolkien wrote was very unplanned,
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it was very exploratory, and he was trying all sorts of different things, and he was adapting
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material to himself, and I think you're going to an element of that in the Peter Jackson films,
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as a sense that we're exploring, we're going through this world or this adventure with the
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characters rather than looking down at them. It's what Terry Pratchett said about Lord of the Rings,
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it's a new felt that you were, you know, living the book when he were reading it, and part of the
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reason for that is that sort of Tolkien didn't know where he was going with the book. There's a lovely
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letter when somebody asked him, there's obviously asked him how does a book going, and he says,
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well we're still in the shy, but these black lines have turned up, and I've got no idea where
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they've come from. He had a map, but he didn't have a plan, and so you get these radical changes of
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direction, the tree beard was originally going to be an evil character. Now you've seen an element
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of that in Old Man Willow, I think, and then the who-orners, but he's constantly changing his mind
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and adapting and sort of shifting his perspective, and I think that that quality of the book is
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something that you do get in the Peter Jackson films, where he's filming, you know, way more scenes
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and he has to with different inflections, and then he's putting it together in different ways.
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They are in different ways, because the theatre release is not only shorter obviously than the
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the DVD release, but he actually uses different takes of certain scenes to give a different
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character to the DVD release than he might see on the cinema release. So it's not simply adding
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scenes, it's actually using different versions of the same scenes. I've always felt that
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a couple of things that are problematic for me is he was using the revolutionary frame rate thing,
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which to my eye doesn't quite look right, because I've got a problem, my brain's got a problem with
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it. It feels particularly in the goblin caves. My eyes don't read it as real. That's my problem,
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maybe a modern generation brought up on video games would find that just fine, and your kids
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are very fine. But I also feel there were some really good changes, so I thought developing the
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politics of Lake Town, because the Bard has a purpose, a history, was really, that was a good change,
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but I felt the pacing was very wrong, and that you could probably take the material of the three
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films and make two really good films out of it, particularly the vastly overindulgent last battle.
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Yeah, the last battle is never ending. But he can let it go, and he also wanted to give it the
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sense of a battle he was using a handheld camera. He was doing a lot of the techniques that
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sort of CNN ball reports used to try to get that immediacy. But if it had been two movies,
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we'd all be saying, well, why isn't it three? I wouldn't. I want to have another movie of Lord
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with Rings, and I think that because there's hours and hours of footage for the Battle of Helm's
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Deep, and I think that maybe with the Battle of Five Armies, he was thinking, well, we've done one,
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extraordinary fantasy battle scene. Let's try and play it. You've got to chop it.
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Yeah. Yes. Okay, right, so Nick, if you still have time, I'd like to talk to you about rings
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of power, because you've updated your book to include it, because originally when it first came out,
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it was in advance of rings of power. And now you've got a new chapter looking at presumably just
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the first season, rather than the second, is that correct? That's correct. So it said a book when
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it was first published came out on the day that the rings of power was the first broadcast.
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Very good. Which made there's some comments on lines, and he said, what do they include rings of
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power? I said, we'll finish on the same day. But I thought that I owed it to
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talking readers and watchers of the movies to say something swiftly about rings of power.
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Incidentally, that extra chapter is available from the Tolkien society, so I didn't want
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people to have to buy the book twice. So if you remember the Tolkien society, you can get access
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to that material. But again, I wanted to see how rings of power followed on from the Peter Jackson
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films, because there are, again, there are clear references, and John Howe is being used to
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gain for the visual material. There was sort of Howard Shaw's theme music was used in part
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for it. And it seemed to be a return to that, to the material culture of the Lord of the Rings,
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using less CGI, and using more of the real sort of weapons and armor and building places like
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the Porterts in Numenor, for example. And I'd also like little details which show my fine
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fascinating, such as, I think I mentioned the fact that they had fish frying on the set of
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the Numenor. So the actually would just be sort of have this sort of atmosphere of being at the
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coast. Of course, you can't tell that when you're watching it. But I think that ambition is
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something which should be applauded really in trying to develop that sense of realism.
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I really enjoyed the rings of power. I think it was, I'm not going to give anything away to
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people who have not seen it, but I think that the the arc of season one was very, very effective
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and very unexpected. And I know that again, it's going to be a lot of material made up and added.
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But I think that it's actually knitting together in quite a nice way. I like the way they're combining
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the plot lies that they do have. There's also some fantastic acting, the casting is good,
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and again, there are strong female characters. But their flawed, you know,
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Galantriel is sort of like this with brilliance of psychotic warrior. But she's also got this
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towering sense of her own self-importance and independence. And I think that's to have these
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characters who are admirable and strong, but also tragically flawed, is, you know, it works very,
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very well. I also enjoyed it because it has a humanity to it again, and I've used that word before.
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I didn't like Game of Thrones. I found Game of Thrones to be, well, immoral, or amoral really,
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I should just be saying, brutal and necessarily violent. The rings of power doesn't have that.
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It's got a very different mood, a very different atmosphere. And to me, it's about the importance
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of collaboration, cooperation, communication. And I think it develops those themes in very positive
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ways. Yeah, I don't agree with you. Very few people do, in fact, I've been trolled online.
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I'm not trolling you. No, I know you're not trolling. No, I'll trod online, simply just saying
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that we should give rings of power a chance. I agree with you about the production values entirely
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and the casting. I think the problem in the first season, which they managed to correct to a certain
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extent in the second season, is that they had too many storylines which weren't connected.
