by Cliff Vaughn | Mar 8, 2004 | Opinion
SANE Australia, a national organization for the mentally ill, paid special attention to media comments about Gollum in The Return of the King back in December. The group included references to Gollum in its “Stigma Files,” which catalogue inaccurate or...
by Cliff Vaughn | Dec 17, 2003 | Opinion
If you thought the battle at Helm’s Deep in “The Two Towers” was spectacular, wait until you see the magnitude of the conflict at Pelennor Fields in “The Return of the King.” Pelennor Fields makes Helm’s Deep look like a thumb war,...
by Cliff Vaughn | Dec 16, 2002 | News
Director Peter Jackson characterized Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien as “very much anti-control, anti-systems—which partly feeds into his themes about the environment.” The role of the Ents—and Treebeard, their leader—in the trilogy’s second...
by Cliff Vaughn | Dec 13, 2002 | News
“Tolkien knows that every few hundred years or so there comes a challenge to a generation where you can lose it all—your way of life, your civilization,” said Rhys-Davies. “And if you do not have unity, courage and a willingness to sacrifice...
by Cliff Vaughn | Dec 13, 2002 | Opinion
No one was interested in portraying Gollum as a completely evil being. Philippa Boyens, one of the screenwriters, said Tolkien believed that people weren’t totally evil, and that the potential for evil existed in everyone. However, the ring’s power...
