This is legit. My husband, sitting across the room, looks over and says, “IS THAT SOMEONE SHOWING HOW TO CONVERT ENGLISH TO TENGWAR? BECAUSE THAT’S THE WAY!”
Believe this man. He owns atlases of Middle Earth, the complete history of Midle Earth (leatherbound), and has read the books at least 150 times. Also: speaks elvish.
Yes.
For future reference. 🙂
So I was never the only one who learned this in my schooltime instead of French or Spanish? Such a relief, indeed! People like you make life worth living. *o*
Still my favorite story from the Lord of the Rings set: Viggo Mortensen bonded so much with the horse he rode in the movies that after filming was over he bought it from its owner. If that doesn’t warm your heart I don’t know what could.
don’t forget that he also bought arwen’s horse for her stunt rider when she couldn’t afford it awww
also sort of relevant viggo also bought the horse that costarred with him in the movie hidalgo and subsequently took the horse (tj) with him to the red carpet premier.
Also most of the Riders of Rohan are actually women because when they put out that call mostly women showed up with their horses and the costume team just stuck beards on them.
if this isn’t the best post i don’t
So you’re saying the entire Rohan army could have killed the Witch-King of Angmar.
Witch King: No living man can kill me!
several thousand riders of Rohan: *rip their fake beards off*
Tolkien died in 1973. Reverse it and you get 3791.
Three rings for the elven kings under the sky, seven for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, nine for mortal men doomed to die, and one for the dark lord on his dark throne.
Most composers spend just 10-12ish weeks working on a film’s music. John Williams spent around 14 weeks on each Star Wars movie, 40ish weeks total for the whole OT……but composing the LOTR trilogy’s soundtrack took four years
The vocals you hear in the soundtrack are usually in one of Tolkien’s languages (esp. Elvish). The English translations of the lyrics are all poems, or quotes from the book, or occasionally even quotes from other parts of the films that are relevant to the scene
When there were no finished scenes for him to score, Howard Shore would develop musical themes inspired by the scripts or passages from the book. That’s how he got all Middle-Earth locations have their own unique sound: he was able to compose drafts of “what Gondor would sound like” and “what Lorien would sound like” long before any scenes in those places were filmed
Shore has said his favorite parts to score were always the little heartfelt moments between Frodo and Sam
Shore wrote over 100 unique leitmotifs/musical themes to represent specific people, places, and things in Middle Earth (over 160 if you count The Hobbit)
The ones we all talk about are the Fellowship theme, the main Shire Theme, and the themes for places like Gondor, Mordor, Rohan, and Rivendell…but a lot of the more subtle ones get overlooked and underappreciated
Like Aragorn’s theme. It’s a lot less “obvious” than the others because, like Aragorn himself, it adapts to take on the color of whatever place Aragorn is in: it’s played on dramatic broody stringed instruments in Bree, on horns in battle scenes, softly on the flute with Arwen in Rivendell….
Eowyn has not just one but three different leitmotifs to represent her
Gollum and Smeagol both have their own leitmotifs! Whose theme music is playing in the scene can often tell you whether the Gollum or Smeagol side is “winning” at the moment
The melody for Gollum’s Song in the end credits of the The Two Towers is the Smeagol and Gollum themes smushed together (it’s Symbolic)
And then there’s the really obscure ones. Like there’s a melody that plays at Boromir’s death that shows up again in ROTK in scenes that foreshadow a major death or loss
Shore wanted the theme music to grow alongside the characters– so that as the characters changed, their theme music would change with them.
You can hear that most clearly in the Shire theme. Like the hobbits, it goes through A Lot
Like compare the childish lil penny whistle theme you hear in Concerning Hobbits/the beginning of FOTR with (throws a dart at random Beautiful Tragic Hobbit Character Development scene because there WAY TOO MANY to choose from) the scene when Pippin finds Merry on the battlefield, where you hear a kind of shattered and broken but more mature version of that same theme in the background
I could write you a book on how much I love the way the Shire theme grows across the course of these films
Unlike the hero’s themes, which constantly change and grow, the villain’s themes (The One Ring theme, the Isengard theme, etc) remain basically the same from the very beginning of FOTR to the end of ROTK. Shore said this was an intentional choice: to emphasize that evil is static, while good is capable of change
Shore has said that between all the music that made into the movies and the music that didn’t, he composed enough for “a month of continuous listening”……..where can I sign up
who The fuck names meds “Zoloft” sounds like some dark wizard cursing me for not wiping my feet before I enter his house and “sertraline” is his snakewife
Xanax the White
I saw a quiz on the internet once where there was a list of names and you had to guess whether it was a Tolkien elf or a prescription medicine.
andtheytoldustotellyouhello 