ealgylden: (Bronze Theoden (kathlaw))
[personal profile] ealgylden
Okay, hockey game is over (we lost, boo!), Little Sister and her boyfriend have gone home, and I'm avoiding anything that looks like work. Fie upon thee, work, for it is Saturday night and I am home watching tapes of Kim Possible! Once, long years ago, I thought, "Someday I'll be a grown-up, and I'll go out on Saturday nights and have a social life," for I was very young then, and not very wise. Oops, and now I'm out of ice cream. That won't do a'tall.


I'm sure that lots of people know this already, but [livejournal.com profile] castalianspring is most exceedingly cool. People who like ships tend to be cool to begin with, but people who give pretty little sparkly ships to their friends? That's a whole new level of coolness. Thanks muchly, Castalia! I love it!

(You may wonder why I'm using "cool" so often rather than my normal mix of "keen," "shiny," "snazzy," etc. It could have something to do with the fact that my house is about fifty degrees, even with both the furnace and the woodstove going. All of my other adjectives are frozen.)


Also very cool is my mother, who got me a Viking Barbie. She's pretty fabulous (the Barbie, I mean, though my mom is as well). She's rather more Wagnerian (or "What's Opera, Doc?") than historical, but her little winged helmet, breastplate and chainmail overskirt are so cute that I don't care a whit. Also very cute are the pink-sailed Viking ships on the packaging. She is Barbiehilda, after all. First Barbie I've ever seen with a sword. Pretty nifty, if you ask me.


I'm crossing my fingers and toes (and hair, since I always wear it braided) that I can swing seeing RotK again on Monday or Tuesday. I was watching the "Concerning Hobbits" bit on the FotR EE this afternoon, and you know, for all that that version of the beginning is closer to the books and is a thoroughly charming piece of filmmaking, I think I have a slight preference for the theatrical version, where it jumps from the prologue right to Frodo under the tree, without meandering through Shire life first. It's a very slight preference, but even so. Many, many people (myself included) are already eagerly waiting for the EE of RotK, nearly a year away, in hopes of seeing all the lovely scenes that didn't make the theatrical cut. Still, there is one apparent plot-twist peculiar to this version that I'll miss once the other scenes are added back in. According to the theatrical cut, Éowyn ends up as Queen of Rohan. Cool. I mean, there's nothing in the movie that says any different. She and Théoden have their lovely scene where he tells her to be brave, be happy and go home and rule after he and all the rest of her male relatives and friends are slaughtered. Assuming the world doesn't end directly thereafter, that is. And then off to war they go, he's killed, she lives, and that's pretty much it for the royal family of Rohan in the films. They don't vanish, of course. Éomer does some sexy, respectful scowling at the coronation while Éowyn smiles at the cute blond stranger next to her ("What did you say your name was again?"), but with no Houses of Healing, no Éowyn/Faramir plotline, and no mention of "Éomer King", there isn’t really anything onscreen to dispute Théoden's choice of heirs. Which is cool. Little Sister's Boyfriend, who's a big fan of the movies but knows nothing about Tolkien, Anglo-Saxon history, aeþelings, or the odds of Rohan ending up with a reigning queen, just assumed that the warrior princess went home to become a warrior queen and was disappointed to find out that her brother got the throne instead. I think I'm going to miss that interpretation once all the missing scenes are added back in, erroneous though it may be.


I was going to blather about the RotK score and the Oscars a wee bit, but my attention wandered so much while I was typing this that it's taken me ages, and instead I'm going to bed. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

Queen of Rohan

Date: 2003-12-28 07:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ide-cyan.livejournal.com
That's a neat observation. Queen Éowyn, yay! I could get behind that.

Of course, I've been spurning the theatrical versions in order to get the EEs for the holidays one after the other, but that might be a reason to go back and get them afterwards.

Re: Queen of Rohan

Date: 2003-12-28 07:20 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ide-cyan.livejournal.com
...and, anyways, the movies are set in an alternate universe not governed by the laws that inspired Tolkien, of course, and impossible things do happen there before breakfast, what with neither Edoras nor Minas Tirith having any kind of agriculture going on, and people magically producing food anyways. :-)

Re: Queen of Rohan

Date: 2003-12-31 04:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ealgylden.livejournal.com
Hee! That's definitely true. Maybe Gondor has a ready supply of manna? And the Rohirrim have their ale (or maybe mead), so who needs food? All the same, the hobbits should be careful. They're so young and tender.

Re: Queen of Rohan

Date: 2003-12-31 11:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ide-cyan.livejournal.com
Reminds me of The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Stew! Horses that breed by pollination! Cannibalism and halflings! (No, wait, that last one would be from Grunts!.)

Re: Queen of Rohan

Date: 2003-12-31 04:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ealgylden.livejournal.com
Yeah, I feel very geeky buying each movie twice, and I love having all of the extra, sometimes essential, footage (not to mention the extras themselves), but there are some scenes and transitions I like better in the theatrical versions. Like, as much as I love Théodred's funeral, I miss the abrupt cut from Théoden asking "Where is my son?" to him standing at the tomb. So in the end, it's worth it to me to have both (and the Queen Éowyn thing is just neat). I hope this "two version of the film, each with their own merits" thing doesn't become popular with the industry at large, though. I'll buy these particular films twice, but there aren't many others I would.

Re: Queen of Rohan

Date: 2004-01-01 04:13 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ide-cyan.livejournal.com
Like, as much as I love Théodred's funeral, I miss the abrupt cut from Théoden asking "Where is my son?" to him standing at the tomb.

Yes. That's a good cut. But Éowyn's lament simply breaks my heart.

and the Queen Éowyn thing is just neat

It makes a pretty icon (http://pages.infinit.net/amneria/eowyn.png), too.

Re: Queen of Rohan

Date: 2004-01-01 07:24 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ealgylden.livejournal.com
Ooh. That is indeed a lovely icon. Nicely done!

Re: Queen of Rohan

Date: 2004-01-01 07:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ide-cyan.livejournal.com
Do you want it? (I figure I should give you first dibs, since you made the observation.)

Re: Queen of Rohan

Date: 2004-01-01 09:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ealgylden.livejournal.com
Really? Keen! It's a lovely pic, and my icon were sadly lacking in Eowyn-ness. Thank you!

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