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Tolkien Adaptations and Songs...among other things
1. Well, Rings of Power inspired me to buy "The Lord of the Rings" on Kindle for $15.99. Which is a bit of a deal. It's the 75th anniversary edition - and I was reading the introductory material prior to buying it. Apparently there were multiple revisions - because the publishers kept publishing it with all sorts of errors. In the US, they replaced various spellings. Such as dwarfs as opposed to dwarves, and elfin as opposed to elfven. In short they corrected his British spelling.
Tolkien was particular about his spellings - because he was creating a new language and world, and deliberately using old English spellings. But the damn publishers copy-editors and line editors felt the need to correct him.
They also abridged things. Left items out.
As a result, there were multiple versions - and the earliest editions weren't accurate. Finally, he got a corrected version - the one he wanted out, and this is apparently that one? I don't know.
I also fell down a bit of a rabbit hole - looking through the old Rankin Bass cartoon adaptations of the Hobbit and The Return of the King. The Hobbit was in the public domain - so they could adapt without the estates permission (which seemed odd to me - since the other items aren't, not sure how it fell into the public domain? Unless Youtuber was wrong about that - which would make more sense.) The 1978 Hobbit Film, and 1980 Return of the King by Rankin Bass, plus the Ralph Baski Lord of the Rings - I saw in the 1980s. Well except for the Hobbit, which I saw in 1978 - after I'd read the book. It was on ABC Sunday Night. As a child - I adored it. I don't know if the cartoon holds up well now - the animation maybe doesn't, but the rest of it does. They had excellent vocal talent - with Richard Boone as the voice of Smaug, John Huston as Gandalf, Orson Bean as Bilbo, and Otto Preminger as Thorin. Plus it follows the book very closely, far more closely in some respects than Jackson's version.
And if Rankin/Bass sounds familiar? It's because they are responsible for all the stop-motion animated Christmas specials of the late 1960s and 70s including: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Year with a Santa Clause, Santa Clause is Coming to Town, and Little Drummer Boy. (Those specials had the vocal talents of Hollywood royalty - Mickey Rooney, Fred Astair, Burl Ives, among them.) I don't know how they attracted old Hollywood Royalty to these things.
Here's an clip of the Rankin Bass Hobbit.
The 1978 film was a musical, it had musical numbers throughout, including The Hobbit theme "The Greatest Adventure". (Return of the King adaptation was similar). Some of the songs from the 1970s film made it into Peter Jackson's film, and one of the songs, I think played over the end credits of the Jackson films.
The songs that made it into Jackson's film included "Over the Misty Mountains", "The Lonely Mountain", and the Dwarves song in Bilbo Baggin's kitchen while doing the dishes.
Here's a few examples of both versions back to back..
Another one...
Original... Rankin Bass version
Oh the "What Bilbo Baggins Hates" was actually in the book and written by Tolkien, along with Over Misty Mountains...Tolkien was a poet.
Here's Tolkien singing "What Bilbo Baggins Hates" - so this was apparently written by Tolkien not Rankin/Bass, which explains why Jackson used it.
I thought it was Rankin/Bass because Rankin Bass did songs for everything in The Hobbit, including the Spider. They even did songs to the Return of the King, which I'm not certain works, but they did it anyhow.
Old Fat Spider from The Hobbit Soundtrack
The songs sound like children's folk songs. Here's a link to them.
This is the rare original soundtrack from The Hobbit (1977) animated by Rankin/Bass. Music by Maury Laws, vocals by Glenn Yarbrough. Full track list:
01. The Greatest Adventure
02. In the Valley, Ha! Ha!
03. Old Fat Spider
04. Roads
05. Roads (Instrumental)
06. The Greatest Adventure (Instrumental)
07. That's What Bilbo Baggins Hates / Gandalf's Reflection
08. Down, Down to Goblin Town
09. Rollin' Down the Hole
10. Gollum's Riddle
11. Funny Little Things
12. In the Valley, Ha! Ha! (Reprise)
13. Misty Mountains Cold
Rings of Power is distinctive for the strong female roles, which seem to be more in the background in Tolkien's works. In Rings, they've been brought front and center, with the male characters more in the background. Which may be why I liked it better? It had some strong female leads, and very likable ones.
