LOTR and British flicks in general

Last night I saw the new Lord of the Rings movie. First off, "The Two Towers" is currently a bad name for the movie, although I have to admit that you can't really help that because the book was named that too. Second, the graphics and animation was incredible. The stuff they did was nothing short of amazing. The actors that they added and the interaction between the actors and the scenery was very well done. The movie was a tad long (some 3 hours). I really liked it. (I'll leave out the details.)

There is something I noticed about a lot of british writing that you really don't see in American writing. I have not really look in to this much, but I wonder if the literature would support this: There is a large acceptance of monarchial thinking. What I mean is that if part of the plot hinges on someone having superior blood, or divine right, or something like that, it will be readily accepted as normal by British audiences. There are all sorts of kings in LOTR. Each one is respected and followed. People have real loyalty to their king, in the way I would be loyal to the president of the US. But the difference is that the kings here do not get their legitimacy from the people, rather they inherit it. Harry Potter (also British) has a similar situation. Remember, Harry's father was a seeker. It was in his blood, as Hermione said.

Again, two examples does not a theory make, but I think that given the history of the US and the UK, those of us here in the US would find these things very un-American. I do. I tend to look at the whole world of LOTR as a throwback to more barbaric times where there is little to learn in terms of values or morals. There is little to be emulated, neither by the bad guys, or the good guys. The good guys are just less brutal and wear brighter clothes. They both have undying loyalty to an illigitimate ruler, they both think everyone else should too. There are wizzards who inherit their talents, no one can aspire to wizzardhood. Harry was just waiting in his closet until his natural born rights were allowed to flourish. He did not work for them at all.

In the American version, you have a kid who has some talents would spend his nights being abused and working hard, sitting in the library until some lucky break allowed him to show off what he had worked so hard for. (I guess this would be Hermione, or some Good Will Hunting type of story.)