The Lord of the RingsThe Lord of the Rings is an epic fantasy story by J. R. R. Tolkien, a sequel to his earlier work, The Hobbit. For more information on the fictional universe the story takes place in, including lists of characters and locations, see Middle-earth. The story's name derives from the Dark Lord Sauron of Mordor, the primary villain of the work, who created the Ruling Ring and is thus the "Lord of the Rings" the title refers to. However, he is but the servant of an earlier Dark Lord, Morgoth, mentioned in Tolkien's The Silmarillion.
Publication historyThe three parts were first published by Allen & Unwin in 1954-1955 several months apart. They were later reissued many times by multiple publishers, as one, three, six or seven volumes. One current printing is ISBN 0-618-12902-2. In the early 1960s, Donald A. Wollheim, science fiction editor of the paperback publisher Ace books, realised that The Lord of the Rings was not protected in the United States under American copyright law because the US hardcover edition had been bound from pages printed in the UK for the British edition. Ace Books proceeded to publish an edition, unauthorized by Tolkien and without compensation to him. Tolkien made this plain to US fans who wrote to him. Grass-roots pressure became so great that Ace books withdrew their edition and made a nominal payment to Tolkien, well below what he might have been due in an appropriate publication. However, this poor beginning was overshadowed when an authorized edition followed from Ballantine Books to tremendous commercial success. By the mid-1960s the trilogy, due to its wide exposure on the American public stage, had become a true cultural phenomenon. The books have been translated, with various degrees of success, into dozens of other languages. \nTolkien, an expert in philology, examined many of these translations, and had comments on each that illuminate both the translation process and his work. The enormous popular success of Tolkien's epic saga greatly expanded the demand for fantasy fiction. Largely thanks to The Lord of the Rings, the genre flowered throughout the 1960s. Many well-written books of this genre were published (comparable works include the Earthsea books of Ursula K. Le Guin and the Thomas Covenant novels of Stephen R. Donaldson). As in all artistic fields, a great many lesser derivatives of the more prominent works appeared. \nThe term "Tolkienesque" is used in the genre to refer to the oft-used and abused storyline of The Lord of the Rings: a group of adventurers embarking on a quest to save a magical fantasy world from the armies of an evil "dark lord".The BooksThe Lord of the Rings began as a personal exploration by Tolkien of his interests in philology, fairy tales, and Norse and Celtic mythology. \nTolkien detailed his creation to an astounding extent; he created a complete mythology for his realm of Middle-earth, including genealogies of characters, languages, runes, calendars and histories. \nSome of this supplementary material is detailed in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, and the mythological history was woven into a large, biblically-styled volume entitled The Silmarillion. J. R. R. Tolkien described The Lord of the Rings as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work". In it the great virtues of Mercy and Pity (by Bilbo and Frodo towards Gollum) win the day and the message from the Lord's Prayer "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" was very much on Tolkien's mind as Frodo struggled against the power of the One Ring. The plot of The Lord of the Rings builds from his earlier book The Hobbit and more obliquely from the history in The Silmarillion, which contains events to which the characters of The Lord of the Rings look back upon in the book. \nThe hobbits become embroiled in great events that threaten their entire world, as Sauron, the servant of evil, attempts to regain the lost One Ring which will restore him to full potency.The Ring poem\n:Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,\n: Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,\n:Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,\n: One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,\n:In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.\n: One Ring to Rule them all, One Ring to find them,\n: One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.\n:In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.The Lord of the Rings on filmThere were plans for the Beatles to do a version of The Lord of the Rings but they came to nothing. \nIt was even said that Stanley Kubrick had looked into the possibility of filming the trilogy, but he abandoned the idea as too "immense" to be made into a movie. In the mid-1970s, renowned film director John Boorman collaborated with film rights holder and producer Saul Zaentz to do a live action picture, but the project proved too expensive to finance at that time. In 1978, Rankin-Bass studios produced the first real film adaptation of any "Lord of The Rings" related material with an animated television version of The Hobbit, which is a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. Shortly after, Saul Zaentz picked up where Rankin-Bass left off by producing an animated adaptation of "The Fellowship of the Ring" and