NationStates Jolt Archive

First of all, I would like to congratulate everyone for not having brought this up so far. But, this is an Internet forum, and since I'm tired of talking about the likelihood of my country splintering, I'll bring up the question: what are your feelings concerning J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings?
I personally think that if Tolkien's goal was to create a modern epic, he succeeded. If it was to write the great novel, he did not. Great storyteller, so-so novelist. As for the movies, they're lots of fun. The third one set the record for Oscars won, which strikes me as odd but I don't mind because it means it beat Titanic.
Now that I've revealed myself to be a dweeb, does anyone care to join me in giving your thoughts?

Gimli's beard was a quarter inch shorter in the books and a shade lighter.

I think they're great books, but not as good as The Wheel of Time.

I liked the books and the movies, but I've seen and read a lot better. I'm farily neutral.

I'll admit that I found The Two Towers a difficult read and I'll admit further that I skipped large chunks of it.

So I was very grateful to the movies for filling in that portion - I thought the films were awesome in scope and any minor quibbles I might have are too insignificant to mention.

So, in terms of creating an entire world, I think Mr Tolkien wrote something extraordinary, I still love the concept of the beginning's of the world as written in Silmarillion as well.

Yet I'm not sure it was well-written exactly, portions of it were, but large portions were simply too geeky for me to follow without having to cross-reference all the time.

I suppose you take out what you put in.

On a side note, the original LOTR film, where they drew in over real scenes but never completed, haunted me as a child.

Never read the books. I tend to limit myself at the 300-350 page range. The only time I have ever broken that agreement with myself was for George Carlin and Guns, Germs and Steel.

The movies tended to drag on for about an hour longer than they should have. The fight scenes were well done though.

I'm not really that into the magic stuff (LOTR, Harry Potter) so I never read the books or watched the LOTR movies, although I'm sure I would have loved the movies if I watched them. As for the books, I don't really read books anymore.

Click Stand;13200642']Never read the books. I tend to limit myself at the 300-350 page range. The only time I have ever broken that agreement with myself was for George Carlin and Guns, Germs and Steel.
Can't speak for George Carlin, but Guns, Germs, and Steel is a worthy book to make you break your agreement.

The movies tended to drag on for about an hour longer than they should have.
You really haven't read the books, have you? :)

Frankly, I loved both the books and the movies.

I'll admit that I found The Two Towers a difficult read and I'll admit further that I skipped large chunks of it.

So I was very grateful to the movies for filling in that portion - I thought the films were awesome in scope and any minor quibbles I might have are too insignificant to mention.
....

You should go back and read it again, at your leisure, no hurry this time. The movie left out great big chunks of The Two Towers too ;)

Love the books, and love the movies. Where's the option for that?

Love the books, and love the movies. Where's the option for that?

The first one. It means "I love Lord of the Rings" in some Elven language, but you don't have to be into it enough to know Elven to select it as an option.

I really enjoyed seeing a lot of the characters I had read about in the books coming to life on the big screen. It made me nostalgic, because I had read the books in middle school. Ah, so long ago...

I could never get past about the middle of The Two Towers, but the movies were great.

Also this isn't taking geekiness up a notch. THIS (http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1788200) is taking geekiness up a notch, or five.

I love the books. I've read them at least once a year for the last 15 or so and I'm still finding new stuff to enjoy in them. Tolken is still unmatched in terms of world creation, eveything in that world fits together and feels like he was describing something real, not making it up as he went along.

As for the movies, they were awsome. I have a few complaints about what was chosen for cutting (Namely the end of the books), but all in all they were well worth the cost.

As for the movies, they were awsome. I have a few complaints about what was chosen for cutting (Namely the end of the books), but all in all they were well worth the cost.

The movies cut out Tom Bombadil, which bothered me. Other than that, I was satisfied.

I'm sorry to be "that guy" but I thought the movies were terrible and I've never been able to stomach a book. I personally find them too boring. I'm more into Harry Potter than LOTR but I can see the appropriate appeal to LOTR.

The movies cut out Tom Bombadil, which bothered me. Other than that, I was satisfied.
I was fine with Tom, unhappy, but fine. It was the missing scouring of the Shire that had me going, "What the hell?"

I'm sorry to be "that guy" but I thought the movies were terrible and I've never been able to stomach a book. I personally find them too boring. I'm more into Harry Potter than LOTR but I can see the appropriate appeal to LOTR.

Nothing wrong with that. It appeals to some people, but others it just turns away.

