So, I’m checking out the Internet Movie Database info for Lord of the Rings and I notice under “movie connections” a lengthy list of 60+ films that are referenced, including Moby Dick, Deliverence and Highlander.
Now, I’m guessing that many of the references are fairly oblique: simply similar camera shots or creatures or names of characters…
But for the life of me, I can’t think of how anything in the LOTR references the dark comedy with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, The War of The Roses.
Maybe they mean the actual Wars of the Roses (15th Century Britain)
And, frankly, the list is bogus. Saying there are references to, say, “Highlander” or “Willow,” or any fantasy story is getting the entire thing backwards, like saying “Romeo and Juliet” had references to “West Side Story.” “Lord of the Rings” predated nearly all the films listed – the book was published in 1954, and reached the U.S. a few years later (my Ace edition – the first in the U.S. – has no copyright date, of course).
Further, LOTR was so much a part of popular culture by 1970 that any similarities after that mean the filmmakers just cribbed from Tolkien. Other films on the list are just using similar quest structures or plot elements.
FOTR came entirely from the book, and any commonalities with other movies merely show just how much LOTR had become a part of popular culture.
Other choices are really stretching it – the only thing in common between FOTR and “The Sword and the Stone” is that there is a wizard in it.
I’d guess that these were sumitted by young fans so used to cute references that they think any similarities between any two films are deliberate.
This rather reminds me of something I heard a bandleader say once. One of the folks at the dance had requested a song; he replied that they didn’t have that one, but we’d probably enjoy the one they were about to play, since it had a lot of the same notes.
I mean, how many different camera angles are there, anyway? And names? Some of Tolkien’s names happen to be the same as English words. It’s coincidence, it happens.
Maybe those other films make a LotR reference and the movie connections go both ways?
Any way the Star Wars-e-ness of the Balrog (YES I KNOW) scene is obvious. When Frodo yells out ‘NOOOOOOOOooo’ it almost sounds like Luke/Mark Hammil.