Every family has its holiday traditions. One of us watches the Lord of the Rings trilogy on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Between opening presents and devouring Christmas ham, we spend 12 hours with Frodo Baggins as he struggles to take the Ring of Power to Mount Doom and his friends battle Uruk-hai and the Orcs.
Watching this past Christmas, I was struck again by the irony at the heart of these magical films. They use modern, sophisticated technology to romanticize a simpler, low-tech past.
And we, my family but also the general public, don’t care about irony. We admire technology; we wallow in the righteousness of the anti-technology message.
JRR Tolkien, the English author who wrote the novels on which the films are based, came of age as automobiles and tractors began to replace horses. This distressed him. Tolkien was described as a man who loved trees and hated technology.
Director Peter Jackson’s films are faithful to Tolkien. Horses and trees are revered, manufactured objects disdained. At one point in the second film, “The Two Towers,” walking, talking trees called Ents destroy an evil wizard’s primitive factory.
More subtle expressions of anti-technology sentiment abound. The good guys are swordsmen and archers, melee warriors who triumph through skill and heroism. Only bad guys wage war with machines – catapults, battering rams, and siege towers.
Yet to bring the War for Middle-earth to life, Jackson used computer-generated imagery, motion capture, and other cutting-edge cinematic technologies. All three films were ahead of their time; they hold up well today despite all the technological advances made by filmmakers in the decades since.
If Tolkien had lived to see these films, would he have appreciated Jackson’s artistry? It is reasonable to assume that he would not have done so. But Hollywood did it. Each of the three won the Oscar for visual effects. (In total, the trilogy won 17 Academy Awards.)
The fact that millions of viewers were fascinated by the technological effects while embracing the anti-technology storyline speaks volumes about the homo sapiens species. We are creatures of first-rate intelligence, assuming the test is the “ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind” according to F. Scott Fitzgerald. We fantasize about a simpler past while appreciating high technology and the good things it brings to the present, including great movies.
This is similar to how some city dwellers view agriculture. Their ideal farmer is essentially a small landowner who farms the way the great-great-great-grandfathers of today’s farmers farmed. These people appreciate the abundant and affordable food that modern agriculture provides, even as they idealize older agriculture that produced less. If they are aware of the contradiction, it does not bother them.
Many of us perform these kinds of mental juggling acts. It may be a defense mechanism, a way to cope with the dizzying speed of technological change. Dazed by this speed, we yearn in spirit for the past while accepting the material benefits that technological change brings. This is understandable; the benefits of technology are numerous and deviously attractive.
I’m not saying that all technology is good, that technology should be adopted without thought or allowed to run wild without regulation. For example, no one advocates the widespread use of nuclear weapons. Technologies that boost productivity can put people out of work; public anxiety about the effects of AI on employment is palpable. Although some attacks on chemicals are wrong, there are certainly chemicals we don’t want in our drinking water.
I read Walter Isaacson The code breakerwhich chronicles the development of CRISPR gene editing technology. CRISPR has the potential to make astonishing contributions to the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of a wide variety of diseases, not to mention making agriculture more productive with less impact on the environment. But this raises serious concerns, ranging from “designer babies” to “off-target modifications” creating unanticipated and unwanted genetic changes.
Isaacson reports that Jennifer Doudna, the Nobel Prize-winning book star, had a nightmare about gene editing falling into the wrong hands. Adolf Hitler visited her and wanted to know everything about the technology she co-created. Oh, and in his dream, Hitler had a pig’s head.
Ultimately, for better or worse, once a technology is invented, it tends to be used. We accept the downsides of innovations because we want the upsides. We rightly tell ourselves that there are also downsides to not using technology.
But that doesn’t stop us from dreaming of a mythical, less complicated idyllic past, especially when it’s presented as only high-tech cinema can deliver, with memorable effects, fascinating twists, exceptional acting, breathtaking settings and a captivating film. score.
I hope your Christmas was as enjoyable as ours. I wish you a generous year 2025.
Urban Lehner, a former longtime Wall Street Journal correspondent and Asia editor, is editor emeritus of DTN/The Progressive Farmer. This item, originally published on January 2 by the latter news agency and now republished by Asia Times with permission, is © Copyright 2025 DTN/The Progressive Farmer. All rights reserved. Follow Urban Lehner on Twitter: @urbanize