The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy was one of those events that leaves an indelible stamp on our culture. Take these Book of Mormon posters, for example - they are heavily inspired by LotR, like this one where have Lehi looks like Gandalf holding one of the palantÃri. On the plus side, I like fantasy imagery, this artwork at least seems new to the BoM illustration scene, and at least it gets kids thinking about scripture.However, there's something that bothers me just a little with the cultural references here. It strikes me that drawing these kind of connections between scriptural characters and fictional characters might move our concept of scripture towards the fantasies being referenced, which seems to undermine the idea that these scriptures are historical rather than imagined. Along that line, it's interesting that all these posters include dates for the BoM at the bottom - perhaps the dates are supposed to counterbalance the fantasy imagery by making things more concrete? Would any of you consider posting one of these?
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A month or so ago I sent them to Lynsey expecting her to be appalled, but she was more impressed by, as you say, the new take. And the fact that they suck rather less than most Mormon art of less. I'm still not so keen. Mostly because of Uncanny Canyon reasons.
But the Santa/Jesus problem in general worries me.
I was intrigued by your post, so I went to go check out the website itself. I was shocked by this one http://ldsengine.com/magento/index.php/army-of-helaman.html which seems to be modeled after this guy http://www.torchieflash.com/images/300-Leonidas-B.jpg from the movie 300. Maybe I am wrong?
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