Here are some famous Dogs: Socrates, Benjamin Franklin, George Gershwin, Harry Houdini, Herbert Hoov

[dolari]

FINALLY went out to see Lord of the Rings.

First up, let me say I never finished the books (ducks assorted pineapples, champagne glasses and bananas being thrown at her). I tried, people, I really did...but there were so many words and sentences and it became a chore to READ those sentences. Before I saw the movie all I could tell you of the Lord of the Rings was "Well, I read two of the books, and have no idea what happened...but I DO know diagramming one of Tolkein's smaller sentences would have taken up seventeen sheets of paper" (My elf friends, if they are reading this, are filling their quivers with arrows at this time, and I'm sure a certain dwarf has his axe at the ready....)

So in I went remembering words like "Hobboton" and 'Rivendell" and "Lothlorien." NO idea WHAT those words meant anymore, but in I go.

And for the next three hours I sit pretty entranced at the scenery. WOW. Tree houses in Lothlorien. WOW. I want one. Lush fields in the Shire. I want go now! Wooooo!

Story wise, though...well...I was still scratching my head. Now I KNEW what was going on, but...well...why? Sure we had a nasty Ring that needed destroying, and nine people went out to help. But well....Walk - get attacked - get well - walk - get attacked - get well - walk - get attacked - get well. And then there's the whole mountain scene which kinda threw me for a loop. My writing senses tell me to Get to the Point (which,I'll admit they did, by getting rid of Tom Bombadil (What, I REMEMBER something from my reading LOTR?!). On the mountain, they get in an avalanche and then go back. No real character development other than "OOooh, now Gandalf'll hafta meet the Balrog." And we have a strange scene that just kinda sits there as "10 minutes of walking."

Then again, he's got three movies, and I gotta web comic on hiatus. :)

But I will say the movie itself was ABSOSMURFLY GORGEOUS. They had to restrain me to keep me from climbing the movie screen. The Shire reminds me of all the time I spent in the woods behind my last couple of houses...and the Mines looked JUST like I remembered from playing old Zork games. (Which all took place in an underground system of caverns).

I need to go visit the woods one day. I used to spend so much time there, playing and reading and studying and writing. Now I'm almost afraid to go - they disappear so fast. Erin has the Thousand Acre Tangent Woods, but I'd feel rude going there just to run into the forest and just play in the trees. (The one time I didn't feel rude doing it it rained...d'ohh!)

Hmmm...my uncle has about 200 acres in Stockdale...not much there, but I can play on it without fear of being thrown out......)

Weird dreams in the dream journal.

Tomorrow I start Erin's Second Book.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Don't worry, Jenn; my axe is still sheathed. I couldn't get all the way through the books the first time, either-- I was probably about 10 or 11 years old at the time, and I just plain gave up halfway through "The Return of the King." Keep trying. Once you've read Spenser's "The Faerie Queene" in its entirety, "The Lord of the Rings" will seem like a walk in the park. I'm glad you enjoyed the movie.

Nathan

[elenderel.livejournal.com]

wow, you made it further than I ever did ... I have never been able to get past, say, page 50 in LOTR, no matter how resolved I am to get trhough it. Ditto for the Silmarillion, which really is a beautifully written book. I've never finished any of them except the Hobbit, which I read when I was 10.

And I totally, completely, absolutely understand how you feel about the woods. My favorite place to be is in the middle of a small friendly forest, listening to the wind blow through the upper branches and hearing birds sing somewhere overhead, with tiny patches of sunlight peering through the leaves. I miss it, damn it, I miss the woods!

If you have access to woods, please, by all means, go to them.

Official Permission

[erinlefey.livejournal.com]

I hereby, in front of witnesses, grant you unlimited permission to visit the Tangent woods as needed.

(A visit to the humans in the tangent woods would be nice, but not absolutely required :) .)

Erin

[vaysha.livejournal.com]

Jenn, I too had a hard time reding the Lord of the Rings until I sat with Dean and we read it out loud to the kids. He is wordy, isn't he? The thing is with all that description I thought it would be impossible to make the movie. I thought the scenery was great but the movie itself was well.... good but not great, you know? I think Dean and the kids liked it so much because they are so enchanted with the LOTR that they couldn't possibly not like it although they all complained about important bits that were left out.
It took approximately 40 hours to read it aloud, how can you possibly cram all the details of 40 hours into a three hour movie? I will go see the sequels and I think save my opinion unitl I have seen them all.
:)

[amw.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure LOTR was ever a particularly well-written book in the plot sense. One of my biggest complaints about a lot of fantasy (and LOTR was the original culprit), from when i was very young, was that the baddies were all BAD and the goodies were all GOOD and there wasn't a great deal of in-between, or growth from one way to the other. I know a lot of Tolkien heads would disagree, citing page 35, verse 5, line 2, but the fundamental is "we have 10 goodies and 10 baddies, and one Big Goodie and one Big Baddie and the one Big Goodie is going to kill the one Big Baddie at the end". Look at it like a fun Hollywood action movie... An A-grade version of Conan.

Oh, and most of those landscapes were filmed in New Zealand. *gloat* ;-)

[elenderel.livejournal.com]

New Zealand ... like Xena and Hercules were ... *deep sigh* Some day, I'd like to go there (too!).

Re: Official Permission

[jenndolari.livejournal.com]

I dunno...I like yer woods an all, but I likes y'all better. :)