Divisions and Precisions

What Else?

So naturally, the big talk around the office today is all about "The Fellowship of the Ring". One of the guys in the cube kitty-corner to mine went and saw it last night at midnight. You better believe he had bragging rights this morning. When I got in, I could hear several people over at his desk talking about movies. I wandered over and said, "Really, there's only one movie you could be talking about today."

He raved about it. So has everyone else I've come across who's seen it. I'm antsy. I have tickets to go see it tomorrow, but I don't want to wait that long. I may see if I can snag a ticket for a showing tonight after my history final. Probably not likely, but I can dream, right?

This has been such a pivotal movie month for geeks. I mean really. First "Harry Potter" and now this. I may be one of the only geeks in the world who didn't read the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a child. I somehow managed to miss them until I was an adult. Oddly, reading the books was almost anti-climactic for me. For a lot of people, the LOTR trilogy may be the first real fantasy they read. It's their introduction into the genre of epic fantasy quest stories -- and that's fitting, because really LOTR defined the genre. With no LOTR, there would be no D&D (although, that means there would have been no D&D movie, so it's not all bad), no David Eddings (again, maybe not a bad thing), maybe even no fantasy genre of literature as we know it -- hell, no Star Wars. Without LOTR, what on earth would us geeks have to fixate on? It's a little scary to contemplate.

But anyway, like I said, my first reading of the LOTR books was a little anti-climactic. I'd already read a ton of fantasy, and been a roleplayer for years. I knew the genre. Ironically, LOTR seemed a little tired and cliche to me by the time I read it -- until I stopped to realize that Tolkien had pretty much created what later became cliche. He made the idea of the fantasy trilogy (well, trilogy unless you're Robert Jordan and can't shut up) a staple in the business.

For that reason alone, he should be as well-loved as he still is. On top of that, he created a pretty amazing world. I've never read all of the additional books, like the Simarillion, but the depth of the world astounds me, right down to the various languages he developed (not so surprising, Tolkien was a linguist). And if all that weren't enough, he told a pretty interesting story. (I've my own beef with some of his actual writing, but that's a story for another day.)

I guess, what I'm really trying to say is, I'm geeked beyond belief about this movie. It's like someone made a movie out of the fantasy Bible -- not like, someone DID make a movie out of the fantasy Bible. From everything I've heard, it's a movie worthy of the book it came from. I'll be sure to report my own thoughts on the subject after I see it. Tomorrow.

Unless I can squeeze in a theatre tonight. ;)

Posted by Lisa at December 19, 2001 01:33 PM