And they call Lord of the Rings "simplistic": check out the latest installment in the exaggerated claims department, this time that Tolkien was a "pure Luddite." I am not going to argue here that the late professor would have been a huge fan of digital technology, though from what he had to say about previous attempts to make an animated film of his book* I think I can safely say that he probably would have been pleased with at least some of the effects in Jackson's films. But he was hardly a "pure" Luddite. If "nostalgia" for a bucolic past makes one a "pure" Luddite, then a lot of people can be accused of holding that belief.
More ignorance abounds: Orcs were not "born fully-grown from a monster-making assembly line of Saruman's design" -- they already existed in Tolkien's world before Saruman. Then the writer complains because the battles in the fantasy novel aren't exactly like real-life historical battles! Tolkien wasn't trying to re-create the battle of Crécy! Why not argue that a battery of JDAMs would have made a paste of Helm's Deep! Argh! Talk about missing the point.
In any case, the battle scene in the book is not quite like the film's -- for one thing, no Huorns show up in the film to take care of the remaining Orcs. The explosion in the book is not quite as spectacular as in the film (there was no "suicide Orc" scene, the entire wall did not crumble, etc.), and so forth. Also some frankly unrealistic scenes in the film -- Gandalf and co. charging a wall of pikes with horsemen -- is not in the book. I could go on, but you get the idea.
There is a faint whiff of "Lo, what have we wrought with our Evil Technology" underlying the premise of this article despite the author's disapproving tone on Tolkien's supposed Luddism. Also, Mr. Surowiecki seems to have forgotten a few things. Tolkien died in 1973, thirty years ago, when the world was quite frankly a lot dirtier than it is now, and an argument could then be made that society was going to pollution hell due to demon tech (if we weren't all going to starvation hell due to overpopulation). But today, at least in the "industrialized" West, the air and water is cleaner, technology is a lot "lighter" than it used to be, and a big worry is not overpopulation, but low birth rates and infertility. In 1973 computers were still perceived as big scary beasts that could take over the world. Today does anyone, outside of Hollywood where they still make movies based on this premise, seriously believe that the iMac on their desk is going to turn them into a zombie slave and then take over the world? You can't use Tolkien's, or anybody's, views of the technology of sixty, fifty, thirty years ago to criticise (or not) the current technological trends. In any case he didn't write his book in order to criticise the industrial age. It is a misuse of the book for us to use it to do so. You might as well accuse Grimm's Fairy Tales or The Odyssey of being an anti-industry tract.
*Source, as always, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Always go to the Original Sources, my professors are always telling me, so I do.
Posted by Andrea Harris at January 9, 2003 10:05 AMThe liner notes to the spoken-word LP I have of Tolkien reading some passages from LotR says that he recorded them during a visit to a friend's house during the period when he was very discouraged about finding a publisher for the book. His friend had a tape recorder - very new techonology, then - and Tolkien was "fascinated" by it and humorously suggested that he should record the Lord's Prayer in Gothic on it to cast out any demons that might be lurking in it. His friends persuaded him to record some passages from his book and, listening to them later, he said that the experience had helped restore his faith in what he had written. Doesn't sound too much like a "pure Luddite" there...
WRT charging the wall o' pikes, it was my impression that the Orcs were dropping their pikes as they were blinded by the light - I may just have to go see the film again to confirm this impression - darn.
Also, I've been a wargamer and student of military history for many years, but I'd never been able to adequately explain to my wife the utility of the pike. She "got it" when the Orcs massed against the cavalry and lowered their points. Who says that films don't educate!
Posted by: Brian Swisher at January 9, 2003 at 10:59 AMI find it laughable- the guy has a go at Tolkien for not understanding the dynamics of battles.
Tolkien spent World War 1 in the trenches in France- I rather think he might have known a great deal about war.
Posted by: Scott Wickstein at January 9, 2003 at 11:11 AM"Gandalf and co. charging a wall of pikes with horsemen" - what makes this even more bizarre is that when the orcs mass at Isengard they're led to believe they are going to lay siege to some fortifications - a job for which pikes are, um, useless. I'll bet when they saw the Rohirrim charging down that hill they thought - to an orc - "Shit! Good thing we brought these otherwise-useless long pointy things with us." I suspect Jackson included them because they looked impressive in the aforementioned massing scene.
