Lord of the Rings

[cinty]

Lord of the Rings are my favourite books, and basically anythign else by Tolkien. I just think he is utterly brilliant!! LotR has such a huge scale, there is so much brilliance in the storyline, it never fails to move me. Anyone else feel about the books as I do?

[Opera Ghost]

Me! As said in the LotR movie appreciation thread that I just made in the film forum, I'm completely and utterly obsessed with Lord Of The Rings. I read the trilogy aged 9 and loved it - the books are so beautiful, so moving, so...powerful. I love them!

OG

[cinty]

yay! I'm so glad to have found a fellow obsessiveo. I am totally obsessed with LotR. who is your favourite character? Mine are Merry and Pippin.

[Opera Ghost]

Aragorn! Aka Elessar/Envinyatar/Thorongil/Strider/Wingfoot/Elfstone etc etc! He's handsome, he's protective, he's a brilliant warrior, he cares for and loves his friends and companions, he is both the rugged ranger & the reluctant heir to the throne, he's just...awesome. Merry and Pippin make me crack up :p They're so amusing, especially in FotR!

OG

[cinty]

Aragorn is great!!! I love all the characters so much... but I especially love a character who can make me laugh. make that two! I love that bit in Lothlorien where Pippin says to Sam "it was like you had something on your conscience. I hope it was nothing more than a wicked plot to steal one of my blankets!"

[Cécile Annelure]

I read The Fellowship, Two Towers, and Return of the King in fourth grade. Last year I saw Return of the King and remembered that I'd read them :)

They're great books, and I love the detail Tolkien uses. The Hobbit was great too- possibly my favorite of the series.

[cinty]

the Hobbit is awesome. I love Bilbo, and the dwarves!! the movies are wonderful too.. you should watch them all. Tolkien is an absolutely BRILLIANT man. So amazing. hte Silmarillion has to be one of the most brilliant legends ever.

[Silhouette]

Personally I found the LOTR movies better then the books. The books were a bit dragged out. I had to read the hobbit in school recently and id already read it like 5 times so i basically had a few weeks of english to do nothing it was awsome. I personally liked two towers the best though

[cinty]

I have to agree that sometimes it drags a little. but the storyline is so incredible and so well thought out. I would have to say that I do prefer the books to the movies, but I love the movies.

[Silhouette]

I think the reason I prefer the movies to the books is because I saw the movies first. Plus i am a huge viggo mortensen and orlando bloom fan

[hotaru anne]

another major LOTR fan here...read the books prior to seeing the movies and i absolutely loved the books. it's been a while since i've read them but yeah, JRR Tolkien was brilliant *nods* my favourite characters from the book have got to be aragorn, eomer, faramir and pippin. :)

[IamErik771]

Chalk up another LOTR addict. :D I first read The Hobbit when I was 8, and saw the animated film. I enjoyed them, but was a little too young to really "get it." After seeing FotR (movie) in 2001, I became a complete Tolkien fan and read all the books, trilogy and beyond. Then, I saw the second and third films. I liked the films and the books pretty much equally, but immensely prefer the extended DVDs to the theatrical releases.

[cinty]

Hey everybody, thanks for replying! I think most people are spellbound by this awesome phenomuen. Tolkien, I regard, as an incredibly brilliant man. If you wnat his biggest fan, look no further than me! PJ did a brilliant job of the movies, but nothing can beat those books, I think. The originality of them is so amazingly incredible.
Was anyone else annoyed that the romance of Faramir and Eowyn was never realy properly dealt with?That always made me so sad...

[BlondeAngel]

love the books ... I think (though am quite alone in my statemate) that the books are quite better than the movies ... when i finished the books I cried my eyes out for a very long time . lol, my freind thought i hade lost my mind !!!

[Elise]

I like the books better then the movies as well. I cried too after finishing them. The movies were good but there were some parts which I wished they did differently. One of them being Faramir Eowyn romance, even in the special edition wasn't given proper attention. I also really did not like the final confruntation between Saruman and the fellowship that they added in. It just seemed so wrong to me with the line that Treebeard speaks after Saruman falls "The filth of Saruman is washed away". Also I didn't like how literal the eye of Sauron was. Other then that I really enjoyed the movies.

One other piece of Tolkien's works that I love is his short story "Smith of Wootton Major". Has anyone else read it?

[Opera Ghost]

Originally posted by Elise
I also really did not like the final confruntation between Saruman and the fellowship that they added in. It just seemed so wrong to me with the line that Treebeard speaks after Saruman falls "The filth of Saruman is washed away".

Why do you think it wrong? I would say that it's very accurate - the cruel machinary, his dark work, was washing away quite literally...

I agree with you about the lack of Faramir / Eowyn material - I loved their 2 scenes in RotK EE (both set in the Houses of Healing) but in my opinion they were both too short and did not dwell on the subject of their relation. I know they filmed some sort of wedding scene between them - I've read reports. A scene was made where they kiss, and I think the wedding was included. I wish they'd put more in the extended film at least.

[Meg Giry]

I definitely agree with Faramir/Eowyn. It's such a pity that the wedding/kiss wasn't included as even with the extended edition scenes, it's not clarified that they actually got together, y'know? Faramir is my favourite LOTR character and I thought his scenes with Eowyn were so tender and sweet. That's one example right there of how Tolkein is anything but a misogynist (stupid critics).

