Well sure, you didn't like them, but I don't think that your "scholarly" approach to the films really makes a particularly good point when some of your basic assumptions are opinions that other people simply will never agree with. I did not tire of Ian McKellen's performance in the first movie. I did not find the humor lame, I found it appropriate for these characters and for Tolkien. I enjoyed 99% of the visual effects, including the battle scenes. Yes, I did really find those "Jell-O-ey" effects beautiful. I love Harryhausen, too, but you really want to sit through 9 hours of movie with those effects in this day and age? Make all the film and Wagner references you want, but I think you just missed the point that these movies effect people in a way that they enjoy, no matter how woefully misguided and uncouth those people are.
As to the idea that the movie is "quite openly a pro-war movie", i think that to claim that the movies, and the books for that matter, are "quite openly" anything is popmpous and a tad ludicrous. People have been discussing the movies for years now, and been discussing the books for generations and some people agree with your opinions and some don't. The weight of scholarly(and not so scholary) opinion on the subject makes it hard to take someone's sweeping pronouncements seriously.

Alan, I started out writing a long comment on this but just said forget it and wrote a post instead. Thanks!

Thanks to you, Eric, for taking me so seriously. Got up at 6:00 am to post but now I'm in a weekend-long corporate law training retreat so I can only check up on comments but not respond adequately.

I think that referring to the movies as "pro-war" is more than a bit reductive. These are very specific circumstances: the potential destruction of the race of men and the loss of middle earth to an invading and unabashedly evil force bent on destroying everything that opposes it.

If this is a series of movies that are "pro-war," then they are only so insofar as every now and then you have to fight to survive. Indeed, I don't off the top of my head remember any instances in the films where the idea of war itself is either glorified or rushed into. Certainly, there are instances where the heroic deeds of characters are spotlighted, but we can chalk that up to the epic character of the tales.

Thanks for commenting, but I'm not convinced. Your limited definition of "pro-war"--"every now and then you have to fight to survive"--is all that "pro-war" means in modern democracies. In other words, it's the opposite of the pacifist position that war is never okay. But no reasonable person advocates war except in self-defense or to protect essential interests when no other way will work. You see the war-first mentality in ancient Sparta, in medieval texts like Beowulf in which marauding is an essential component of the economy, and in Nazi Germany, but not in the contemporary free world.

But as for war being glorified: I don't know what else you'd call it when the heroes defeat the villains with swords. Watching the trilogy can you really remain indifferent to the martial prowess of the good guys? Of course not--you're meant to cheer, and not just the men but the princess who sticks her sword in a dying warrior's helmet for good measure after he's been stabbed in the back. In other words, it's glorified even when the good guys violate classic notions of chivalry.

Furthermore, I have to take exceptoin when you say "chalk that up to the epic character of the tales" so casually, as if the choice of the epic genre were some trifling detail. Military victory is essential to epic, even in Milton's Paradise Lost, with its battle against Lucifer and the fallen angels, and even in an ironic epic like The Godfather, with the bad guy protagonist defeating his rivals and consolidating power while attending his nephew's baptism.

At the same time, while you're technically accurate that "specific circumstances" bring about the warfare in Lord of the Rings, it has enough of an allegorical character that all the specific circumstances are clearly meant to be read symbolically, with a larger, more general application to the battle of good against evil. "Specific circumstances" would make a huge difference in a documentary, in arguing against U.S. involvement in World War I versus World War II, for instance. But not in "Middle Earth." Unlike Woodrow Wilson and F.D.R., the characters are not people who might have acted otherwise than they did. They are exactly and only what their author has made them do. They fight and we're meant to cheer for them, as paragons.

A, I believe all of this addresses an attitude toward war: in other words, when forces to fight, we are to embrace, even revel in the conflict in order to best assure victory, which if you are going to fight, is a pretty good idea. In other words, our execution of the first Gulf War would not have fit into the Tolkien's recommended worldview, where we did not follow victory through to its final conclusion and look where that got us, the region, and the rest of the world. In that instance we appeased evil instead of crushing it entirely - I hope we have learned out lesson.

Hi this is Dave in Ireland this is an essay that might give you some inspiration about the philosophical meanings of the lord of the rings if you like the story you will love this

