The Battle of the two trilogies or, Attack of the prequels.

Hello good reader!

I was first introduced to Star Wars relativly (or rather very) late in my childhood, through it’s spinoff series The Clone Wars, wich I loved, even as a 15 year old. I watched the original trilogy with my father, who was a fan. I absolutely loved those movies, and I couldn’t wait to see the prequels, and then I watched them…

Well, dissapointed is a good word to use to descirbe my feelings. Don’t get me wrong, I liked some of the characters, the beggining of the clone wars was one of my favourite movies scenes from childhood, and seeing Yoda fight the emperor was a dream come true. But alas, a menagerie of hollow characters, some convoluted plot lines, and having to hear Anakin bitch about anything and everything that didn’t go his way ruined the movies for me. I can only hope that next years The Force Awakens salvages the broken masterpiece that is Starwars.

As the final chapter in The Hobbit film trilogy was released last week, it made me lament what The Hobbit trilogy could(n’t) have been, and what it is. As much as I want to love The Hobbit films like I love The Lord of The Rings trilogy, I just can’t. The three movies suffer from the same ailment as the Star Wars prequel trilogy, albeit in a far less offensive manner. Now I do like The Hobbit films, I haven’t yet seen the final one, but I do like the first two, but in no way do they live up to the expectation that TLOTR set for them, and I was always worried this would be the case.

Making The Hobbit films as well as TLOTR, I think, was an impossible task, so all things considered Peter Jackson did a monumentally good job. Nevertheless trying to make a children’s fantasy story into an adult-steered epic like it’s succesors could not be done. Each of the films has jarring shifts from beheaded goblins and orcs and sprays of blood, to the kidsy humour of the notorious barrell riders scene. Cutting this scene out, however, would take away any semblence of this being a children’s story, therefore not remaining true to the story itself, and making it purely a child-friendly fantasy tale would in no way fit the TLOTR trilogy. The films could never have worked perfectly, unless, just maybe, The Hobbit was made first and allowed to mature into a different, slightly more fantastical version of TLOTR (a la a grownups how to train your dragon), but that is a longshot.

As it stands The Hobbit trilogy is still a decent lot of films. With it’s fantasy scenes (such as the Wargs battle with the dwarves on the cliff) that look like Zach Snyder and Guillermo Del Toro had a really beautiful baby and made Tim Burton the godfather, the humourous dwarves, and the tale of comraderie and acceptence that emerges from Bilbo’s journey with them, The Hobbit films still earn a place in my heart (or DVD shelf as it is). So let’s not look at them as the terrible prequels that ruin a fantasy epic, but rather as the scar of not-quit-ness on the almost flawless journey.

Until next time.

That is All.

 

All That is Gold Does Not Glitter

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king

Hello good reader!

If by now you haven’t figured it out, today we’re going to be looking at J.R.R Tolkien’s poem ‘All That is Gold Does Not Glitter’ from The Lord of The Rings(I know, it wasn’t obvious at all was it?). This is one of my favourite poems, it’s short, to the point (which sounds midly contradictory as it’s abstract) and it’s starts with a marvelous subversion of an old proverb, whilst still respecting it. This post is going to get into some mildly intricate details of the mythology of Middle-Earth, be prepared Let’s start with the first line.

All that is gold does not glitter,

What a hook, seriously, this could be my favourite line of poetry ever, period. It’s so simple, and yet so clever. The old saying “All that glitters is not gold” (which, I believe is a deviation of a line from Shakespear’s ‘The Merchant of Venice”), is mean’t to communicate that not everything that is visually appealing, or beautiful, carries the traits of beauty deeper than it’s surface. Tolkien’s subtle change of this proverb completely changes the meaning. Now we can take from it that many things which have incredible value don’t show it. Now this is very clever, it subverts an old proverb that, I would say, everyone knows, and replaces it with something that is equally as true. It also sets up the whole premise of the poem, appearance and expectation don’t necessarily reflect truth.

      Not all those who wander are lost;

      This line is slightly more specific to the book (not that the first isn’t, this one just has less of an application to the real world. This line is implicitly reffering to the rangers (or more specifically the Dunedain Rangers). It suggests that the common belief that the rangers are somewhat aimless is incorrect.

      The old that is strong does not wither,

I must admit that I’m not actually specifically how this line refers to the story, although I can take an educated guess and say it’s about Aragorn’s lineage, seeing as he is from a far more pure and ancient line than the current ruler/steward of Gondor. This line als says something interesting about real life as well, as so often we believe that old things are inferior and weak.

      Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Just like the last line I can only assume that this line is reffering to Aragorn’s lineage, it carries pretty much the same conetations as the previous line. At this point I would like to point out that the first two lines share a syllable count of eight, and the second two of nine. To me this suggests that they are intentionally grouper according to their meaning, the first two lines speak about appearances or perceptions not truly reflecting that nature of a thing, whilst the second two speak about the strength and resiliance that old, well established things have.

I believe the second stanza is best looked at as a whole, so let’s do that.

     From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

    A light from the shadows shall spring;

    Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

    The crownless again shall be king

The syllabilic structure of this stanza is very interesting to me. At first one might think to group the first two lines together, and then the second two, which is fair enough, after all, ashes, fire and light clearly belong together, as do blade, crown[less] and King (when understood in the context of Narsil, Aragorn and Gondor). However upon deeper inspection, one can see that the first line has the same syllable count as the third, and the second with the fourth. This suggests to me that each line has two parters, So fire that wakes from the ashes doesn’t only belong with light coming from the shadows, but also with the reforging (through fire) of a blade. And then that The light from the shadows not only should be partered with the 5th line, but also with the crownless becoming king (which, if understood in context, does seem to fit quite well, considering that Aragorn more or less came out of the shadows to become king, think of how he is introduced in the story).

Anyway, that’s my understanding of the poem, I hope you learned something, or just enjoyed another perspective on the poems meaning. In the coming weeks I’ll be doing more like this, and posting some of my own poetry (word to the wise, it might make your eyes bleed).

Until next time.

That is All.