Unusual movie parallels?
 

My room-mate, this morning, made a parallel between Lord of The Rings and his last underway in the Navy. "The board is set, the pieces are moving" ties in with the fact that the last underway is beginning to happen, finally. "The eye of the enemy is upon us" shows the forward-looking nature of the inspection team. He's made character parallels with several of the people that he works with -- for example, his boss is clearly Gollum.

Then I realized that just the other day, my Dad had told me about a great book he had read entitled "Following Gandalf," which used the theology of J.R.R. Tolkien's characters to the age-old theological debate of predestination vs. free will. "We cannot choose the times, only what we must do with the time that is given us" fits neatly with the idea that God is always faithful to His people, and to His purpose -- the question is whether or not God's people will be faithful to God.

So now I'm curious. Anybody else have any unusual movie parallels? (Ok, so I'm anticipating a _slow_ thursday at work...)


Dan

well, there has been a decades-long debate about whether or not LOTR is an unintentional (as Tolkien insists) allegory to WWII, and the ensuing Cold War. Since LOTR was published in the early 1950s, it would have been the very early Cold War. In loose terms, the images fit

THE ONE RING equals the Atomic Bomb

THE MEN, whose age is just beginning, represent America

THE ELVES, whose age is just ending, represent either the French or the English (some of the symbols get a little mixed up), with the other being represented by the DWARVES.

pick your enemy: SAURON and SAURUMAN represent either the Nazis and the Japanese or the Nazis and the Russians.

The Cold War allegory seems to fit a little better here: there is a seemingly constant aversion in Tolkien to Industry as opposed to nature; a common image of the USSR to the West during the Cold War was that Russia was the home of impersonal, cold wastelands filled with ugly, steaming factories

And on and on. As mentioned, Tolkien insists that allegory was not his intention, which I don't think matters because he was writing during a time in which his images of Evil and Good would have been definitely shaped by WWII and the Cold War. It only makes sense that how people see the world is shaped by the lens of their times.

I've heard the WWII and Cold War analogies. Relating the Nazis to the Orcs was an interesting project that a friend of mine undertook in college for a creative writing assignment.

I still think that predestination vs free will is about as far of a reach as is possible with Tolkien. :)


Dan

Wag the Dog and Monica Lewinsky.

The Matrix and... well, you'll see. Just take the pill... ;)

Wag the Dog and Monica Lewinsky were _way_ too close to each other. I mean _WAY_ too close. But then, I have a hard time respecting a man who can't keep it in his pants, then uses my honorable profession (military) to further his own personal interests. But then, I guess he was just following the ancient biblical example -- look at David and Bathsheba. David totally failed to exercise self-control, then ordered a battle in order to kill the poor girl's husband. But then, he got a visit from a prophet to let him know he'd lose his first-born son, too. <shrug> Sorry, end rant, one slightly used soap-box for sale.

Dan