Tolkien’s Legendarium is a catch-all term to refer to the stories by J.R.R. Tolkien which take place in Arda. The main works that are comprised within the Legendarium include Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion.

Yeah, I really liked reading The Hobbit. I also noticed that the writing style is vaguely similar to my own (vaguely).

But putting that aside…any issues? Yeah, there are a few. First of all…it’s very clearly a standalone as it’s pretty obvious that some things just don’t line up with later works. There’s also a strange tendency to not give names to some characters – like the Elvenking, who is probably Thranduil.
The comedic tone here actually doesn’t feel that out of place with the (LoTR) Peter Jackson films. The tone is very similar, I feel. Which is…kinda interesting. Though I’d have to read the Lord of The Rings to see if my suspicion is accurate.

Having just finished reading The Silmarillion…I don’t actually have much to say. I liked reading it and, yeah, it felt like reading a history book. Albeit a history book far easier to read.

I did have some trouble following events, names and locations – but that’s maybe just a me thing.

Putting aside its status as a history book, I’ll note that it feels a bit different from The Hobbit, though I can’t articulate exactly why.
I think it’s related to The Silmarillion being focused on the Elves – specifically the Noldor – and a little on the Edain. Dwarves are mentioned…but only mentioned. Hobbits make no appearance.
Basically…I think it’s pretty clear that The Silmarillion originated as separate from The Hobbit, with the latter being added on afterwards.

These are good. I dunno what else to say.
There are some who think that it doesn’t do a good job, but I think it still manages to communicate Tolkienien themes well enough.

I’ll possibly elaborate on this later, it’s just that besides “good music” I can’t think of anything concrete.

This is now my preferred way of watching The Hobbit as it is edited into a very satisfying whole.
I won’t say much about the Peter Jackson films because I’ve only seen the first two and I barely remember them, as compared to this edit.

Get here.

Honestly? I’d say this is a bad film and not a particularly great adaptation. It’s more faithful, in a way, because it does include lines ripped straight from the book…but…
They pronounce ‘Smaug’ as ‘Smog’. While lines are ripped straight from the book, they are cut together in ways that make no sense. The most glaring example that I remember is “I am Gandalf and Gandalf means me!” which has zero prior buildup…in the book, Bilbo asks him who he is…in the film Gandalf just says this out of the blue, which makes him look insane.

The depiction of the elves is also pretty awful and…I’m not a fan of how Smaug looks. While he’s too big in the Peter Jackson films…yeah, more dragon-like.

This film is not good, I’ll say so bluntly. In fact, it raises a lot of questions…regarding how Peter Jackson created a comparatively faithful film trilogy.

It has a similar issue to the animated Hobbit, in that it rips a lot of lines straight from the book…without accounting for all the lost context. Thus leading to some awkwardness.

Mispronunciations are everywhere, but the most egregious one is probably Celeborn (pronounced as Seleborn), delivered by Galadriel herself. I think that, besides Isengard, nothing was pronounced correctly.

The animation/artistic style varied quite a bit. Sometimes the backgrounds looked like they were illustrated by Ted Nasmith…and other times…it was…abstract.
I’d hesitate to call any of the art good, with a few exceptions (some backgrounds and Gandalf explaining his fight with Durin’s Bane).
Some of the characters just come across as…weird, due to the animation. Gandalf, in particular – with his many gestures – looks like he’s crazy.

You may be tempted to think that this film is funny bad…but it really isn’t. Outside of the interaction between Gandalf and Saruman, there isn’t anything particularly funny. Well…I guess “M’precious” counts.

I think that the animated Hobbit is better than this, which is an achievement on its own.

The film also ends abruptly. Like, very abruptly. This is probably because it was planned to be a part 1 of 2…but, like, none of the Peter Jackson films end the same way.

Between this and the previous film…this one is unquestionably better.
Not only is the quality more consistent (in animation/artwork and music), but it’s generally better. That isn’t to say this is good. In fact, I’d say this film is also bad as a film and an adaptation.

Mispronunciations are present as well, which makes it unexpectedly consistent with the previous films. It’s also, bizarrely, presented as a sequel to The Hobbit – though this was done due to licensing issues.

The highlights of this film include Sam being a badass and Where There's a Whip (There's a Way). The former is manifested as Sam imagining himself as turning Gorgoroth into a giant garden and convincing an army of orcs to attack an army of men working for Sauron. The latter is just a good song: unusually thematically appropriate as well.

Would I recommend watching it? Probably not.

I’ll be honest: I liked this film a lot. It was about average in quality, but everything did fit together.

I can’t really say much off the top of my head that would be of interest. It’s mostly just “animation was good”, “heard the theme of Rohan again which was great” and “Helm was a badass”.

Obviously, I’m not sure about lore accuracy, but they did adapt a story that was vague in the first place; granting some leeway.

I think Héra^A) was cute and sufficiently princess-like. I didn’t get the impression she was a ‘girlboss’ despite her central role in the narrative.

Though I would have liked to see Olórin for just a frame.

I’ll note it here but ‘canon’ is probably not easy to apply to the Legendarium. Basically the only work that we can consider ‘definitively canon’ would be The Lord of The Rings and everything else is up in the air.

While Tolkien did seem to be the kind of author who cares a lot about maintaining internal consistency, he just never got to the stage where he published a lot of work. Thus, we mostly got stuff published posthumously.

This leads us to the situation we end up with with Mythologies in the real world: what did and didn’t happen?

Personally, I’ve decided to start treating Tolkien‘s world as a mythology (or like a Japanese franchise). That means that everything and nothing is canon at the same time.

I think it would be possible to construct an internally consistent canon (and for fanfiction reasons, I’m thinking of doing exactly that) but there isn’t really a need to. And, let’s be honest, at that point it isn’t Tolkien’s Legendarium anymore.

This is a question I’m temporarily raising after having read something interesting in The Silmarillion. I’ll be sure to interrogate it properly later, however. It’s important due to something I’m planning to publish later.

When Eärendil and Elwing reach Valinor, Eärendil wanders off alone to find someone to plead his case to^B) Elwing waits around, but then gets lonely. So she starts wandering around until she meets some Teleri, who are surprised to see her.
She and they talk, during which she explains many of the things that happened in Middle-Earth – and it’s here where my interest was piqued – they were “filled with pity and wonder” – which implies they didn’t know what was going on.

Whether the elves of Valinor know about the events in Middle-Earth or not makes a big difference, though I won’t elaborate for a while.

Read the article if it exists yet.

• Tolkien Gateway
  • Yup, pretty good wiki for this stuff. Though it has changed a bit over time.
• Eldamo
  • The Elvish Data Model is probably the best and most up-to-date resource for Tolkien‘s languages.
• YouTube & Videos
  • An Exhaustive History of Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the Rings by Folding Ideas – I think it’s a good video, though a bit pretentious and leaning too much on Post-Modernism.
• Here I’ll list a few articles which I’ll work on at some point. This is mostly for me so I don’t forget. Yes, these are mostly languages
  • Adûnaic
  • avarin
  • ilkorin
  • westron
  • rohan (language)
• The banner images feature the Tengwar Elfica and Annatar typefaces, which I downloaded from the Glǽmscrafu Github for their transcriber.
• I’ll gradually add more links here as time goes on.