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Talking The Rings of Power – Tolkien Trivia

Talking The Rings of Power – Tolkien Trivia

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Okay – you have seen all of season one of The Rings of Power. Well, if you haven’t, might be some spoilers below… After writing about The Istari last week, it was logical to cover the harfoots today. But they are ruining the show, and I’m just not up right now for a couple thousand words on criticizing the overbearing, completely unwarranted, hobbit presence in The Rings of Power.

The Second Age is about elves and men. With some dwarves mixed in. The hobbits have NOTHING to do with the story being told. But the showrunners, afraid to make Tolkien without the lazy, constantly hungry, hairy-footed things, had to make them a cornerstone part of the show.

I’m not ready to tackle Numenor, or why the show is more fan fiction than actual Tolkien pastiche, or real Book Tolkien (condensing over 3,000 years of history into one point of time is a part of it). So, I’m gonna share some Tolkien trivia; related to the show in some fashion. Well, mostly, anyways! You probably know a lot of it. Some might be new. But it’s time to Talk Tolkien!

BALROGS

I was playing D&D for several years before I read The Lord of the Rings (LotR). And I loved seeing the influences that Tolkien had on Gary Gygax. Type 6 Demons (Balors) clearly were based on balrogs. A balrog features prominently in my favorite part of LotR – the Mines of Khazad-dum section of book one, The Fellowship of the Ring.
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Vintage Treasures: A Second Chance at Eden by Peter F. Hamilton

Vintage Treasures: A Second Chance at Eden by Peter F. Hamilton

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“Sonnie’s Edge” by Peter F. Hamilton (adapted for Love, Death & Robots, 2019)

Peter F. Hamilton made a name for himself in the early 90s with a popular SF series featuring Greg Mandel, a veteran of a tactical psychic unit in the British army who becomes a psychic detective in a near-future Britain where the messy collapse of a communist government has left the country in ruins (Mindstar Rising, A Quantum Murder, and The Nano Flower).

By 1998 he had a bestselling space opera series on his hands, the Night’s Dawn trilogy. Set in a sprawling far-future timeline known as the Confederation Universe, it was a huge departure from his early gritty SF noir. Hamilton first explored the Confederation Universe and the Affinity tech in a series of short pieces published in 1991 and 1992, and when the first books in Night’s Dawn, The Reality Dysfunction and The Neutronium Alchemist, started hitting bestseller lists in Britain he released his first collection.

A Second Chance at Eden gathered all the early tales plus two new novellas (“A Second Chance at Eden” and “The Lives and Loves of Tiarella Rosa”) and a new short story, “New Days Old Times.” The first piece in the series, “Sonnie’s Edge,” was adapted as an episode of Tim Miller’s Netflix anthology series Love, Death & Robots in 2019.

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Goth Chick News: The Night at the Bride of Killer Piñata Movie Premier

Goth Chick News: The Night at the Bride of Killer Piñata Movie Premier

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Bride of Killer Piñata

It’s true that in the horror movie industry, premiers are often referred to as “black carpet” events, as opposed to “red carpets.” When you think about it, either color would work, but it makes sense that our more alternative industry would want to distinguish itself from the mainstream.

Regardless, the concept is the same.

A theater is booked for the first-ever big-screen showing of a new film. There’s a cool backdrop near the entrance, against which photos are snapped. The director, the stars, and the whole production staff roll up, along with their family and friends, while intermingled is press and local reviewers. Usually there are a few speeches before the lights go down, then an uproarious cheer when the movie title appears on the screen. It is literally one of the coolest things you could ever get to do, so if you get invited to one, accept immediately.

And that is exactly what happened to me recently.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Valiant Avenging Chivalry

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Valiant Avenging Chivalry

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The Valiant Ones (Taiwan/Hong Kong, 1975)

Wuxia, which can be translated as martial chivalry, is the term usually applied to tales of ancient Chinese armed martial arts, especially when retold in the context of the Hong Kong action film tradition that began in the Sixties. Wuxia movies were eclipsed by the Seventies kung fu boom but never quite went away, reviving full force in the Nineties and staying strong to this day.

By the late Seventies there was a changing of the guard, as the founding knights, directors King Hu and Chang Cheh, gave way to rising stars of chivalry such as Sun Chung and John Woo. The latter took the lessons of the founders, absorbed the frenetic dynamism of the kung fu years, and carried wuxia films forward with a new joy and energy.

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Talking The Rings of Power – The Istari

Talking The Rings of Power – The Istari

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So – season one of Amazon’s massively expensive Second Age epic, The Rings of Power, has fully aired. I have mixed feelings about it. It’s definitely better than MTV’s teen-drama take on Shannara (The Sword of Shannara is one of my all-time favorite novels). But I liked the Wheel of Time better than Rings. And that certainly had some flaws. So, still sorting through things.

I’m going to do a re-watch, really paying attention and trying to be a little less disappointed at the approach they took. I will say, if you’re a fan of The Silmarillion, it’s worth watching to see some of that book come to life – even if it could have been done more faithfully.

For the next month-ish, I’m going to identify some key aspects of the show, and look at some of the good and the bad for each. And the main part will be Tinkering With Tolkien – some discussion of what Tolkien actually wrote about the topic of the week.

The Silmarillion is my favorite Tolkien novel. I love the lore and the history of Middle Earth. The wars, the stories of dwarves, and elves; it’s incredible world-building. I like reading about what he created, more than reading the actual books straight through. I enjoy reading the appendices to the Lord of the Rings, and the events in the timelines. Unfinished Tales, which elaborated on the five main books, is actually my favorite Tolkien book of them all.

