Vin Diesel Tolkien It To The Streets

It’s a good thing I don’t claim to know the future, because I never would have seen this headline coming:

Vin Diesel Explains How J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion Shaped His Views on Death

Yep.  Right here is the article in which America’s Lowest Voiced Action Hero promotes his new movie The Last Witch Hunter while waxing eloquent about JRR Tolkien and Tolkien’s rich-and-undeniably-hard-to-read Middle Earth back story The Silmarillion.

The fact that this was a surprise to me probably reveals a lot more about me than it does about Vin Diesel.  Maybe Vin has a masters in English Literature?  Maybe “Vin Diesel” is Elvish for “Butt Kicker”? What if Vin’s grandfather was one of the Inklings?

I’m starting out at a disadvantage here.  I’ve never seen a Vin Diesel Movie (“I am Groooot” doesn’t count), nor have I seen a Diesel interview nor read about him.  Perhaps you are with me on this.  Well, FEAR NOT!  I have done the intensive research for you and will now reveal…

The Amazing Links Between Vin Diesel and JRR Tolkien.

Both men are huge.  JRRT wrote huge books which are hugely popular and that had a huge impact in the world of literature.  Vin is, well, huge.

Both men are Fast and Furious.  Vin has been in more Fast & Furious movies than you can count.  JRRT postulated the existence of more fast and furious Orcs than you can count.

Both men love the Fantasy genre.  One of them wrote entire languages as a result, the other played Dungeons & Dragons and threw dice as a result.  I’ll let you guess which one is which.

You Didn’t Know Me Vin.

I know this may sound like a dig against Diesel, but it really isn’t.  I found out that there’s much more to Vin Diesel than meets the eye.  He’s a producer!  He’s an executive producer!  He taught Dame Judi Dench to play D&D on the set of The Chronicles of Riddick, an accomplishment that really needs to be its own feature-length behind the scenes movie.

As it turns out, Vin is really good at role-playing, creating a character, coming up with a name for his character.  We know this because, in fact, his name IS NOT VIN DIESEL.  I can forgive him for this so long as he uses a time machine to travel back and marry that girl from The Sound of Music so that her name can be Liesl Diesel.

There’s more.  In real life, Vin has a twin brother.  (Vin’s Twin?  Sven?)  If his brother decides to take up acting, I’m hoping he decides to use a stage name as well.  I suggest “Vin Diagram.”

Vin You Look Beneath the Surface.

So there’s more to Vin Diesel than I thought, and his love for Tolkien informed his approach to The Last Witch Hunter, a movie in which Frodo Baggins is a co-star.  Crap.  Now I’m going to have to see it.  Doggone you Vin.

Oh, and the inter webs promise that, one day soon, Vin is going to play Kojak.  I loved Kojak.  Maybe it’ll be a buddy movie in which Vin Diesel Kojak teams up with Mark Ruffalo Columbo.  It ain’t Tolkien, but I’d go see it!