Fandom Snowflake Days 10 & 11

[thisbluespirit]

In your own space, talk about a creator. Show us why you think they are amazing. It can be a detailed, thoughtful analysis, or a squeeful, joyful post. Or maybe a combination of the two. Make a recs list, link to their archives or master lists or websites, maybe create a Fanlore page for them. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

The challenge says if you feel uncomfortable about a thing not to do it, and I think I feel uncomfortable about this one. It's almost impossible to narrow it down to one, and for another, isn't fandom about how we all watch and (if we're in the fandom, one trusts) love the same thing, and then interpret it and celebrate it in our own unique ways? In purely practical terms, there are a lot of people just on my flist that I friended in the first place because I was reading nearly everything they wrote... So: narrowing it down would be a nightmare even before I throw in other types of fanworks. Also, having said that, I kind of accidentally did this already for Day 2, didn't I? :lol:

Moving on, then, to the next day!

In your own space, share a favorite piece of original canon (a TV episode, a song, a favourite interview, a book) and explain why you love it so much. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Even more impossible! I'm a multi-fannish sort with my primary fandom being Doctor Who - all 50 years of it. However, I thought for a bit and realised there was a post about a piece of canon I wanted to make anyway, so here it is:

I'm relistening to the BBC Radio LoTR at the moment and busy falling in love with it all over again. (I was worried I wouldn't enjoy it so much the second time, but it's great and my fears were groundless.) Anyway, if you weren't around when I was going on about it in 2011, there is in fact another full dramatisation of The Lord of the Rings, and it's also wonderful in its own way. (It was made in 1981 and has Ian Holm as Frodo, Bill Nighy as Sam, Sir Michael Hordern as Gandalf, Robert Stephens as Aragorn, and John Le Mesurier as Bilbo.)

The thing I want to say this time is how much I love the music. It was composed by Stephen Oliver and, for a BBC production like this, it's an amazing amount of music, and lovely in itself. It's not the beautiful, big cinematic score of the films, of course, but it has a low-key, pleasingly right feel for Middle Earth - and also it's used very inventively to cover the limitations of the format. All the big battle set-pieces are done using the music, and each done differently. And then there's all the songs in the narrative, sung by the actors in context, often unaccompanied...

Here are some of my favourite tracks (you can follow the links for more, if you wish):

The Lord of the Rings - Main Theme
Seek For the Sword That Was Broken (the theme used for Aragorn)
Shadowfax

And, best of all the in-character moments for me, Bill Nighy as Sam, singing in sheer desperation in Mordor: In Western Lands Beneath the Sun.

Anyway, I like it very much.

Not really relevant, but: Searching for the links in this post explained why Michael Hordern was so immediately my Gandalf as soon as I heard him - he was apparently also Badger in The Wind in the Willows. There are some things not even Ian McKellen can compete with, and being Badger in that particular Willows is one of them... *amused*

Comments

[mab_browne]

I still have my ancient cassette tapes that I recorded off my little yellow transistor radio many a year ago now, and, yes, the music was lovely, and I adored Bill Nighy's Sam. :-)

[thisbluespirit]

Yes. :-)

[leyna]

Yes, I love this version.

I haven't listened to the whole play in ages (I have a very prettily packaged box set of tapes but no longer the ability to play the tapes), but I managed to get the music album into iTunes. My favourites are The Road Goes Ever On, and the Main Theme, but all the music is gorgeous, and feels right for Elves or Ents, or Riders of Rohan.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, that's frustrating with the tapes. :-/

But, yes, it really does have the right sort of feel, doesn't it? I'm not enough of a music expert to explain more, but I suppose much of it does have a sort of Traditional English music edge, which is apt for the LOTR.

:-)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I must try to find the time to give this (and The Hobbit) a relisten now I own them both.

(Can't recall, did I tell you that I'd won the boxsets of both radio productions via a Twitter competition?)

[thisbluespirit]

No, I don't think you did! Well done! Eeeee, what a wonderful thing to win!! \o/

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I was overjoyed that I won it!

But I think I forgot to mention it because it was in the run up to Xmas, and I was pretty stressed...

[dimity-blue.livejournal.com]

It makes me smile that Ian Holm played Frodo, then was cast as Bilbo for the movies. I guess he is very Hobbity (something I've been accused of myself). :oD

And Michael Hordern does have one of those voices, doesn't he? It's no surprise he got to be Badger and Gandalf.

[thisbluespirit]

I think (although he is very hobbity, too!) that Peter Jackson knew the radio adaptation well & is quite a fan of it, and that's why he wanted to cast Ian Holm as Bilbo. (It was a bit late for him to be Frodo by then.)

Yes, he sounds just right! Actually, he looks right for a wizard, too. (Not a badger, though.)

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, well, that's perfectly understandable. Well done you, though!! \o/

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Always nice to see some love for radio drama. It gets a bit overlooked. And Robert Stephens! Great voice for radio. Renowned to those of us of a certain age as the fabulously despicable Abner Brown in the BBC's 1984 adaptation of "The Box Of Delights". He's wonderful in that.

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, yes, Big Finish taught me to love audio drama, and now there's no end to it. The LoTR is something special, though, it really is. :-)