The National Geographical documentary on Lord of the Rings

[Knight of Gondor]

Greetings. Suilannad. (You Elvish experts out there, I THINK that’s right)<P>Well, I finally got the Lord of the Rings extended edition gift set about a week or so ago. The platinum rig, with all the bells and whistles! The Argonath bookends, booklets; and the National Geographic Special on the Lord of the Rings movie. <P>I’d heard a fair amount about this documentary before I saw it—mainly reviews on Amazon.com. Everyone said it was gross, and had all sorts of gross distortions about Tolkien’s life (or merely voids in his past, such as never mentioning the fact that he was a Christian), and saying that Frodo’s quest was comparable to some conservationist hiking across African jungle to prove a point, and to save the rain forest from being cut down.<P>Well, as it turns out, most of this is right. The only reason you would want to buy this (And preferably you’d buy the DVD) is for some film footage, and snippets from some cast interviews, which could very well be included in the behind-the-scenes stuff on the movie DVDs. At one point, they show a film clip of the Fellowship beginning to kick some orc-rear in Moria, and right after the cave-troll takes a whack at Sam, we cut to images of tanks, and railroads, and industrial machinery, as the narrator talks of Tolkien’s experiences with war, and how industrial progress was portrayed in the novels as the Dark Lord Sauron. There are several other times where the documentary infers this. <P>Towards the end, they discuss the language that Tolkien based Elvish upon, the language of the Kalevanas, and National Geographic just can’t help veering 180 degrees away from Lord of the Rings to discuss the failing culture there, a failed attempt to compare the peoples of then to the peoples of Middle-Earth.<P>So, overall, I’d say that this isn’t worth buying, unless it’s included in a package like the extended edition gift set. <P>To their credit, on the DVD, there’s some extra material regarding the Inklings, the writers’ group Tolkien was a member of. It mentions Tolkien’s CHRISTIANITY, and his friendship with C.S. Lewis. Here you can find some valuable information about the two, and the group itself. Otherwise, save a buck, buy a TTT ticket.<P>What are ya’ll’s thoughts?

[Morquesse]

"Ya'll's"? Sounds like my mom! (she grew up in Arkansas)<BR>Anyway, I agree the majority of the National Geographic making of movie is a bit greeney. But it did provide some info on the Anglo-Saxins (which you probably could find in history books if you really looked no doubt) but it was new to me.<BR>One mistake they made, was that they said Tolkien 'began writing the Lord of the Rings when he was in the trenches,' according to his biography, he wrote the Silmarillion in the trenches (then known as the Book of Lost Tales) and began LotR in the forties.<BR>I have learned something from all of the interviews and making of's and Tolkien's movie biographies; the makers of LotR are patting themselves on the back and each other's back. They mention a problem they had, and how they fixed it brilliantly.<BR>Conclusion: There IS a bit of info I did not know before, but it's your choice wither or not to get it.<BR>See ya,<BR>~M<p>[ December 15, 2002: Message edited by: Morquesse ]

[mithuel]

KoG, I have to say that all those criticisms you make about the NG documentary have me intrigued. They sound really interesting; I shall have to watch it.<BR>But then I am a greenie, and that's one of the reasons why I like Tolkien...

[Bill Ferny]