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So what happens if you do that in a screenplay is that you find your, it happens in
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multi-point of you, big fantasy series like Wheel of Time. People like certain storylines
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and not others. And so they lose contact with some parts of the world, and it's not clear
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where everybody is. So if you think about Lord of the Rings, you've got a, somebody sets off,
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other people join them, you get to know them and then they split. It's quite, it's a complicated
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interlace structure, but it does have a thread. They were sort of trying to do that with Galadriel,
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but because her story doesn't connect to the stranger and the hobbits, and for a long, long,
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time, it doesn't connect with Bronwyn and the, the sort of Southern lands, that it feels,
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so it's falling apart. And the pacing was very strange in the first season because they suddenly
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make the rings in, all of a sudden, it's like, here they are, it's rings of power and here are
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the Elven rings. It was the very strange pacing, I thought. A lot of that I think was corrected in
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the second season, and I thought they kind of all my Shakespearean level of tension between
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Anatar and Kelebrimbaugh was wonderful, a sort of athelo-yago match-up. And I also, and getting
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some answers, was also pleasing because, you know, if we, if we, we've hold answers for too long,
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it's not fair on your watches. So, hopefully, I'm hoping that if they, the upward trajectory in
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learning the way to hold a story together will improve so that your season three is even better.
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I'm not worried about the liberties with the material so much because going back to our,
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these are adaptations, you know, fine. Okay, right, so I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm watching it
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and semi-enjoying it. So, you know, I'm sort of in the camp. I suppose I'm enjoying it from an
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point of view of trying to think of ways in which its sort of challenges are, you know, talking
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up to this point, and by talking up to this point, I mean, talking plus the history of middle
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earth plus the pedejaxon move is plus, you know, back she and everything. So, and I sort of,
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I sort of just see it as more parts of this ever-expanding jigsaw.
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Last piece of the jigsaw is, have you managed to catch up with War of the Rahiram and do you have
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youth? Yeah, I've only seen it once. I went with my wife, they had a very short run
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where we live as Macat Christmas, and I was in two miles, but I needed, I sort of, I owed it,
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you know, to my own, to research interests really, to go and see it. And I really enjoyed it.
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Again, I mean, I probably sound like an uncritical sort of moviegoer, but we both really enjoyed it.
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Again, the few more characters are very strong. Got no sense of humour. I think that's the big
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difference between the other, both the rings of power and the pedejaxon films, and also to an
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extended BBC radio adaptation. But I really liked about it. It's just absolutely full of references
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to the other adaptations. Really stuff with references going back to back she to the pedejaxon
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and also to the rings of power as well. And that's why you've filmmakers
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making those references and those connections. I thought it was really interesting. It's almost
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like a patchwork that gives the wrong impression. It's taking these motifs and using the motifs
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as part of the lexicon of making a film, I think. And I really enjoyed that. I thought it was
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very effective. I do need to see it again, though. Yeah, I thought it was a really good stab at a
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story. I actually would like to see a live action version of it, because I think a lot of the
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humour would come through with actor's performance, which doesn't, which an anime doesn't.
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My problem with the film was the cartooning, because anime doesn't cope well with horses, for
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example, the movement of horses. So it looked a bit strange and the way that Hilda would have a
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very white face all of a sudden in one frame. There was something strange about the colourisation
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of it as well. So I liked the story, but I would love to see it done with actors. So there you
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are, Peter Jackson. Next, I think what Disney does. It's a live action version.
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That's really a real action like Lion King. I think it's also an attempt to appeal to
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well the market here in Southeast Asia, really, which has a much richer tradition of those anime
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films. So I think it's exploring different representations in that way, but I have more
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anime films overall. Well, thank you. That's a lot of material to cover in the last 100 years.
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So I'm going to put you on the spot. If you're going to other islands and you can only take one
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adaptation with you, along with the novel, which one are you going to take?
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What a difficult question. You didn't tell me you were going to ask that. No, no, no, I sprung
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this one on you, because I've been thinking about it. It would be a toss up between the BBC Radio
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version and Peter Jackson and all the rings. I think I would probably take the BBC Radio version
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because I've, I think that the characterisation is such a strong cast and they do such a good job.
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And as you said earlier, the pictures are better when they're on the radio. So you do think about
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it in different ways, but it's not an easy choice. There is one adaptation which you probably
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haven't had a chance to see, which is the musical. It was originally on a jury lane and kind of
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bombed or didn't do very well, but it's been revived recently by the Watermill Theatre in Newbury,
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which I had the privilege of seeing. And you've seen it, are lucky. Yeah, because it's brilliant.
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And it's brilliant. And it's a cheat to take a whole cast with you to a desert island,
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because no longer is it desert. But what's so wonderful about that adaptation and I hope they
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continue to do it in small venues is, because I think that's why it fell to jury lane, is it feels like
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this is the hobbits telling the story to future generations. And it starts with like you as the
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audience become part of the party. And Bill Boe comes round saying hello to you. And they've got
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music and dance and great actors playing. It's just really really fun. Everyone plays musical instruments,
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carries musical instruments with them. But the choices in the second half where they've got to
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compress everything, what they do is they make Rohan and Gondor one place. And I love the idea
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that the hobbits, those places down south, you know, those places with kings, they make them all
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and off and off they go. And the story just sort of embraces that. And it's got a really rural,
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delightful atmosphere to it. So, possibly that's my favorite adaptation of all.
