I've listened to The Silmarillion on audiobook more times than I can count, so when they diverge from canon it grates on me. Still, I'm going to be optimistic and hope for the best.

Update: turns out Amazon doesn't have the rights to The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales. So this is effectively fan fiction. My concerns about them straying from the novels are allayed. It doesn't matter.

2012 is shaping up to be one of the most amazing years ever for movies!

In 2002 the best of the LotR movies came out. History often seems to have interesting parallels to it, who could have imagined that the themes in good professor Tolkein's mighty trilogy would tie so directly to events surrounding the release of these movies? Film critic John Mclaren in his review of The Two Towers puts it well:

The screenplay explains (with barely disguised contemporary resonance) what we are protecting in Western civilisation when we defend ourselves against those who would wish to destroy it. When Sam tells Frodo that there are "some things worth fighting for", when Merry tells Pippin that there "won't be a Shire" unless they do something about it, when King Theoden laments that "the sun has gone down in the West" this film could be entitled not the "Two Towers" but "the Twin Towers". It is Miltonic in its scope. It is cinema as art.

I love Peter Jackson's interpretation to film of LotR. Each film is unique and wonderful in its own way, and work remarkably well together as one giant 9+ hour movie. But of the 3, The Two Towers is my favorite, and is the only one that wasn't improved by the "extended editions". The theatrical release was perfect to me. The pacing, the framing devices, the epic clash of good and evil so well drawn. And it also had an eerie relevance to what was going on in the world at the time. (ok, I could have done without Legolas surfing down steps on a shield, but that is the only thing I didn't like, and that is only a minor annoyance).

Before D&D there was The Hobbit. And if there is any one thing that set me on the course to being a fan of all things fantasy it was the Rankin & Bass animated version of The Hobbit narrated by John Huston.

To this day he IS the voice of Gandalf in my head when I read the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. I still think he was one of the greatest voice actors of all time.

Not long ago I bought the Rankin and Bass The Hobbit on DVD and I was not disappointing. It has held up surprisingly well. Some things in its favor are that it is based on the original drawings of JRR Tolkein himself, John Huston's voice acting, and the editing of the story is so well done. The scenes with Smaug are still some of the best ever put to film, and who can forget the riddles in the dark with Gollum!?

When I was a child and saw this for the first time it blew my mind. The next day I ran to the school library and asked for the book to read. The librarian said it was a "little old for me" and directed me to CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia. Now, I loved Chronicles of Narnia and don't begrudge her misdirection, but I still wanted to read Tolkein's work. And eventually did, several times.

Smaug - one of the greatest characters of all time. All dragons pale in comparison to his magnificence.

"Adventures make one late for dinner."

I love orcs! Just as much as anyone. I mean, I illustrated a whole book on orcs (or, orks, as they were called in that case). I also think hobbits are the bees knees. It was seeing Rankin-Bass' "The Hobbit" at the tender age of 8 that propelled me into being a fan of (nearly) all things fantasy.

But I want to remove all Tolkienisms from my campaign. Why? Because Tolkein did them so well, and they fit so beautifully in the world of middle-Earth that I just don't like how they've been plucked from that world and thrown into generic fantasy.

I want to base my campaign on Mythic Earth. That is to say, real world mythologies, legends, and history. Which I've felt for a long time should have always been the default world setting of D&D. I say this with no intention to malign it's pulp fantasy influences, because I love all things Burroughs, Howard, and Leiber! I would just prefer them to be in their own supplements. They are each like a masterpiece composition, and isolating the parts only mars the works of art they are.

Another reason is that I had a Greek mythology book as a kid, and there were two paintings in it that inspired my desire to become an artist.

The first was Lament for Icarus by Herbert Draper:
And the other was Hylus and the Water Nymphs by JW Waterhouse:
Beyond the obvious reasons a boy might like these I was always captivated by the stunning beauty and craftsmanship of the art. I just didn't understand how you could put oil paint on a canvas and make it look like this (alas, sadly, I still don't).

When I say Mythic Earth, this is what I'm talking about.

The part of me that admires not just quality, but the highest quality, can only imagine D&D art ever looking like this. There are some great artists working in the field today, but only a few might even approach this level, and their services are likely cost prohibitive. Besides, few publishers are interested in this genre labeled "romantic fantasy" and consider it to be "quaint". Today it's all spiky armor and grimacing faces that look like the characters are suffering a severe bout of constipation.

So, I'm saying I want to de-Tolkienize my campaign. That means no orcs, no hobbits, and the dwarves and elves, I mean dwarfs and elfs need a serious revision.