+++ONE RING TO KEEP THEM IN THE DARK++++
Smoking a self-destructive habit, which started at some point in time in the Americas it just seems crazy when you think about it philosophically its an act violence on the self body & sole masochism to use the correct phrase it’s the hole in the bucket of your sole. Anybody who has given up will now how hard it is but how better you feel .I can only compare it to breaking free from a prisoner of war camp other smokers are the guards and all around. So to stay on top you keep fit which is a normal thing in its self
Smoking has nothing to offer society I and a lot of people believe it has a very bad effect on the collective consciousness and is a corner stone of the problems of the world effecting the perceptions of people themselves its like a black hole for spirit a destroyer or vacuum of loves energy the Holy Spirit it keeps us humanity from attaining holiness 100%spiritual awareness
The method I used to stop a pilgrimage the Camino Santiago de Compostela in Spain it took 36 days in total from the Pyrenees to Finisterra where you burn a set of clothes at the end over looking the Atlantic. It’s a very powerful thing to do psychologically & spiritually the death of the old and start of the new. As for smoking I now have a massive immunity against them a buffer zone. But it’s not just the burning of a set of clothes the whole pilgrimage you are becoming more aware spiritually awoken other pilgrims may smoke but the tone is always down around where they are. With giving up smoking you have to break many psychological links like the link with food alcohol its like cutting out badges out of your physique your ego out of your fore conscience. Smoking keeps you from harmonising with your true spiritual self your inner child when your in harmony with yourself your dreams don’t seem so alien and you can decode them more easily. The Camino is a spiritual thing Camino means way and ultimately you find a truer way a better course and leave a lot of chains behind the only thing is its hard coming back into the horrible reality that exists in the world now .I personally believe two major things keep the world this way commercial separation separate commercial identities in competition with each other in other words inharmonious systems and the other is lack of respect for life not enough love and people in the dark with the bad systems being part of the problem not part of the solution a taker rather than a giver a world of givers is better than a world takers a simple philosophy.
I had a thought on the pilgrimage for the possible reason smoking started, something like that just doesn’t just happen for no reason. Smoking causes a spiritual vacuum. So possibly people like Columbus and others felt a draw over the ocean. The shamans of the Americas smoked because they thought it brought them closer to god. Well the Europeans who came over who had something the thing that made Europe great the Gospel. I also have a theory why smoking was allowed to continue even grow it was sort of like a blinker for the hole of humanity so the day when it cessed worldwide would be the day when humanity fully awoke.
Some countries have taken positive steps but the best way to deal with it is to treat it for what it is an illness a spiritual illness banning smoking from the work place & all public places is good but it does not stop it .It has to stop growing so dependent smokers should get a state card and only with this card can you buy cigarettes or you have to get a prescription for them after doing a medical until you attempt or the cut off point for a national or international effort to stop all at once stopping all production and distribution limiting sale to pharmacies. All the financial gain made from selling cigarettes should go back into structured government EU &international plans for getting people well if everybody gave up at the same time It would make so much easer This would have to be planned but there is no reason this can’t happen before Halloween or all saints day by the least? Doctors could prescribe pilgrimages something like the Camino a spiritual journey say on the Wicklow Leister way, which starts in Marley Park.
Health groups could provide a structure along the way accommodation food medical care ect they could study the Camino Santiago de Compostela in Spain that pilgrimage is about 1500 years old its symbol is the escallop shell. It depends on how dynamic the government or governments are. First the extra tax on the smokes would help doubling the price to really get the message home
Groups would see injustice and their power to change popular culture would come more into the light Our media would reflect the change from a bad news to good news Terror Terrorism would be a thing of the past and loose its grip love would prevail people would rise above the past hate fear anger all the things of the past Perfect systems would come into place
Rubbish would be a thing of the past. The EU would become the UE united earth or union of earth all pockets of hell on Earth would be removed the military would become a disaster reaction force the gun would be retired violence would end
People of different nationalities &cultures would not be looked at in a fearful way .the wealth gap would harmonise International Treaties could be passed like the formation of a new international Language a mixture of Chinese English Spanish Indian Islamic and African languages. To help bring the world together everybody in the world could communicate to each other you would then only need two languages your native language &the international one.
The pillars of our new world order would be Liberty & Responsibility. New trading methods could be put in place one where there is no inflation. Say a kilo of rice is one Earth credit or a kilo of wheat all separate commercial identities would merge into national services, food service, health services manufacturing services each nation would have a quota for trade 50% produce for home consumption 50% for export
How we can start is by sending this message to as many people as you can to Governments to translate it into the languages of the various countries this will reach the media public fingers the consciousness collective the world has the perfect medium in the internet just send it to everyone in your mail box photocopy it and give it to people we will all be part of this could reach a million people before next month its up to You
http://www.platinum-celebs.com/lifestyle/news/005326.html

Thank God someone has finally seen the "Lord of the Rings" films for what they are: a bloated, cliche-riddled ungainly mess that occasionally entertains and sweeps us up, but never approaches the transcendent heights the gushy critics and fans have claimed.

I had not read Tolkien's books before seeing these films, but having seen them, I had an overwhelming urge to read the books...not because the films had inspired me but because I wanted to see whether the source material was as uninteresting as the movies or whether Jackson had just botched the adaptation. I read Tolkien's epic work, and frankly, I loved it. It had a richness of detail, a lighthearted tone and a thematic unity that is completely lacking from Jackson's debacle.

It is perhaps unfair to refer to the movies as debacles...they do contain a few memorable moments. But to my eyes, mediocrity oozes out of every frame. If Jackson has "changed the face of cinema" as the critics say, then it is not for the better.

I could go through my specific complaints about the film, but Mr. Dale hit many of them on the head (in fact, the comparison of the battle scenes with those in Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" is one I had thought of...now THERE is a film in which the horror of battle is conveyed in a profound and memorable way. Jackson's battle scenes are slice-and-dice messes in which the heroes never seem at risk).

It saddens me to think that many consider these films to be among the finest in cinema history. Of course, each person's opinion counts for as much as anyone else's, but I have the strong suspicion that a lot of people (particularly some of the critics) are not really LOOKING at these movies...they are being seduced by the hype.

Perhaps there is a cultural need at this time for a great movie...for us to believe that epic, sprawling masterpieces can still be made. There is no doubt that Jackson's films are sprawling, but they sprawl in all the wrong directions...

Amen.

An epic trilogy, made me feel the way I never did before, made me cry in some places, it's so perfect.