Brain Snacks: Tasty Tidbits of Knowledge
The first film version of The Fellowship of the Ring was actually an animated production made by artist Ralph Bakshi in 1978. It was just called Lord of the Rings, but it certainly does not cover the whole story. John Hurt (the guy who plays Ollivander in the Harry Potter movies) appears as the voice of Aragorn. Since Tolkien hated the first film script for the Lord of the Rings that he read in 1958 (source, 270-1), we wonder how he would have felt about Peter Jackson’s work?
Tolkien was born in 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa. He moved as a baby to England, but by an odd chance, his son Christopher was stationed in South Africa with the Royal Air Force during World War II. In a letter to Christopher, Tolkien recalled, "My earliest recollection of Christmas is of a blazing hot day." (In the southern hemisphere, summer comes in December, while July is midwinter.) (source, 68; in a letter to Christopher Tolkien, 3/1/1944)