By J.R.R Tolkin


The Lord of The Rings And The Media


For many years , all attempts to transform The Lord of The Rings Trilogy into movies and video games passed unnoticed and without adding to the fame of the books till the latest successful attempt when the three parts movie finally hit the Oscar award. despite the obvious changes to the scenes and the events the movie was able to draw tolkin's fans by the wonderful imaging of the different places of Middle Earth and the smart choice of the Actors.
On the other hand it urged other people to buy and read Tolkin's works just by watching the movie. Well as a Tolkin fan I congradulate the director on choosing Vigo Mortinson for Aragorn.
As for the Trilogy and the video Games I don't think that any game created on their bases had ever matched Tolkin's fans expectations.
In doing so Sierra's The fellowship of the Ring , The Hobbit and The War of The Ring was a Total failer.
  • Concerning the War of The Ring when you here that there is a strategy game based on the trilogy your mind will be filled with dreams about the Gathering Clouds , The battle of the fields of Pelinor And the battle in front of the Black Gate.
    When you start playing you'll accompany dwarves in a campaign near the Iron Hills against the Orcs , come to think of it I gave Sierra the right in creating a battle not mentioned in the novel cause if the game contained only the battles of the books it will be very short game unless it divides the battle of the fields of Pelinor into ten campaigns and by that bore you to death.
    But I'll never forgive them ruining the game by adding the summoning ability of the books heros incoherently out of no where into the campaign so I don't know where is the logic in summoning Frodo like a Guardian Force into the Iron Hills by the dwarves when they still don't come to know him in this stage of the story. The disastrous graphics return you to the era of Empire Earth that is two years of development in game design.
  • concerning the Fellowship of the Ring by the same company there is a frustrating jumps in the story.And This combination of bad real-time RPG and Adventure never appealed to me.
    The graphics is medium and hardly acceptable ,So if you were trying to hate the books try playing this game.
  • About the Hobbit if you were a Tolkin Fan please hearken to my advice and keep your money in your pocket they are more comfortable there. Unless you were under 5 years of age.
  • When I saw the clips from the Two Towers BY Electronic Arts I was astonished by the graphics and the Camera angels and thought (at last we'll have a Lord of the rings game that deserve the title).
    playing the game was an other thing while the graphics were fabulous and the change from CG's into playing was like a miracle which can be achieved by only few game creators ,the story line was a piece of garbage (If you call that a story line).It's a real pity that EA games spent this much in Creating scenes and seanries and ignored the relatively easy task of including a little soul into the game by logical including of the story.
  • I can't say much more about EA's Return of the King cause it is no better than the Two Towers.

  • After all this talk my suggestion that a good game about the trilogy must:
    a)be an RPG game were
        (1)this Genre of games offer an enough space for the long detailed story.
        (2)The increasing parameters of the heros in a RPG game is the same of the ability growth of the heros in the book so you will really feel the superiority of the heros's strength over the rest of the shire hobbits when they return home at the end of the story.
        (3)I suggest adding a stamina parameter that increase by mere walking around the world map so you can sense that the hero's are getting used to long hard travel.
    b)here comes the real problem of the story line that faced the previous games , cause if you want to construct a game with no interruption in the story line you must drive the players to play hours of game with out a challenge (no fight and no puzzle) cause the book is an Odessy based novel were the traveling took the major role.
    if the game is to be played by a Tolkin fan I don't think that will annoy him/her on the contrary he will enjoy roaming a virtual Middle Earth more than the fights , the game travel can contain a open choice of routs in which only the right route came to safe end e.g if the players heard Aragorn advice and went to Rohan instead of going into Moria they will find thousands of Wargs in their way that drive them to an unavoidable Game Over or a costy retreat.
    c)the travel can be made more entertaining by adding SIMS like simulation to keep the travellers' needs like rest ,collecting food and wood for the fire.
    d)I know that suggestion (b) can make the game appeal only to The Books Fans but after the success of the movie I think the number of the fans is enough to make the game world wide success.

    That was a long topic I know that but the subject deserve it.



    The Similarities Between The Legends Of Tolkien's World And Those of Our World

    By collaboration of Mustafa Saad Y. Al Taay



    The mythologies of ancient civilizations are rich with stories that may be classified as Fantasy, and some of them are really lovely. Professor J.R.R. Tolkien is the master of fantasy stories, no two could argue about that. But did he invent all the legends and mythologies of his world from his own imagination, or did he borrow ideas from the mythologies of our world?

    There are some theories that claim that Professor Tolkien did borrow some elements of mythology from the ancients - especially the Norse.

    In this article I will give some examples of these borrowings:

    One:

    In Norse mythology the world is divided into three distinct parts: Asgard, Midgard and Nifelheim.
    - Asgard is the abode of the gods (and it means exactly that). The gods in Norse mythology are of two types: Aesir(major) gods and Vanir(minor) gods. Each of the Aesir had his own lot in Asgard, but the main palace was that of Odin (the chief god). Also Asgard was connected to Midgard by a bridge called Bifrost (which means Rainbow).
    - Midgard is the realm of the people. (In Norse mythology, the people consisted of Men, Elves, Dwarves and also Giants). Midgard in the language of the Norse means middle-earth!!
    - Nifelheim (or the Halls of Hel) is the NNorse underworld and could be compared to the Halls of Mandos in Valinor.

    In Tolkien's world we have Valinor, which's the realm of the gods. Also we have major gods - the Valar, and minor gods - the Maiar. Each of the major gods has his own realm in Valinor, and the main city was that of Manwe (the chief god). An important similarity is that Valinor was connected to middle-earth by a Rainbow, and people would cross the rainbow and reach the land of the gods. (Unfortunately Professor Tolkien changed his mind about this element and omitted it almost completely. For further details, read The Lost Tales: Part 1 edited by Christopher Tolkien).

    Two:

    Valhalla in Norse mythology is the land to which Heroes slain in battle are brought by the Valkyrie to dwell in till the last battle comes. Tolkien made some of the men that die live on a land in Valinor that's specially preserved for them till they are judged. (This element was also omitted from the published works. Refer to The Lost Tales: Part 1).

    Three:

    Ar-Pharazon, the Numenorean king that led the armies of men to battle against the gods. When I first read his name I remembered the word 'Pharaoh'. Did Professor Tolkien think of the arrogant and tyrant Pharaohs when he made this name?

    Four:

    After the insolence of Ar-Pharazon, the gods became angry with the men of Numenor. Huge waves engulfed the fleet of the men. A chasm opened in the sea and swallowed all the ships and the land of Numenor. All this reminds you of the story of Atlantis. Also Numenor became known later in the Eldarin tongue as Atalante. (For the story of the Numenor, read Akallabeth in The Silmarillion. For the story of Atlantis, read Plato's dialogue Critias).

    Thus we can see that Tolkien may have borrowed from the ancients.
    If you like to read more about this subject, go to The Internet Sacred-Texts Archives. There's a complete section for the sources of Tolkien.

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