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Very interesting. Yes, I like it. But that's only available to those who can get to see it.
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I think they're putting it on in Chicago. Well, it's gone to America, but I fear it's lost its
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rural roots once it goes back into a large theatre. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll certainly go and see
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if I get the trunals. Yeah, what I did tell you we were going to do is to finish off. As I always
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asked my guests, where in all of the fantasy worlds you can go to Star Trek, Star Wars,
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secrets of Nim, I don't mind, you can go anywhere. Where would you like to be in lockdown? Because
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you started your life in Macau in lockdown, what fantasy world would you like to go into lockdown?
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Well, I've actually been thinking about this and I'm afraid that you'll never have heard of
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the place I'm going to say. No, it's exciting to hear her in new place.
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When I was, I mean, in the 1980s, so this is a bit before, obviously before the internet,
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it's when, you know, we played Dungeons and Dragons at school, very popular. And then I got into
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doing postal role-playing games. And there's a game run by somebody from Cornwall called Rob
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Knott. And he produced a fanzine called the Lankmaster Daily, which is named after a Fritz
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Lieber land. And he set his role-playing game within the environs of the Lankmaster Daily.
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And so basically, I remember one summer, you would sort of send pages and pages of what
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your character was going to do. And then you'd wait days or possibly weeks for Rob's response
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with a long-time written letter. And I found it completely immersive. I mean, it sounds very,
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very rudimentary compared with the computer games today. But it's because it was purely creative,
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purely imaginative. And it was really interacting with Rob running the game, and also with other
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characters as well, because you could write to them. So it's very old-fashioned technology of letter
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writing. But it meant that you were trying to express yourself and communicate. And really,
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enter another world. So that's a ball that I would like to be in if I was under lockdown.
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I should just add, as a footnote, I wouldn't want to be in middle earth, because it's too depressing,
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it's too dark, and everything's collapsing. I think what you have maybe think of is actually one
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place, which many people sort of went to, is like the world of Jumanji, so that you live digitally.
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During lockdown. So I was thinking, actually, that's not too bad, because you're not,
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you can physically be with other people in a digital world, but whilst you are sort of
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stuck at home, but yet it has a reality. So maybe that would be not a bad place. And I think
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many people kind of did go into a sort of Jumanji existence. I think you're right. I've been
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asked if we would start writing letters again, even if we did have to disinfect them.
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Yes. Oh gosh, those were the days. Let's hope that never comes back. So Nick, thank you so
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much for spending so much time with us, and it's been fascinating. And I look forward to hearing,
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yet more of your thoughts as we, I think we're going to hit a lot more talking adaptations
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as the years passed, particularly as he, some of the works edge out of copyright. That's going to be
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sting time. I don't know. I think the talking in state will keep a strict, um, life class 70, 2043
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is when it's going to hit. Yeah, we'll see. Not the Silmarillion, because that's sent us to a talking.
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But, uh, well, they also haven't told the rights of the Silmarillion. I mean, it'll be interesting
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out. I think that they're going to be quite carefully controlled. So I'm afraid it won't be in my
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lifetime. Well, we've got CS Lewis going up, copyright first. His, um, it'll be a test case.
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33, 23, yeah. But we've got a lot to look forward to. And I think, as I said,
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before that, um, you know, we, this is a metal that we have to grasp. I think that's, um,
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it's really untenable to be appears about, about Tolkien. We've got to see that there are
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different Tolkien's that are, you know, whether we're just going to look at the book or whether
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we're going to accept the adaptations, but you can't separate them anymore, really. You can see
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um, in the colonies, think of, um, Gandalf. I wonder whether he does any looks in the mirror,
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but also, you know, it's difficult to forget those characters, those actors when you're reading the book.
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So Nick, perhaps, can I invite you back once? We've had, um,
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Hunter Gollum, and we can have another bet. That'd be great fun. So thank you very much, Nick. Thank you for joining us.
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We've been lovely talking to you, Julie. Thank you so much.
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Thanks for listening to MythMakers Podcast.
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Welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding and I'd
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like to invite you to enjoy the second part of my conversation with Professor Nick Grun.
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So let's talk about the actually film which I've only seen once and I saw it once when I was
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young, like at the time it came out. Yes. Obviously it has a limitation in that it finishes at the
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Battle of Helmstein. They were at money. But what did you think was the strength of that adaptation
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and possibly its weakness if you see that as well? Yeah, when I had the exact same
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experience of you as I saw it when it came out. I went with my school friends. I was bitterly
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disappointed. I was angry about it. I don't mind emitting it. And I didn't rewatch it for many years.
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In fact, there's anyone I began to teach. The Lord of the Ring is today that I thought that I
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it was the responsible thing to do to watch it again. In the meantime, one of my friends from
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school with whom I'd originally seen it was raving about it and saying, oh, it's way better
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than the Peter Jackson movies. Now you're quite right this time. It does finish in the middle.
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It didn't do too badly at the box office, but the backers didn't want to and to continue it.
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Again, we've got a radical filmmaker, another bad boy, if you like, with the film industry.
