Anyone seen The Battle of the Five Armies yet?

[Dawn Marie]

Anyone seen the last of the second trilogy...The Battle of the Five Armies yet?  I finally saw it the other day and it was phenomenal.  Hands down the best of all six L.O.T.R. movies. 

[Dawn Marie]

We got the DVD the other day and saw it.  Truly the best of the six.  But have some tissues handy, it's really sad.

[Dawn Marie]

Actually I was wondering about that.

The elves, the dwarves, the orcs, the people of laketown (?)...that's only 4.

[Dawn Marie]

ohhhh!  Thank you, that was actually bugging me.  Couldn't figure out who was the 5th.

Joseph Wilson said:

The animals,they were only shown briefly,but they were like shape shifters the eagles dropped what looked like men from the sky and by the time they hit the ground they were Bears and such.

[john blatner]

Im sure i'll catch hell fire for this response . But don't those movie contain magic and spells and such. And as Catholics arent we suppose to oppose such things. There is so much magic on the TV i leave it off. Battleship was awesome. I lied i did watch that. No magic just the good old USS MISSOURI.

[Dawn Marie]

Hi John :)

Actually The Lord of the Rings is based on the Catholic Faith.

The magic stuff like Harry Potter is definitely the stuff to stay away from.

[Dawn Marie]

Well I certainly respect the opinion of others but must differ on this one.  When the first LOTR came out in early 2000's the SSPX wrote a long piece on it explaining what all the different characters represented in the Catholic Faith and how Tolkeins novels were indeed based on Catholicism and they gave the LOTR their approval.

The LOTR trilogies are by no means of the devil. 

If anyone is still in hand with that piece it would be great to post.

[Dawn Marie]

E.W.T.N. Link on J.R.R. Tolkein

Lacking the Society's long write up in the early 2000's on how the LOTR is in its essence based on the Catholic Faith I had to settle for the above article.

[Susan]

Are these the articles  you are looking for? 

Renunciation in the Lord of the Rings    (Angelus Dec/2004)

Harry Potter  (Angelus /Sept. 2001) Really good one!

This article deals with the magic of the Harry Potter books vs. the magic of the LOTR and NARNIA books.

From the age of 10 to about 16 yrs., I read the LOTR trilogy 15 times, and The Hobbit 7 times.  I've never read them again.

I loved the books, and I would say now, that they were an integral part of my converting to Catholicism 27 years ago...even if I didn't know it at the time.   They were also instrumental in my character development during those awkward adolescent years...honor, loyalty, perseverance, hope (!), love of country, courage, purity, etc. 

I totally enjoyed all of the movies, keeping in mind the producers could not put every little adventure in it.  I think the producers tried really hard to remain true to Tolkien's vision.  I didn't really care for the love story emphasis between Arwen and Aragorn because it wasn't in the book, only in the appendix.  I was pleasantly surprised to read about Tolkien and the Catholic faith, but I ind it tiresome and unnecessary, at times, to have "literary experts" try to analyze every little thing to prove 'something'.  It is always better to read the books instead of relying solely on the movie, in order to "get" the story.

Let's take a poll.  What is your favorite character from the Lord of the Ring trilogy?

Mine:   Sam Gamgee   

[Dawn Marie]

That's a good article but not the one I was thinking of.  If memory serves me I thought it was on a hard copy of something from the SSPX.  I remember it was quite lengthy.

Oh---Samwise for sure :)

[David Kaftal]

I read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy about 50 years ago, and just loved them. Really didn't like the movies though. Too dark, too violent, too overblown, not sufficiently true to the original. I've studied filmmaking (even worked in the film industry for a while) and am very familiar with the problems inherent in translating books to the screen. But in this case — I think Jackson just thought he was a better storyteller than Tolkien, and tried to "improve" on the master. And failed.

[35nd93pnh50uu]

http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-fantasy-writing-of-tol...

I have been reminded of this thread by reading the above article. It's certainly an eye opener. I've been a LOTR's fan for years but this talk and article have made me think twice. 

[Gloria]

Thank you for sharing this  with us Sunny-Gem. This will be shared with many.

I would like to end this conference with an appeal to use our holy Faith as it has been given to us to use. We do not need to be looking outside of our Holy Church and True Religion for things to captivate our imagination and encourage us… In the lives of the saints we find more wonders than can be grasped in a life time.

These are dangerous times.