The Edible Battle of Pelennor Fields

January 9, 2008 10:49 PM

What I did over Christmas vacation- a scale model of Minas Tirith during the Battle of Pelennor Fields from Tolkein's The Return of the King. In candy. (via oink)

Photo gallery of the construction

Other notable models of Minas Tirith:
1/72nd scale model
Lego model (via boo_radley)

posted by madamjujujive (41 comments total)

Well it's hardly accurate, is it? Everyone knows Minas Tirith was carved out of rock candy.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:58 PM on January 9, 2008 [2 favorites]

This isn't the first time this person has done this type of thing, is it? I've seen this before... though not this battle.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 11:13 PM on January 9, 2008

CitrusFreak12, you are correct - apparently, last year's holiday project was the battle of Helms Deep.
posted by madamjujujive at 11:19 PM on January 9, 2008

I threw my 4 children off a 80 foot high bridge over my Christmas vacation.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 11:31 PM on January 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ooh - not sure I would have gone there.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:33 PM on January 9, 2008

Even I wouldn't have gone anywhere near there.
posted by wendell at 11:46 PM on January 9, 2008

At this point, the Riders of Rohan have already arrived and they’ve completely made the Orc forces their collective biotech.

Is that an ironic high-tech update to the by-now thoroughly played-out "beeyotch"? Or an unintentionally hilarious typo?

Either way I love it.

BITE ME BIOTECH!
posted by ottereroticist at 11:52 PM on January 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

Not wanting to make light of it, although to some it might appear like I was. I sorta wanted to mention it... but definitely not worthy of an FPP.

Some people got creative and made a wonderful, pointless, scale model. Another person murdered his 4 toddler children to spite his wife.

Fucked up world of extremes.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 12:03 AM on January 10, 2008

Fucked up world of extremes.

That it is.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:05 AM on January 10, 2008

- Dumb teen: Hey, look at this! It says "Train for jobs in biotch."
- Smarter teen: Fool! That word is biotech. Why you gotta be ignorant all your life?
via overheard in NY
posted by PercussivePaul at 12:17 AM on January 10, 2008

Found my new bathroom tile at oink!
posted by hortense at 12:19 AM on January 10, 2008 [3 favorites]

hortense, that belongs in this thread, too!
posted by madamjujujive at 12:37 AM on January 10, 2008

This line wins at least two internets:

For the sake of simplicity we made all the good guys yellow and White Gummy Bears and the Bad Guys Red, Orange, Green and Black. This is in no way any kind of remark on culturally preconceived notions of morality and how it relates to skin color. Except for Green people. They are lazy thieves.
posted by Parannoyed at 12:44 AM on January 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

God. I just want to bite this and chew it up and then bite it again and then again and again and again until I'm running around the house screaming in falsetto about Orcs and Biotech at the top of my lungs after which, and suddenly, I'll collapse in front of the tv in a sweaty, icky sugar-coma for a chaotic half-hour, waking up with a wicked head-ache and regrets the size of Toledo. Whereupon I will do it all again, my family staring on with slack-jawed horror. I love the Holidays!
posted by From Bklyn at 12:49 AM on January 10, 2008 [4 favorites]

Another person murdered his 4 toddler children to spite his wife.

I don't know, I'm torn. That Twizzler battering ram with peppermint wheels was pretty fucking awesome.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:50 AM on January 10, 2008

I approve of this project. War may be hell, but it's delicious hell!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:51 AM on January 10, 2008

The "biotch/biotech" joke is originally from Overheard In New York and has become a minor meme...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:25 AM on January 10, 2008

You know what I did during my Christmas break? I ate and slept. Mostly slept. And I was PROUD of myself.

Damn these posts that make me want to improve myself. This was awesome.
posted by Dr. Curare at 1:35 AM on January 10, 2008

I'm torn between a quick pun: "Sweet!" or rambling on about the lack of proper economics in Tolkien's world so there's no where they set up a big enough sugar plantation to create that given that's not even wheat fields anywhere near the original, possibly digressing into the sugar being cropped by the orks, the natural slave race of middle-earthm then on into the racism, sexism and every other ism of Middle Earth, and why oh why did they drop the Scouring from the films and...

"Sweet!"
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:46 AM on January 10, 2008

This is awesome. I loved Helm's Deep last year too. Can't believe they did it again.

I want some red licorice now though.
posted by cmgonzalez at 1:48 AM on January 10, 2008

This is throughly excellent. Thanks much, mjj, and ignore the hecklers. :)
posted by Malor at 2:05 AM on January 10, 2008

Sigh. Thoroughly.
posted by Malor at 2:05 AM on January 10, 2008

I threw my 4 children off a 80 foot high bridge over my Christmas vacation.