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Somebody, the Ralph Baxter was famous for Fritz the Cat, which is a sort of this sort of obscene
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cartoon about his sort of hippie lifestyle. So why choose somebody like that? Because they wanted
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to do something different. They didn't want to have a run of the mill Hollywood movie. They wanted
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this list to stand out. They also wanted to carry the audience with them, I think, from the six
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cities. People who had read Lord of the Rings mother, but maybe students and showed them that they
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could then go to the cinema and enjoy a reworked version of it. It doesn't all work. Some of it's
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terrible, but the mix between animation and live action is experimental. In that, I think it
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does reflect Tolkien's own attempts to experiment with different literary styles.
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The technique is called rotoscoping. You actually film live action with real actors,
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and then you superimpose onto that animated characters. He also degraded the film quite a lot
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by scratching it and adding different colors and so forth. A lot of it is quite disorientating
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for the flashing lights and rather hallucinatory scenes. I think at its best, it's flawed.
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It's certainly flawed, but I think it's got some interesting qualities. The most effective
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thing about it is its pace. Again, like the Bournemon film, you actually knew that you actually
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had to make people stay in this cinema. You had to tell the story so you had bang, bang, bang,
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and he got that absolutely right, I think. He got it so right that Peter Jackson uses a lot of his
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changes to the structure directly in the fellowship of the ring. For example, the hobbits are leaving
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in a shower at the same time that Gandalf is going to visit Saraman. That's pretty much seen
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for seeing the back she films and the Peter Jackson films. It's not like that in the book at all.
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We don't know what's happened to Gandalf. We don't find out until they get to Rivendale
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where he's been. But I'm not the first person to point this out by any means, but some of the
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most iconic scenes in Peter Jackson's film, such as the hobbits on the rose when the Black
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Rider comes, they hide under the roots of the tree, for example. That is taken directly from
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Bakshi. Bakshi realised it was no good just having the Black Riders in the background in a few
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mysterious sounds. He wanted to have this very threatening and unnerving almost confrontation
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between the hobbits and the Black Rider. It has shown that this was something very
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eerie and unfamiliar and dangerous, trespassing on the Shire and really get that sense of threat
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across much, much earlier than you necessarily get in the book. In that respect, I think it has
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qualities. To put it another way, the Peter Jackson films would not be the same without the
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Bakshi film. I think in the background material for those DVD sets, Peter Jackson says one
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particular shot he did on purpose to honour Bakshi, which is right at the beginning with the
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party where they're calling out the names of the hobbits and he says proud foot and somebody
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shouts proud feet and there's an image of a man of hobbits foot front with a quite an unusual
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camera angle, which apparently is from the cartoon. I don't remember that one, but I think Peter
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Jackson is being a little disingenuous because clearly the scene underneath the roof of the tree
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is taken straight from it. But I think if you can watch them side by side and you can see how
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consciously you're unconsciously, Peter Jackson is alluding to the Bakshi film. Any sense
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will filmmaker is going to watch the early adaptation, it's like any theatre director. Research
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is earlier productions of a play to see how people have solved certain problems.
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So the one other thing is that we talked about the BBC Radio version that also is directly
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as spied by the Ralf Bakshi version because they take the same actors. They were keen to certainly
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the actor who plays Golem, his name. Peter. I'll have to look at if I should have checked
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beforehand, but I mean he's one of the actors who, I mean it's a great cast for the BBC version.
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You've got Bill Nye in there, for example. William Nye, yeah, I took me long time
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putting him together with the Bill Nye that we all know. They certainly did carry through
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some of the same actors. So there is a clear connection going from Bakshi to the BBC version and
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then on to the Peter Jackson versions. Peter Woodthorpe. That's it, thank you to Google for
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providing me with that answer. So Peter Jackson, obviously everybody listening to this, I
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would think almost everybody will have watched it at some point. Huge achievement.
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It's amazing, it's an amazing achievement. Huge huge achievement. And I think it's reset a lot
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of people's mental furniture for what Middle-earth looks like, for better or for worse.
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Well I think the work that people like Alan Lee and John Howdyd is phenomenal.
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The visualisation and the detail, particularly in the Lord of the Rings films, actual tangible
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material physical quality is breathtaking. So when I criticise it, I usually think I'm criticising
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something which is like improving upon something good. So there'll be various choices I would have
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done differently. But that's totally with the, I don't underestimate the enormity of the task
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that they had. But there is a sort of connection between Bournemann, Bakshi and Peter Jackson.
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In there were both, all three of them are kind of slightly odd directors to choose.
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Yeah, yeah. Because Peter Jackson came from his sort of comedy horror.
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Yeah, sure. So what would you say where the,
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it says so much to say, but should we just pick a couple of things which you think are the
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areas which really worked in terms of giving us a 21st century version of Tolkien. These were,
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if people remember, these came out right at the beginning of the century. Yeah, yeah.
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They sort of set Tolkien up for this century. And what do you think is the room for improvement,
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the place you'd like to see reimagined or revisited if someone else takes on this task?
