Random Ranting VII (or VIII?)

Well, not so random, I suppose. Don't read if you can't stand any more mentioning of anything LOTR-related. If you're still afraid of spoilers, maybe you shouldn't read it either. You have been warned.

Let me just say that a 17 year old who claims she's the biggest LOTR fan in the world (since 2001 - aha) and has a Frodo haircut and lets her friends call her Frodo and only feels safe when she's got her One Ring replica with her and dresses up as Frodo whenever she's in her room alone and collects every scrap of merchandising existant and says how LOTR changed her life because before it she was just shy and unhappy and now she's feeling sooo strong when wears Frodo clothes and her Ring drives me mad. These are the people who give fandom a bad name, making Muggles (for lack of a better term: non-fans) think we're all some kind of brainwashed merchandise addicts.
I mean, I know I'm pretty hardcore as far as geekiness goes, I like to dress up too, and yes, I can write in Tengwar (and know it's called Tengwar - wow!), and yes, and yes, but I mean, this is just sick. I mean, never heard of it until the movies came out, and now she's the biggest fan? Fuck it.

Oh well. I suppose she'll be back onto Harry Potter by next summer, or whatever major hype comes up now, anyway. Troy, maybe. Whatever. (I see them already, the fangirls loving it and looking surprised when they hear that some guy named Homer wrote the original hundreds of years ago...)

Probably quite a lot of people would accuse me of that "holier than thou" attitude, but it Erudamn isn't. I don't have any problem with people who didn't read the books and don't want to, and I don't have any problems with "movie converts". I only hate dislike people who claim the movies are better than the books without even having fucking read them, who just jump up on the hype only to throw it all again now that it's over, and who dare complaining to us who have gone through the, to this people, seemingly impossible ordeal of not only reading the Lord of the Rings (any maybe some of its background), when we dare mentioning things missing in the movie, explain things they find illogical or - until recently - spoil them. SPOIL THEM! The freaking books have been around for 50 years. Until December 2001, anyone saying that Gandalf returns, Frodo gets his finger chewed off or whatever else there is, might have gotten a weird look. Since then, anyone saying such as thing without giving a fat, red-lettered spoiler alert, got flames and virtual beatings. I mean, sorry we know what happens. Deal with it. And don't you tell me you don't have time to read, or are a slow reader, or don't read out of whatever principle that is, or are legasthenic. Ever heard of a thing called audiobook? Same content. So if you don't want to know the original, fine. But don't tell me you can't. And don't complain, for that's my task. Mine. Mine alone. *cough*

And did anyone notice that Aragorn should have been capable of holding the Palantír (leaving aside that they shouldn't be in Edoras anyway, and Aragorn doesn't take it there anyway, and so on, and so on)? I mean, in the book, "the right cannot be doubted and the strength sufficed - barely", and he looks grey and old and tired the next morning. In the film, it makes him twitch and black out and let it roll away. I mean, he needs Legolas help in the movie to steady him! Way to go.

Actually, I should shut up right now because else this is going to be way too long. No. Shut up now.

One last thing, on a different note for diversity:
You can say a lot about eXistenZ, but not that it "deals with its topic better than Matrix". My dears, this is about Matrix I, not the rebooted ones. Well, I'll admit that for a film without much topic it's not that hard to deal with that topic "better". But for heaven's sake, I don't mind the one or other trashy movie, but this was just sick and disgusting and damn annoying. Kill Bill was way bloodier, but it didn't have me wanting to throw up several times. And that's all I have to say about that.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

To calm me down a bit: I may not agree with lemonlye on the political level, but her LOTR parodies are brilliant.
PEOPLE WHO HAVE THE BOOK: You know, it's interesting: even though I've read the book, I have no idea what's going on...

DENETHOR: So here's my plan: a barbecue. Featuring smoked and roasted stewards of Gondor. Obey me or die, people!

- - -
( Ihr habt doch bestimmt meine zusammenhanglosen Motzereien vermisst, oder? )

- - -