Any Lord of the Rings fans?

The Hobbit Trilogy ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????

 

Yup! Believe it or not I really love the Hobbit movies just as much as I do the LOTR films.

 

He most likely wouldn't be particularly impressed with the LotR trilogy either. He'd probably ask why people wasted their time making movies when they could just open up a book and read.

 

LOTR was actually my first love, before Star Wars even. I've read the books at least once every year (usually starting around Sept. 22 ), although I took a break when my kids were babies. Bakshi was my first film exposure to LOTR, and I have never fully recovered from the gorilla balrog with fuzzy slippers or Boromir in a miniskirt. I like the Jackson adaptions, although my imagination is always my favorite interpretation.

Yes, I don't think Tolkien would have liked any movie adaptions of his books, TBH. I think he would have been very kind about them, but gone away shaking his head.

 

But of course the Hobbit movies can't be compared to the LOTR movies and though this may sound odd, it's what I love about them! You see, that's the thing that many people don't seem to get about prequels. They aren't supposed to be better than the sequels. Why on earth would I want to see the great battle from Battle of the Five Armies be much better than the final battle from Return of the King? If a prequel is done much better than the movies that are supposed to follow, that makes those movies look dumb by comparison.

This is something that many SW fans didn't get with the prequels. They expected so much from them yet were angry when said movies weren't better compared to the OT but let's look back and assume the PT outshined the OT. Let's pretend Anakin, Padme and Obi Wan were much more interesting than Han, Luke or Leia. Let's assume AOTC was much more dark and interesting than TESB and think that the final duel between Anakin and Obi Wan were far more emotional than Luke vs Vader in ROTJ, wouldn't that suck when we went back to the OT and saw that everything in the PT was better? At least for me it would have sucked big time!

Back with the Hobbit and LOTR, I don't want to see Legolas be more awesome in the prequels than he was in LOTR. I don't want the dwarves to be better than Gimli or for Bilbo to have gone through much more than Frodo did because that's the beauty of when you see one movie after the other. You start with The Hobbit an Unexpected Journey and from then on things start getting better and better till you end the saga with the awesomeness of Return of the King.

 

He would be terribly wrong then. LotR trilogy is probably the best book adaptation of all time. They captured the essence of the source material and expanded it into an epic tale. All the artists who worked on the movies did their very best to bring the Tolkien universe alive. Some even say the movies are better than the books...

 

Same here.
As for the books I started FotR but can't get past halfway; constant stupid interruptions in life. Actually being interrupted as I type this

 

The sheer amount of love that went into creating the films, by people who adored the books, is staggering. The details within the movies is immense and stands as a milestone in cinematic epics.

Just wonderful, wonderful movies

 

I wouldn't say he'd be unequivocally wrong. It's just what I imagine his opinion would be as the creator of Middle Earth and the author of the story. The LotR films might be as faithful to the books as we can make them, but they still leave things out, add things in and alter the story in ways that Tolkien might not have appreciated. We could argue whether the books are better than the movies 'till we're blue in the face, but I don't think we'll get an answer. Both the books and the movies are fantastic, and the world is better off for them, no doubt about it.

 

On the History Channel I saw a special about how some of Tolkien's ideas came from his experiences in WWI.

Sam: "There are dead things! Dead faces in the water!"
Gollum: "All dead. All rotten. Elves and men and orcses. A great battle long ago."
Gollum: "The Dead Marshes. Yes, yes! That is their name. This way. don't follow the lights."
And History Channel (paraphrased): 'Elves and men and orcses' are like the Axis and Allies in the War.

"Heaven," is always up. "Hell," is beneath us and we are on Earth in the middle. Hence "Middle Earth."
But History Channel was better at describing all this.

 

The main difference between the LOTR and The Hobbit trilogies is time constraints. Peter Jackson was given adequate time to construct LOTR, whereas he was rushed with The Hobbit. Del Toro left the project, and Jackson knew he couldn't mimic his filmmaking style. This meant he had to rewrite the scripts, all the while having the executives breathing down his neck. He was literally writing parts of the script on the same days as filming.

There's a whole video on it:

 

I have the Alan Lee illustrated paperbacks of LOTR and the Hobbit, but wow, the leatherbound book sounds gorgeous!!

 

Ahhh....LOTR.....you have touched on a subject I am as passionate about as SW!! Grew up reading and re-reading LOTR-The Hobbit- The Silmarillion probably 30-50 times. And I need several threads to cover how passionate I am about the job Peter Jackson did on the movies. At times BRILLIANT, at other times MADDENING! The score and cinematography were breathtaking - the weird characterization changes, swapping quotes and speeches, and weird plot changes that Jackson made just drove me crazy. One of my favorite characters, Faramir, was totally changed by Jackson. Overall, I will always love the LOTR books, the LOTR movies were superb in places and frustrating in others.....

 

When I was eight years old, I used to walk to school with a lad who was a couple of years older than me (I can still remember his name which is something quite remarkable for a man who can't recall what he had for his breakfast this morning. But, that's the downside of soft drugs, I suppose.) and at the time he was reading The Lord of the Rings and every morning he would regale me with the latest exploits of Hobbits and Elves and the like. Just his enthusiasm was enough to spark my interest and a few years later I got hold of the book and got into it (these were the years of playing Dungeons And Dragons of a weekend so reading Lord of the Rings was de rigeur).

I thought it was terrible. Laboured whimsy is how my A Level English teacher would describe the book some years later and, for me, that's quite an accurate description. John Steinbeck is a writer. Ernest Hemmingway is a writer. Stephen King, James Ellroy, Mark Twain, Richard Adams...all writers. Tolkien's talents lay in many areas. Sadly, writing engaging prose was never one of them. And yet, The Lord of the Rings has proven hugely popular so what do I know?!

Anyway, I think the story of The Lord of the Rings is timeless and quite wonderful. And Tolkien's passion and skills at creating a believable alternative history for the world in which we live can never be overstated.

And yes, I love the films. Extended versions all the way for me. I get such a thrill from watching them with my son - and The Hobbit films, too - although he does not share my passion for reading so I doubt he will ever pick up the book, unless he's after a door-stopper or needs to prop up a dodgy table leg.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 8, 2017, Original Post Date: Apr 8, 2017 ---

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" I wonder how much of that quote applies to Peter Jackson and The Hobbit.

I love The Hobbit. I didn't think I would - a trilogy of films made out of the slightest of books - but I'm happy to say I did. I can't help but wonder what the films would have turned out like under del Torro's stewardship because I'm a big fan of his. Didn't Bob Shaye (a man for whom I've never had much time since he castrated the third Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie before filming had even began) say that Peter Jackson would never make another film for New Line as long as he had anything to do with it? Something to do with New Line and Jackson falling out over money? I hope Shaye choked on his humble pie when Jackson was called in to save The Hobbit.

--- Double Post Merged, Apr 8, 2017 ---

I voted Return of the King. My reason is more of a personal one. My son, on watching it for the first time, started crying at the scene when Frodo wakes up and all the remaining members of the fellowship rush in to see him. I was so moved by his reaction. He turned to me and said "I'm crying, Dad, but I don't know why." Oh, man alive, that just knocked me for six. I will never, ever forget that moment. Even if I hated the film, just that simple and honest reaction to the movie...well, that's what we all look for isn't it?