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The Difference Between Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White, Explained

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The Difference Between Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White, Explained

With his long robes, pointed hat, and immense power, Gandalf the Grey is the archetypal wizard of modern fantasy. Sent to the shores of Middle Earth to contest the influence of Sauron, he was tireless in his task, and the only of the five wizards to hold true to it until the end, according to J.R.R. Tolkien. As the Grey Pilgrim, Gandalf helped to seed the downfall of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings and even in The Hobbit, but along the way, he was transformed into Gandalf the White. This Gandalf was more directly involved in the final conflict of The Lord of the Rings. Yet it is as the Grey that Gandalf is best known, and Ian McKellen and Peter Jackson both preferred the first incarnation of the character. A casual fan may wonder why Tolkien wrote in a change of wardrobe at all. Wonder no more.

Gandalf, like all the five wizards of Middle Earth, was a Maia, an angelic spirit of the same order as Sauron. It was the persistence of Sauron’s power into the Third Age that made the Valar of Valinor, a higher order of spirits, wish to send emissaries to aid and inspire those of the Free Peoples who resisted evil. The emissaries would be Maia, clothed in the bodies of Men advanced in age but possessed of great physical and mental power. So embodied, they would lose a great deal of their natural power; they were not meant to exercise force nor to coerce anyone to act. They would also be subject to weariness, hunger, injury, and the risk of death. Possessed of free will, they could also be tempted away from their task.

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In Unfinished Tales, a collection of essays and story fragments Tolkien left behind, it was the Maia Olórin who became incarnated as Gandalf. He was proposed for the task by Manwë, wisest of the Valar, though Olórin initially begged not to be sent. He wasn’t up to the task, he insisted, and he feared Sauron. But in Manwë’s eyes, that was all the more reason Olórin should go. Thus ordered, he arrived as the third of the Istari (wizards), appearing the smallest and most aged of them. Yet Círdan the shipwright, who greeted Olórin upon his arrival, perceived him the greatest of the Istari and gave him the Elven Ring of Fire to aid him in his labors. But the ring, and the power he still possessed, were kept veiled in weathered gray robes.


While Saruman the White settled in Orthanc, Radagast the Brown in Rhosgobel, and the two Blue Wizards beyond reach into the East, Gandalf the Grey (as the Men of Middle Earth named him) wandered throughout the West, where the Elves and the descendants of Númenor opposed to Sauron were strongest. He became a good friend to the Elves and to hobbits, while with Men he could be warm and irascible by turns. If Lady Galadriel of Lorien had her way, Gandalf would have been the head of the White Council formed to unite the West against Sauron. But Gandalf refused the position in favor of independence. He did stir the Council to put forth its power to drive the Necromancer – Sauron in disguise – from the fortress of Dol Guldur in Mirkwood, a business which took him away from the dwarves’ quest in The Hobbit. That quest was one he had helped to organize as a means to take Smaug away as a potential ally for Sauron. All this holds true in Tolkien’s books and Jackson’s films, though the timeline and details differ markedly.


All this, Gandalf did when known as Gandalf the Grey for his ashen robes. The chief of the Istari remained Saruman the White, who also headed the White Council. But Saruman fell to the temptations of pride and impatience, and became both faithless servant and doomed imitator of Sauron. With the Blue Wizards lost in the East and Radagast nowhere to be found, Gandalf was the only one of the Istari to guide the Fellowship in their quest to destroy the Ring. When the Fellowship was faced with a Balrog, a corrupted Maia of shadow and flame, Gandalf gave his own life to destroy it.

RELATED: From Sauron to Eowyn: The Most Powerful Characters of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Ranked

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Being an incarnated spirit, “death” for Gandalf had a different meaning than if any of the hobbits or Men of the Fellowship had fallen. Yet even by those standards, Gandalf’s fate was unusual. His spirit is taken “out of thought and time,” only to be reclothed in mortal form and sent back to see his task completed. The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and Tolkien’s private letters imply that this was an act of divine intervention – that the Valar would have been bound by the laws of space and time, but Eru Ilúvatar (God) personally intervened at that moment to change the fate of Middle Earth. Thus reincarnated, Gandalf was delivered to Lothlórien, where he received his white robes. The films push the physical differences further by having the white wardrobe as pristine as the gray one was weathered and dirty, by giving Gandalf the White more managed hair, and by making him unable to handle his pipe weed anymore.


But it was more than a wardrobe and a smoke tolerance that changed. When Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli mistake Gandalf for Saruman in The Two Towers, he tells them: “Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.” While still tasked to advise and council rather than apply force, Gandalf as the White had more power to “reveal” his true strength. He freed King Théoden from evil influence, broke Saruman’s staff and expelled him from the White Council, and repelled the Ringwraiths with his unveiled power. The fall of Denethor to despair left Gandalf to command the defenses of Minas Tirith. And when the time came for the final battle with Sauron before the gates of Mordor, Aragorn and the other lords of the West named Gandalf their leader (a detail not carried over into the films). All the while, his memories and personality remained, though the extremes were more pronounced; Merry describes him in The Two Towers as “kinder and more alarming, merrier and more solemn than before.” Unfinished Tales presents the contrast between Gandalf and Sauron at this point as “the fire that kindles, and succors in wanhope and distress” against “the fire that devours and wastes.”


The Battle of the Black Gate was meant as a distraction from the true plan, one Gandalf oversaw when still Gandalf the Grey: Frodo’s quest to destroy the Ring. His greater power in white did not allow Gandalf to know that Frodo and Sam were in any position to carry out their mission, and he could not use even the full measure of his strength to ensure their success; to attempt such would have betrayed his own appointed role. But Gandalf the White, through actions direct and circuitous, did succeed in placing the greatest forces of Men in opposition to Sauron where they could best help see the Ring destroyed, beyond what he could achieve as Gandalf the Grey. And he was still clad in white when he departed the shores of Middle Earth. “I was the enemy of Sauron,” he tells Aragorn in The Return of the King, “and my work is finished.”


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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

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The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

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Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

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Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

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According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

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To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

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Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

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Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

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Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

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