1066: the Battle for Middle-earth

[davem]

Originally Posted by Elmo

They should add elves and orcs to the battle of hastings just to make it live up to the programme name.

They have - but they're calling the Elves 'Anglo-Saxons' & the Orcs 'Normans'

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

They have - but they're calling the Elves 'Anglo-Saxons' & the Orcs 'Normans'

With an attitude like that towards the Normans, it sounds as if Tolkien was a ghost writer of the script.

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by davem

They have - but they're calling the Elves 'Anglo-Saxons' & the Orcs 'Normans'

That's how Tolkien would have wanted it.

edit: cross-posted with Bêthberry. Funny how we said things to the same effect.

[davem]

Interesting article in the Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/lif...cle6289190.ece which mentions both the series (which was shown to some teenaged schoolchildren) & Tolkien -

The pupils also enjoy spotting references to The Lord of the Rings. While Tolkien’s imagination may have created an entire world of Middle-earth, the film points out that in Anglo-Saxon it meant “land between heaven and hell, where men walk”. None of the pupils knows that Tolkien was a leading expert on Anglo-Saxon literature.

The Saxon characters in the film think that they see elves in the words (sic - I think that should be 'woods'). Then they come face to face with Orcs. Orc meant foreigner or demon; in this case the feared Normans. The battle scenes were consciously modelled on those in The Lord of the Rings films, with a similar level of violence. The narration is by Bilbo Baggins himself, the actor Ian Holm.

Interesting that these pupils spot references to Lord of the Rings in the story of 1066 (& probably in Sigurd & Gudrun if they were to read it), rather than seeing references to history & legend in LotR - but Tolkien (even if only via the movies) is familiar to them, & their history & myth is unknown....... What would Tolkien think?

[Eönwë]

Originally Posted by davem

Interesting that these pupils spot references to Lord of the Rings in the story of 1066 (& probably in Sigurd & Gudrun if they were to read it), rather than seeing references to history & legend in LotR - but Tolkien (even if only via the movies) is familiar to them, & their history & myth is unknown....... What would Tolkien think?

Maybe he'd be happy that he would be getting more people interested in history.

[Eönwë]

Hmm... what do people that have seen it think about it?