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Yeah, it's interesting. I'm going to be controversial and say that the, one of the things
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that Peter Jackson does very well, he makes changes that you don't notice. So those readers who might
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only have a passing familiarity with the book, they might have read it when they were younger,
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that they won't notice, for example, that the, the film begins, as it quite rightly should,
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I think we're making a film. It doesn't begin with a long expected party. It begins with the
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forcing of the rings and then the battle of the last alliance. And that's exactly how back
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she begins his film as well. So straight away, it gets you into an area of the plot that gives the
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viewer some ground on which they can stand. Otherwise, it would be rather, I think, impenetrable
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just to begin, I mean, hobbits with a party of somebody we'd never heard of before,
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and so forth. But more than that, the word so that Gennadryl speaks right at the beginning about
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the world is changing. She never says those words. They're said by tree bid at the end of the book.
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But Peter Jackson, the Philippa Bauernes front, Fran Walsh, his co-writers, were very good at
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recognising that you could use Tolkien's words in different contexts. And that's one of the great
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pleasures, I think, of going back to the book after becoming familiar with the films
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that you see the characters in a different light. When Grima Wormtong has that deeply unsettling
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attack on Owen, and he says that what have you been thinking during the night?
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A bit of watches of the night. A bit of watches of the night, thank you,
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yes, I should have marked it up on this. It's Gandalf who says that in sympathy in the book.
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It's not Grima Wormtong, who's saying it is a way of, it's a predatory way.
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So you realise that the language is in fact multifaceted, that these lines, these words can be
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understood in different ways. I think the Peter Jackson is very effective at doing that.
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There are lots of big changes. Again, you just don't notice unless you're following
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the films with the book. I think the thing that I was most disappointed by was there was no scaring
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of the shire, which I think is a crucial scene because it adds that bitterness to the triumph.
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I remember when I saw the fellowship of the ring, Frodo looks into the mirror of Galadriel,
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we've already discussed that, and he sees what looks like the scaring of the shire. I thought
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great, they're going to include that, that's very courageous, but of course they don't.
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On the other hand, Peter Jackson did step back from some of his more radical changes,
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and you can some of the scenes that he started shooting, but then deleted, included
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Harragorn having a duel with Sauron, which I think would have been a mistake.
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You know, Sauron has to remain remote after he's defeated when he first loses a ring.
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So I think all in all, it's a huge success, but I would have liked to have seen
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the scaring of the shire because it's, you end up with his very long farewell, and I know the
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book has several endings, but the film is just got this very long sequence of everybody
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saying goodbye and getting weepy. And that's also because, you know, us as viewers are saying goodbye,
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we've been, you know, when we first saw it, we've had to, you know, we've spent three years
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watching these, these, these movies. So it's partly reflecting the experience of the viewer in
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in quite an interesting way, I think, but I'd have liked to just had a little bit of the sort of
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bitterness at the end to, to go with that sort of sweetness that the Jackson wants to end with.
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Yes, I think perhaps that's why the next adaptations should be something like a TV series
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because they'd have the canvas to do that. And you could have its own
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couple of episodes, even if you're doing a multi-season thing. It would be interesting to see.
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For me, the key thing, I think the casting is very good.
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I don't like the choice of having Elijah Wood as Frodo, not because there's ain't wrong with
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Elijah Wood. It's just by choosing someone who's beautiful and very young, takes wrenches the
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character of Frodo, who is mature and has his own heroism and thoughts. And he's just more
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interesting in the book than he is in the film. And it does look odd, all these grown-ups sending
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this basically child soldier off the border. That's not how it feels when you're reading Frodo in
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the book. So I would have preferred or would like to see. I mean, it's fine, leave that adaptation,
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it's darn it's great, it's got lots going for it. But I would like to see a future adaptation,
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in which treats Frodo more like the sort of Martin Freeman age of actor.
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That's interesting, that's really interesting.
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Less of the Anginua broad feel to him, but someone who is
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part of, it would make his sort of collapse even more interesting, because that's how it sort of
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mentally collapses later. That's what I would like to see different. That's really interesting.
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See why they did it, because there's all sorts of, you don't want someone who conflicts with
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Aragorn being, you want to change, you know, I can see why they chose that, but for me I would
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much prefer to see Frodo as Frodo from the book. Okay, we're so much to say here, we haven't even touched
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on Hobbit, so Nick have at the Hobbit and tell me similar to what you've just said about Lord
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of the Rings, what you felt was right, what was wrong. Yeah, the Hobbits are very different
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beasts to the Lord of the Rings films, and Peter Jackson and his co-rights, I think I do
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being deliberately playful. I mean, obviously it's an extravagance to make a three-movie
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series out of a short children's book, and they have to invent a lot as well, and they
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play so much, not this time with the material props, which are such a strength of the Lord of the
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Rings, but there's so much that it's a computer-generated imagery, and so you get these stupendous scenes
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of the Smow's Horde, which is just tons and tons and tons of gold, which was sort of
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record-global economy, if it was ever let out and amounted, but I think that he's really wanting
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to show you things that you can't really imagine. He'd done that once before in the Lord of the
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Rings, and in fact, I was in two minds with it to go and sit when it I heard about it until I saw
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a South Bank show when they had some of the scenes from Ising Gods. I just thought this is amazing,
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this is a visualisation here, it's incredibly impressive, until of course I went to see it,
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it was pleased that I did. I think Peter Jackson is trying to do something similar, but at the next
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level in the Hobbit, so everything is sort of far bigger, there are many, there are thousands
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more in the arm, the whole thing is protracted, it's much sort of longer experience, and I think
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that's fine, I don't see a problem with that, that the movie's grossed almost as much as the Lord
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of the Rings ones did, so in financial terms there is success, how they aged it's well probably not,
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but I think they have enough sort of interest, and again, you can't really legislate and say to
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people, well you can't read the book until you've read the book, for example, so all of these
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adaptations are becoming part of an ever-growing Tolkien world, and viewers and readers will enter
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it at different different points, I think, because of the ubiquity, particularly of the Peter
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Jackson films, you really have to accept that they are part of this Tolkien multiverse now,
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and I mean I'm trying to look for the positive aspects, rather than the negative ones, because
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people do love them, my children, for example, really enjoy the Hobbit films, they're both
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read to Hobbit several times, but they like the imaginative playfulness, they also like the fact
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there's a very strong female character, so I think the introduction to Ariel is essential
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for a 21st century audience, but they did make the interesting decision to keep all of the dwarves
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as well, and try to give them different characters, some of them in the book aren't nearly so well
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well-developed, and they also do keep the darkness of characters getting slain at the end,
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which is of course what Simon C. S. Lewis said about it, it begins like a children's story and ends
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like a Norse saga, and that combination of different styles of different moods and tones,
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I think is something that Peter Jackson sort of succeeds in conveying.
