Re: OT: Two Towers movie

Quoting John Cowan <cowan@...>:

> Isidora Zamora scripsit:
>
> > When you see Gandalf lying on the mountain peak and sort of travel in
> > through his eyes and see the stars...there are gas clouds, nebulae, and
> > other extraneous materials floating in space.  Those shouldn't be there if
> > this is Arda.  Varda made the stars, and they are lights in the sky, not
> > other suns far away.  (My husband noticed this.)
>
> I can't agree with you there.  When the World was Made Round, the rest of
> the universe had to be adjusted too, presumably to its present state.
> The Sun retreated to 93 million miles away, the stars were reorganized
> into galaxies, the Earth acquired eight sibling planets, and so on.
> All preserving (most of) the appearances, though the Numenorians in
> exile were able to figure out the differences "by star-craft".
Let's not forget that the (not entirely internally consistent) cosmology
presented in the Silmarillion wasn't the only version the good Professor
supplied, and that we don't know what he'd settled for if he had managed to
publish the Silmarillion in his life-time. I don't think we can demand that
Jackson must stick to the published Silmarillion.

One might recall that the Valaquenta speaks of cosmic immensities within Ea
but beyond Arda, and of countable stars - which seems to suggest a
quite "modern" view of the cosmos. And looking at the section "Myths
Transformed" in Morgoth's Ring, one can read some of Tolkien's ideas for
adapting the myths of the Elder Days to the basics of modern cosmology.

                                                               Andreas