the first portion of "The Two Towers" in 1978. \nJRR Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, originally released by United Artists, incorporated animation over live action sequences, and was directed by Ralph Bakshi. \nThis film was of uneven quality (perhaps a result of budget pressure or overruns, or difficulty grappling with the magnitude of the trilogy). \nSome portions were fully- and well- animated, while others used Max Fleischer's rotoscope technique, where animation is laid over live action sequences. \nAdditionally, the film ended somewhat abruptly after the battle of Helm's Deep, but before Sam, Frodo and Gollum traverse the Dead Marshes. Despite his best efforts, Bakshi was never able to do a Part II (covering the rest of the trilogy), leaving the door open for Rankin-Bass to do the work for him with their 1980 animated television version of The Return of the King. Since these films were targeted to a younger audience, adult enthusiasts have complained that much of the depth and darkness of the stories was discarded. These efforts seemed to imply that movie treatment of The Lord of the Rings was not credibly possible. Since overall interest in the trilogy waned somewhat, prospects for a visual treatment of the trilogy were poor. \nHowever, advances in filmmaking techniques, in particular the development of computer graphics, made a movie treatment more feasible. Miramax Films developed a full-fledged live-action adaptation of the "Rings" trilogy, with Peter Jackson as director. When financing began to fall through, New Line Cinema assumed production responsibility (Miramax executives Bob Weinstein and Harvey Weinstein remained on the production crew throughout the films' making). The three live action films were filmed simultaneously with one another. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released in December 2001 (and won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation of 2001). The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was released in December 2002 and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was released in December 2003. Although some have criticized these films because they have altered the story somewhat and, arguably, have a substantially different tone from Tolkien's original vision, others have hailed them as remarkable achievements. \nNoted critic Roger Ebert wrote, "[Jackson] has taken an enchanting and unique work of literature and retold it in the terms of the modern action picture. [...] To do what he has done in this film must have been awesomely difficult, and he deserves applause, but to remain true to Tolkien would have been more difficult, and braver." Peter Jackson's film adaptation garnered seventeen Oscars (four for the first film,The Fellowship of the Ring two for the second, The Two Towers, and eleven for the third, The Return of the King); these cover many of the awards categories (in fact, "Return" won all the awards for which it was nominated, including Best Picture), but oddly, for none of the acting categories. "Return"'s Oscar sweep is widely seen as a proxy award for the entire trilogy. The visual-effects work has been groundbreaking, particularly the creation of the emotionally versatile digital character Gollum. \nThe scale of the production alone—three films shot back to back over a period of one and a half years—is unprecedented. The films have also proven to be substantial box office successes. \nThe premiere of the third film, The Return of the King, took place in Wellington, New Zealand on December 1, 2003 and was surrounded by fan celebrations and official promotions (the production of the films having contributed significantly to the New Zealand economy). It has made movie history as the largest Wednesday opening ever. "Return" was also the second movie in history (after Titanic) to earn over $1 billion (worldwide).The Lord of the Rings on radioThe BBC produced a 13-part radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings in 1956, and a 6-part version of The Hobbit in 1966. \nIt is uncertain whether Tolkien ever heard either series. No recording of the 1956 series is known to exist, but The Hobbit has survived. \nIt is a very faithful adaptation, incorporating some passing references to The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion. A 1979 dramatization was broadcast in the USA and subsequently issued on tape and CD. No cast or credits appear on the audio packaging. \nEach of the actors was apparently recorded separately and then the various parts were edited together. \nThus, unlike a BBC recording session where the actors are recorded together, none of the cast are actually interacting with each other and the performances suffer badly as a result. In 1981 the BBC broadcast a new, ambitious dramatization of The Lord of the Rings in 26 half-hour instalments. See: The Lord of the Rings (1981 radio series).Pop culture references to The Lord of the Rings\n* Leonard Nimoy's music: The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins is based around this series (in particular The Hobbit).\n* Led Zeppelin's music: Misty Mountain Hop is named after Tolkien's Misty Mountains; Ramble On refers to Gollum and Mordor and The Battle of Evermore is an actual allegory from the "Battle of the Pelennor Fields" from The Return of the King\n* Rush has a song called Rivendell on their Fly By Night album.