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One of the things that I suggest to my book, the way that Tolkien wrote was very unplanned,
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it was very exploratory, and he was trying all sorts of different things, and he was adapting
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material to himself, and I think you're going to an element of that in the Peter Jackson films,
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as a sense that we're exploring, we're going through this world or this adventure with the
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characters rather than looking down at them. It's what Terry Pratchett said about Lord of the Rings,
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it's a new felt that you were, you know, living the book when he were reading it, and part of the
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reason for that is that sort of Tolkien didn't know where he was going with the book. There's a lovely
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letter when somebody asked him, there's obviously asked him how does a book going, and he says,
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well we're still in the shy, but these black lines have turned up, and I've got no idea where
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they've come from. He had a map, but he didn't have a plan, and so you get these radical changes of
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direction, the tree beard was originally going to be an evil character. Now you've seen an element
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of that in Old Man Willow, I think, and then the who-orners, but he's constantly changing his mind
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and adapting and sort of shifting his perspective, and I think that that quality of the book is
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something that you do get in the Peter Jackson films, where he's filming, you know, way more scenes
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and he has to with different inflections, and then he's putting it together in different ways.
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They are in different ways, because the theatre release is not only shorter obviously than the
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the DVD release, but he actually uses different takes of certain scenes to give a different
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character to the DVD release than he might see on the cinema release. So it's not simply adding
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scenes, it's actually using different versions of the same scenes. I've always felt that
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a couple of things that are problematic for me is he was using the revolutionary frame rate thing,
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which to my eye doesn't quite look right, because I've got a problem, my brain's got a problem with
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it. It feels particularly in the goblin caves. My eyes don't read it as real. That's my problem,
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maybe a modern generation brought up on video games would find that just fine, and your kids
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are very fine. But I also feel there were some really good changes, so I thought developing the
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politics of Lake Town, because the Bard has a purpose, a history, was really, that was a good change,
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but I felt the pacing was very wrong, and that you could probably take the material of the three
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films and make two really good films out of it, particularly the vastly overindulgent last battle.
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Yeah, the last battle is never ending. But he can let it go, and he also wanted to give it the
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sense of a battle he was using a handheld camera. He was doing a lot of the techniques that
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sort of CNN ball reports used to try to get that immediacy. But if it had been two movies,
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we'd all be saying, well, why isn't it three? I wouldn't. I want to have another movie of Lord
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with Rings, and I think that because there's hours and hours of footage for the Battle of Helm's
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Deep, and I think that maybe with the Battle of Five Armies, he was thinking, well, we've done one,
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extraordinary fantasy battle scene. Let's try and play it. You've got to chop it.
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Yeah. Yes. Okay, right, so Nick, if you still have time, I'd like to talk to you about rings
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of power, because you've updated your book to include it, because originally when it first came out,
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it was in advance of rings of power. And now you've got a new chapter looking at presumably just
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the first season, rather than the second, is that correct? That's correct. So it said a book when
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it was first published came out on the day that the rings of power was the first broadcast.
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Very good. Which made there's some comments on lines, and he said, what do they include rings of
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power? I said, we'll finish on the same day. But I thought that I owed it to
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talking readers and watchers of the movies to say something swiftly about rings of power.
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Incidentally, that extra chapter is available from the Tolkien society, so I didn't want
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people to have to buy the book twice. So if you remember the Tolkien society, you can get access
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to that material. But again, I wanted to see how rings of power followed on from the Peter Jackson
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films, because there are, again, there are clear references, and John Howe is being used to
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gain for the visual material. There was sort of Howard Shaw's theme music was used in part
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for it. And it seemed to be a return to that, to the material culture of the Lord of the Rings,
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using less CGI, and using more of the real sort of weapons and armor and building places like
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the Porterts in Numenor, for example. And I'd also like little details which show my fine
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fascinating, such as, I think I mentioned the fact that they had fish frying on the set of
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the Numenor. So the actually would just be sort of have this sort of atmosphere of being at the
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coast. Of course, you can't tell that when you're watching it. But I think that ambition is
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something which should be applauded really in trying to develop that sense of realism.
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I really enjoyed the rings of power. I think it was, I'm not going to give anything away to
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people who have not seen it, but I think that the the arc of season one was very, very effective
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and very unexpected. And I know that again, it's going to be a lot of material made up and added.
