The funny Middle-Earth related Pictures and Videos thread

[mrbellamy 6,272]

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I don't get it

[Holko 9,499]

That's the point!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Yeah but it wasn't even fun in a weird absurdist kinda way.  It was just...k

[mrbellamy 6,272]

14 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

I don't get it

 

Literally every step Sam takes for the rest of the trilogy is the farthest away from home he’s ever been. He can’t get over it. Frodo is increasingly vexed.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

As am I!

[Faleel 5,340]

 

[Chen G. 3,943]

Veni, Vidi, Risi.

 

 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

[mrbellamy 6,272]

 

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

[mrbellamy 6,272]

 

Frodolas looks like Michael Keaton, right?

[Quintus 5,399]

[Bilbo 3,709]

[Jay 37,287]

Heheh

 

 

 

[Quintus 5,399]

[Chen G. 3,943]

 

"They’re like vegetables, and I cooked them like vegetables."

 

"I ATE THEM!"

[Faleel 5,340]

[Kühni 485]

 

[gkgyver 1,645]

I decided to post this is the funny videos thread because look at his wild hair:

 

 

[Kühni 485]

So what I take from this: HS and PJ tried finding their way through Moria with a single lantern. Howard avoided thematic writing up until LotR (very broadly speaking, his music was thematic way before then, just not at the complex level of LotR). No haircutting in the States due to Corona, either. Pictures of his parents/family to his left. What looks to be a copy of @Doug Adams's book on the shelf as well.

 

PS: I'll get back to you about your PM soon, GK. 

[Kühni 485]

.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

I created this thread?

 

[Jay 37,287]

Nah I broke off posts from that one giant LOTR thread that used to exist before there was a Tolkien subforum into various threads once it was created.

 

Any posts you see in Tolkien Central with a suspiciously low view count for the number of replies it has, is probably because of that.

[Marian Schedenig 8,174]

 

I see.

[Jay 37,287]

[mrbellamy 6,272]

I like "They have a fucking cave troll" 

[Chen G. 3,943]

Well, in early drafts of the script, Gimli was going to use bad language all the time. His original line to Aragorn at Helm's Deep was "You are the luckiest, the canniest and the most reckless wench I ever knew!"

[Nick1Ø66 4,689]

5 hours ago, Chen G. said:

In early drafts of the script, Gimli was going to use bad language all the time. His original line to Aragorn at Helm's Deep was "You are the luckiest, the canniest and the most reckless wench I ever knew!"

Calling Aragorn a “wench” would have been pretty f*cking stupid. Men aren’t wenches.

 

The only person in LOTR that could reasonably be called a wench was Rosie as a bar wench.

[Monoverantus 363]

On 02/10/2021 at 5:13 AM, Jay said:

Surpised no one's done : "One Ring to fuck them all..."

[Jay 37,287]

[Jay 37,287]

[bollemanneke 3,337]

I'm dying here.

 

[Faleel 5,340]

A couple of these were chuckle inducing.

 

 

[Jay 37,287]

A couple of what?  Was there supposed to be something in your post?

[Faleel 5,340]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

A couple of what?  Was there supposed to be something in your post?

Post adjusted.

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

[Faleel 5,340]

[Chen G. 3,943]

Not gonna lie, seeing The Rings of Power Balrog spliced into footage from The Lord of the Rings trilogy makes me wince a little. 

[Faleel 5,340]

2 hours ago, Chen G. said:

Not gonna lie, seeing The Rings of Power Balrog spliced into footage from The Lord of the Rings trilogy makes me wince a little. 

I have a feeling the creator of the meme didn't notice.

[Chen G. 3,943]

Oh sure. They got the Balrog as close as legally possible to the New Line version.

[Faleel 5,340]

6 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

Oh sure. They got the Balrog as close as legally possible to the New Line version.

Yep, the most noticeable difference (besides being 2020's CG, instead of 2000's CG) is horn shape, the flames being in the horns, and the horns are more craggy (?)

[Chen G. 3,943]

36 minutes ago, Presto said:

and the horns are more craggy (?)

 

The shape of the horns is very different: the New Line version has rounded horns that curve inward, the Prime version has angled horn that curve outward.

 

 

They actually started quite different: 

 

Then decided to get WetaFX to design one that would "at least rhyme if not end up fairly close to the original from the LOTR trilogy." Weta's Nick Keller first suggested this:

 

 

But they wanted to even closer to the New Line model, so he did this: 

 

 

This "sorta prequel but not really" approach is really weird for me. Reminds me of the Sam Raimi Oz movie.

[Monoverantus 363]

On 31/10/2023 at 10:13 PM, Chen G. said:

Not gonna lie, seeing The Rings of Power Balrog spliced into footage from The Lord of the Rings trilogy makes me wince a little. 

You're not alone. I cringe every time I see this pic.

[Holko 9,499]

3 minutes ago, Monoverantus said:

 

So 2005 is 2012, 2004, 2022 and 2006...

[Monoverantus 363]

57 minutes ago, Holko said:

So 2005 is 2012, 2004, 2022 and 2006...

Tbf I don't even necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but the examples picked are just laughably random (I don't know the bottom middle one).

[Faleel 5,340]

I think that's The Flash (2023)?

[Chen G. 3,943]

To me it just shows that Amazon's attempts to in effect fool casual fans into thinking they're watching a prequel to the movies they loved is more succesfull than I'm willing to admit. People geuinely do think its the same Balrog.

 

At the same time, I do think most people do feel that, in terms of it being a prequel, something is off. They may not have the words to articulate it, but I think its felt. Most prequels are usually anchored around connections that are much more concrete than what we have in The Rings of Power: major props or environments that are repeated (Hogwarts in Fantastic Beasts, for example), a returning actor (Frank Oz' voice in the Star Wars prequel trilogy), returning music verbatim (the shire theme over The Hobbit opening titles). The Rings of Power has none of that, and the fact that it has these little additions that feel so out of place within the overriding New Line-like aesthetic, like the rock-n'-roll Elf hair, or the Renaissance-like Elven knights, or those hokey-looking wolves and Trolls...

 

The only example I can think of that compares is the Sam Raimi The Great and Powerful Oz, which was in a similar legal situation to The Rings of Power, and likewise serves less a prequel than as a "legally acceptable lookalike." The only difference is The Rings of Power was also able to draft a lot of the people who did work on the "original" films: John Howe, Simon Lowe, Jules Cooke, Jed Brophy, Peter Tait, Daniel Reeve, Weta Workshop, WetaFX, Plan 9 and David Longe, Howard Shore, some of the sound crew, some of the casting agents, and of course New Zealand itself.

 

The way I choose to look at it is that there's a continuity within the oevure of Weta Workshop or Plan 9 et al, but not with the show as a whole. At the very least, the show will have helped these creatives wind-up before The War of the Rohirrim and other more genuine prequels they'll invariably be asked to contribute to; and, when those properties come out, they'll invariably make the show seem all the more the lookalike rather than genuine article.

 

My understanding is the involvement of most of these was downscaled or completely discontinued with the move to the UK. Which is astounding, given that everything we know about season two suggests they're pressing forward with this "Spiritual Prequel" angle. I mean, just look at this:

 

[Monoverantus 363]

1 hour ago, Presto said:

I think that's The Flash (2023)?

Well done for including one (1) movie that's actually from the year it's supposed to be then XD

[Edmilson 7,393]

They should be in a movie together where they are brothers.