The movie Tolkien (2019)

J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien is an upcoming biopic diving into the life of the legendary author behind the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

Release Date: May 10, 2019.
Director: a Finnish actor
Cast: Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Mimi Keene





Mimi Keene

Honestly, this feels more like something you'd binge as a limited series than a full-on movie theater experience.

The first trailer just dropped!

Nice—honestly, this might just be the best thing they've added to the lineup lately. 😉

Looks pretty good so far—I'm just wondering if they'll actually bother to mention his Catholic faith at all...

Of course it won't, since that's just not how things work these days☕ .

Morgan Rodriguez57 said:It looks promising. I just wonder if they’re actually going to touch upon his Catholicism at all.

If it serves the narrative—and let's face it, it usually does—then yeah, they will.

nimblemarlin6 said:If it matters to the plot, then yeah, it does...

Frodo's five wounds are just like Christ's five wounds...

Morgan Rodriguez57 said:Frodo's five wounds—just like Christ's.

Those seven stabs Folgolfinov took under the armor while fighting Morgoth—leaving him limping around like Hephaestus... 🙂

J. R. R. Tolkien was a total old-schooler—he basically took the absolute best bits of a classical education and wove them into an entirely new skin. That’s why he hits home with everyone today, from all sorts of age groups and social circles, regardless of their religious outlook.

I’m skipping this one. Honestly, that actor just gets on my nerves too much.

It looks good—certainly worth a watch, don't you think?

It seems like the movie is just playing it safe, kind of sugarcoating the whole relationship between J. R. R. Tolkien and his wife. In reality, it wasn't nearly as romanticized as they make it out to be. From what I've gathered, Edith actually held a bit of a grudge for a long time because she only agreed to convert to Christianity to satisfy his demand before they could get married.

The actual story is way more interesting than this version.

How Tolkien's mother, Mabel, found her way to Catholicism:
http://www.philipkosloski.com/tolkie...ersion-of-his/

I guess there’s something kind of funny about how modern Christians try to distance themselves from Tolkien's faith, especially since the subculture most deeply shaped by Lord of the Rings is actually Black Metal 😁 😁

I mean, the guy who named his band Burzum was literally out there setting churches on fire in Norway 🤣

... it honestly drives me crazy when Hollywood grabs an actor and just relentlessly exploits them until they're everywhere. Take Lily Collins, for example. She’s a sweetheart, really, but now she’s just popping up in every single thing I turn on... at this rate, I'm basically just waiting for her next Oscar nod.

But honestly, Tolkien's world feels pretty paganistic to me... it's just teeming with goblins and wizards and all this hidden magic and stuff. And once you get into The Silmarillion—where he basically lays out the entire creation myth—you don't see much of a link to Christianity. In fact, I think Tolkien breathed such intense passion and life into his universe that, for me, it actually feels more convincing than the universe described in The Bible.
A religion built on the foundations of Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion would probably feel more believable than Christianity.

Regarding Catholicism, people usually point to the Narnia books as being Catholic. I don't know, though—I haven't really sat down to read them myself.

As for the movies, Tolkien lived through such a fascinating era, so I'm really hoping they don't try to bridge the gap between a fairy tale world and the trenches of WWI by making it all look like a bedtime story... although, judging by the trailer, that might be exactly what they're doing.

nimblemarlin6 said:But Tolkien's world feels pretty paganistic... I mean, it's all goblins and wizards and hidden magic and stuff like that. And when you get into The Silmarillion where he explains how the whole world was made, there isn't really much connection to Christianity. Honestly, I think Tolkien built his universe with such passion and life that, to me, it actually feels more convincing than the universe in The Bible.
A religion based on Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion would probably be more believable than Christianity.

As for Catholicism, people usually mention the Narnia books as being Catholic. I don't know, though, I haven't really read them.

Regarding the movies, Tolkien lived through such an interesting era, so I just hope they won't try to make connections between a fairy tale world and the trenches of WWI... although, looking at the trailers, it seems like they might.

Narnia is mentioned as Christian, which is a pretty big distinction. Tolkien actually argued with C. S. Lewis until the very end because Lewis moved from atheism to Anglicanism instead of Catholicism. 😁After so much persuasion...

And they're called that because they're shamelessly preachy—there's zero subtlety there. Even for Tolkien, the metaphors were so obvious they kind of felt forced.

I mean, I guess we should be fair, Tolkien's world definitely has some Christian roots—like the creation of the world through speech, the absolute nature of Eru Ilúvatar and things like that—but it all stays at this level of broad Western generality.

Saying that LOTR is fundamentally a Catholic or Christian work is honestly pretty meaningless when you consider that, in practice, LOTR had the biggest impact on non-Christian elements like Heavy metal, hippies, (neo)paganism, Dungeons & Dragons (maybe the Satanic Panic of the 80s?), and so on.

This trailer is totally pointless—it almost triggered my inner Gollum 🙄

nimblemarlin6 said:When you get into the whole Catholicism thing, people usually point to the Narnia books being Catholic. I wouldn't know for sure though, I haven't really dug into the theology side of it...

If you're looking to get ready for this movie, you should probably go back and rewatch Shadowlands—you know, the one where Hopkins plays C. S. Lewis. I always just remembered it as this really beautiful romance...
But I just looked up the Shadowlands cast, and I don't see any mention of J. R. R. Tolkien, even though they were close friends and ran in the exact same circles...