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LOTR, Hobbit geek-fest

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Ok, I'll own up to it:

  • Read the Hobbit and LOTR every year.
  • Played AD&D in HS, named my "character" after Turin Turambar.
  • Saw all three movies at the midnight showings at Cinerama in Seattle; including a 13 hour experience of back-to-back extended editions of FotR/TTT before ROTK. Did NOT wear a costume, although we almost showed up like Jedi just to screw with people.
  • Have already made plans for the trip back to Seattle for the Hobbit film(s).
  • Spoke at a college conference on Tolkien's understanding of community as evidenced in the LOTR and other texts. Received praise from John Rhys-Davies, the guest of honor at the event.
  • Played softball one season with Sean Astin. Kept calling him "Sam" on 'accident'.
  • Waiting for my eldest daughter's English to get a little better so I can start reading The Hobbit to her- settling for Narnia stuff for now.
Yeah... I'm a geek.
 
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knapplc said:
If you're a reader and you don't mind the fantasy genre, LOTR is the best there is. If fantasy isn't your thing it may not be for you.

The trilogy is dark and starts a little slow. You have to want it. But when you get into it, when they get to Moria, you're hooked. Return of the King is a masterpiece.
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Have you read George. R. R. Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire'? Its not a finished series yet but has all the makings to be as good or better than Tolkien. A modern-day Tolkien of course, I think even GRRM would be deferential to Tolkien.
 
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Read the books in junior high, saw the movies when they were released. I'm okay with taking "artisitic" liberties with the story as long as the message is generally the same. I wasn't pissed off that parts of the story were cut for brevity, like the Old Forest. Overall the LOTR movies are just good action flicks to me, maybe with a little too much Hobbit love as my wife would say. The special effects and the battles make up for it for me, Helm's Deep and the Siege of Gondor are pretty sweet.
 
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I actually really liked the Silmarillion, although it did take me a while to get into it. I think the only reason I made it and got into it was because I was so interested in learning more about the history of Tolkien's realm.
 
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Diego-Bucks;1924214; said:
Have you read George. R. R. Martin's 'A Song of Ice and Fire'? Its not a finished series yet but has all the makings to be as good or better than Tolkien. A modern-day Tolkien of course, I think even GRRM would be deferential to Tolkien.
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No. It is not better than Tolkien. JRR Tolkien lived and breathed this stuff like no other. He created actual languages for his writings. The guy just blows away anyone, anything. It's not even close.

Besides, if I had a dollar for every time someone told me, "You like Tolkien? You'll love this...." I'd have at least $14. At least. :biggrin:

And the sad thing is, none of them have ever come close. Not even close. Not Zimiamvia, not the Thomas Covenant series, not the Shannara series, not Dragonlance, none of it. It's not the same.

I appreciate the recommendation, and maybe I'll check it out for want of something to read, but.... well, you know. There's just one Tolkien.
 
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knapplc;1924278; said:
No. It is not better than Tolkien. JRR Tolkien lived and breathed this stuff like no other. He created actual languages for his writings. The guy just blows away anyone, anything. It's not even close.

Besides, if I had a dollar for every time someone told me, "You like Tolkien? You'll love this...." I'd have at least $14. At least. :biggrin:

And the sad thing is, none of them have ever come close. Not even close. Not Zimiamvia, not the Thomas Covenant series, not the Shannara series, not Dragonlance, none of it. It's not the same.

I appreciate the recommendation, and maybe I'll check it out for want of something to read, but.... well, you know. There's just one Tolkien.
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ok. Technicality here, but didn't he really create writings as backstories for his languages? :)
 
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The amount of arcane knowledge of ancient languages he learned at Oxford and elsewhere that he put into the work is frightening. He was a very well respected expert in philology and poetry (he was one of the foremost experts on the study of Beowulf) before the stories he wrote for his kids were discovered by an editor.
 
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knapplc;1923386; said:
Fellowship wasn't the worst of the movie trilogy. Jackson so utterly messed up The Two Towers and Return of the King that he should have been drawn and quartered on the spot. Failing to include Shelob/the Frodo cliffhanger at the end of TTT was criminally stupid, and completely unnecessary. F'ing with the whole Battle of the Pelennor Fields and the way the Dead were involved was beyond stupid as well.

Change for the sake of change, or to "put my stamp on it" are wholly unnecessary. Jackson screwed up so much of LotR that I could go on a ginormous rant, but then you'd all think I'm a nerd and I want to maintain my reputation of being a worldly and awesome guy, so I'll abstain. Suffice it to say that I was.... displeased with Jackson's version of the story.

I'm eager to see The Hobbit, but cautious.
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I think some of the criticism is a little unfair, certainly some changes seemed unnecessary but I think other's were more reasonable if you think about trying to translate a story from a book to film form. I think you are a little bit more constricted as a story teller when your trying to make a movie.

For instance the bit about the dead's involvement in the battle of pellenor fields. It might come off as a little bit cheesy but it gave them a plot tool to "swing" the fight in an abrupt manner (much like Gandolf riding in at helms deep, or the destruction of the ring sinking Sauron's army at the black gate). The way that Tolkien wrote it works in a book very well in bookform, but to just have Aragorn, his kin and the sons of elrond showing up to the fight..it would them quite awhile to clear our all the orcs and what have you. How do you show that on screen? You don't have 6 hours to devote to a war scene but how much do you skip ahead without makes the audience feel like too much occurred off screen? Now not including the Son's of Elrond or Aragorn's kin at all was an unnecessary cut..at the very least have them show up to the showdown at the black gate or something.

Similarly with the Frodo-Shelob thing..yes that would have made an excellent cliff hanger to the Two Towers just like in the book and the whole Faramir bit was a little inconsistent with the character. The problem with having the Shelob thing be the end of the two towers is kind of two fold. In the books of course they tell the Frodo story and the Aragorn+crew story seperately, in the movies they are telling the stories as they are happening cutting back and forth. Meaning in the movies they are constricted to telling both stories as they occur. So logicially in order to advance Frodo's story in the movie farther ahead, and they would have to also advance the Aragorn and crew story ahead. But I think their real issue here was ensuring Frodo had a bigger part in ROTK. After the Shelob bit all that essentially happens on that end is Sam's rescue, some walking through Mordor and then of course scaling the mountain, dropping the ring in etc. As a result of that, we would have gone very long periods of time in the movie without Frodo really having much involvement in a story where he is supposed to be the most important character.


Obviously I don't think I need to explain why the scouring of the shire didn't need to be in the movie..was really sort of anticlimactic and would have came off corny in the story telling. Not having Tom Bombadil was disappointing, but I think that character would have been a little bit tricky to explain the significance of without coming off kind of cheesy.
 
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