173
by Olorin
So, I watched the TORN livestream on YouTube tonight, or most of it. I'm not sure how long it went on after I'd had enough and switched over to HGTV. In any event, they spent about an hour again discussing The Picture. This stream was hosted by Cliff "Quickbeam" Broadway, who is a longtime TORN staffer, and someone named Justin. I'm not sure who he is and what his relationship to TORN is, if any. But between his own musings and his reading from the chatroom, I was wanting to pull out my closely shorn hair.
Now, I don't mean to disparage anyone who's never read The Silmarillion. I know there are folks on our own site here who have not. But I think TORN is, rightly or wrongly, viewed as a pretty authoritative Tolkien source in fandom. Because of that, I feel they have an obligation to have decent knowledge about topics they're going to discuss. Quickbeam seems pretty knowledgeable but this other guy, and again, my apologies to him and others, but at one point I screamed at the TV, "if you haven't read The Silmarillion, don't suppose yourself entitled to have theories about the picture!" I mean, seriously, first he asked when Tirion was destroyed. That was enough of a huh moment for me, and then he came out with something like, when The Two Trees exploded, did it ruin the city or was it already abandoned. That finally impinged on Quickbeam's consciousness...they're doing this by Zoom and if you've ever done that, you know it's easy to talk over each other and not hear the other...and he explained that the trees never exploded, that they were killed by Morgoth and Ungoliant, and withered. Then Justin was obsessed with spiders and spent some time scanning the corners of the picture for spider webs.
After this, I wandered into the kitchen to make myself a smoothie and was only half-listening, as I would soon be switching the channel, so to speak, anyway. But back to my story, they then opened up the Zoom to other callers, whether other YouTubers or just fans in general, I don't know. The biggest takeaway from this part, during the few minutes I experienced, was a strong consensus among them that they want Howard Shore to do the soundtrack. That's a sentiment I strongly share, so I listened for any tidbits that that might be happening. From what I gathered, no one as been announced as composer yet, which at least leaves open the possibility it could be Shore. Quickbeam suggested that even if they were unable to get him fulltime (a series would be a huge commitment), perhaps at least he could allow the use of some of his themes from LOTR. Quickbeam gave the example of Star Trek: The Next Generation using Jerry Goldsmith's theme from The Motion Picture. He couldn't remember which movie, so he just said one of the movies. One of the new attendees on the Zoom, whose opinion he seemed to value, asked about theme, so Quickbeam hummed it. She said, oh that's the theme from the Next Generation. Again, a huh moment. He was like, yeah that's what I said, but it was from one of the movies. I suppose I shouldn't fault someone on a Tolkien-related stream for not being an expert on Star Trek, but at least pay attention. So it was another frustration. As was nearly everyone's tendency to pronounce "Tolkien" with three syllables....
I think next week I will not be watching the livestream unless they have new news to discuss....
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."