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Goth Chick News Reviews: The Cursed, A Surprising New Take on Werewolves

Goth Chick News Reviews: The Cursed, A Surprising New Take on Werewolves

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October is, unsurprisingly, my favorite month of the year for all the reasons you would suspect. And though tucking into a new scary book or movie is a pleasure I indulge in throughout the year, October is the month I make very deliberate entertainment choices. My goal for each day of the month is to revisit my favorites while seeking out new works as well.

For instance, in homage to the great Peter Straub who we sadly lost in September, I have reread the only novel which still manages to scare the crap out of me regardless of how many times I’ve read it; Ghost Story. I have rewatched Sleepy Hallow, Halloween, American Werewolf in London and Fright Night (both the original and remake).

On the “new” side, I have watched The Invitation, House of Darkness and the new AMC series Interview with the Vampire, which I told you about last week. I am also nearly done with the Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling) novel Ink Black Heart, which, though not a horror novel strictly speaking, is still suspensefully written and the latest installment in one of my favorite series. But its another relatively new movie title that I want to share today.

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The Haunted Mansion: A Halloween Re-View

The Haunted Mansion: A Halloween Re-View

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I love spooky, Halloween fun, type films, especially those with ghosts and haunted houses. I watch them all year long, but there’s something special about watching them in October. I’m not keen on gory, dead teenagers, blood-fest flicks. There’s no amount of money in the world that would entice me to watch the Saw franchise, no matter how well written, acted, and edited. I’m not putting them down; they’re just not for me. Which means that come October, I’m more likely to look to Disney than Netflix for viewing ideas.

I recently re-watched The Haunted Mansion. My only previous viewing was when it came out in theaters in 2003.

Promotional copy for the movie says,

Here’s the fright-filled comedy adventure loaded with hair-raising laughs and eye-popping special effects! Eddie Murphy stars as a real estate agent whose family comes face-to-face with 999 grim, grinning ghosts in the creepy old Gracey Manor!

I don’t know if there are actually 999 ghosts in the film, but there are a lot. They hit the whole range of emotions, including the silly barbershop quartet singing graveyard busts, the wise-cracking Jennifer Tilly who plays the psychic trapped inside her own magic ball, and the briefly-scary zombies in the family crypt, to name just a few.

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Goth Chick News: AMC’s Interview with the Vampire Brings a Classic Novel Back from the Dead

Goth Chick News: AMC’s Interview with the Vampire Brings a Classic Novel Back from the Dead

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To say I have a lot of feels about what I’m about to tell you is an understatement.

Author Anne Rice, who passed away from complications of a stroke last December at age 80, had been a large part of my life for a very long time. I, like so many, fell in love with her first novel, Interview with the Vampire back in high school. From there I devoured all of her vampire and witch novels, buying each one in multiple formats. Because of Rice I took my first trip to New Orleans where much of these novels are set and where Rice herself lived at the time, in an antebellum mansion in the Garden District.

I fell as hard for NOLA as I did for Rice’s books and to this day I travel there several times a year to soak in atmosphere as dense and timeless as the immortals she wrote about. Throughout these years I came to have a nodding acquaintance with Rice herself, first seeing her at each of her book signings, and finally landing an annual invitation to attend her “Vampire Ball” held in NOLA each October. We didn’t hang out or anything, but she did call me by name and take time to chat each time we met.

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Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Barbarian Boom Part 6

Ellsworth’s Cinema of Swords: Barbarian Boom Part 6

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Amazons (1986)

By late 1986, the Barbarian Boom was well into its deliberate self-parody phase — and all the better for it, frankly. If nothing else, self-parody is inexpensive, and if you have a rock-bottom budget anyway you might as well aim for something that’s within reach. Though the spate of barbarian films in the Eighties is beloved by fantasy nerds of a certain age, as we’ve seen in our previous instalments in this series, very few of them hold up to a contemporary rewatch. Thus, it’s a pleasure this week to cover two movies we can actually recommend! To prepare yourself properly, practice your “Hur hur hur!” ahead of time so you can laugh like a real barbarian.

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What I’ve Been Reading: September, 2022

What I’ve Been Reading: September, 2022

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So, I talked about what I’ve been watching. And then I followed that up with what I’ve been listening to. So naturally, this week it’s what I’ve been reading. Though, I considered a post on what I’ve been playing, as I loaded up a couple Diablo-style point and click games.

Another summer of A (Black) Gat in the Hand has come and gone, and I was deep into pulp and hardboiled goodness. Here’s a list of all the essays; we will hit the 100 mark next summer!

In my second installment of Back Porch Pulp, I talked about The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run; also known as The Cleveland Torso Murderer. I have long been a fan of this strange chapter in Eliot Ness’ latter career. Starting in 1935, a madman (or possibly more than one) killed a dozen people in Cleveland, dismembering their corpses. The murders suddenly stopped in 1938, and the killer was never identified. There were additional killings, including in Pennsylvania and New York, that may have been by the same person.

Cleveland was about to host the Republican National Convention, and famed Untouchable Eliot Ness was the city’s Public Safety Director. Along with Jack the Ripper, and Austin’s Servant Girl Annihilator, I find this to be an absolutely fascinating serial killer case. He was never identified, and only one man was officially charged in the killings. He was almost certainly innocent, and was found hung in his cell.

I have books by James Badal, Stephen Nickel, Max Allen Collins, John Barlow Martin; novels by Collins, and William Bernhardt; and even a graphic novel. A fellow Sherlockian, Daniel Stashower, just released a new book about it last month. I think it’s an absolutely fascinating subject, even though it’s largely forgotten outside of Cleveland. If you’re into true crime, you should definitely dig into it.

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