Knight, I have to agree.<P>I watched the NG documentary a long time ago, buying it well before the release of the Special Edition. After comparing the special with information from various web-sites you will see that the documentary’s outline of Tolkien’s life was accurate, but abridged and edited according the producer’s theme. Biography, after all, is a matter of interpretation on the part of the biographer, and is as much about the biographer as it is about the subject.<P>It is obvious that the special attempted an over all theme, and that theme being the preservation of what I would interpret as “folk life” (rather than “greeniness&#8221 versus the encroachment of industry and war. In relation to the theme the whole bit about Finland fit well, as did the visions of industry on the horizon of Tolkien’s boyhood home. As for the bit at the end, I think there is an equally legitimate parallel presented by the makers of South Park (in other words, it was contrived).<P>This theme did risk the loss of other important integers central to the work of Tolkien, for example, his Catholicism (completely absent from the documentary, if I’m not mistaken), his Edwardian upbringing, his utter devotion to his wife and children, or his other works of fiction. Even though the special gave a nod to his devotion to scholarly pursuits, I suspect that this was done in order to give the special more credibility, and not done as an attempt to inform us about Tolkien. For Pete’s sake, Tolkien was a professor of languages at Oxford University! Isn’t it obvious that he would be interested in scholarly pursuits? On this score, the NG documentary is open to much negative criticism.<P>If it had been presented in a well rounded manner, there would have been nothing wrong about the documentary’s emphasis. To a great degree Tolkien was affected by the vision of his pastoral boyhood home, and the stark realities of the industrial age. To think he was unaffected by this would be folly, especially since it didn’t take a NG special to realize the parallel at work long before there was even mention of a movie. Likewise can be said about Tolkien’s experiences during WWI, a particularly brutal and mindless war that proved more foolish in the established peace than it did when being fought. Would I go so far as to say that LotR is an allegory of the horrors of war? No, but certain parts of the documentary seemed to be saying that. Certainly, though, the experience of war, especially such a stupid war, couldn’t help but have an impact on Tolkien. For example, we see the Battle of the Last Alliance ending in ultimate failure because of the short sightedness of the victor, and thus ensuring a future struggle. While not being allegory, its more than possible that the reality of WWI found its place unconsciously in Middle Earth. In both cases, however, I wonder if Tolkien would consider these the main catalysts of his work, or even slightly significant in comparison to his Catholicism or family, to name but two examples? Of course, a positive example of either of these things is well outside of NG’s domain of expertise.<P>The loss of tradition, of “folk ways”, was something that spurred Tolkien to write, to create a mythology that he saw as lost to his beloved England with the Norman invasion. So, in a way the bit about Finland is completely legitimate as a modern counterpart to what happened in England in the years following 1066, and Tolkien’s use of the Kalevala is a good excuse to draw the parallel. The problem with this is that the history of Finland is very different from the history of England, and the forces at work in modern day Finland are very different than the forces of Norman feudalism at work in the 12th century.<P>The special simply accepted Tolkien’s view on this matter without question, anyway, despite the fact that such a view is ripe with romanticism. I wonder if they would afford the same luxury to, say, a pope or a conservative talk show host? At least us Tolkien fans can rest assured that NG rates Tolkien up there with Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter in the unquestioned acceptance category. A better way to go would have been to challenge Tolkien’s view, to see if he and his kind were ultimately wrong about that pre-Norman tradition being distinctively “English” or being completely subsumed by another culture. However interesting as this may have been, NG, staying true to form, avoided a real issue and opted instead for their usual agenda.<P>This brings me to the documentary’s presentation of the Sutton Hoo find, one of its few redeeming characteristics, at least in regard to content. But they seemed to have missed the mark in applicability. At the time of the find, Tolkien had already written most the material that would be in the Silm and The Hobbit, so the find would actually have played very little in the formulation of Tolkien’s mythology. Once again the documentary missed an opportunity when it failed to ask how much of the Sutton Hoo find indicates an eclectic Saxon culture, as opposed to the homogenous, romantic view held by Tolkien.<P>All in all, I don’t think that a DVD that I paid $15 for a few months ago was worth the extra $30 tacked onto the extended collectors edition set, especially since that DVD isn’t even worth a buck.<p>[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Ferny ]

[Kalimac]

Bill Ferny, you took the words out of my mouth and furthermore said it about a hundred times better than I could have [Hands Bill a virtual apple in appreciation]. In terms of "greeniness" I'm not really tremendously into it or against it, but I have to say that when you can tell what conclusions the special will draw after 10 minutes of watching, well, we've got a bit of a problem. And while it's doubtless true that seeing the brutal form industrialization took in WWI influenced Tolkien heavily (whether he was consciously thinking of it while writing LOTR is another matter), leaving out his Catholicism was just stupid; though there is no specific religion mentioned in the books, they are heavily infused with a very religious sense of things. (The scenes where Sam and Frodo are trekking across Mordor - yes, Mordor has been blasted by Sauron and his unnatural creations, but what gets Sam and Frodo THROUGH? Faith and hope, that's what). And as you say Bill, at least we can be assured that Tolkien has been enshrined in the same pantheon as Annan and Carter. I wonder what JRRT would have thought of that? (Ignore that rolling sound in his grave, please).