On a further note, movie/TV depictions of historical battles are always inaccurate - what with mailed and armoured guys getting their legs sliced off cleanly by big Scotsmen in the Middle Ages (after said Scotsmen have foolishly placed themselves within range of an archery salvo - Braveheart), cannonballs exploding on impact (only shells explode on impact - cannonballs are just lumps of iron that bounce along the ground - or surface of the sea - and take people's limbs off), early 19th C. pistols that are used to shoot a person down at 200 yards even though they have short, unrifled barrels (yeah right!) and you'd be lucky to hit a barn door at that range. I could go on, but you get the picture.
Posted by: Steven Chapman at January 9, 2003 at 11:18 AMFrom all I've read about Tolkien over the years, my impression has always been that his issues with technology/the modern world, were when we used it to destroy rather than create. I'm pretty sure he saw the benefits of technology -- vaccines, the ability to feed more people, etc.. -- quite well. In fact, it's mentioned in the Silmarillion (I think) that evil couldn't create, only mock and copy. Orcs, in mockery of the Elves, Trolls in mockery of the Ents. And we see lots of examples of the beauty created by Dwarves in Moria, and the Noldorin Elves in the First Age.
Sorry this was so disjointed, but I'm typing bits between phone calls and invoices.
Posted by: Ith at January 9, 2003 at 12:33 PMSteve wrote:
>>what makes this even more bizarre is that when the orcs mass at Isengard they're led to believe they are going to lay siege to some fortifications - a job for which pikes are, um, useless.
As to your comment about my computer turning me into a
zombie and controlling my life, well that's just ridiculous.
Now be quiet, I have to see if there's a new post on
Instapundit.
Tolkien did enjoy science-fiction. In fact he once agreed with CS Lewis that one of them should do a fantasy the right way, and the other should do S-F the right way. I wonder what might have happened if Tolkien had picked S-F?
One curious result (I'm guessing) of Tolkien's WWI service is the many underground fortresses in his fiction. In medieval warfare they make no sense at all, but in the trenches deep dugouts meant safety.
Posted by: John Weidner at January 9, 2003 at 01:56 PMI had a Tolkien class back in college. The professor was a huge Tolkien fan, and it was his contention that you could find the answer to just about any question regarding life in Middle Earth if you just studied hard enough.
So he asked us: how do orcs reproduce? There aren't any female orcs. The answer: they used captive female elves.
Yikes.
Anyway, I thought about that when it showed the Uruk-Hai struggling out of its mud womb in the Fellowship movie. Uruk-Hai, as I understand, is a cross between orc and...what? Mountain troll, right? Put in some orc and the Troll gene for turning into stone in the daylight is recessive.
How is this accomplished? How do you get the captive elf out of the picture?
Seriously, this is keeping me awake at night. Please help.
Posted by: dipnut at January 9, 2003 at 06:27 PMI'm not sure it ever says that there are no female orcs. I always assumed there were actually :) If Orcs were created by taking Elves and reshaping them with dark powers, torture etc, I'm sure some of those captured Elves would have been female.
But I think you're right about the female elves. There is a bit about Celebrian, wife of Elrond, being captured by Orcs and how her sons rescued her. I can't remember how the passage was worded (at work and no copy of the book to look it up in) but I always took it to mean she was raped.
But then, I could be totally wrong! Wouldn't be the first time.
Posted by: Ith at January 9, 2003 at 09:16 PMMaybe half of all the orcs you see ARE female ! Perhaps they are like the dwarves, described by Gimli in the film TT as having not a whole lot of features to distinguish the sexes. (I'm just a casual Tolkein fan, so if orc sexuality is addressed somewhere in the canon, I haven't seen it).
Posted by: Deco at January 10, 2003 at 03:32 AMBack in the '70s, someone described a way to shoot the land of Mordor scenes for a LOTR cheaply: just film anywhere near the Jersey Turnpike.
There was a lot more of that sort of pollution when Tolkien was growing up and writing his books.
On another subject, we may have to hunt down and kill Peter Jackson, and burn all prints of The Return of the King. Abomination has occured!
Posted by: Stephen M. St. Onge at January 10, 2003 at 08:06 AMSteven:
A minor point.
Exploding cannonballs in movies like The Patriot are not ridiculous because cannonballs don't explode. They are ridiculous because exploding cannonballs hadn't been invented yet. Exploding munitions for cannon were introduced in the mid-1700s.
Otherwise, good points.
Posted by: David Perron at January 10, 2003 at 12:39 PM