J. R. R. Tolkien started his journey today…

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(My first set of books I read & understood, I love his books!!!)

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J. R. R. Tolkien Went into the West, but Gave Us Middle-earth

It’s January 3, which means that on this day, in 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born. Undoubtedly one of the most influential authors of modern mythic literature, Tolkien spent his childhood as an avid reader and a lover of language. As a boy, he often preferred to invent new tongues himself or with friends. His youthful fancies informed his academic career, and Tolkien eventually became a professor of English Literature. In the 1930s, he wrote an article about the criticism of Beowulf that forever changed how the literary world academically viewed the poem.

But of course, the world remembers Tolkien for changing the fantasy genre forever. By penning The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien set a framework for fantasy literature that countless authors have attempted to recapture over the years. The creation of Middle-earth, from its languages to its poetry to its rich cultural history and varied peoples, was an astounding feat of imagination that no one had managed before with such detail and ardent care.

It denotes a particular status as a writer to have your name instantly associated with an entire genre, and indeed, it is impossible to call up the names of science fiction and fantasy authors and not include Tolkien. He intended with his works to create stories that entered our mythic consciousness, a feat that he accomplished in every sense. Though we may never glimpse the House of Elrond, Minas Tirith, or the peaceful Shire for ourselves, it is enough that he left his world to us, and that we will always be able to journey there… and back again.

Lego Millennium Falcon

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Fan spends a year building 7,500-piece Millennium Falcon from the Force Awakens

I half joked in my post about improving Rey’s speeder that my next project would be to mod my 5,000-piece UCS Millennium Falcon set into the version seen in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. marshal banana planned a bit more ahead of me, and has spent the last year planning, designing, gathering the LEGO parts, and building his own Millennium Falcon from Episode VII.

Millennium Falcon (Starwars VII)

At 7,500 pieces, Marshal’s Millennium Falcon uses fully 50% more parts than the 5,195-piece official 10179 UCS Millennium Falcon (the second-largest LEGO set ever sold by part count, and arguably physically the largest set ever). This LEGO Millennium Falcon measures 82 x 54 x 18 cm, or nearly three feet long.

While the internal structure required to make the model light enough at 10 kg (22 pounds) but sturdy enough to pose at an angle like this doesn’t allow it to have a full interior, it does have light-up engines and gun wells.

Millennium Falcon (Starwars VII)

One of the most noticeable differences from the official LEGO set is the change to the sensor panel, as reflected in the minifig-scale Millennium Falcon I reviewed recently. And here’s another shot of the light-up quad cannon emplacement.

Millennium Falcon (Starwars VII) Millennium Falcon (Starwars VII)

It’s clear from this top-down photo that the builder has spent some significant time with various reference materials — the plan view shows just how closely his model lines up to the shape and details published in books like The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels. Unlike the fairly bare belly of the official LEGO set, Marshal Banana’s version has a fully detailed underside.

Millennium Falcon (Starwars VII) Millennium Falcon (Starwars VII)

Similarly, I’m deeply impressed with Marshal Banana’s greebling, which is particularly evident along the sides of the Falcon — it’s hard to look intentional without looking totally random.

Millennium Falcon (Starwars VII)