I've read the books twice, in my early teens and later (Only the LotR, I can't stomach the Silmarilion trivia), both times were well before the movie. They're a little simplistic in my opinion. Although for founding of the genre it's OK; some authors went upwards from that, to more realistic and complex words, some downwards to D&D.

Movies, on the other hand, were great, as far as movies go. I've never before seen a film which was at the same time so close to the book and so good on its own. The secret is perhaps that a just decent book makes for a great movie; while a great book makes for a movie beyond what you can properly film.
Really I can say I understood some parts of the books better after watching the movie. Visuals, as well as they were made, turned out quite effective in many cases. Really through the movie the book starts to look more complex than it is, particularly in the "Good vs. Evil" part: it was IMHO quite pronounced in the books, but more graytoned and webbed in the movie.


I'm not a fan of either, don't plan on re-reading the books, and the movie is just a great movie I've watched and will watch again, largely for the visuals, but not something I'm concerned about.

Like every good book, Lord of the Rings adopts a libertarian (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/tolkien-arch.html) world view. Tolkien was an Old Right libertarian who acknowledged (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JRR_Tolkien#Views) that his views leaned toward Anarchy (the Old Right, which was the predecessor of the current Ron Paul movement, included many anarchists in the Anarcho-Capitalist sense and it was no secret that most of them believed that government was an unnecessary evil).

I was fine with Tom, unhappy, but fine. It was the missing scouring of the Shire that had me going, "What the hell?"

Even in the book the Scouring of the Shire seems an add-on and Tolkien himself said that it was more an allegory of coming back from the war to find a changed, industrial England. I enjoyed the section but can understand why it was left out the film.

As for Tom Bombadil, I can also see why he was excised from the film, it would be hard to explain his place in the story. Being a book, it can afford to have these characters but the film can't really enjoy that luxury,

Was never into the fantasy bit as a kid. Wasn't cool at the time. However I enjoyed the movies. The last movie with the large battle scenes I thought were great.

The movies cut out Tom Bombadil, which bothered me. Other than that, I was satisfied.


That kind of bugged me too and as was pointed out, the ending was incomplete. That was something I was dying to see. But the movies still rocked. All in all I ♥ Tolkien. I read everything he did. I'm one of the geeks that went to the all day showing of all three movies. What was sad was that I was one of the few, if not the only, girl there without a guy. I think Peter Jackson actually added in the whole Arwen and Aragon thing to draw in the ladies but it didn't work very well. (For the record I am aware that there was a romance between the two but not in the main story.) I'm not going to launch into some lengthy dissertation about Tolkien and his works and why he wrote what he did. Because frankly, I just really like sword battles and elves. If I want meaning I read Orwell.

Let's see...I own the LOTR books, as well as The Hobbit, and the Silmarillion, all in hardcover. I also own all three Extended Edition films.

I can't really remember how many times I've read the books, but I am currently re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring for the ump-teenth time.

I actually enjoy The Silmarillion more...it's more epic in scope even if it's less detailed.

I have several complaints regarding the films, but they're still excellent entertainment.

Nerdy enough for ya? ;)

I was fine with Tom, unhappy, but fine. It was the missing scouring of the Shire that had me going, "What the hell?"

I can see why they did it. Tom just wasn't 'cool' and wasn't too crucial to the plot. The Scouring of the Shire not being in was annoying, but if it had been in the movie, it would have been a weird jump from the massive last battles etc. to mopping up in Hobbiton - even if it did finish off the story.

Even in the book the Scouring of the Shire seems an add-on and Tolkien himself said that it was more an allegory of coming back from the war to find a changed, industrial England. I enjoyed the section but can understand why it was left out the film.
Do you have a particular quote for that? Given how very much Tolkien HATED allegory and made it very, very clear that LoTR should not be taken as such.

I can see why they did it. Tom just wasn't 'cool' and wasn't too crucial to the plot. The Scouring of the Shire not being in was annoying, but if it had been in the movie, it would have been a weird jump from the massive last battles etc. to mopping up in Hobbiton - even if it did finish off the story.
Oh I can see why they took out Tom too, though, yeah, as I said, I wasn't happy with it.

But the whole Scouring I've always felt is of vital importance to the book because it shows just how much the Hobbits grew over the course of the quest, but even more important; it showed that there is no such thing as going back. That's where I felt the movies were kind of a let down because they ride back up to Hobbiton and... that's it. All we get is a kind of comic look and then the Hobbits at the Green Dragon drinking a pot again. I know most movies like the idea of restoring the status quo at the end, but I enjoyed Tolkien going out of his way to show that doesn't happen.

