First of all, I gave into desire and purchased a large number of Japanese iced coffees. I was driving by the Mitsui Japanese supermarket and felt the cans calling to me.

Hopefully these will last a while.

LotR:FotR discussion group

At the office, the group I work with are mainly geeky guys. We chat about computers as often as sports. When sci-fi and fantasy movies come out, it a topic of discussion and debate.

A couple of the guys are bonafide Tolkein geeks. They've read the Silmarillion and even the book of letters Tolkein wrote about his ideas. A few of the guys have never read the books and have only seen the movies.

After seeing the second movie, Michael "Mister P." Pajaro asked, "Why were there four hobbits? I thought there were only two."

Upon hearing this, Brad & Travis were aghast. They are the Tolkein geeks and couldn't comprehend how Mister P. could not have understood this basic plot point.

At this point, a plot was hatched to teach Mister P. the finer points of Tolkein. The plan was to watch the extended DVD version of Fellowship of the Ring with Mister P. and stop the film whenever a point needed clarification. I had questions too and was invited to the discussion.

Travis volunteered his home as the location of the viewing. Kim, Travis's girlfriend, graciously allowed this to take place in the house and even let this map of Middle Earth be taped to the wall. I must say, the map made things a lot more clearer.

Travis and Brad prepared 26 sheets of information on the characters and places in the movie for Mister P. to peruse during the film. Quite a resource if I do say. They were quite nice with pictures and text.

Here you see Mister P. (center) listening to Travis (right) explain a detail. Look at the suspicion on his face.

After spending about five hours watching the movie, Brad was shown the beauty of the LotR video game on the X-Box.

Overall, it was a fun time. Watching movies with friends and agreeing to stop the movie and discuss points is a lot of fun. I can only imagine it is something like film school.

Posted by michael at March 23, 2003 09:06 PM