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It is a dark and stormy movie...
© Michael Martinez
Mar 17, 2000
Instead of researching this week's topic as I should have been doing, I went off and played Webmaster for some strange reason. Of course, I tend to do that just about every week, so here I sit at 1 AM in the morning, technically past my deadline, wondering what the heck I'm going to write which will please you finnicky people this time around. My most popular articles always seem to have something to say about Peter Jackson's movie project. You've heard of him, right? He's the fellow down in New Zealand who got up the gumption to recreate Tolkien's masterpiece for the Big Screen.
Or maybe we should call that the Big Scream. Online fandom could almost be divided into two camps: the Faithful and the Kiwi's Men. I guess I'm a Kiwi kind of guy, so I hope I don't find myself tumbling down into the abyss. I don't intend to sacrifice any of the Faithful to Morgoth, but I do have this unmistakable urge to go forth and conquer new regions of Middle-earth.
We Kiwi's Men have assembled a vast armada of Web sites, and the fleet is growing every week. I can't say I've got the flagship but I do have the distinction of being the most self-promoting Webmaster in the crowd, and I've made no effort to hide the fact that mine was the first major movie site up (and the first to be promptly ignored by the oh-so-picky news media). There have been days when I've considered joining the Faithful as they assemble their skiffs in the harbor at Romenna, but then I bump into some of the other (more well-known) Webmasters and they turn out to be such NICE people. Can it be true that Tolkien got the story wrong, and it was the FAITHFUL who caused the Downfall?
I've seen all manner of protests about the movies. I've made all manner of protests about the movies (well, I was unhappy with the Bombadil cuts, but I'm still hoping Liv Tyler will forsake Viggo Mortensen, fly back to the States, track me down, and have my babies -- or maybe she'll give up her place for me on the Last Ship and I can sail over Sea and visit with Earendil and Finrod Felagund). Where was I? Ah, yes. The protests. Well, I wasn't thrilled with the slicing of Bombadil's throat, but you gotta cut something from the films. So, no "Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo!" Maybe we can hope for an outtake where Sir Ian McKellen flings himself against a wall and cries out, "The choice, it seems, is to submit to Miramax or to New Line. I shall take--the money!"
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The copyright of the article It is a dark and stormy movie... in J.R.R. Tolkien is owned by Douglas Charles Rapier. Permission to republish It is a dark and stormy movie... in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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