\n* Styx has a song called "Lords of the Ring" on their Pieces of Eight album.\n* Swedish musician Bo Hansson has made an entire instrumental album based on The Lord of the Rings (1973)\n* Alan Horvath has also made an entire album based on The Lord of the Rings (2004)\n* The Brobdingnagian Bards have named one of their tracks Tolkien, and the remix The Lord of the Rings\n* The TV show Babylon 5 includes occasional homages to The Lord of the Rings, as well as epic themes drawn from similar mythological roots.\n* The German metal band Blind Guardian has a song called "Lord of the Rings" on the album Tales from the Twilight World. They also released an album based on Lord of the Rings called Nightfall in Middle-Earth, including songs like "The Curse of Fëanor" based on part of The Silmarillion, and "Into The Shadow", using the theme of the One Ring's dark powers. Some of their other works also contain references to Tolkien's creations.\n* The Austrian musician Gandalf's name was chosen with reference to the hobbits' wizard friend. He has composed several pieces of music which deal with themes and characters originating from The Lord of the Rings, some of which can be found on his second album, Visions.\n* There are various references to The Lord of the Rings, e.g. to the ents, in Stephen King's and Peter Straub's novel The Talisman.\n* The modern-era hero in Cryptonomicon views himself as a dwarf, his grandfather the cryptanalyst as an elf, an ex-Navy Seal as one of the race of Men, and refers to his nemesis (a psychotic lawyer) as Gollum.\n* The group Nickel Creek has a song called "The House of Tom Bombadil."\n* The Finnish musicians Nightwish have a song called "Elvenpath" which features a Lord of the Rings sample. The Lord of the Rings books were an enormous influence on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, and hence continue to be a major influence on the entire field of role-playing and computer games having fantasy epic themes. Several games have been based directly on The Lord of the Rings and related works.Satire and parody based on The Lord of the Rings\n* The Harvard Lampoon satire Bored of the Rings.\n* A little-known BBC Radio series, Hordes of the Things (1980) attempted to parody heroic fantasy in the style of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.\n* A German resynchronization of the Fellowship 's first twenty minutes, called The Lord of the Weed, portrays the characters as highly drug addicted.\n* Quickbeam and Bombadil, the Lords of the Rhyme, mix Tolkein's fantasy world with hip-hop.See also\n* Antimodernism - The Lord of the Rings could be considered an antimodernist work in that it expresses affection for a simple, non-mechanistic life. In this view, the bucolic Shire is the embodiment of the good life, while the industrializing Isengard is foul and corrupt. \n* The Atom - The above characterization can be given more detail if the One Ring is taken to be a metaphor for atomic energy or the atomic bomb, as has been proposed by some. However, the book was not published until the 1950s, and the plot element of the One Ring dates to the 1930s, when Tolkien could not have known of atomic energy. Further, Tolkien specifically rejects this as his intention. It is safe to conclude that Tolkien intended no such meaning. However, an author's intention is not a strict limit on the meaning that readers may take, (see Intentional Fallacy); an analogy to atomic energy is often noted by modern readers. Certainly the idea of a power too great for humans to safely wield, always evocative, was especially so in the years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.\n* The Cursed Ring - Links The Lord of the Rings to Plato's 'The Ring of Gyges' and Wagner's 'Der Ring des Nibelungen'.\n*The Tolkien Relation, by William Ready ISBN 0-446-30110-8 - An inquiry by the author examining the sources and symbolism of the work.\n*J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography, by Humphrey Carpenter, ISBN 0-618-05702-1.External links\n* The World of J.R.R. Tolkien\n* The Tolkien Wiki Community\n* TheOneRing.net - forged by and for fans of J.R.R. Tolkien\n* Council of Elrond - news and scholarship\n* The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza - Tolkien Community\n* The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Library - Tolkienien Information\n* The Encyclopedia of Arda - Mark Fisher's tribute site to the works of Tolkien\n* Tolkien Bibliography\n* The Lord of the Rings Wilderness Poster\n* Textual sources of the Lord of the Rings at sacred-texts.com; includes full etexts of the Kalevala, Norse Sagas, Welsh Mabinoginen and The Worm Ouroboros. \nThe Lord of the Rings movies links\n* New Line Cinema's LOTR movies website\n* IMDb listing for Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)\n* IMDb listing for Peter Jackson's The Two Towers (2002)\n* IMDb listing for Peter Jackson's The Return of the King (2003)\n* IMDb listing for Ralph Bakshi's animated version of LOTR (1978)\n* A Nit-Pickers Guide to Deviations Between the Books and the Films \n Lord of the Rings, The\nLord of the Rings, The \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n |
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