1. Write a genre-bending fantasy novel 2. Bash Tolkien 3. ??? 4. Profit

[Charlie Bell]

Totally not what you intended, but that somehow sparked nightmarish visions of a Jim Carrey Bombadil. Bright blue his jacket was, and his boots were retarded.

[ChrisRevocateur]

Evil Lincoln wrote:

Shadowborn wrote:

That was my major beef with Jackson's version of the tale.

My major beef? No Bombadil.

What this you say? Tom couldn't have been done justice on the silver screen?

I have two words for you my friends: Robin Williams.

+10

[Sebastrd]

Set wrote:

ChrisRevocateur wrote:

Arwen rant

You should go watch Ivanhoe. ;)

P.S. The 1952 version

[Callous Jack]

ChrisRevocateur wrote:

Evil Lincoln wrote:

Shadowborn wrote:

That was my major beef with Jackson's version of the tale.

My major beef? No Bombadil.

What this you say? Tom couldn't have been done justice on the silver screen?

I have two words for you my friends: Robin Williams.

+10

I'm the opposite, I was very happy to see the Bombadil scene cut.

[LazarX]

Set wrote:

And then some elven princesst who Aragorn had a crush on like eighty years ago, and sent him packing because he was a smelly human and 'it would never work out between us' discovers that her entire race is packing up and leaving to go live in the land of the gods, leaving her alone with no one to cook her meals or make her pretty dresses or comb her hair. If she goes to the land of the gods, she'll just be another elf, and no longer the priviledged daughter of the ruler of Rivendell, with servants and gowns and yet more gowns. Totally unacceptable!

Actually to be fair, it was her father Elrond, who had raised Aragorn as a foster son, who sent him packing until he had proven himself worthy of his daughter because he knew what price Arwen would pay if she bonded with him.

It would mean that she as a Half-Elven would make the choice of Men and forever sunder herself from her kin, condemming herself to a lonely death when Aragorn himself died from mortal old age.

Elves, even the Half-Elven mate for life, and once a spouse is gone are generally left bereft for eternity. So he had very good reason to discourage Aragorn from pursuing his daughter until he had proven himself worthy of his lineage, which he did by becoming King of Gondor.

[yellowdingo]

Frankly he had good reason not to even allow his daughter to hook up with Aragorn at the end of the Third film...Who would ever think an elf equal to a human? Sure he is a great leader of men...almost, but that irrelevent. If anything he would have been her plaything.

"Please daddy! Can I have a Human pet?"
"No! They pee every where!"

realy its rather like the marriage of Delen to Sheriidan (for all you Babylon 5 fans).

[yellowdingo]

If you were going to write a Fantasy novel, you might well try one where the elves were wild psychotic meat eaters that feed on the fringes of human civilization.

Vendish struggled beneath the load of firewood as he made his ways between the trees. The wood seemed spooky now as the night began to close in around him.
Somewhere behind him, his companion, Reith Smallberries grunted with disatisfaction.
"Fekin Woods!" Reith sucked in a wad of flem and spat.
"Be thankfull this aint the Marchin Woods, Reith...the elves might get ya!" Reith grunted in reply to Vendish's fairy tale threat.
"Ware the Elves of Marchin Wood..." Vendish waited for the part where Reith would have to add his lines. It didnt come.
"I said Warethe Elves of Marchin Wood!" Again Reith failed to add is words to the preventative curse...
"Its bad luck if you dont do your lines!" Vendish turned to stare at the starved, ropy creature standing in the steaming chest cavity of his friend. The Bone-hewn knife in its hand pulled at intesties that extended down into the corpse of his friend.

Vendish turned slowly away from the horror before him with a plan to continue toward the edge of the wood. Its naked mate was standing between Vendish and survival, sniffing the air...

[DM Luke]

Shadowborn wrote:

Well, then there's the major break in continuity by having the Nazgul at Osgiliath actually see Frodo with the ring. At that point, he should have had the Nine hounding him all the way to the slopes of Mount Doom, assuming he could even get that far...

There's a line when they're in Osgiliath, where Sam says "We shouldn't even be here!" I think that was the best line in the scene.

[Yucale]

Set wrote:

ChrisRevocateur wrote:

I'm not a fantasy novelist (yet), but I've got a bash for Tolkien: There's no need to overexplain EVERYTHING, and make EVERY link in the family chain.

