Posted: February 07, 2000 at 12:45:09: by Goodgulf
: I generally agree, but I will say that you do see references to "medieval" in Chinese, Indian, and other Asian histories. The term does have some use there. Although the histories are only very loosely linked to Europe, there were some links such as Turkish or Mongol invasions where it is nice to have a term to fix the events in time against "better known" European history. But it generally takes quite a shoe-horn to fit Asian historical patterns in with European ones. That is, The European middle ages fit between the collapse of a "universal" empire that was really never revived, and the beginning of European world domination. In China, the Empire has always been revived over and over. In India, the empires and states rise and fall so fast that it is a blur. But it makes no sense at all to use the term for American or African history.This is all very interesting, but I think we're being overly academic. Peter Jackson is not interested in which period of medeival Europe the story might take place in. What he said was that he wants to present the film's visual look in what will be the most popular of the fixed images that readers of the book have. In other words when you say the word "medieval" what picture comes to mind in most people? I think we'll see a fairly generic looking middle-age conglomeration, not based on fact, but on the majority's "idea" of what is medieval. I don't think it should look medieval(European, Asian or Martian), but Jackson is going for familiarity for the masses and what they have envisioned.
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