In a hole in the ground….

I understand that someone has made a movie that is of some interest to the Tolkien fans in these parts.  I haven’t seen it yet myself, but those of you who have can discuss it here freely.  Don’t worry about “spoilers”, as I could not be less concerned about spoiling any surprises for those sad, unfortunate few who have not read the book.

I do hope Jackson has put a muzzle on whomever was responsible for all of the “humorous” dialogue in The Lord of the Rings.  One thing filmmakers never seem to understand is that because a lot of the dialogue is being provided by a writer whose work is popular enough to support a film, the chances are very high that any new dialogue is going to suffer badly by comparison.  Therefore, it should be kept to the minimum possible.  This is particularly true when the writer concerned happens to be one of the all-time greats.

I was very conscious of this in writing the Argument in Summa Elvetica.  The reason it worked so well that one reviewer thought the whole thing was actually written by Thomas Aquinas was that I took phrases and even complete sentences from the Summa and his other works.  I connected them together in a coherent manner using as few of my own words as possible.  Those who have read A Throne of Bones will probably be aware that I utilized the same technique there and drew upon ancient historical documents in a number of important places.  Had I more time, I would have liked to have gone through the entire dialogue and done it that way.