For all things Middle Earth. Great story, and I love it, but I'm not sure I understand the all encompassing fascination that many have with it. Discuss that, favorite moments, greater themes, how the movies compared to the books, whatever you like.
Lord of the Rings
For all things Middle Earth. Great story, and I love it, but I'm not sure I understand the all encompassing fascination that many have with it. Discuss that, favorite moments, greater themes, how the movies compared to the books, whatever you like.
I used to drive for a living and the first time I was exposed to the story, I listened to it unabridged on tape. I had known of the Hobbit of course, but it was totally new for me.
The Ring itself is the main thing for me I believe. How poor little Froto has to carry it on that impossible mission. Its like, when you first hear what he has to do you're all..."oh no, that's impossible. Can't be done"
I've read it again since then but I broke down on two occasions where it seemed like Froto and one of the others was dead. I was horribly confused in many places about who was who and what was what. The weird part about that is the movies really helped to clarify a bunch of that shit for me.
Like saying it to a 6 year old.
The kindness of close friends is like a warm blanket
Me too. I had no clue where folks were or if we were going in chronological order, or jumping back and forth in time, especially in The Two Towers book. Also, calling two main characters Sauron and Saruman led to many near anneurysms.Originally Posted by Matt
Y'know...I had that same problem.
The kindness of close friends is like a warm blanket
and damn if I STILL can't figure out the relationship and/or history between Gandalf and Saruman.
Gandalf and Sauraman were the same beings. They were a group of beings sent from the west to deal with Sauron. I think they were maiar, but not sure on that. If you read The Similarillian, you will either get all the history or get REAL confused. I ended up with a little of both, but it has been a while since I read it.
I'd love to be able to read them, honestly I would, in fact, I have a beautiful set of the hardbound books that were a gift to Drew (he was REALLY into the movies, so we thought he might like the books a little later in life). But the language is scary, considering half of the words are just made up by Tolkien himself...and I've heard he goes into really deep about the geography of Middle Earth...I'm just not into that kind of description I guess. Hell, Roland's MidWorld threw me for a loop.
It's peanut butter jelly time!
Ok, here is a quote from The Silmarillion.
They weren't Maiar. I knew that didn't sound right. I think Sauron was a Maiar, which was, for lack of a better term, a lesser God. A servant, sort of.Even as the first shadows were felt in Mirkwood there appeared in the west of Middle-earth the Istari, whom the Men called the Wizards. None knew at that time whence they were, save Cirdan of the Havens, and only to Elrond and to Galadriel did he reveal that they came over the Sea. But afterwards it was said among the Elves that they were messangers sent by the Lords of the West to contest the power of Sauron, if he should arise again, and to move Elves and Men and all living things of good will to valiant deeds.
I have to admit, that even though I read the books many times I would skim through some of the longer descriptive passages. In fact it was after I had read them 2 or 3 times before I actually read the whole battle of Helms Deep. I was like "Oh, shit! How did I miss that?"
This is one of the reasons why I dislike the book. If the storyline is hard to follow, it means it is poorly written. He was so engrossed in mythology that he didn't bother to articulate the story, or to make the characters viable, or to write anything resembling enjoyable dialog. It may be all good as a compendium of myths, but only (at best) mediocre as prose.Me too. I had no clue where folks were or if we were going in chronological order, or jumping back and forth in time, especially in The Two Towers book. Also, calling two main characters Sauron and Saruman led to many near anneurysms.
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I found him to be a mixture of both Jean.
He loses some of his great scenes with his over descriptive style and complicated histories - such as Helm's Deep. I was the same as Tel and skimmed the books alot to begin with. I have to say - wtching the movies helped me visualise things like the battles a lot more clearly.
But, he is good at dialogue and character development, some of my favourite scenes are conversations between the hobbits, they're very relaxed and natural - very enjoyable reading. I think it's why I prefer The Hobbit to LotR on the whole. It gets to the point without so much meandering through the mythology.
I think my main problem is that a lot of important information I felt I must have totally skimmed over in the story or just not understood wasn't that at all, it's that the info wasn't even IN the story, it's in The Similarillian, or one of the appendicies, anywhere but the story I'm reading where the info would be useful. I think some of this, especially the Arwen/Aragorn and Sauron/Saruman backstories, could have been covered in the main story in lieu of some of the longer descriptive passages.
This is the reason I liked listening to them so much. Its like being force feed every word.I have to admit, that even though I read the books many times I would skim through some of the longer descriptive passages. In fact it was after I had read them 2 or 3 times before I actually read the whole battle of Helms Deep. I was like "Oh, shit! How did I miss that?"
The kindness of close friends is like a warm blanket
I read all three books when I was around 12 and I thought that they were very good books, although very descriptive to the extent that it kept veering off topic and I had to refresh what was going on in the actual plot after reading 3 pages of description of the scenery and history and then returning back to dialogue. I do prefer the films a lot more to the books; I have read the books a few times over the last few years, but I find it harder to stick to finishing them because there are so many parts that just drag on.
Last edited by sai delgado; 12-05-2007 at 04:25 AM. Reason: My grammar is atrocious
'He bowed low, right down to the ground, in front of the man sitting there motionless, whose smile reminded him of everything that he had ever loved in his life, of everything that had ever been of value and holy in his life.' Herman Hesse
I first read LotR when I was 16 - back in the late 70's.
