The Hall of Fire

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. In the period leading up to the historic 2008 U.S. Presidential election, this small community generated a degree of discussion that was nothing short of extraordinary in both quantity and quality. We generated almost 12,500 posts on the subject, ...

At last, Karl Rove (and former White House Counsel and rejected Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers) will be testifying under oath before Congress about the U.S. attorney firings. The testimony will not be public, but it will be under oath and recorded in a transcript. Very good news for fans of jus...

I have a vague memory of PJ explaining why he didn't use the Mordor dark, perhaps in one of the commentaries, or one of the other DVD extras.

I more distinctly remember not being convinced at all by his explanation.

Yes, Grima killed (and possibly ate) poor Lotho. Of course, Boromir redeems himself before he dies. But he does die. I would dearly like to hear what Tolkien thought would have happened had Sam been nice to the poor Gollum. Given, again, that Gollum has already betrayed the hobbits to Shelob. But he...

I posted in an already existing thread in the Letters forum, here. I hope you will comment there.

I am revisiting this, because the subject came up in another thread. Specifically, the subject of Gollum's near repentance and Sam's role in foiling it. To repeat (quoting a greater length, to show the context), Tolkien wrote in Letter 246: Sam was cocksure, and deep down a little conceited; but his...

We may need a separate Shibboleth thread to discuss it, but I'm intensely interested to learn in what way you disagree with my (and, apparently, Tolkien's, since he agrees with me) evaluation of Sam's role in foiling Gollum's repentance, Frelga.

I'm very interested to hear whether people find the extensive tables to be a helpful and/or valuable resource. Post your thoughts specifically about the tables here in this thread.

Post your own review of the book, or about reviews that you have seen on or off line.

The Ghân-buri-Ghân?

Without a doubt, the most important book scene left out of the films was Gollum's near repentance at the stairs of Cirith Ungol, foiled by Sam's failure to recognize the change in him. That it was replaced with the horrible Lembas/Sam, go home scene just makes it worse.

Oh and one more: Gandalf reciting Faramir's words about Kings making tombs more splendid than the houses of the living, and childless lords sitting in aged halls, musing on heraldry, or in high, cold towers, asking questions of the stars, along with those wonderful shots of Minas Tirith. That was a ...

The worst offender, for me, is actually the RotK:EE! It just goes on too bloody long, and I don't think I like any of the additional scenes. Oh, apart from Merry offering his sword to Théoden. Obviously. All the rest -- meh. ;) My dear Di, I find it difficult to believe that you didn't like any of ...

Húrin, that's interesting. I don't remember whether I was ever suspicious of Sam, even briefly. Unfortunately, I really don't remember any of my initial impressions about the book (even though it wasn't quite as long ago when I first read it as it was for you; more like 35 years or a bit less).

I don't think that people who weren't familiar with the books were confused at all, generally speaking. It is only those who had preconceptions about what the story should be who were confused. Certainly, I have never seen a single review by a critic who pointed to that as an error, nor have I ever ...

It was Sunflower at TORN who spotted the quote, and posted it there, to give credit where credit is due.

It would be nice to have some real news, wouldn't it?

This is from a messageboard post fromt the webmaster of DeToroFilms.com, who apparently just returned from vacation: Most importantly - I traded a few emails with G over vacation. He is in New Zealand at the moment and working 24/7. He says he misses you all and says to expect "MASSIVE" (d...