Every year my wife and I watch the Lord of the Rings: Extended Edition trilogy on bluray to bring in the New Year. You know the version – it’s the one that people make fun of for being too long, except for those who don’t and are thus made fun of for having nothing better to do than sit through twelve (yes twelve) hours of movie content – though typically not all at once. As for us, we make sure that every year we have nothing better to do than to watch it all at once, and so far we have succeeded in exactly that - straight through from about 10 am till 10 pm, usually on January 1 for about six years running now. We now have it down to a science, having evolved with the technology from DVDs to bigger screens and so forth. We turn off the phones, ignore the email, (hide the ipads!,) cook enough porridge and meat pies or something equally Hobbitty to cover all seven meals for the day, and actually just simply WATCH the movies together.
What’s interesting about this particular method is that we now agree that it keeps getting better every year. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and asking myself why this is? Is it just because I know it better each time? If so then why am I not bored of it? Is it because the movie is just so wonderful? If so, then why not marathon Harry Potter or Star Wars as I consider those tales to be just as wonderful. Is it because I forget parts? On the contrary, we've gotten pretty good at the Trivial Persuit LotR Movie Trilogy Edition and can cite fun facts like who the five riders were to battle the Uruk-hai then ride out to meet Gandalf at daybreak on the fifth day of the battle at Helm’s Deep, or which of the Hobbits is the ‘tall one’ – so I don’t think we are forgetting too much. On the contrary I put forward that it is in fact the knowing that makes the experience worthwhile.
I teach my students at the University of Texas at Dallas that throughout human history we have told tales that seem to fit certain patterns. Unlikely reluctant heroes with supernatural gifts have taken up the call to adventure in order to gain/destroy the boon on behalf his people, only to face trials beyond belief, grow in the process, face their greatest fears against loss and death, and typically make the ultimate sacrifice in order to defeat evil, then returning home via a magical flight/rebirth saving the world and restoring normalcy. Luke/Harry/Frodo all fit this pattern as to countless others from Neo to Jesus Christ. Joseph Campbell called this the Hero’s Journey. Kal Bashir calls it Monomyth. Others (Like my colleague Frank Turner) have simply called it Epic. Whatever the moniker, the idea of a created world in which we can journey, tell stories, or even play (D&D anyone?) is to me most interesting because we know the ending.
What’s interesting about this particular method is that we now agree that it keeps getting better every year. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and asking myself why this is? Is it just because I know it better each time? If so then why am I not bored of it? Is it because the movie is just so wonderful? If so, then why not marathon Harry Potter or Star Wars as I consider those tales to be just as wonderful. Is it because I forget parts? On the contrary, we've gotten pretty good at the Trivial Persuit LotR Movie Trilogy Edition and can cite fun facts like who the five riders were to battle the Uruk-hai then ride out to meet Gandalf at daybreak on the fifth day of the battle at Helm’s Deep, or which of the Hobbits is the ‘tall one’ – so I don’t think we are forgetting too much. On the contrary I put forward that it is in fact the knowing that makes the experience worthwhile.
I teach my students at the University of Texas at Dallas that throughout human history we have told tales that seem to fit certain patterns. Unlikely reluctant heroes with supernatural gifts have taken up the call to adventure in order to gain/destroy the boon on behalf his people, only to face trials beyond belief, grow in the process, face their greatest fears against loss and death, and typically make the ultimate sacrifice in order to defeat evil, then returning home via a magical flight/rebirth saving the world and restoring normalcy. Luke/Harry/Frodo all fit this pattern as to countless others from Neo to Jesus Christ. Joseph Campbell called this the Hero’s Journey. Kal Bashir calls it Monomyth. Others (Like my colleague Frank Turner) have simply called it Epic. Whatever the moniker, the idea of a created world in which we can journey, tell stories, or even play (D&D anyone?) is to me most interesting because we know the ending.
The Lord of the Rings franchise is a great example of this, and perhaps one of greatest (albeit somewhat meta) moments of the films to me is when Sam and Frodo discuss this very thing within the context of their journey:
SAMWISE: “I wonder if people will ever say, ‘Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring.’ And they’ll say ‘Yes, that’s one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn’t he, Dad?’ ‘Yes my boy, the most famousest of Hobbits. And that’s saying a lot!’”
