LotR and British Accents?

[Wormwood]

One of my wife's friends is (originally) British and she contrends that Elijah Wood and Sean Astin are doing a *terrible* job with their British accents.

AFAIK, they sound fine but my frame of reference is limited to the occasional reruns of Fawlty Towers and Chef!

Is she nuts or does she have a point?

(if it makes any difference, she is originally from Manchester---and doesn't sound like *anybody* in the movie!)

 

[durath]

Frodo was from England????

I had no idea Frodo and Sam were originally from England. They must have come to the shire later which would explain their muddled accents.

I really don't have a problem with the accents because who knows what the accents on middle earth sounded like? I did watch a special on the making of the fellowship where I believe it was said that all the actors which were supposed to be from the same region trained to get their accents matching.

Frodo and Sam are both from the Hobbiton, Merry and Pippin are both from Buckland etc.

All in all they did a pretty good job I think. Maybe the hobbits would think that your friends shire accent is really fake?

 

[Ranger REG]

(if it makes any difference, she is originally from Manchester---and doesn't sound like *anybody* in the movie!)

You mean she doesn't like that actress Jane Leeves on Frasier who plays Daphne Moon of Manchester?

Blame it on their speaking coach.

P.S. Does your wife have an opinion regarding Liv Tyler's speech?

 

[Agback]

Re: Frodo was from England????

Frodo and Sam are both from the Hobbiton, Merry and Pippin are both from Buckland etc.

Merry is from Buckland right enough. But Pippin is from Tookland: the Great Smials, to be precise. And the evidence of the family trees is that the Brandybucks, Tooks, and Bagginses are all members of a ruling class that spans the Shire. Except in the movie, of course, where Merry and Pippin are not the heirs-apparent to the hereditary rulers of the Shire and Buckland, but gangrel thieves.

Regards,


Agback

 

[Wolf72]

like everyone else, couldn't those *bad* accents be chalked up to different locals and dialects and such?

ooooh! Patriot Games was on the other day ... and Boromir was alive again!!!!! ...

 

[Morrus]

Oh, I dunno. I thought that Ian McKellen's British accent was passable, and Sean Bean's wasn't too bad. That Christopher Lee bloke did a fairly good imitation, too...

 

[ColonelHardisson]

It strikes me that criticizing something like this is s bit silly. Consider this: apply the same criticism to a film about the Roman Empire (hey, all the Romans were British, you know that!). Even if you accept the premise that Middle Earth was an ancient Europe, Tolkien did say that they were all speaking distinctly non-English languages.

Yeah, I know it's all in good fun. It's just that the Roman Empire analogy hit me right now. It also seems like Peter Ustinov was in all those films, too...

 

[Morrus]

(hey, all the Romans were British, you know that!).

So were most of the Imperials. I hate the way that English accent = bad guy 99% of the time. If it were any other nation, it would be called racism, discrimination or some such, but everyone seems to have a free pass to insult the English. We take it in good humour, but look what happens when we try to give some of it back - people start crying.

Oh well, that's Hollywood for you. I'm sure I'm oversensitive and am imagining it.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Hey, the Imperials have cool uniforms.

 

[garyh]

Hey, the Imperials have cool uniforms.

True, the Rebel Alliance all look like scruffy nerfherders.