I actually miss his ability to put a map in the front of his book and not have to take us to *every darn land on that map,* unlike, say, Robert Jordan.

Tolkien had five wizards. Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White, Radigast the Brown and the twins, the Blue Istari (IIRC). If some modern writers had written the Lord of the Rings, you can bet your bippy we would have met Radigast and the Istari, as well as travelled to the lands of Haradwaith, Rhovanion and Rhun, meeting their people and exploring their cultures, and introducing a dozen new characters in the process, and learned more about Troll language and society, and descriptions of the half-dozen gods that we didn't even learn the names of unless we read the Silmarillion ('cause they weren't terribly important to the story), and a thousand over travelogue details that don't necessarily add to the story.

Tolkien's gift, not often seem in modern trilogies (especially those 'trilogies' that are on book eleven or so), was in *not* feeling compelled to fill in all of the blanks, but to leave some stuff in the sandbox for later, like the fantasy novel equivalent of just ending the map with the words 'here there be dragons.'

Tolkien's a piker compared to Stephen King, who will devote 60 pages to what's going on in the mind of a character that's going to die in a car wreck on page 61 *and turn out to have not a darn thing to do with the rest of the book.* [Kirkvoice] Kiiiinnnnnngggg! [/Kirkvoice]

Flames! Flames, from the side of my face...

My Tolkien-bash would be my loathing of the character of Arwen.

We've got two books setting up a potential romance between Aragorn and Eowyn, with some chemistry going on, and a possible sealed alliance between Gondor and Rohan, the two most prominent Kingdoms of Men, heralding a glorious future. Eowyn shows up and pretty...

Arwen was completely useless in my opinion.

[Yucale]

Readerbreeder wrote:

Set wrote:

Anyway, I do agree with the OP that, while Tolkien is not to be set above reproach, tearing him down simply to identify yourself as one of the cool kids is pretty silly.

And juvenile :).

[SwnyNerdgasm]

James Keegan wrote:

I saw China Mieville at an event for his latest book when it came out last year. He joked about his agent telling him to do more Tolkien bashing, since it got people talking and started more buzz for his novels. He concluded that was when he decided to stop doing it. In fact, I remember Erik Mona had found an interview where he listed 10 things that he really liked about Tolkien.

I don't think Tolkien is above criticism by any means. He's awfully dry and I almost dropped The Fellowship of the Ring before it ever really got rolling purely because I was so sick of the endless Hobbit pastoral stuff.

Wait they eventually got out of the Shire? I kind of quit around the time that Bumbidill guy showed up

[Spiral_Ninja]

To all those Eowyn fans in this thread...she wasn't even supposed to exist. I'm not sure where he'd have gone with the 'no man of wonam born' line, but according to friends and family, Eowyn was added after Tolkein's daughter demanded a strong female in the story. He was so set on the 'pure half-elven princess' bit he didn't think to have HER show up like that. I'd have liked her much better that way.

[CunningMongoose]

#3 should read: Get a reviewer to write it's the best fantasy story since Tolkien, and be sure to print this on the back cover of your book.

[Doodlebug Anklebiter]

Set wrote:

My Tolkien-bash would be my loathing of the character of Arwen.

We've got two books setting up a potential romance between Aragorn and Eowyn, with some chemistry going on, and a possible sealed alliance between Gondor and Rohan, the two most prominent Kingdoms of Men, heralding a glorious future. Eowyn shows up and pretty...

While I, too, think that you're being a bit unfair to Arwen here, much more importantly, I think what you wrote was really funny. I laughed out loud a couple of times.

As for myself, I cringe whenever people say things like Tolkien couldn't write, or Tolkien couldn't tell a story or whatever when, usually, what they really mean is: I am completely indifferent to the written word as an art form.

Also, Tolkien's not even that bad. Try reading Mervyn Peake sometime!

[amethal]

Evil Lincoln wrote:

My major beef? No Bombadil.

I couldn't agree less.

Evil Lincoln wrote:

What this you say? Tom couldn't have been done justice on the silver screen?

I have two words for you my friends: Robin Williams.

Or Jim Carrey, as has been suggested. There are plenty of "madcap" actors fully capable of bringing to life the full horror of Tom Bombadil.

It was even worth missing out on the Barrow Downs and Old Man Willow in order to keep Tom out of the movie.