FRODO: “You’ve left out one of the chief characters – Samwise the Brave. I want to hear more about Sam. Frodo wouldn’t have gotten very far without him, now would he?”
This rings true to me in a deep way going back to the ancient stories we still tell. It’s the prerogative of every child to interrupt and ask questions of the storyteller. Like young Fred Savage's character asking the grandfather in Princess Bride “Grampa! Grampa! [...] "Who kills Prince Humperdinck? At the end, somebody's got to do it! Is it Inigo? Who?" we all have a deep desire to know how the ancient tales come out in the end, and we think we know how they should, even before we really actually do. But is that right? How can we even resolve a non-linear chaotic storytelling method with a monomythic sensibility? Read on.
SAMWISE: “I wonder if people will ever say, ‘Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring.’ And they’ll say ‘Yes, that’s one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn’t he, Dad?’ ‘Yes my boy, the most famousest of Hobbits. And that’s saying a lot!’”
FRODO: “You’ve left out one of the chief characters – Samwise the Brave. I want to hear more about Sam. Frodo wouldn’t have gotten very far without him, now would he?”
This rings true to me in a deep way going back to the ancient stories we still tell. It’s the prerogative of every child to interrupt and ask questions of the storyteller. Like young Fred Savage's character asking the grandfather in Princess Bride “Grampa! Grampa! [...] "Who kills Prince Humperdinck? At the end, somebody's got to do it! Is it Inigo? Who?" we all have a deep desire to know how the ancient tales come out in the end, and we think we know how they should, even before we really actually do. But is that right? How can we even resolve a non-linear chaotic storytelling method with a monomythic sensibility? Read on.
So maybe it’s my years as a High School English teacher poking through, but let’s take Beowulf as a convenient example. When the Old English bards travelled the land and told the story, we should not make the mistake of thinking they told it in order, the same way each time, or even the same way twice, always adapting the details to the audience and the immediate atmosphere. In fact, there is strong scholarship to suggest that in those days stories were as interactive to that audience as video games are now to those of us who experience those stories, we just don’t have the cultural context to understand it. The truth is that the only reason we believe Beowulf (or any epic) is linear is because some anonymous weirdo wrote it down despite all common sensibility. Ignoring for the moment the various translations from Old English, the irony is that we have Beowulf at all only because when we moved past the oral tradition into print tradition, that particular written version is what survived the middle ages to be discovered later on – but there is a hypothetical parallel that can help us understand this: Imagine if evidence of every video game disappeared tomorrow, but for one – let us say the “best”- LET’S PLAY video which somehow survived this culling. This theoretical precious and valuable video evidence of the one playthrough of the game would be to us as Beowulf is in fact. Instantly canonized as the linear and immutable definitive version of the otherwise interactive game experience we can no longer play.
There is no coincidence there if Beowulf feels like a character from Middle Earth. As a professor of language and histories, Tolkien (weirdo that he was) literally set out to create a believable (albeit fictional) mythological history of the Britons like that which was presumably lost during the many conquests of that land across the ages. His use of epic forms, and retelling of the old tales in a recognizable pattern was great story told expertly. Peter Jackson and company knew this despite what the Tolkien estate may think. Just watch the making-of specials (There’s about 54 hours of that!) and you will see the fanatical passion there, and the process of translation/adaptation applied to these masterpieces. It is why I watch these films every year. It gives me perspective with but .003% of my year sacrificed to the cause, and reminds me of all that has happened in this last go-round the sun. Most importantly it challenges me to interact with the media I love and teach at a higher level of appreciation for the choices being made by artists/writers, storytellers/bards, and audience members/players – for fundamentally there is always a choice being made by one or all of these – and that my friends is where the heart of storytelling lays – in the choices made.
So until next year the Lord of the Rings films will go back on the shelf. They will not change, but we will have changed, and thus the viewing will be different, better, and wonderful yet again.
Happy New Year, everybody!
(Want more on New Orality and video games? -- check this out!:
http://www.worch.com/2013/04/24/talking-to-the-player-how-cultural-currents-shape-and-level-design/)
So until next year the Lord of the Rings films will go back on the shelf. They will not change, but we will have changed, and thus the viewing will be different, better, and wonderful yet again.
Happy New Year, everybody!
(Want more on New Orality and video games? -- check this out!:
http://www.worch.com/2013/04/24/talking-to-the-player-how-cultural-currents-shape-and-level-design/)
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