[cinty]

I was like "Noooooooo!!!!" When it was not in the movie... and they didn't even do it justice in the Extended Edtion. That chapter in the book, is like, my favourite! It was so beautiful- two lost souls, who need each other so much.. awwww.... and they find it each other. It was gorgoues in the EE, but they DIDN'T do it justice. I wanted to see some of :raoulc1: :raoulc1: :phanc1: that kind of thing, lol!! But I did... it was sooo beautiful in the book.
But still, nothing can stop me loving LotR. :)

[Isabella Delancy]

I actually think that the films often hinted a relationship between Sam and Frodo. Though none transpired, the angst and hurt etched into Sam's features when Frodo believed Smeagle over him, and then when he believed Frodo was dead....and when he called him 'My Sam..' It was all too cute! XD

And I'm a Legolas lover, myself, which I find odd in spite of myself, cause that means admitting to being attracted to guys with long blond hair...o.O

*cough* Moving on...I loved the Arwen/Aragorn conversations/exchanges, and especially the part where he's dreaming, and they almost meet in a dreamlike idllicy....I'm also a hopeless romantic, so yeah..hehehe!

[IamErik771]

As some of you may be aware, today is the anniversary of J.R.R. Tolkien's birth! Were he alive today, he would be 114. I'll be going to a party in which we will give a toast to the Professor at 9:00 PM, our time. Everyone is, of course, welcome to do so as well when it is 9 PM in your time zone. :D

[MystMoonstruck]

I am a Baby Boomer, and we're the generation that "discovered" Tolkien (along with other writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany and C.S. Lewis) in the late '60s-'70s. By the early '70s, you could find Tolkien's works in any bookstore. By the mid-'70s, they were producing "Jewel Editions" in leather cases and publishing "The Silmarillion". I was working at Waldens then (now Waldenbooks) and bought a first edition of "The Silmarillion"; sadly, I've mislaid the dust cover.

There are other Tolkien works that have fallen by the wayside unfortunately, but "The Hobbit" and the trilogy should be constantly in print with the success of PJ's work. As wonderful as the films are, they can't capture the richness and wealth of details in the novels.

I was fortunate enough in college to take a course titled "Tolkien Literature". We began by reading JRR's source materials/inspirations: "Beowulf", "The Song of Roland", "The Elder Edda" and others, as well as reading the tetralogy (if you include "The Hobbit"). In preparation for the final exam, I read the four books three times during a weekend, immersing myself in them. During the semester, I read his works five times. I imagine I could read them now and find even more to love, as well as familiar scenes.

I must offer this story about the books' power. A classmate told me that his friend decided to read all of the books during spring break. In the wee hours of the morning, when he was sound asleep, his friend burst into his room, switched on the light and, in a very loud, tragic voice, announced, "Gandalf's dead!" He told me that he managed to open one eye, look at his distraught friend, and say, "Keep reading" before falling back to sleep. I thought that was a funny story that describes the power of Tolkien's works.

People need to remember though that JRR didn't create a lot of the themes and creatures but drew them from his massive reading and research. He truly was a brilliant man. In a special about C.S. Lewis, I found it amusing to hear that, when a number of writers would get together, Tolkien and Lewis would read their latest work on, respectively, LOTR and Narnia and would argue about the weaknesses and subject matter in the other's work. Imagine listening in on those arguments! *SIGH* That would be a dream come true for me, easy to understand considering I was an English major.

Film and literature are two vastly different fields. Do yourself a huge favor and read the original works.

In closing, I have to commend Ralph Bakshi's animated "LOTR" in which he covered 1 1/2 books; sadly, the film was a failure since he planned to do a second film. Rankin & Bass did an animated "The Hobbit", but I've never been fond of their style of animation. I must say that a number of scenes in PJ's films reminded me strongly of Bakshi's film; I wondered if it inspired Jackson.

[IamErik771]

Aye; I got to take a college course on Tolkien as well. Just this past semester, in fact. We also read the tetralogy, and also selections from "The Silmarillion." That was probably the most fun I've ever had in a classroom, and it's how I discovered Tol Andúnë (http://www.tolandune.net), the Hawaii Tolkien Society.

And I agree that while the films did an excellent job of representing the novels, nothing can equal Tolkien's original works. I did get to see Bakshi's film, and thought it was a rather neat interpretation. And yes, Peter Jackson was inspired by that film, as well as the animated versions of "The Hobbit" and "The Return of the King."

[More than Music]

I'm a LotR fan who's once hard burning flame of obsession is burning out.

Once, I could easily tell you the names of all the actors who played the members in the fellowship, could recall most of the lines from any of the movies, and I was determined to read all the books.

I failed. I got about 1/4 of the way through Two Towers and never finished. I don't know why. I guess PotO came into my life, and I had hardly room for anther obsession, especially with music coming in so hard. I'm gonna see if I can still recall the actors who played the fellowship without looking up anything(if I spell anything wrong, that's why):

Gandalf: Ian McKellen
Aragorn: Viggo Mortensen
Boromir: Sean Bean
Legolas: Orlando Bloom
Gimli: John Rhys-Daviess(I think that's how it's spelt. I've usually said it, not spelt it)
Frodo: Eligah Wood
Sam: Sean Astin
Merry: Dominic Monaghan
Pippin: Billy Boyd

... Did I get it all right?

[Shattered Rose]

I am a huge LOTR fan... you can even ay I'm obsessed... usually my obsession last around 4 years then end... this one is still lasting after 6 years. My fav character is Legolas, but Aragorn is a close second. The first book I read written by Tolkien was the Hobbit... it was amazing, funny,sad, woth adventures and friendship. Lotr came next than Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. Last year I won the second prize at an essay competition in my school, writting about Tolkien and his works... the man was a genius.

[angelgirl]

I tried reading the first book recently and I just couldn't get into it. Either because 1) I don't have the right type of mind to enjoy it. or 2) They had too much stuff going on and too many people being introduced at one time. It was jsut confusing.
A.G.