[Transcript]
Recently I spoke to some 8th grade students, and believe it or not the entire class of students had never heard of Lord of the Rings! They knew about wizards, elves, dwarves, and typical fantasy lore. They had even read some fantasy books. But they had never heard of J.R. Tolkien’s book series titled, “The Lord of the Rings,” and they had not heard of or seen the epic films. So today let’s talk about some of the most popular fantasy and science fiction.
My name is Shaun McMillan and this is the Best Class Ever.
Lord of the Rings
For those of you, who aren’t familiar with it, this is probably the single most deeply beloved and well developed fictional fantasy worlds ever created by one author. At first it started out as a wager between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Luis, two Christian writers who served in World War 1 and were linguistics professors at the best universities of England. In 1936 J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Luis flipped a coin to see which of them should write a space-travel story, and which should write a time-travel story.
Eventually C.S. Luis went on to write the Chronicles of Narnia, some of today’s most famous Christian allegorical fiction. And J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic Lord of the Rings Trilogy started as just one small book titled, “The Hobbit,” about a little band of thieves who go on an adventure to steal the treasure from a dragon.
But then J.R.R. Tolkien developed an entire fictional world around it based on ancient European mythology. It was a world with its own creation story, its own gods, history, maps, wizards, elves, hobbits, dwarves, demons, monsters, talking trees, faery queens, and he created the world of middle earth where men fought wars against evil alongside and against all of these mythical creatures. His world was so developed that he even created his own elvish language. He was a linguistics professor at Oxford University after all.
If you have ever read a book about wizards, dwarves, rangers, elves, or humans ruled by kings in magical kingdoms, you were reading a book inspired by Lord of the Rings. Nearly all high fantasy written these days is just a shadow cast by J.R. Tolkien’s magnificent masterpiece.
The books are beautifully written, but most of us know Lord of the Rings because of the epic films that were released as a trilogy from 2001 to 2003. Usually when a great book with a large following is turned into a film, the readers complain that the book is SOOOOOO much better than the movie. But this is one of those rare cases where the films were so well made that no one ever complains. The director, Peter Jackson, the actors, the set designers, costume designers, the effects, every aspect of these films was handled with such craftsmanship that even now almost 20 years later they hold up to artistic scrutiny. I watched the three films last year while living in Korea and we were shocked at just how engrossingly immersive these films are. It is rare that a film experience can feel so epic, so moving, and so meaningful.
Star Wars
Around that time the newest Star Wars film was released, Rise of Skywalker, and I was shocked because I so rarely ever saw any ads or commercials for the film’s release in Korea. Apparently the previous movies didn’t do well in Korea so now they hardly even bother to promote the films there.
As an American this seems crazy. Star Wars is such a deeply beloved franchise. Nearly everyone American I know has an opinion about the new Star Wars films because they either love, hate, or have a strong preference for the older Star Wars movies when comparing them to the newer Star Wars movies.
Someone once asked me an interesting question. When it comes to genre, is Star Wars a science fiction movie like Star Trek, or is it fantasy like Lord of the Rings? The answer is it is both. It has technology and takes place in the far off future, but it is also high fantasy with its own religious system of magic referred to as “the force.”
Trilogies
If you like these epic fictional worlds, sometimes referred to as trilogies because they often make these films into a sequence of 3 films, then I also recommend the Matrix for more mature audiences. These are purely science fiction, are far more sexualized, violent, and weird, but if you like artificial intelligence or are interested in machine learning, comic book art, or highly choreographed action films, and let’s be honest–who doesn’t? Then you would probably find these films deeply intellectual and extremely entertaining.
The Animatrix
If you already know and love the Matrix, then boy do I have a treat for you. There is a very little known series of short anime films based on the world of the Matrix called the Animatrix by some of Japan’s most talented anime directors. But there are two of them called the Second Renaissance parts 1 & 2 which are absolutely ingenious. This director uses religious visual metaphors and iconic news footage from the last 100 years to tell the future of how we get from the contemporary modern times to the future dystopian world dominated by machines. I’ll post a link to these videos on www.BestClassEver.org to make them easier to find. I seriously think it’s the most ingenious use of visual storytelling I’ve ever come across, and I rarely meet anyone who has ever heard of it.
I apologize for the poor quality of this video, but if you’re willing to pay a small fee you can see them in their original high quality by renting them through YouTube. Also, be warned, these images are very adult.
The Hunger Games
I also really like the Hunger Games series. Before it was ever made into a film I saw it in a high school classroom. I kept seeing it in different places so I asked a student about it. This student told me that they usually hated reading, but this book was assigned by his teacher and he absolutely loved it. This really piqued my curiosity, because I love to read and anything that can spark that love in children these days is worth a look.
Another American Civil War
I found the first book very entertaining but extremely violent. The whole premise is built around the now popular game model of battle royale. The idea is that in the future there is a civil war between 12 districts in a country called Panem which is curiously similar to modern day America. But in Panem, the district most similar to California’s Hollywood takes over, and forces every district to offer up 2 young people for the government sanctioned reality tv show in which these 24 “tributes” will all fight to the death on live tv as a form of propaganda.
Glorifying Violence
At first I despised the book for glorifying violence as entertainment. I discussed it with my barber who is both a long time childhood friend and an avid reader, and she explained that I can’t just read the first novel by itself, but that I had to read the entire 3-book series to understand the themes and deeper meaning in the story. So I took her at her word, and begrudgingly kept reading. But like I said, they were deeply entertaining so I quickly ate up the other two books.
While this series is nowhere near as deep or profound as the other series I’ve mentioned, I did find it had something really deep to say about American culture. We often see news about Hollywood movie stars which has become its own sort of pop culture religion. We have shows like American Idol, which are not even hiding the fact that this is the contemporary version of ancient idolatry, which should be considered a sin in such a deeply religious Christian country.
Seeing the World from the Point of View of the Rich and Famous
The Hunger Games is told from the point of view of Katniss, a poor homely female protagonist who suddenly finds herself famous, and leading a rebellion as an icon of a revolution she never set out to become. The books are interesting because they allow us to see first hand how difficult it is for the rich and famous to separate their public personas from their own private lives. When the world wants you to fall in love with someone, and you need the public to care about your career in order to survive, how would you know if you are really sincerely in love or just putting on a show?
Next Week
Next week we’ll explore some more of these fictional worlds and some of their most relevant themes. Audiences love these fictional worlds, but why? What does it say about us? And one of the most common themes among these films is the idea of the chosen one. So let’s explore these Messiah stories and how the ancient religious ideas of the past relate to the deeply religious predictions about the future.
To see scenes and trailers from these films, and for the link to the Animatrix film, “The Second Renaissance,” be sure to visit this weeks show notes at www.BestClassEver.org.
