Waiting for 'The Battle of the Five Armies' [3] SPOILERS

I asked Nagual if he would like to go see BoFA with me- he responded- "I'd rather pull of my own testicles, fry them and eat them."

Seems fair enough to me.

Giant 'wereworms'...

Liar Liar Liar Fucking Phillipa Fucking Boyens fucking Liar !

FUCK OFF ! Tolkien my Arse !

Er...the Gaint Wereworms are mentioned in the book (as are Azog and Radagast very briefly):

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Were-worms


But it's pretty clear (i.m.o at least) that it is simply a throwaway remark by Bilbo, exasperated by the Dwarves thinking he is a coward, the line probably refers to something from Hobbit Folklore (i.e. the notion of Dwarves fighting a Ancient Dragon it probably bewildering and hard to believe to someone so sheltered, much like the idea of Were Worms)

I would say they are clearly mythical within the context of ME- as they are in the 'Last Desert' some unknown place probably in the far east with a generic mythical sounding name..
What they are not are creatures which turn up at the BOFA.

So I'd agree with your analysis of it Malick.

'And likely mythical in a mythical Desert'

They were just Middle-Earth myths ! Just because somethings mentioned, it doesnt mean it existed. Why not include a Fastitocalon then, THAT's another creature. This is such tenuous, tenuous material and a poke at book fans. And by the way, The whole Mountain range had been mined for centuries by Dwarves and there would have been paths for the Orcs to use. The Orcs had been virtually banished to Mt Gundabad since the fall of Beleriand and had been creeping back ever since then. When they got to Erebor, that partly sparked the Dwarf/Goblin war.

Wereworms are a lot like geoducks.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:Emppre podcast with Boyens, if you can bear it without smashing your screen into bits- did you know the giant worms are Tolkien (according to her)-

http://www.empireonline.com/podcast/

Listening to it now

feanor 1999 wrote:'And likely mythical in a mythical Desert'

They were just Middle-Earth myths ! Just because somethings mentioned, it doesnt mean it existed. Why not include a Fastitocalon then, THAT's another creature. This is such tenuous, tenuous material and a poke at book fans. And by the way, The whole Mountain range had been mined for centuries by Dwarves and there would have been paths for the Orcs to use. The Orcs had been virtually banished to Mt Gundabad since the fall of Beleriand and had been creeping back ever since then. When they got to Erebor, that partly sparked the Dwarf/Goblin war.

It's funny, alot of the references and in jokes to small things in the books (like Fatty Bolger being name checked out the Bag End Auction) only end up annoying me in the films.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I asked Nagual if he would like to go see BoFA with me- he responded- "I'd rather pull of my own testicles, fry them and eat them."

Seems fair enough to me.

tell him I can recommend a nice Chianti.

aren't worms supposed to be dragons? I thought they were called wyrms or something. I didn't think they meant worms as in Dune worms.

Probably. As there is only that one line of Bilbos about them its hard to tell what Tolkien had in mind- in the earliest drafts they were from China however which would hint towards some sort of Chinese dragon type thing he had in mind.

I think the Old English word just means  "serpent", something long and writhing, like a snake, a worm or a dragon.  But just as the words "drake" and "gander" used to be terms for dragons, it's drifted with time  (and if you've ever had to deal with an angry male goose, you'll know why ) .

Edit: It just occurred to me that "mandrake" and "wereworm" both mean about the same thing when you take them apart.
Which means exactly nothing.
Unless you're a Lore Master.
Which I ain't.

I think that is one of the biggest Ironies of these films I'll miss, Boyens is regularly stated to be the Tolkien 'expert' amongst the three, but seems responsible for a great many of the deviations, and more often than not the fans seem to recall the books better than she does. I'm going to miss her interviews, if only for Petty's bewildered reaction.

Mrs Figg wrote:aren't worms supposed to be dragons? I thought they were called wyrms or something. I didn't think they meant worms as in Dune worms.

Yeah, worm in the context of Tolkien tends to mean dragon. I had a feeling the filmmakers would point to this line, but there's nothing in the book to suggest it's anything but a Hobbit fairy story. Although I've always liked imagining that there were were-dragons somewhere in Middle-earth.

If they wanted Dune style worms there's a far better quote they could have mined, though it wouldn't leave much room for the worms to participate in the BOFA.

"Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he. Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light of day." - Gandalf, The Two Towers

UH!! I can't stand Boyens ... i'm wondering if she realizes how dumb she comes off.... Thank god she wont be writing anymore elves or orcs or any Tolkien

Maybe we could keep the fantasies of violence and the gendered insults to a minimum, eh?

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I would say they are clearly mythical within the context of ME- as they are in the 'Last Desert' some unknown place probably in the far east with a generic mythical sounding name..
What they are not are creatures which turn up at the BOFA.

So I'd agree with your analysis of it Malick.

But that line isn't even in the accepted version of the Hobbit book, right?
*goes to check*

Edit:
Holy crap!
That's what I get for listening to the BBC radio version more than reading the actual book.
What the actual heck are were-worms?!?!
And why does it sound as if they are in the Hobbit movie!?!!?!?!?!?

{{{For those keeping track: no, that's not confirmation bias.}}}

P.S
I really hate how none of this surprises me in the least. I mean, of course Jackson and Co. are going to pick some vague quote from somewhere in the book as the basis for a new set of lore-abusing horrors upon the screen. "It's alright! It's in the source-material."

if there are Dune worms in ME that would explain Legolas jumping about like Kevin Bacon at the Bolshoi.

I doubt Tolkien had any such thing in mind when he wrote that line.

They sit in my mind alongside the similar fantastical and invented creatures that appear in the Adventures of Tom Bombadil and which are presented as Hobbit fairy tales or myths.

I haven't read the Adventures of Tom Bombadil yet, pray tell what sort are these creatures?

Its a collection of 16 poems from hobbit folk-lore Forest.

It includes creatures such as the Mewlips and places like the Morlock Mountains and the marsh of Tode.
Or Gorcrows who are creatures that croak when they sleep.

Were-worms seem to me to fit perfectly into this sort of racial folklore of the hobbits- possibly based on real things (Mewlips might be memories of orcs, Morlock Mts of the Misty Mts ect) but also containing pure flights of fancy.

Oh god I registered on this site and then suddenly disappeared! Alas, my computer crashed and I've been so busy, but I'm keen to come back and contribute to this site

I'm listening to Boyens interview now. I find it sad because she seems like such a genuine person, and also genuinely interested in Tolkien's work. Nevertheless, I regret that she seems to like ad hoc justifications for many of the needless changes they make. Thorin has to die on the battlefield? We somehow have to show (indeed, not only imply but show explicitly) that Smaug knows about Sauron and apparently also his plan. "We're assuming an alliance between him [Smaug] and Sauron." Surely there is nothing necessary about this. Not only are dragons traditionally independent of spirit in Tolkien (despite being the creations of Morgoth) but Smaug's goals really aren't that congruent with Sauron's at all. Sure, he kills a great number of people around Dale, but he isn't interested in working as a lackey for Sauron. But of course, the filmmakers don't seem to think these issues through.

She also complains about "talismans" in Tolkien and then goes on to say that "You can't just send Bilbo down there" for "no purpose"...WTF...WTF??!! So on the one hand she complains because there are too many magic talismans, and then goes ahead and admits that they make a whole ludicrous backstory for the Arkenstone which it does not require. It is already imbued with significance as a symbol of Thorin (and by extension Longbeard) greed. Why does it also need to function as a magic light bulb to which the 'seven houses' look in times of war? Where is the sense in that..??? Sigh

Welcome back!

Eldo put up a Tolkien quote recently, I cant remember the wording but the jist of it was him complaining that adapters cannot seem to grasp the concept of creatures doing bad things without them being in league with the devil or all stemming from one evil source.

Smaug is very much in this category of Tolkien- a bad guy independent of the big bad.

Yeah she totally contradicts herself over the Arkenstone. It also makes no sense as they present it- they say Thorin needs it to unite the dwarves, yet we see the dwarves united in the battle at Moria- after losing the Arkenstone!

Exactly, I think moves like that - conflating the goals of Sauron and Smaug - serves only to shrink the world and make it feel far less broad.

I agree entirely- it reduces the crated world to only two sides in it, good and bad, black and white. Yet this is something Tolkien is always avoiding, from Denethor and Boromir to Smeagol or Fangorn Forest, all shades of grey and where corruption, anger, grief and hatred effect people and creatures to varying degrees.