Rings female characters - who are rather compelling include: Galdarial (the elfven warrior), Dia (the wife of the Dwarf Prince), Norie (the Harfoot who befriends the Stranger), and Myriel, the Numerian Queen Regent, also Browyn, who bravely leads her people in a seemingly futile battle against an orc army.
Oh and here's the Return of the King Songs by Rankin Bass, and possibly Tolkien - this was considered the worst of the films. I think they did a portion of it as an ABC special in the 1980s, because I remember watching it - I also remember it being a lot better than this.
2. Making some headway through Andy Wier's Project Hail Mary - which I'd describe as hard science fiction - or realist hard science fiction. Weir is more interested in the mechanics and how, then necessarily why or what. And I'm thinking he's an engineer or a mad science teacher.
I'm only 25% of the way through - but I feel like I've been reading forever. Yet, it is compelling. The set up? The sun is slowly dimming because a type of alien life is draining energy from it - to empower itself to go to Venus and procreate. They need to find a way to stop this mindless parasite - so they send a team to a distant star to investigate why it's not been affected in the same way the sun is - Tau Ceti. The story starts when the protagonist wakes up from some sort of medically induced coma on a space ship. His crew is dead. He's alone, and he has to figure out why he's there and what he needs to do - only one problem his brain is kind of mush from the coma. Slowly his memories seep back - and when they do, he flashes back on what happened to bring him there and why. It's a story told in flashback, with a present threat informed by those flashbacks.
Right now, he's trying to figure out what appears to be an alien space ship has sent him. It's a small, incredibly hot cylinder that stinks of ammonia.
***
Tolkien was particular about his spellings - because he was creating a new language and world, and deliberately using old English spellings. But the damn publishers copy-editors and line editors felt the need to correct him.
They also abridged things. Left items out.
As a result, there were multiple versions - and the earliest editions weren't accurate. Finally, he got a corrected version - the one he wanted out, and this is apparently that one? I don't know.
I also fell down a bit of a rabbit hole - looking through the old Rankin Bass cartoon adaptations of the Hobbit and The Return of the King. The Hobbit was in the public domain - so they could adapt without the estates permission (which seemed odd to me - since the other items aren't, not sure how it fell into the public domain? Unless Youtuber was wrong about that - which would make more sense.) The 1978 Hobbit Film, and 1980 Return of the King by Rankin Bass, plus the Ralph Baski Lord of the Rings - I saw in the 1980s. Well except for the Hobbit, which I saw in 1978 - after I'd read the book. It was on ABC Sunday Night. As a child - I adored it. I don't know if the cartoon holds up well now - the animation maybe doesn't, but the rest of it does. They had excellent vocal talent - with Richard Boone as the voice of Smaug, John Huston as Gandalf, Orson Bean as Bilbo, and Otto Preminger as Thorin. Plus it follows the book very closely, far more closely in some respects than Jackson's version.
And if Rankin/Bass sounds familiar? It's because they are responsible for all the stop-motion animated Christmas specials of the late 1960s and 70s including: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Year with a Santa Clause, Santa Clause is Coming to Town, and Little Drummer Boy. (Those specials had the vocal talents of Hollywood royalty - Mickey Rooney, Fred Astair, Burl Ives, among them.) I don't know how they attracted old Hollywood Royalty to these things.
Here's an clip of the Rankin Bass Hobbit.
The 1978 film was a musical, it had musical numbers throughout, including The Hobbit theme "The Greatest Adventure". (Return of the King adaptation was similar). Some of the songs from the 1970s film made it into Peter Jackson's film, and one of the songs, I think played over the end credits of the Jackson films.
The songs that made it into Jackson's film included "Over the Misty Mountains", "The Lonely Mountain", and the Dwarves song in Bilbo Baggin's kitchen while doing the dishes.
Here's a few examples of both versions back to back..
Another one...
Original... Rankin Bass version
Oh the "What Bilbo Baggins Hates" was actually in the book and written by Tolkien, along with Over Misty Mountains...Tolkien was a poet.
Here's Tolkien singing "What Bilbo Baggins Hates" - so this was apparently written by Tolkien not Rankin/Bass, which explains why Jackson used it.
I thought it was Rankin/Bass because Rankin Bass did songs for everything in The Hobbit, including the Spider. They even did songs to the Return of the King, which I'm not certain works, but they did it anyhow.
Old Fat Spider from The Hobbit Soundtrack
The songs sound like children's folk songs. Here's a link to them.
