Fandom Snowflake Days 10 & 11

Jan 15, 2013 12:50

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*

Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there:

audio plays, samwise gamgee, bill nighy, snowflake challenge, lord of the rings

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