Explaining the prequels
Posted: 18 Sep 2008 16:39
How to explain the tragedy that is Brian Herbert's rape of his father's literary estate to people who do not know Dune? By analogy of course.
Entries must be proper works of art (literature, movies with actual points to them, etc.)
I'll go first, expanding my previous Lord of the Rings-analogy.
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If Christopher Tolkien had the same moral fiber as Brian Herbert and the rest of the HLP, and 'new books came out':
Imagine being told that the forging of the ring was really not a plan of Saurons, he just helped - and it was really for the good, because it was needed to defeat these mega-spiders which were somehow related to Shelob (in a way inconsistent with what we learn in the Silmarillion). Gandalf is there, and fails to recognize the ring of power, despite far more obvious hints than he gets in LoTR.
Meanwhile, a hobbit named Norma becomes a valar because she dies horribly due to a spider-bite, returns comes to Middle Earth and walks around a bit, inventing everything interesting you ever hear of in LoTR.
Roughly a thousand pages are then published on the forebears of Bilbo, Aragorn, Gimli, et al. - most of whom meet each other at some point and eventually defeat the giant spiders again, in a scene having no thematic content or continuity with the Tolkien books. You are told to believe this was never written down, and forgotten by Gandalf, who was obviously there too.
Then, you are told that after the ring was dropped in the fire of mount doom, Gandalf reforged it as a really, über-powerful ring, which was not bad at all because now Sauron was gone. And they use this ring to battle the Balrog/spider fire-arachnid hybrids (which had been breeding underground with anyone knowing about it), enlisting the help of every single character known from the books - bringing them back from across the sea if need be. And the evil spider-queen is defeated by the aforementioned hobbit/valar with the flick of a sword and then everyone goes to the sunlit lands and lives forever with her misunderstood spider-children whom Legolas adopts.
And finally, horribly written stories come out about how Gandalf arrived in Middle Earth and Saruman went bad (which contradict LoTR). Then one on Aragorn and Arwen falling in love (with explicit sex scenes). And one on Bilbo's dealings in the shire, adopting Frodo, etc.
With no bloody end in sight!
Entries must be proper works of art (literature, movies with actual points to them, etc.)
I'll go first, expanding my previous Lord of the Rings-analogy.
-
If Christopher Tolkien had the same moral fiber as Brian Herbert and the rest of the HLP, and 'new books came out':
Imagine being told that the forging of the ring was really not a plan of Saurons, he just helped - and it was really for the good, because it was needed to defeat these mega-spiders which were somehow related to Shelob (in a way inconsistent with what we learn in the Silmarillion). Gandalf is there, and fails to recognize the ring of power, despite far more obvious hints than he gets in LoTR.
Meanwhile, a hobbit named Norma becomes a valar because she dies horribly due to a spider-bite, returns comes to Middle Earth and walks around a bit, inventing everything interesting you ever hear of in LoTR.
Roughly a thousand pages are then published on the forebears of Bilbo, Aragorn, Gimli, et al. - most of whom meet each other at some point and eventually defeat the giant spiders again, in a scene having no thematic content or continuity with the Tolkien books. You are told to believe this was never written down, and forgotten by Gandalf, who was obviously there too.
Then, you are told that after the ring was dropped in the fire of mount doom, Gandalf reforged it as a really, über-powerful ring, which was not bad at all because now Sauron was gone. And they use this ring to battle the Balrog/spider fire-arachnid hybrids (which had been breeding underground with anyone knowing about it), enlisting the help of every single character known from the books - bringing them back from across the sea if need be. And the evil spider-queen is defeated by the aforementioned hobbit/valar with the flick of a sword and then everyone goes to the sunlit lands and lives forever with her misunderstood spider-children whom Legolas adopts.
And finally, horribly written stories come out about how Gandalf arrived in Middle Earth and Saruman went bad (which contradict LoTR). Then one on Aragorn and Arwen falling in love (with explicit sex scenes). And one on Bilbo's dealings in the shire, adopting Frodo, etc.
With no bloody end in sight!
It's about time for a slapdown, isn't it? 
)