p e n g u i n d e v i l

Of course, weeks ago we finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy by watching The Two Towers and The Return of the King. About these, I don’t feel the need to go into much depth. Though the first movie feels more complete, more movie-like, than the two following it, I rather prefer the later ones as they have a more epic scope and are more orientated towards battle… Something that I tend to prefer with Fantasy-type material. Also, of course, it is somewhat due to less of a focus on the hobbity trail to the mountain. Which is a good thing in more way than just one, as Frodo gets more and more irritating as the story progresses. Aside from that though… The Two Towers is pretty entertaining. Though it lacks the three things that make the first movie bearable (the shire, Moria and the first scenes of the Nazgûl) I found the Ents to be workably sympathetic and most especially I do like the Rowan story-line. In fact, I like the Rowan folks in general and, though moving into Helm’s Deep seemed to be a questionable maneuver, the Battle of Helm’s Deep is certainly about the high-light of the entire series.

And finally, The Return of the King. Well, this featured more kings than just one. Not only is it the story of the sappy ol’ King of Gondor, who has nothing going for him aside for the amazing fortress of Minas Tirith, this also features one of Sauron’s great commanders, the baddest Nazgûl of them all, the Witch King! I have always been fond of the Witch King as he was the topic of one of my favorite rpg modules from the days of yore: Angmar, Land of the Witch King (from I.C.E… Easily the best rpg’s ever made).





While the stuff surrounding the Witch King in this movie isn’t that inspiring, the man himself is pretty neat and one of the high-lights of the series. I could have used more of him than just what we get to see in the battle at Minas Tirith. Though that is a good battle otherwise, maybe not as good as the battle at Helm’s Deep, but fun nonetheless. In terms of the other storyline, though we do have to put up with more sappiness and whimperings courtesy of Frodo and Samwise (how Samwise puts up with that schmuck, I do not understand), our obnoxious traveling hobbity’s do get to have some dirty fun with a big spider, some orcs and visit Cirith Ungol (not the band). Of course, like the crew of the Enterprise, they persevere against great odds to prevail. One thing that re-watching these has done is make me feel inclined towards the books again. And regardless of what flaws I find in the movies, I have no issues with those glorious old books… I still recall the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings books to be quite good, though I haven’t made a complete reading of them in probably 20 years. This week I picked up a copy of The Silmarillion, so we’ll see how that goes.

We also watched Star Trek: The Voyage Home. One of my favorites in the old days and, though it seems a bit much corny now, I still have fond feelings for it, especially as it is filled with many of my favorite quotes: “No, I’m from Iowa. I only work in outer space”, “Hello computer” and “Rich beyond the dreams of avarice”. This silly sci-fi comedy was directed by Leonard Nimoy and is the is the story of our crew taking their Klingon Bird of Prey on a time-travel adventure to 1980’s San Francisco in pursuit of some Humpbacked whales. See, on their way home after the end of The Search For Spock, when they get Earth-side they realize that some huge object is causing great trauma to the Earth while sending it strange signals. Of course, the signals are the songs of Humpbacked whales and when they realize this they (rather easily) devise a method of traveling back in time to before the whales died off (cue many environmental themes here…) to bring some home so that they could talk to the object and save the Earth. Fhew! So we are greeted with many humorous moments as these fancy future spacemen attempt to find their way around San Francisco. It’s all in good fun though, and filled with lot’s of silly commentary on 1980’s society and the way that the environment is treated.