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Two Tolkien biopics in the works: "Middle-earth" and "Tolkien"


Bilbo

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/12/2019 at 11:00 PM, KK said:

The fantasy sequences don't look great. Curious to hear what the Newman score will sound like.

 

 

Have you seen George Lucas in Love? Easily found on YouTube. That’s what the trailer reminded me of. 

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I'm tempted to post this on the main board, because I think it's of interest to people like me who usually don't venture into this sub forum, but I guess it would just end up being merged here anyway.

 

Full trailer:

 

 

Looks somewhat bland, not so much the concept but the execution, but that might just as well be only the trailer's fault. I certainly don't mind the imagery of WW1 and other events being obvious parallels to Tolkien's writing, as that seems to be pretty accurate. Shame Colm Meaney doesn't show up in the trailer, but at least Derek Jacobi does.

 

I rather feel George Fenton should have scored this one.

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Go ahead and post it to the Upcoming Films thread in General Discussion, too!  I won't move it anywhere!

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5 hours ago, KK said:

I'd be more on board if it weren't for the awful looking fantasy sequences.

 

Yeah the “George Lucas in Love” bits are the worst. 

 

Aside from that I think it looks like it’ll be ok. 

 

Just read Carpenter Andy Garth and you’ll be grand anyway. 

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This trailer is filled with all the sappy inspirational lines ever written, so much so that it's distracting to me! 

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On 3/14/2019 at 9:41 AM, Stefancos said:

Who are the two horsemen? Any speculation?

That is of course Théoden on the right and the Haradrim cavalry commander on the left whom the king hews down along with his serpent banner in the battle of the Pelennor Fields. Because all of Tolkien's ideas came from WWI, obviously. Honestly I have no idea what those two horsemen are. Forces of good and evil?

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2 hours ago, Incanus said:

That is of course Théoden on the right and the Haradrim cavalry commander on the left whom the king hews down along with his serpent banner in the battle of the Pelennor Fields. Because all of Tolkien's ideas came from WWI, obviously. Honestly I have no idea what those two horsemen are. Forces of good and evil?

 

Well if Incanus doesnt know...

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  • 1 month later...
19 hours ago, Bilbo said:

Well at least someone is doing something to protect the Tolkien name and honor!

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People should just read John Garth’s excellent biography on Tolkien and the Great War.

 

 

(I’ll still probably see this film though)

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  • 2 weeks later...

First review I've seen of the film.  It gets a 'C' for being boring.

 

But, I guess it might not be actively besmirching the good name of Tolkien.

 

Quote

But there are worse things for a Tolkien biopic to be, especially one that displays genuine interest in the nerdy esoterica that inspired its subject. Should the author’s son happen to catch this on the telly one day, he might be surprised to find that it’s something of an antidote to the way his father’s essence has been flattened by the ravenous amnesia of modern content. While it still dilutes Tolkien’s memory by molding his life to the narrow dimensions of a middle-brow feature that’s too safe for the arthouse and too small for the multiplex, at least it does so in a sincere attempt to trace the etymology of Tolkien’s work, and to emphasize that where stories come from can be as meaningful as where they take us.

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/05/tolkien-review-nicholas-hoult-1202130462/

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From what I’ve seen of reviews it seems it’s a solid 3/5. Worth a watch but will be largely forgotten by the masses.

 

 

I’m seeing it tonight anyway!

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6 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

First review I've seen of the film.  It gets a 'C' for being boring.

 

It never seemed a particularly eventful, stirring motion picture.

 

Who goes into a biopic of an Oxford don thinking its going to be exciting?

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Tolkien is a solid 3/5. Fairly unremarkable as a film but enjoyable if your a fan. Two leads are very good. It’s respectful and pretty accurate. It had the potential to be awful but thankfully it isn’t! 

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They’re largely confined to the trenches and they’re not as frequent or as cheesy as I feared. There’s a cool one where Sauron is formed from clouds and stuff. 

 

I guess theyre not as heavy handed as the could have been. 

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On 5/4/2019 at 1:22 AM, Bilbo said:

Tolkien is a solid 3/5. Fairly unremarkable as a film but enjoyable if your a fan. Two leads are very good. It’s respectful and pretty accurate. It had the potential to be awful but thankfully it isn’t! 

Well perhaps I will see this one then. Finnish media is drumming up this movie a lot with quite good reviews. The fact that the director is Finnish might have something to do with it. ;) 

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It’s not awful and it’s not brilliant. It’s not a bad trip to the cinema though. 

 

TBH it just could have been way way way worse 😂

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  • 3 weeks later...

Who knew?! Tolkien is a good movie!

 

I liked all the relationships (these being Tolkien and his friends, and Tolkien and Edith) and they all had their ups-and-downs. Tolkien is - as the etymology of his name later in the film reveals - a bit foolhardy and even a tad possessive of Edith, so this biopic isn't one to place its main character on a pedestal.

 

The references to his works are almost shockingly few and far in between, and are for the most part really not that blatant.

 

Struggles to fill its 100 minutes, though. Its trying for a grander scale in the climactic 20-minutes or so, but its not quite "there", as it were. Still, a good watch.

 

3.5/5.

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It does feature father Francis, so there’s that, and Francis says of Edith: “she’s not even catholic.”

 

For what it’s worth, I liked that even though he became a professor and a Commander of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, that the young Tolkien and his friends had their moments of crass humour, of checking out women’s physical attributes and even looking at nude paintings. Offscreen, Tolkien joins Edith in throwing sugar cubes at the hats of the diners in a particularly-posh place, for which they get thrown out. He and Edith sneak into the backstage of a performance of The Ring Cycle.

 

There was just something incredibly authentic about all of that.

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