Full-length LotR Parody Movies

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

I have been thinking about this on and off. One thing that occurs to me is that the Zong harks back to an older version of the Legendarium. The various early tellings of the Leithian always make Luthien's journey to Mandos seem a bit of a trek - in BoLT it's "down those dark roads", in the Lay "her journey to Mandos" has a line in the notes, while in the first Quenta there's a possibility that she travelled there alive via eagle. So could it be that when Finrod is all mopey about having Ruined Everything, he's thinking in terms of the Ban being more absolute than we usually think: that when the renegade Noldor die, they're not going to go home and sit around for a while, but get taken North into the icy dark.

I would argue that neither Amarie nor his own fate are foremost on his mind in that moment - though he does have a stanza for Amarie. The entire PD is him accepting his death, mentally preparing for it, but what he cannot reconcile is his sense of failure. A witness mesmerized of other people's oaths and hopes and doom - not his own, but other people's. He could not prevent Alqualonde and the Fall of the Noldor and all that followed. He could not protect the lands and people under his reign from destruction. He did not rear the people of Nargothrond to be what he hoped for, and ended up both abandoning and abandoned. He abandoned Amarie way back when, another parting that he believes was his fault. And the final straw was him losing the last of his friends and failing Beren. Beren's motto, "my life by you is justified", peeks through here - he finds comfort in being loyal to his love. To which Finrod echoes a direct reference, "what deed could justify my life"? He feels like everything he ever attempted is doomed to failure, and that's what's eating him. If there was one thing to give him comfort of accomplishment, that he is not dying for nothing, this would have been a different song. And so my reading of Truth is similar to your reading about throwing himself on Eru's mercy - or perhaps even explicitly realizing that he did NOT fail, that his life served a great purpose, but the scope of the purpose was so grand that you have to look at it from a distance to see it. And, more specifically to the forms of Elven afterlife, he clearly believes he is going to Mandos/?Manwe/Valar's judgement: "how shall I stay at Throne of Day" - though he might hang his head in shame, to the West he goes.

However:

Originally Posted by Hui

That makes Amarie's lines in "Wind" a lot more significant: she's not just moping, she's weaving a spell to send the wind to carry her love away from the Dark and back to her. In "Heart" she uses a version of the same spell, but only to give him encouragement - not to actually save him.

This, I want to be true. And for this to be true, it doesn't matter what Finrod thinks about where he's going, or how serious / fact-founded is the Elvish belief that bad Elves go to Angband. All that matters is that Amarie is sufficiently afraid for him to weave these spells.



Speaking of PD, though, there is a line that I wanted to bring up as something to potentially change if there are good ideas: Beren's "Those daring to love can walk unscathed through strife". His actual line here is more about loyalty: those who are faithful can stand unafraid on the edge [of a precipice]. But Finrod's next line is just too important, and this one took the hit for rhyming purposes. Although... Now that I think about it, Beren is sort of consistent with his "love is the meaning of life" theme, and it makes perfect internal sense for him to keep singing that tune. And you know what? Maybe it actually works well this way, it goes back to the two different themes interplaying between Wind and Truth. Beren needs to keep the Love Conquers All theme going. Finrod surrendered to fate's hand and is dealing with greater philosophical questions. Yes. I have just talked myself out of thinking that this line was a rubbish filler. If there's a good alternative, we can change it, but it's fine as it is. ^.^

Originally Posted by Hui

We watched it on opening... well, day. Very much enjoyed it! The alphabet song is utterly fantastic; I remember seeing it on the stage, and the moment they started throwing letters up onto the set was just this incredible "that's so clever!"

Yes, that was my reaction exactly! It is so clever! I love it! I saw a few different versions from various productions up on youtube, varying from pretty homemade to pretty professional - and people can really make it work.

I am gonna have to watch the movie musical now and see what you mean about the stage play elements.

It occurred to me that the play has better Russian grammar than most large screen productions. I saw two versions of the end scene so far, and Matildas in both speak with too much of an accent for me to make out anything beyond "I don't speak Russian very well". But the other dude actually speaks pretty grammatically. Oh, so many times you watch movie scenes and you just know they ran the dialogue through google translator, and you wonder how expensive can it be to hire a native speaker to translate your two lines for you without making a hilarious wreck of it. But this actually makes sense.

"We don't want any children who might be here to go home and try these things out for themselves. I am, of course, talking about reading books," - The Real Star Of The Show, to Sam Gamgee, probably.