What do you mean repetitive?
What do you mean repetitive? In the Star Wars prequel trilogy, my character is an old man with magical abilities who secretly raises an army and who betrays the forces of good in order to gain more power for himself. But in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, my character is an old man with magical abilities who secretly raises an army and who betrays.. oh.. wait… I think I see your point.
(Christopher Lee)
picture: dunno source, via our lol builder. lol caption: Officer_lolz
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frsit!
FOOLst!
Firsts are lame!
(However I only say that because I am not first. lol)
[Do learn to spell correctly though. Or at least to type quickly correctly.]
^_^
TL;DR
Looong caption = Less funny
How do you know if you didn’t read it? FAIL.
Would’ve been funnier if you had shown Emperor Palpatine instead I think.
Right, because Emperor Palpatine was also in LotR. Oh wait, no he wasn’t. FAIL!
Except for the fact that it’s comparing Saruman to Emperor Palpatine.
And the way he has it, it makes it seem like LotR ripped off Star Wars. I mean seriously, did you even read the bloody joke, or did you just not get it?
Except for the fact that it’s not comparing Saruman to Emperor Palpatine; it’s comparing Saruman to Count Dooku. Dooku was originally a Jedi and later betrayed them by becoming a Sith in order to gain power, and similarly, Saruman was originally a good wizard who became evil to gain more power for himself. Palpatine was never a Jedi; he was always a Sith. Essentially, the comparison of LOTR to Star Wars has Saruman paralleling Dooku and Sauron paralleling Palpatine. I mean seriously, did you even read the bloody joke, or did you just not get it?
Furthermore, I don’t know fails more: you for trying to pretend that you are a meticulous nerd, or me for actually being one. Good day, sir.
Well articulated. Although, I think Nubnuts main point was it would be impossible for LOTR to have ripped off Star Wars, considering it was written over 25 years earlier.
I think by “LOTR” they mean the movies.
although I see your point
Dude, you just proved you’re a nerd.
But that’s not a bad thing! =)
Chronology:FAIL
LOTR was the earlier film; Lucas was teh copycat here.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000489/
…was wondering if no one had pointed that out yet…
G.L. has stolen stuff from all over the place…
Nevermind that LotR was written between 1937 and 1949.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotr
I only still have knowledge because it’s a great way to annoy my little brother
but the wardrobes were different!!!
Christopher Lee is awesome! You cannot deny that..
Well, “uhh” beat me to it, but to elaborate on the Chronology fail, Tolkien published the LOTR trilogy in ‘54-’55…long before Lucas wrote the Star Wars script….
Tolkien didn’t cast Christopher Lee as Saruman, though. He wanted him to play Gandalf.
LOL
“Tolkien” didn’t cast anyone. He died in 1973. Peter Jackson cast Christopher Lee as Saruman. And Jackson never wanted him for Gandalf, Lee wanted to play Gandalf but got cast as Saruman since Jackson had Sir Ian MacKellen in mind for Gandalf.
I really need to find the movie in which he played Dracula. By his voice alone I can tell he was a good one
I did see an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode with a very young Christopher Lee in it, couldn’t recognize him!
He played Dracula in ALL of them. Seriously, more than any other actor who played Dracula, I think more than 100 movies.
Nooo…
He played Dracula in half of them,
Lucifer in the other half, and
death and sherlock Holmes in an
additional 1/3…
THEN he gained magic powers and could play the cool parts…
I see no reason to knock Lucas or Lee for that.
Joseph Campbell’s book “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” refers to the “monomyth”, which essentially says that every hero myth told in any culture at any point in human history is basically the same, because they are all metaphors of the same mental transformation that takes place within us all during puberty.
For instance, you can find extremely similar character and plot setups in Harry Potter and the Matrix, as well. They also tell stories of young, “average” heroes who find that they have special powers thanks to the guidance of a mysterious elder.
Joseph Campbell not only inspired the original script of Star Wars, he became good friends with Lucas before he died.
In other words, saying Lucas ripped off Tolkien is extremely short-sighted and missing the point, because every hero myth worth telling rips off every hero myth that comes before it.
Not knowing this is the real fail in this picture.
Thank you for reading this far. Have a nice weekend.
Ooooh, rather insightful. I like it.
Or MAYBE (and this is a long shot here) the point of the joke was that these two extremely similar characters – more similar than that extremely basic underlying core – were played by the SAME ACTOR, and thus had nothing to do with Lucas ripping off Tolkien…gosh, it’s almost like there were some kind of word for this phenomenon, like “typecast” or something…hmm….
True on many levels, but he really wanted to be in the LOTR movies, so I’m glad he was cast in this role. (I think he really wanted to be Gandalf, though.)
I had always thought Lee asked for & received the part of Saruman, and no other. I am rather saddened that he has declined to take part in the Guillermo del Toro Hobbit movies, citing his age.
Christopher Lee has played essentially the same character for the past 50-odd years, and more power to him. There may be an element of typecasting involved, but otoh, it’s a nice, steady career in movies, and I bet playing villains is more fun than playing good guys.
Yup. I don’t mean to enrage anyone with my comments here…but the joke I was going for was simply that Christopher Lee played two very similar characters in two completely different trilogies. Nothing in the joke was intended to suggest that the Star Wars films ripped off the LOTR films (or vice versa), nor was the joke meant as in insult to Mr. Lee
.
Thank you. I thought it was just me who saw that. Is it just me, or do people tend to think too hard ’round here? Seems to cause a lot of futile conflicts.
Well, aren’t WE erudite?? Commendations on finding a use for those college humanities courses.
I was not referring to any mythopoeia or even Jungian archetypes, which are also applicable in this instance…was simply pointing out to the creator of this LOL, quite probably a member of the “Twilight generation” that his/her timeline was erm, “mythtaken”…
I finally spotted a flaw in your logic:
I’m not saying Joseph Campbell is wrong.
quite the opposite…
BUT:
Saruman and Dooku are VILLAINS… not heroes…
SWIDT..?
LOL
-Peace out…
Wow, so many wordzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…………
Yes, because we all know LOTR was the copycat … trust me, you’re not fooling anyone.
Aah he played the same character. I fail.
We all know the LOTR books were written long before Star Wars. Which makes it impossible for Tolkien to copy off of Lucas. In fact, maybe Lucas copied off of Tolkien
Would’ve been less similar if they had followed the actual books with LotR.
Further proof that George Lucas never had an original idea in his life. Please to consider: the old Flash Gordon serials, I mean the originals, none of this 80’s Queen soundtrack crap. Dude, he even ripped off Princess Leia’s hair.
Not to mention Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress” (vide C3P0 & R2D2 in the Tattooine desert in Episode “IV”) …and to the Lucas apologist(s?) in this thread, this is by Lucas’ OWN ADMISSION:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmmakersonfilm/3642010/Film-makers-on-film-George-Lucas.html
further interesting tidbits can be found here:
http://www.moongadget.com/origins/index.html
Good Lord, but Frank Zappa’s looking old these days!
I knew I wasn’t the only one…
Y’know what, EVERYONE rips off of Tolkein. But can you really blame them? Tolkein was a genius!
…and in charlie and the chocolate factory, he plays a father who betrays his son who in turn attains secret workers for his factory….that could be an army..
Ah, but he didn’t muster the evil army of helpers, that was Johnny Depp.
I think you guys are forgetting that he’s done other things. Like Dracula. He played Dracula. In 47 movies. Totally not repetitive.