I wanted to
posted by mattoxic at 3:29 AM on January 10, 2008

Am I somehow totally uncool because I absolutely see nothing funny in any way at all about the guy who threw his kids off the bridge?
posted by gregvr at 4:29 AM on January 10, 2008

Peter Jackson did a similar thing with the army of the undead by rendering them with pea soup in the distance shots.
posted by nthdegx at 4:35 AM on January 10, 2008

It would be cooler if it was made out of meat!
(All thanks to madamjujujive and everlasting blort, of course.)
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 5:12 AM on January 10, 2008

I want to say "NEEERRRRRRRRDDDDSSS", but I think this is the money quote right here:

Before we get to this year’s offering however, I figured I’d remark on the most common comment from last year: “You guys have way too much time on your hands.” Not really, but we certainly found the time. All told this year’s project took about seven days of off and on work. I guess we’re just better at turning off the TV than most. Oh, and also, if you’re not using your free time to do stuff like this, what the hell else are you doing with it?

I love it because I'm so very bored of people whose immediate reaction to acts of time, effort and care, no matter how goofy the end result might be, is some jaded scoff; as if to say "you certainly spent a lot of time on that project which doesn't conform to my preferrences! If you spent a considerable amount of time distracting yourself with intoxicants, hours upon hours of television or video game consumption, or rotting in a bar or nightclub somewhere like I do, you might win my respect!"

It's as if every fetid loser believes their approval is the most cherished resource on the planet. It's an affected 'I've seen it all' attitude that masks desperate insecurity.


nerds.
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 5:33 AM on January 10, 2008 [13 favorites]

My only nitpick is that there was only one elf at Helm's Deep. Anything else is Peter Jackson revisionist film-based lies.

Who votes for Candy Moria next year? Ooh, candy Balrog. That would be fun. And tasty.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:47 AM on January 10, 2008

"It would be cooler if it was made out of meat!
(All thanks to madamjujujive and everlasting blort, of course.)"

Better yet.............. Dare I say it.... pure, fatty, bad for you, B A C O N???
posted by Mastercheddaar at 6:33 AM on January 10, 2008

Am I somehow totally uncool because I absolutely see nothing funny in any way at all about the guy who threw his kids off the bridge?

It's more of a meta-funny. What was said was not particularly funny in and of itself, but what was funny is the fact that something so shocking and dark was said in an otherwise lighthearted and fun thread.
posted by wastelands at 6:36 AM on January 10, 2008

Pedantry: It's the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:50 AM on January 10, 2008

This should have a NSFD (Not Safe For Diabetics) warning. I think my blood sugar went up 20 points just reading it. I love it. Great post.
posted by RussHy at 6:59 AM on January 10, 2008 [2 favorites]

> Am I somehow totally uncool because I absolutely see nothing funny in any way at all about the guy who threw his kids off the bridge?

I dunno, but you know what was funny? The part in ROTK where Denethor commits suicide. Both audiences I saw it with laughed almost as hard at that as they did at the infamous Hobbit orgy scene.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:37 AM on January 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

I never expected to feel the urge to devour the armies of Mordor... Great post, thanks.
posted by Pantengliopoli at 8:16 AM on January 10, 2008

A: So, what do you want to do this week while we're off?
B: How bout we build a re-enactment of the LOTR battle scene out of candy?
A: Wow, that's actually a good idea. You're a genius, you know that? I'm so lucky to have you as a friend.
posted by proj08 at 9:02 AM on January 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

That is so cool. It makes me want to re-watch ROTK with a big bag of candy at my side.
posted by mogget at 10:09 AM on January 10, 2008

I'm guessing these guys don't have an ant problem at their house.
posted by shelleycat at 2:23 PM on January 10, 2008

It's as if every fetid loser believes their approval is the most cherished resource on the planet.

I keep reading this but my brain keeps seeing, "It's as if 1+1=2".

The most amazing example of this kind of thing was something I saw on the Makezine blog where they put up something about a guy who redid his flat in the style of Star Trek. You'd think the watch more TV crowd would be impressed my money, but even though the post clearly pointed out that he plowed 30,000 pounds into it, that it would be worth about 85,000 pounds as a regular flat and that he got 425,000 pounds for it which is like 12 or so times the US median annual income in profit. It didn't long for someone to point out that now he'd have time to get a life.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 3:11 PM on January 10, 2008

ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY carve ROCK candy INTO MORDOR!
posted by Eideteker at 7:52 PM on January 10, 2008 [1 favorite]

Oh, and also, if you’re not using your free time to do stuff like this, what the hell else are you doing with it?

Trolling the internerds waiting to snark at people who do! Duh!

(I'm in column c, myself. Doing nothing in particular and enjoying the hell out of it.)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:11 PM on January 10, 2008

In Mordor the candy eats YOU!
posted by Sam.Burdick at 6:52 PM on January 11, 2008