This is the rare original soundtrack from The Hobbit (1977) animated by Rankin/Bass. Music by Maury Laws, vocals by Glenn Yarbrough. Full track list:
01. The Greatest Adventure
02. In the Valley, Ha! Ha!
03. Old Fat Spider
04. Roads
05. Roads (Instrumental)
06. The Greatest Adventure (Instrumental)
07. That's What Bilbo Baggins Hates / Gandalf's Reflection
08. Down, Down to Goblin Town
09. Rollin' Down the Hole
10. Gollum's Riddle
11. Funny Little Things
12. In the Valley, Ha! Ha! (Reprise)
13. Misty Mountains Cold
Rings of Power is distinctive for the strong female roles, which seem to be more in the background in Tolkien's works. In Rings, they've been brought front and center, with the male characters more in the background. Which may be why I liked it better? It had some strong female leads, and very likable ones.
Rings female characters - who are rather compelling include: Galdarial (the elfven warrior), Dia (the wife of the Dwarf Prince), Norie (the Harfoot who befriends the Stranger), and Myriel, the Numerian Queen Regent, also Browyn, who bravely leads her people in a seemingly futile battle against an orc army.
Oh and here's the Return of the King Songs by Rankin Bass, and possibly Tolkien - this was considered the worst of the films. I think they did a portion of it as an ABC special in the 1980s, because I remember watching it - I also remember it being a lot better than this.
2. Making some headway through Andy Wier's Project Hail Mary - which I'd describe as hard science fiction - or realist hard science fiction. Weir is more interested in the mechanics and how, then necessarily why or what. And I'm thinking he's an engineer or a mad science teacher.
I'm only 25% of the way through - but I feel like I've been reading forever. Yet, it is compelling. The set up? The sun is slowly dimming because a type of alien life is draining energy from it - to empower itself to go to Venus and procreate. They need to find a way to stop this mindless parasite - so they send a team to a distant star to investigate why it's not been affected in the same way the sun is - Tau Ceti. The story starts when the protagonist wakes up from some sort of medically induced coma on a space ship. His crew is dead. He's alone, and he has to figure out why he's there and what he needs to do - only one problem his brain is kind of mush from the coma. Slowly his memories seep back - and when they do, he flashes back on what happened to bring him there and why. It's a story told in flashback, with a present threat informed by those flashbacks.
Right now, he's trying to figure out what appears to be an alien space ship has sent him. It's a small, incredibly hot cylinder that stinks of ammonia.
***
no subject
The Rankin/Bass Hobbit absolutely holds up. They pare the story down to its absolute barest essentials and it works so much better than Jackson's bloated mess. And the animation ... I think it's lovely but I grew up on it, so I'm not unbiased.
And the voice talent... John Huston as Gandalf, Richard Boone (from Have Gun Will Travel) as Smaug. Amazing.
Trivia note: Rankin/Bass got a Japanese studio, Topcraft, to do the animation for their Tolkien stuff. They also worked together on the movie The Last Unicorn. Topcraft collapsed in the late eighties, and Studio Ghibli of Totoro / Spirited Away fame rose out of its ashes.
(The Return of the King is dire, but everyone remembers the song "Where There's A Whip There's A Way" so there's that.)
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I hadn't realized Rankin/Bass had produced the Hobbit animated film - until I fell down that rabbit hole.
But I also adored the animated film and grew up on it. I even played the Great Goblin in a children's theater adaptation of the book, that was pretty much the same script as the Rankin/Bass production. (I was in the sixth grade, and had read The Hobbit prior to all of this.)
And I'd say it does hold up in some respects better than Jackson's Hobbit films. Jackson seems to adore war scenes and fight scenes, because he went a bit overboard on them in both the Hobbit films and the Lord of the Rings. (They make more sense in the Lord of the Rings.)
Also the Dwarves got more focus in Jackson's films, while the animated film stayed in Bilbo's point of view throughout, and was more focused as a result.
But also? It's really hard to beat John Houston and Richard Boone as vocal talents.
So I agree. I think the animated Hobbit film kind of ruined Jackson's films for me in an odd way. Although I do like the beginning of first Hobbit film quite a bit. (And any scene with Lee Pace in it).
ETA: Forgot to add - I'd remembered Return of the King (animated version) being better than it actually was. When I watched the clips, I kind of cringed. That is dire.
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