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But I think that it's actually knitting together in quite a nice way. I like the way they're combining
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the plot lies that they do have. There's also some fantastic acting, the casting is good,
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and again, there are strong female characters. But their flawed, you know,
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Galantriel is sort of like this with brilliance of psychotic warrior. But she's also got this
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towering sense of her own self-importance and independence. And I think that's to have these
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characters who are admirable and strong, but also tragically flawed, is, you know, it works very,
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very well. I also enjoyed it because it has a humanity to it again, and I've used that word before.
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I didn't like Game of Thrones. I found Game of Thrones to be, well, immoral, or amoral really,
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I should just be saying, brutal and necessarily violent. The rings of power doesn't have that.
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It's got a very different mood, a very different atmosphere. And to me, it's about the importance
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of collaboration, cooperation, communication. And I think it develops those themes in very positive
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ways. Yeah, I don't agree with you. Very few people do, in fact, I've been trolled online.
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I'm not trolling you. No, I know you're not trolling. No, I'll trod online, simply just saying
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that we should give rings of power a chance. I agree with you about the production values entirely
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and the casting. I think the problem in the first season, which they managed to correct to a certain
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extent in the second season, is that they had too many storylines which weren't connected.
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So what happens if you do that in a screenplay is that you find your, it happens in
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multi-point of you, big fantasy series like Wheel of Time. People like certain storylines
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and not others. And so they lose contact with some parts of the world, and it's not clear
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where everybody is. So if you think about Lord of the Rings, you've got a, somebody sets off,
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other people join them, you get to know them and then they split. It's quite, it's a complicated
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interlace structure, but it does have a thread. They were sort of trying to do that with Galadriel,
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but because her story doesn't connect to the stranger and the hobbits, and for a long, long,
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time, it doesn't connect with Bronwyn and the, the sort of Southern lands, that it feels,
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so it's falling apart. And the pacing was very strange in the first season because they suddenly
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make the rings in, all of a sudden, it's like, here they are, it's rings of power and here are
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the Elven rings. It was the very strange pacing, I thought. A lot of that I think was corrected in
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the second season, and I thought they kind of all my Shakespearean level of tension between
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Anatar and Kelebrimbaugh was wonderful, a sort of athelo-yago match-up. And I also, and getting
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some answers, was also pleasing because, you know, if we, if we, we've hold answers for too long,
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it's not fair on your watches. So, hopefully, I'm hoping that if they, the upward trajectory in
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learning the way to hold a story together will improve so that your season three is even better.
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I'm not worried about the liberties with the material so much because going back to our,
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these are adaptations, you know, fine. Okay, right, so I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'm watching it
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and semi-enjoying it. So, you know, I'm sort of in the camp. I suppose I'm enjoying it from an
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point of view of trying to think of ways in which its sort of challenges are, you know, talking
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up to this point, and by talking up to this point, I mean, talking plus the history of middle
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earth plus the pedejaxon move is plus, you know, back she and everything. So, and I sort of,
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I sort of just see it as more parts of this ever-expanding jigsaw.
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Last piece of the jigsaw is, have you managed to catch up with War of the Rahiram and do you have
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youth? Yeah, I've only seen it once. I went with my wife, they had a very short run
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where we live as Macat Christmas, and I was in two miles, but I needed, I sort of, I owed it,
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you know, to my own, to research interests really, to go and see it. And I really enjoyed it.
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Again, I mean, I probably sound like an uncritical sort of moviegoer, but we both really enjoyed it.
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Again, the few more characters are very strong. Got no sense of humour. I think that's the big
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difference between the other, both the rings of power and the pedejaxon films, and also to an
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extended BBC radio adaptation. But I really liked about it. It's just absolutely full of references
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to the other adaptations. Really stuff with references going back to back she to the pedejaxon
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and also to the rings of power as well. And that's why you've filmmakers
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making those references and those connections. I thought it was really interesting. It's almost
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like a patchwork that gives the wrong impression. It's taking these motifs and using the motifs
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as part of the lexicon of making a film, I think. And I really enjoyed that. I thought it was
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very effective. I do need to see it again, though. Yeah, I thought it was a really good stab at a
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story. I actually would like to see a live action version of it, because I think a lot of the
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humour would come through with actor's performance, which doesn't, which an anime doesn't.
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My problem with the film was the cartooning, because anime doesn't cope well with horses, for
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example, the movement of horses. So it looked a bit strange and the way that Hilda would have a
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very white face all of a sudden in one frame. There was something strange about the colourisation
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of it as well. So I liked the story, but I would love to see it done with actors. So there you
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are, Peter Jackson. Next, I think what Disney does. It's a live action version.
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That's really a real action like Lion King. I think it's also an attempt to appeal to
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well the market here in Southeast Asia, really, which has a much richer tradition of those anime
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films. So I think it's exploring different representations in that way, but I have more
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anime films overall. Well, thank you. That's a lot of material to cover in the last 100 years.
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So I'm going to put you on the spot. If you're going to other islands and you can only take one
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adaptation with you, along with the novel, which one are you going to take?
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What a difficult question. You didn't tell me you were going to ask that. No, no, no, I sprung
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this one on you, because I've been thinking about it. It would be a toss up between the BBC Radio
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version and Peter Jackson and all the rings. I think I would probably take the BBC Radio version
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because I've, I think that the characterisation is such a strong cast and they do such a good job.
