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Todd Baesen · 13th December 2001, 06:52 AM

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Here's a review of LOTR, but beware, some key plot points are revealed. It is prefaced by some Christopher Lee comments.

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I met J.R.R. Tolkien once at Oxford, and I still think THE LORD OF THE RINGS is the greatest literary achievement in my lifetime. What he did is something that is quite unique in the history of literature. I also knew T. H. White who wrote THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING. But Tolkien's work was just the sort of thing that appealed to me, because I like fantasy, too. I read the books every year. Of course, we all love to dream, because we don't live in a particularly attractive world. I don't really remember, except as a small boy, anything but a pretty grim world. I'm old enough to have seen Hitler in the flesh. I'm old enough to have been in Munich in 1934, on the night of the long knives, when Hitler butchered so many of his own people. I'm old enough to remember the Second World War and all the other things. So I'm not being a Cassandra, who prophesied nothing but evil and misery, I'm simply facing reality. So, yes, let us not lose faith, let us be optimistic, let us believe in the good things, but we still have to face the world as it is. When you live in a world like that, what do you want? You want to escape, to get out of this world from time to time, into another world, a magical world, an enchanted world, where things happen we dream about, a world of fairy stories and wizards. It's like the conjurer, the enchanter, or magician who says, "Look, nothing up my sleeve. When I do this, you will come into my enchanted world!" Dreaming, escaping, that is what we're talking about. I firmly believe that's why this kind of film is so universally popular, and always will be, because people like to get into another world.

13th December 2001, 06:52 AM	#1 (permalink)
Todd Baesen Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Posts: 14 Rep Power: 0	- Here's a review of LOTR, but beware, some key plot points are revealed. It is prefaced by some Christopher Lee comments. _______________________________________ I met J.R.R. Tolkien once at Oxford, and I still think THE LORD OF THE RINGS is the greatest literary achievement in my lifetime. What he did is something that is quite unique in the history of literature. I also knew T. H. White who wrote THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING. But Tolkien's work was just the sort of thing that appealed to me, because I like fantasy, too. I read the books every year. Of course, we all love to dream, because we don't live in a particularly attractive world. I don't really remember, except as a small boy, anything but a pretty grim world. I'm old enough to have seen Hitler in the flesh. I'm old enough to have been in Munich in 1934, on the night of the long knives, when Hitler butchered so many of his own people. I'm old enough to remember the Second World War and all the other things. So I'm not being a Cassandra, who prophesied nothing but evil and misery, I'm simply facing reality. So, yes, let us not lose faith, let us be optimistic, let us believe in the good things, but we still have to face the world as it is. When you live in a world like that, what do you want? You want to escape, to get out of this world from time to time, into another world, a magical world, an enchanted world, where things happen we dream about, a world of fairy stories and wizards. It's like the conjurer, the enchanter, or magician who says, "Look, nothing up my sleeve. When I do this, you will come into my enchanted world!" Dreaming, escaping, that is what we're talking about. I firmly believe that's why this kind of film is so universally popular, and always will be, because people like to get into another world.