The scouring wouldn't have worked on the majority of the audience. They like their endings simple and to the point. It would have been too much of an anti-climax for them and exhausting to have another fight waiting for them after pellenor fields.

I actually loved the scouring best as it shows the eventual maturity of the hobbits coming into terms with their place in the world, but I can understand why average joe next to me has trouble sitting through it all on the white screen.

i first read hobbit and ring and an anthology of his shorter works several decades before any of the items mentioned for comparison were even thought of. they were, at the time, EARLY 60s when i read them, the first, and possibly only, REALISTIC fantasy outside of science fiction that i had any idea existed or even could. i even read them, as more, in my own mind, AS science fiction, then as fantasy. i saw orcs as geneticly modified dwarfs, and sauron's mordor as a corporate pharmacutical industry, cloning them, and only a matter of degree wacked from greed driven reality.

the prequil in my mind i imagined, was, i can assure you, NOTHING at all like what little i've been able to read of the samaril, which doesn't even have the tone of john tolkin's other writings, but rather, as i see it, that of his fanatical relative who i see as having dug john's writings out of the trash after his passing and illigitimately cobbled that damd thing togather to further his own inanely fanatical ends.

TOLKIN's mordor, was, as has been pretty well established and analized to death, world war ONE germany. be that as it may. i didn't read middle earth as related to this earth at all, but rather as a completely alien, and thus considerably more believable, world, in and of itself.

there is a lot i've learned about tolkin and his perspectives over the decades since that has somewhat taken the thrill off of rereading hobbit and especially his ring trillogy. none the less, casting myself back to the fraime of mind in which i first read it, when the only concession corporate media was making to even the concept of other worlds being possible was the origeonal star trek series.

better? yes i've read better. and seen? well tolkin himself had nothing to do with any of the movies or anything else based on his writing, beyond their having been, to the degree that they were, based on it.

so i don't see anything other then his writing itself as any valid basis on which to judge it or him.

i did see one or two of the ring based movies. the ones that were filmed in new zealand. i thought they were quite good in their own way. they weren't the movie i saw behind my eyes as i read the books, which again this i did long before any of the movies were made or even thought of, but they were good enough taken on their own, as telling a similar, but far from identical story.

at any rate, the new zealand filmed live action ring movies were many orders of magnatude better then any of ralf bakshi's animations, even though the latter had that sexy cuteness we've since come to associate with japanese animation. and which i also like. just not something i see as remotely related to the context.

as for star wars, yes, those were interesting movies. mostly i liked them for their fx simulations of some of the tecnologies conjectured. i don't really see the slightest connection between them and tolkin, nor between what each of their authors were trying to do.

sorry but comparing them isn't a matter of better or worse, but of totally unrelated nonsequiter.

=^^=
.../\...

Do you have a particular quote for that? Given how very much Tolkien HATED allegory and made it very, very clear that LoTR should not be taken as such.

Apologies for taking this from Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouring_of_the_Shire)

Despite Tolkien's much-publicised dislike of allegory, he admitted (only grudgingly) that the transformation of the Shire from rural idyll to industrial wasteland was an allegory of what Tolkien viewed as the destruction of the English countryside by the steady creep of industrialisation. In particular, the loss of the old Mill in Bywater, only to be replaced by a much larger, grimier version, mimics an event from Tolkien's childhood. Tolkien commented that the symbolism also lay in the feeling of loss he felt after returning from the First World War, to discover that many of his close friends had died, and the world he remembered from his youth had largely disappeared.

I slightly seem to have combined various reasons into one within my memory, I haven't fully searched for an exact quote and not sure I will either :)

Apologies for taking this from Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouring_of_the_Shire)

I slightly seem to have combined various reasons into one within my memory, I haven't fully searched for an exact quote and not sure I will either :)
I'll have to go looking for it because an unsourced wikipedia quote seems a bit... I mean, I did hear some something similar on the DVDs to LoTRs, but it really contradicts his other statements.

I'll have to go looking for it because an unsourced wikipedia quote seems a bit... I mean, I did hear some something similar on the DVDs to LoTRs, but it really contradicts his other statements.

Well damn you for making me curious but here's something...

