Any 'Lord of the Rings' fans out there?

[DAFox]

I did a search for "Viggo" because I wanted to see if anybody started a thread for his movie "The Road" based on the book by Cormac McCarthy. I saw this and thought I'd put my 2 or 3 cents in for Tolkien.

I study Tolkien as a hobby...I've got over 9 linear feet of books either written by or about Tolkien. I guess you could call me a BIG fan.
LotR started as a publisher's request for a sequel for the Hobbit. He had many false starts and was more interested in working on material that eventually became "The Silmarillion" (Plus more). LotR became more adult because of this. It took him 17 years to write LotR.
The material or seeds of "The Silmarillion" started in the mid 1910's and he was still working on it at his death in 1973. He wrote this material to give a culture to the languages he had already invented...
The Hobbit was a story he told to his kids. He wrote it down so he could keep track of the details. And it started out unrelated to "Middle-Earth".

I've read LotR every year or two since the mid 70's. And The Silmarillion about 8 or 9 times. It gets better with each reading. I've only read "The Hobbit" a few times.

I love the movies, too. Mostly anyway...

Dale-Ann

 

[boobug]

Me and my sister love them, and we can't wait till the hobbit comes out.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

I cannot recall how many times I have read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion since I first discovered them in high school back in the seventies. I've read them aloud to my oldest daughter three times now and had to institute a rule that I would not read them to her more than ONCE a year.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Peter Jackson films of The Lord of the Rings. Some of the visuals are brilliant such as his depiction of The Shire, Moria,and the Balrog. What he did to the actual storyline however was a travesty. Of course every attempt to turn the story into film whether live action or animation haven't been any better so I suppose it just comes with the territory.

I can tell from the trailer they've done much the same with The Hobbit. Heck, just the fact that they turned into TWO movies has to tell you they've buggered it up. But I am sure some of the visuals will be excellent and if for no other reason I will go see them.

If you really want to know what the story is about you are just going to have to READ it. Tolkien wasn't writing for the typical modern teenage audience. It is ever so much richer than that.

 

[ChicknThief]

When I was 12, my mother took me to see LOTR FOTR for my birthday. I was an extremely sheltered child (I had only recently been allowed to watch the Lion King) and she told me it was about frogs and magic in a forest. Needless to say, I was TERRIFIED. I cried and begged to go home for the entire movie, but mother dearest would have none of it. We stayed until the end, and I had horrible violent nightmares for two months following.

I avoided LOTR like the plague for years. But about 2 years ago, I decided to give it another shot.

Oh yea. Major LOTR nerd

I am so excited for the Hobbit!

 

[fiddlebanshee]

I did a search for "Viggo" because I wanted to see if anybody started a thread for his movie "The Road" based on the book by Cormac McCarthy. I saw this and thought I'd put my 2 or 3 cents in for Tolkien.

I study Tolkien as a hobby...I've got over 9 linear feet of books either written by or about Tolkien. I guess you could call me a BIG fan.
LotR started as a publisher's request for a sequel for the Hobbit. He had many false starts and was more interested in working on material that eventually became "The Silmarillion" (Plus more). LotR became more adult because of this. It took him 17 years to write LotR.
The material or seeds of "The Silmarillion" started in the mid 1910's and he was still working on it at his death in 1973. He wrote this material to give a culture to the languages he had already invented...
The Hobbit was a story he told to his kids. He wrote it down so he could keep track of the details. And it started out unrelated to "Middle-Earth".

I've read LotR every year or two since the mid 70's. And The Silmarillion about 8 or 9 times. It gets better with each reading. I've only read "The Hobbit" a few times.

I love the movies, too. Mostly anyway...

Dale-Ann

Have you raided my bookcase?

.

I'm like you. I've also read LotR probably about 20 times since I was 12 or so years old. First in Dutch translation (my native language) and then in English as I Iearned that language. I also have the books on CD now as I do a lot of crafting and can listen to the books as I work on my weaving/spinning/knitting or whatever else grabs my fancy at the particular moment. When I read the books, I usually cannot put them down and will have reading marathons that last 3 or 4 days with reading non-stop and sleeping maybe 2 or 3 hours a night.


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This! and I keep finding new layers and meanings and cross-connections that i hadn't noticed before.

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This, too!

What I totally disliked about the movie was the partly fabricated, partly overstated love relationship between Arwen and Aragorn. Totally too much disney for my liking. And it isn't like that in the books at all. It's a small side story that you would barely notice if you read the books for the story line. But I guess they needed something to appeal to a wider audience. Other than that they pretty much captured my inner imagination about the scenery and the characters, pretty much as I had seen them in my mind when reading the books. I'm eyeing the trilogy on Blu Ray, used at my video store. $12 per movie. I have them on DVD so probably not worth the money at this time. Unless someone tells me otherwise. c'mon - enablers, here's you chance.

 

[nikki1]

I confess that I am a major LOTR nerd, too. The books hooked me in junior high, and I've read them regularly since. As far as the movies, I'm with the other book lovers out there. There were some definite high points in the movies, but some annoyances as well. Tops on the list for me are the fact that the names weren't said often enough for the uninitiated to keep track of the characters. I saw the movies with my husband, and if I hadn't been there whispering in his ear he'd have been totally lost. My other big beef was what they did to Faramir. I've had a crush on him for decades, and they turned him into a waffling jellyfish. In the books he was totally true and unwavering to the correct cause, but in the movie he was just a repeat of Boromir. VERY disappointing!

Anyhow, I enjoyed the movies generally and I own them, but I've loved about 3 copies of the books completely to death and have had to buy new ones.

--Nikki

p.s. Of my chickens, only my light brahma has feathery feet. She therefore had to have a hobbity name, so she's Rosie Cotton. (My 4 year old calls her "Little Rosie Cottonball" though.

 

[MochaDuck]

I found my dream thread. any LotR fans still online?