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LOTR, Hobbit geek-fest

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Diego-Bucks;1924613; said:
Is this the same argument of "like what you like" that says the Oscars for Best Picture ought to also be tied to the film that grosses the most in theaters? I get that if something is entertaining then it doesn't matter too much the how or why its entertaining. But if popularity contests are all that's needed then Michael Bay films would always win Oscars since he makes things entertaining and millions of folks eat it up. And Transformers 2 is not a classic.

What I'm saying is that I think its important to find out what makes a good novel good and not just entertaining. Critics have their place. Tolkien's work is great and I can't see it being bested as a novel that brings the history and depth to the story. There are other fantasy novels that are also great, for different reasons. Dissecting them can allow me to understand where these authors excelled and find similar great works.
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This has nothing to do with Oscars and box office gross. And what do critics have to do with what you like? They can act as a guide, I suppose, but you can't tell me that you've never hated a movie a critic liked or liked a movie the critics panned, can you?

There's a local critic who usually likes the kinds of movies I like, but he misses my tastes sometimes. I use him as a sounding board for recommendations, but in the end I see a movie if *I* think it'll be good, not because of him. I'll read some of the books people have mentioned here because it sounds like they probably have decent taste, but it's no guarantee I'll like them. But because I do or do not like their recommended books shouldn't diminish their enjoyment of them. Right?
 
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Knap is it really that difficult to separate objective & subjective opinions regarding a piece that you enjoy?

Conan the Barbarian is one of my favorite movies...but it is still a very poor adaptation (in many ways) of Howard's original work. Being able to recognize that doesn't take away from my enjoyment of Milius' vision.

Similarly I can love LoTR while still acknowledging it's flaws.
 
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Muck;1924635; said:
Knap is it really that difficult to separate objective & subjective opinions regarding a piece that you enjoy?

Conan the Barbarian is one of my favorite movies...but it is still a very poor adaptation (in many ways) of Howard's original work. Being able to recognize that doesn't take away from my enjoyment of Milius' vision.

Similarly I can love LoTR while still acknowledging it's flaws.
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Where are you coming up with the idea that I have said LOTR is without flaw?

Do I need to list the flaws I see in the story or something?
 
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muffler dragon;1924805; said:
I enjoyed the books and the movies. Never read all the additional writings. Has anyone read them? If so, are they worthwhile?
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That probably depends on your level of interest. If you really liked LOTR, you'll probably like Unfinished Tales, which contains a "lost" chapter of LOTR (an account of the Battle of the Fords of Isen in which Theoden's son Theodred is slain), a Tolkien-esque "love story" from Numenor: The Tale of Aldarion and Erendis, a discussion of the History of Galadriel and Celeborn, a fleshed-out explanation of how Gandalf came to be involved with Thorin & Co. and Gandalf's motivation for involving Bilbo, and several other writings. There's some stuff from the First Age, some stuff about Eorl and how the Rohirrim came to live in what is now Rohan, some explanation (but not much) of who/what Gandalf, Saruman and the other wizards are, and some more stuff about the Ringwraiths and how they ended up in the Shire to begin LOTR. The section The Disaster of the Gladden Fields is worth the read, too, if for no other reason than to explain how the Ring became lost in the first place.

The other two you might like are Lost Tales vol. I and II. These are the least academic of the later volumes, some of which can become quite tedious. Lost Tales is a compilation of notes and fragmented writings dealing primarily with First Age Middle-Earth, so you'll get a heavy dose of Valinor, more about Morgoth, a LOT more about the Elves (specifically the Noldor and their travails) and the battles they fought against Morgoth. Lost Tales is basically a companion to The Silmarillion, containing fragments or alternate versions of stories that Christopher Tolkien put into the published novel, but which were not in his opinion capable of being fleshed out into actual stories.

Of all the writings in Lost Tales, I find The Fall of Gondolin to be most gripping, and worth the price of the books alone. As with The Silmarillion, the tenor is of loss and long defeat, a sorrowful tale throughout.
 
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ulukinatme;1927557; said:
:so: I....I....I've never seen that before. Thats definitely an oddest coupling, Sci Fi icon meets Middle Earth Fantasy. I'm curious what the heck this was from, or what it was for
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I remember hearing it years ago on the Dr Demento show. I don't know the whats, whys nor hows but it works for me.
 
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Here's a question for people regarding the LOTR movies. What was your impression of the musical score by Howard Shore? Although I found the movies to be terribly disappointing, I did find Shore's work superb and enjoy listening to the soundtracks. I remember reading somewhere--perhaps in Tolkien's published letters--that he had hoped his work would inspire music compositions as other mythologies in the past had. I wonder what the good professor would think of Shore's attempt. (I'm fairly certain he would have hated the movies.)
 
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