As for the scouring of The Shire: (http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Tolkien%20wrote%20history%20not%20allegories)

... it has been supposed by some that 'The Scouring of The Shire' reflects the situation in England at the time when I was finishing my tale. It does not. It is an essential part of the plot, foreseen from the outset ... without, need I say, any allegorical significance or contemporary political reference whatsoever.

Yet the Wiki says he 'grudgingly admits' so I wonder if there's another quote out there somewhere - it's shit like this that gets my brain going...

Liked the books, liked the movies. I generally get why most things that were left out of the films were, though there were some bits that were added in that shouldn't have been *cough coughelves at helms deepcough*.

Well damn you for making me curious but here's something...

As for the scouring of The Shire: (http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Tolkien%20wrote%20history%20not%20allegories)



Yet the Wiki says he 'grudgingly admits' so I wonder if there's another quote out there somewhere - it's shit like this that gets my brain going...

Oh, and on that note, having the Scouring Of The Shire in the films would have greatly improved them, if only in a 'Screw your Hollywood traditions' way.

Well damn you for making me curious but here's something...
Sorry! :D

Yet the Wiki says he 'grudgingly admits' so I wonder if there's another quote out there somewhere - it's shit like this that gets my brain going...
Could be, it just sounded so off given the rather large "THIS IS NOT ALLEGORY!" preface he wrote in the books themselves.

Has anyone read the "new" book? I believe it's called The Children of Hurin, and like the Silmarillion is based on Tolkien's notes but not published during his lifetime (obviously).

Has anyone read the "new" book? I believe it's called The Children of Hurin, and like the Silmarillion is based on Tolkien's notes but not published during his lifetime (obviously).

No, I haven't. I can, however, tell you a bit about it. It's the entire Narn I Hin Hurin, properly worked together into one story. There's no new content over what's spread through the Silmarillion and published in Unfinished Tales.

However, if you haven't read both of those, I'd say it's likely to be very good.

I quite enjoyed LOTR, but I really love the first and second ages, the Silmarillion, the Allakabeth, and so on. The Silmarillion is, IMO, his best book, being far more epic in scope and well developed than LOTR. Seriously. LOTR - one Balrog. The Silmarillion - armies of Balrogs. The heroes are complex, the whole thing feels like a yarn spun by a bard, not a book. It's mythical in proportions.

I LOVE ALL OF THEM... the books, movies... the stories...

Great.

Well, I have read them all, also The Children of Hurin, and, mind me, Tolkien is propably the best author to have walked this earth for some centuries measured by complexity and pure fantasy, but except for the Silmarillion, I always thought they lack some sort of consistent philosophy. Because his books are completely built on an imaginary world, they lack relevance to real-life questions - for example, another book I've read - His Dark Materials by Pullman - (a movie adaption of which is to enter cinemas in Dec) touches quantum physics and questions the nature of god. I kind of miss that metaphyiscal touch in Tolkien.

The first one. It means "I love Lord of the Rings" in some Elven language, but you don't have to be into it enough to know Elven to select it as an option.

Elven? wow you are a nerd...:D

Now that I've revealed myself to be a dweeb, does anyone care to join me in giving your thoughts?

With pleasure.

I wred The Lord of the Rings with enjoyment, at a time when I was troubled by things in my real life and wanted to escape from those things rather than deal with them. I don't think I'll read it again, though.

I would describe it as a cosy book, with lovely descriptive writing and a great variety of related scenarios. I would recommend it to anyone laid up in bed for a long time, without the mental energy to search for meaning in a book.

I started The Silmarillion but didn't enjoy it as much.

I saw the first movie, and was utterly disgusted at approach taken, of trying to be "true" to a book which simply cannot be made into a movie. I hated it and will never see it again, nor any sequel, and approach with great suspicion anything associated with the director or screenwriters.

If I had to find something to like in the movie, it would be the depiction of Gollum. I like how you can't quite see him and I'd like to have seen even less.

The movies cut out Tom Bombadil, which bothered me. Other than that, I was satisfied.

I don't know, that didn't bother me at all, since I'd always found his character kind of randomly there for some reason and he didn't make all that much sense to me.

His Dark Materials by Pullman
♥(a movie adaption of which is to enter cinemas in Dec)
*hopes they call it Northern Light as opposed to Golden Compass*
Elven? wow you are a nerd...:D
You think that's bad? I know of a poster here who has an Elvish name.
I don't know, that didn't bother me at all, since I'd always found his character kind of randomly there for some reason and he didn't make all that much sense to me.

I just think he would have made a very funny addition to the movie.