The Calm After The Storm

This is usually "dead week" where I work. The company used to have a use-it-or-lose-it vacation policy, so a lot of people got used to taking a lot of time off in December. As a result, the week between Christmas and New Year's Day is pretty dead. When I arrived this morning there were maybe three other people in the entire area. We're slowly getting a few more trickling in, but this is by no means a hopping workplace today.

Not that I mind. I am completely unmotivated. I had a great weekend, and I'd really rather be home right now, even if it means watching "Cinderella" and "Thomas the Tank Engine" videos ad nauseum, or playing the 100th game of "Hungry Hungry Hippos." I've really enjoyed hanging out with the family.

The kids have been pretty darn good, all things considered. They had no trouble falling asleep on Christmas Eve, or at least had the good sense to stay quiet. As usual, they slept in on Christmas morning. We nearly had to wake Emma up. As it was, our church was at 9:00, and only for an hour, so we had already planned to open presents after church. Ultimately we didn't get started until close to noon--and they kids were fine with that!

They also were very good about taking turns opening things and not diving in with a big feeding frenzy. Terhi and I both agree that it's more enjoyable if you can see the person's reaction when they open their presents, so we would go around in a circle opening packages. The kids got quite a lot of stuff, and were a little overwhelmed, I think. But ultimately they really loved all their new stuff.

Monday I got in a little Warhammer time with my nephew, though we only got through 3.5 turns, and at that point it was still a draw (with me in the lead). He's still new to the game, and I think a couple more turns would have seen him handily defeated, but he made some very good choices in his army selection and application that kept it from being more one-sided. I had around 25% of my forces destroyed or effectively neutralized by a single choice he made.

Last night (and in the background while I was playing Warhammer) I got to see part of "Return of the King" again. I don't care what some of my critical friends say, I still think it is very, very well done. The parts where Jackson's vision actually enhances and builds on Tolkien's far outweigh the exclusions, errors, or outright changes.

I've mentioned it before elsewhere, but I particularly appreciate how Jackson manages to make a movie that is largely about war without glorifying or denigrating. The movies, at least in my opinion, are neither pro- nor anti-war. It simply shows that war is a very messy, scary, nasty business, and the consequences impact real people, for good and for ill. War is bad, but it's still preferable to living in fear or losing your freedom. Good men would rather die fighting evil than live allied with it.

The movie, I've noticed, says an aweful lot about hope, too. Without hope, even blind, foolish hope, even good men will give up. At the end the heroes throw themselves into one last hopeless assault hoping to give their friends a little more time to destroy the ring--not knowing for sure if their friends are even still alive. Indeed, when they arrive where they are to attack, a messenger shows them evidence that their friends are indeed dead and that there is no more hope.

And yet when it appears that everyone else, Gandalf included, has surrendered to hopelessness, one character stands up and refuses to give up hope. His stubborn refusal to give up hope is ultimately vindicated (at the very last second, of course). The message is quite clear: As long as there is hope there is the chance to make a difference. You only fail if you refuse to try.

In any case, it's a darn good set of movies. Regardless of what you may think of Jackson's adaptation, it captures the spirit of the books. It is a groundbreaking movie in what they are able to bring to life on the screen. It is also a bold gesture to produce such a black-and-white morality play in the current Hollywood climate. I have yet to see "The Chronicles of Narnia," but do you think they would have dared produce that movie had LotR not been as successful as it was? The general populace has no problem with movies with unambiguous, un-nuanced morality. It's just Hollywood that can't handle it.

Anyway, onward into the week. We're nearly into 2006. Simply amazing.