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And as you said earlier, the pictures are better when they're on the radio. So you do think about
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it in different ways, but it's not an easy choice. There is one adaptation which you probably
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haven't had a chance to see, which is the musical. It was originally on a jury lane and kind of
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bombed or didn't do very well, but it's been revived recently by the Watermill Theatre in Newbury,
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which I had the privilege of seeing. And you've seen it, are lucky. Yeah, because it's brilliant.
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And it's brilliant. And it's a cheat to take a whole cast with you to a desert island,
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because no longer is it desert. But what's so wonderful about that adaptation and I hope they
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continue to do it in small venues is, because I think that's why it fell to jury lane, is it feels like
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this is the hobbits telling the story to future generations. And it starts with like you as the
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audience become part of the party. And Bill Boe comes round saying hello to you. And they've got
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music and dance and great actors playing. It's just really really fun. Everyone plays musical instruments,
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carries musical instruments with them. But the choices in the second half where they've got to
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compress everything, what they do is they make Rohan and Gondor one place. And I love the idea
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that the hobbits, those places down south, you know, those places with kings, they make them all
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and off and off they go. And the story just sort of embraces that. And it's got a really rural,
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delightful atmosphere to it. So, possibly that's my favorite adaptation of all.
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Very interesting. Yes, I like it. But that's only available to those who can get to see it.
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I think they're putting it on in Chicago. Well, it's gone to America, but I fear it's lost its
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rural roots once it goes back into a large theatre. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll certainly go and see
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if I get the trunals. Yeah, what I did tell you we were going to do is to finish off. As I always
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asked my guests, where in all of the fantasy worlds you can go to Star Trek, Star Wars,
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secrets of Nim, I don't mind, you can go anywhere. Where would you like to be in lockdown? Because
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you started your life in Macau in lockdown, what fantasy world would you like to go into lockdown?
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Well, I've actually been thinking about this and I'm afraid that you'll never have heard of
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the place I'm going to say. No, it's exciting to hear her in new place.
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When I was, I mean, in the 1980s, so this is a bit before, obviously before the internet,
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it's when, you know, we played Dungeons and Dragons at school, very popular. And then I got into
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doing postal role-playing games. And there's a game run by somebody from Cornwall called Rob
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Knott. And he produced a fanzine called the Lankmaster Daily, which is named after a Fritz
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Lieber land. And he set his role-playing game within the environs of the Lankmaster Daily.
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And so basically, I remember one summer, you would sort of send pages and pages of what
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your character was going to do. And then you'd wait days or possibly weeks for Rob's response
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with a long-time written letter. And I found it completely immersive. I mean, it sounds very,
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very rudimentary compared with the computer games today. But it's because it was purely creative,
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purely imaginative. And it was really interacting with Rob running the game, and also with other
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characters as well, because you could write to them. So it's very old-fashioned technology of letter
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writing. But it meant that you were trying to express yourself and communicate. And really,
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enter another world. So that's a ball that I would like to be in if I was under lockdown.
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I should just add, as a footnote, I wouldn't want to be in middle earth, because it's too depressing,
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it's too dark, and everything's collapsing. I think what you have maybe think of is actually one
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place, which many people sort of went to, is like the world of Jumanji, so that you live digitally.
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During lockdown. So I was thinking, actually, that's not too bad, because you're not,
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you can physically be with other people in a digital world, but whilst you are sort of
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stuck at home, but yet it has a reality. So maybe that would be not a bad place. And I think
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many people kind of did go into a sort of Jumanji existence. I think you're right. I've been
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asked if we would start writing letters again, even if we did have to disinfect them.
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Yes. Oh gosh, those were the days. Let's hope that never comes back. So Nick, thank you so
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much for spending so much time with us, and it's been fascinating. And I look forward to hearing,
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yet more of your thoughts as we, I think we're going to hit a lot more talking adaptations
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as the years passed, particularly as he, some of the works edge out of copyright. That's going to be
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sting time. I don't know. I think the talking in state will keep a strict, um, life class 70, 2043
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is when it's going to hit. Yeah, we'll see. Not the Silmarillion, because that's sent us to a talking.
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But, uh, well, they also haven't told the rights of the Silmarillion. I mean, it'll be interesting
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out. I think that they're going to be quite carefully controlled. So I'm afraid it won't be in my
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lifetime. Well, we've got CS Lewis going up, copyright first. His, um, it'll be a test case.
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33, 23, yeah. But we've got a lot to look forward to. And I think, as I said,
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before that, um, you know, we, this is a metal that we have to grasp. I think that's, um,
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it's really untenable to be appears about, about Tolkien. We've got to see that there are
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different Tolkien's that are, you know, whether we're just going to look at the book or whether
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we're going to accept the adaptations, but you can't separate them anymore, really. You can see
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um, in the colonies, think of, um, Gandalf. I wonder whether he does any looks in the mirror,
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but also, you know, it's difficult to forget those characters, those actors when you're reading the book.
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So Nick, perhaps, can I invite you back once? We've had, um,
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Hunter Gollum, and we can have another bet. That'd be great fun. So thank you very much, Nick. Thank you for joining us.
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We've been lovely talking to you, Julie. Thank you so much.
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Thanks for listening to MythMakers Podcast.
