COMPASS & LOTR comparison

[Sauron the White]

davem... I appreciate your patience and response. You started this by referring to Shippey and his comments about the line from Galadriel. Where did he state this and when did he state this? I would very much like to read it to gain a bttter understanding of his point.

The real point is that whenever the writers left Tolkien's original storyline & invented new stuff, or gave characters new dialogue, those changes were in every instance changes for the worse

That is your opinion and you are entitled to it. However, I have read mny posts both here and on other sites which give many instances where the films improved upon some aspect of the books. You and I have been involved in such discussions so you must be aware of this.

You state this as if your opinion is some sort of undeniable fact chiseled into stone by the Almighty Himself. Others would and do disagree.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

davem... I appreciate your patience and response. You started this by referring to Shippey and his comments about the line from Galadriel. Where did he state this and when did he state this? I would very much like to read it to gain a bttter understanding of his point.

I pointed to Shippey's comments on Tolkien's use of archaic speech. It was in 'Tolkien: Author of the Century'. It was published before the movies, so doesn't refer to them at all. I was merely pointing up a very interesting discussion on the right use of archaic speech. Rosebury also makes interesting comments on the subject - but he does make reference to the movies (though not specifically to Galadriel's words.

[Sauron the White]

davem ... obviously this issue means something to you. I do not see it as any problem in any way which would hurt the average film viewer or prevent them from enjoying the films. Its much ado about nothing.. or next to nothing. In your original post you stated

Either Galadriel (in the movie) has been 'putting on' the archaic speech up to that point & suddenly begins to speak 'colloquially' - which calls into question her character (what game has she been playing up to then?), or her natural speech is archaic & she is patronising Frodo by attempting to speak on his level.

You use the word "patronising" which in and of itself is used by you because it has a definite negative meaning. It could just as easily be said that Galadriel is attempting to more clearly communicate to Frodo through use of a simple and direct statement. Is that not what every speaker attempts to do with those to whom they are speaking?

[Bêthberry]

I think it's wise to remember that some posters here hail from the land that still gives more than lip service to "The Queen's English," a land that is still riddled with class distinctions and rigid hierarchy, and a land that has a complex history of dialect and verbal eloquence layered upon those cultural and social assumptions.

Think in terms of Her Current Majesty, who not many years ago actually used a Latin term in her Christmas address to her subjects and that term was (apparently) well received. I can't recall that she has ever used Cockney slang in a public speech, though, or Mersyside lingo, or broad Yorkshire--at least in her speeches that are carried pondside, where I suppose Cockney, Mersy and Yorkshire wouldn't be understood.

What the state of The Queen's English is in Kiwiland I don't know but it's probably true that PJ and his writers share an assumption about art prevalent amongst post modernists and advertisers: that to make a mark one must transgress (slightly in the case of adverts), that is, slightly confound and distress taste in order to offend. Only when the audience is offended are they provoked enough, apparently, to have a satisfactory aesthetic experience.

It's an aesthetic theory roughly akin to--and this will undoubtedly offend PC standards--seriously developmentally delayed people who engage in repeated head banging in order to feel something. It is an art of violence and as such far and away different from Tolkien's aesthetic.

Under such conditions, nuances of language style, tone, subtlty are lost.

Lyra speaks with a definite kind of class language at times in Pullman-a form of language which Asriel and Coulter never utter. It's a Brit thing.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

You use the word "patronising" which in and of itself is used by you because it has a definite negative meaning. It could just as easily be said that Galadriel is attempting to more clearly communicate to Frodo through use of a simple and direct statement. Is that not what every speaker attempts to do with those to whom they are speaking?

Nope - it would be patronising because Frodo is not only highly educated, but is also an Elf-friend. The question is would someone whose natural mode of speech is:

'And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely! In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!'

suddenly slip into 'Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.'?

[Sauron the White]

Baloney. You chose the word purposely and deliberately as you do everything that you write. You are an intelligent, well read person and you know that words have power. To use a term such as "patronising" is a pejorative term that has immediate negative connotations. And I strongly suspect that you know that. The number of people who saw the film and care about your nitpicking is probably the same number you could have dance on the head of a pin. And just about as meaningful. I would bet that the vast, vast majority of film viewers see nothing wrong with the usage in the least. And until you brought it up here I had never heard of this point. And I have been haunting Middle-earth board for many years now. I really do not see anything here to make a big deal about. But then again, making mountains out of molehills is a big part of this place.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Oh, dear, Sauron, are you really so tone-deaf towards the nuances of language? I'm afraid you might be one of those whom the good Professor trmed 'misologists.'

Do you not appreciate that "No living man am I" and "I am no man" are *not* the same thing?

[Sauron the White]

You nitpickers must be correct because now that I recall, I distinctly remember scores, nay hundreds, collectively tens of thousands of people rushing from the theater holding their bloody ears crying "oh foul use of the Kings English". Or was it "the Kings English has been fouly used"? Something like that more or less.

I also distinctly remember nearly every other professional film critic who ignored almost every scene in the 3 hour film to harp paragraph after paragraph about this mortal sin of language usage.

And who can forget the night of the Academy Awards when the Writers Guild themselves picketed the proceedings complaining loudly to anyone that would hear about the butchering of proper English.

Yeah, I remember all that.

I guess it took you two chaps six years to remember it also.