I fell in love with it right away & I've been there ever since. I've read it 30+ times over the years. Great, great story.
I have been a huge fan [read as "geek"] of LotR since I first read them at age 12 [I am now 37]. For the record, I am a huge Tolkien nerd in that I am also a big fan of the "History of Middle Earth" series that his son Christopher has put out documenting the development of his father's epic tales. That said, I certainly understand how some find Tolkien's descriptive prose to be a bit overwhelming at times and a distraction from the story at hand. Personally, I think this eye for detail of his gives the story that much more depth, but I see where it could hang someone up.
Just a note on Gandalf and Saruman, they [as well as Radagast and the other two unnamed Istari] were of the Maiar, lesser "deities" than the Valar. In "Unfinished Tales" there is a lengthy essay on the nature and purpose of the Istari. Ultimately though it presents the question of whether or not it is even necessary to fully know who Gandalf is. Part of me enjoys the depth of knowing the full history of Middle Earth and how Gandalf and the War of the Ring fit into the overall picture. On the other hand, I can see where one can identify with Pippin's take on Gandalf in the final books and know that he is a lot more important that you ever thought he was, but still not quite grasp precisely how.
If anyone ever wants to discuss any other LotR/Tolikien specifics, I am always a willing participant in that conversation.
My boyfriend is a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I had never read the books until he convinced me to earlier this year. I was deeply impressed. What a wonderful story. I'm a fan of a lot of description in a book, so I ate up a lot of the parts that many don't seem to like.
And I named my new puppy Gimli.
I am Daenerys Stormborn and I will take what is mine. With fire and blood.
I am a fan of a lot of description, too. It's not what is in the book that annoyed me, it's what isn't there (characters, dialogs, sense of humor, easy flow of storytelling. I know that some people were able to find at least some of those there. I wasn't.)
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I do agree with you on that part. If there was anything that I could have changed about the books, it would have been more character development and adding more humor. There was such potential for rich, deeper characters that wasn't taken. Also, I treasured the brief flashes of humor we did see. Like Gimli and Legolas counting the number of Orcs they kill at Helms Deep. Too bad there wern't more.
I am Daenerys Stormborn and I will take what is mine. With fire and blood.
Well done Erin!......
And I named my new puppy Gimli.
R of G - I also read The Silmarillion + Book of Lost Tales + the Unfinished Tales (Vols 1 & 2 ?) - but all many years back now.
Am tempted to a re-read of the Sil, at least, sometime soon - though I'll have to buy a new copy as I believe my brother made off with the old one!
I can see what people mean here about the language too.
And the lack of character-development. Was that, at least, just a product of the time? (I guess not - just a product of the strange & wonderful mind of JRRT!)
I think reading the Silmarillion allows for a much greater depth of appreciation of the LotR books. I don't think it's "necessary" reading to appreciate the series, but it adds greater context, particularly to understanding what has really been achieved with the victory of Aragorn and the re-unification of the two kingdoms of Gondor, particularly the growth of the tree, bringing everything full circle with the destruction of the trees in the Silmarillion.
Now to me, some of what was wrong with the movie was the character development, or more importantly the friendships. In the books you can't get two closer friends than Aragon and Gandalf. But in the movies they hardly say two words to each other. Even when traveling together they never showed the two of them with their heads together trying to figure out the right path. Even in Moria. And in the book Gandalf relyed heavily on him. Little stuff like that was what I missed.
Did anybody see the Entertainment Weekly issue a few months back dedicated to a possible Hobbit movie?
It had a huge article talking about the lawsuit that has been holding it up and how there may be a resolution soon. It talked about how important it would be to have Peter Jackson back as director. It also offered alternative directors in case Jackson was not able to direct.
Jackson did mention something about making The Hobbit into two films. Mainly so they can make double the money. He also mentioned something about another possible movie based in the Lord of the Rings universe.
Interesting stuff.
I agree, the Gandalf/Aragorn dynamic was very watered down in the films.
On the subject of the films, my issue was not so much the subtraction of certain elements from the books. They are very long complex books and obviously not everything in them can make it to the screen unless each film was going to be 6 hours long. Like with the above Aragorn/Gandalf thing I do think they eliminated some stuff that I found integral to the characters, but again, subtraction I can understand.
What I could not tolerate with the films was the addition of material that was not in the books. Given that there is so much taken out to make the film a reasonable length, there is no excuse for wasting even a single second of film time with things that never happened in the books. For example, if somebody can show me in the books where Aragorn is sent over a cliff by a warg and almost drowns while having a dream-visit with Arwen then please do because I have read it dozens of times and I've yet to find that part. Or the part where elves from Lothlorien come to defend Helm's Deep. From what I read, Lorien had its own invasion to deal with and no elves to spare. So much more, but those of you who read the books know what I mean.
To compress an existing work to make it adaptable for film is something they teach you in writing school [at least they taught me]. Never once was I taught to introduce new material.
I enjoyed the films on certain levels... the casting was good, the scenery and cgi and the overall look was fantastic. the story was horrible, and to have made such an amazing story so horrible, jackson and his two co-writers should be ashamed.
And there's the problem with Peter Jackson. There is NO need for The Hobbit to be two films. Unlike LotR, the Hobbit is a rather straightforward story, and can so easily be adapted into a film... well into ANOTHER film I should say as it has already been an animated film. If he wants to make it two films, it's because like with LotR he has new material to add in. Well that and the money. Both reasons disgust me.
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