You do get your money’s worth with a 3-hour long movie. I just wish the movie theaters would have an intermission so we could run to the bathroom without missing any of it.
Never read the books, even though they were quite the thing in my high school and college days.
I can’t quite say I actively disliked the movie (only seen the first one), but I frankly don’t understand how anyone could call it a great movie. Overly long, very little plot, one-dimensional characters (why were any of them doing what they were doing?). The movie never got me to care even the slightest what would happen to the characters, the ring, or anything else. Visually it was interesting at times, but then so is a computer screen-saver. A month or so after seeing it, I couldn’t have told you much about it to save my life. Something about an evil ring and a couple of kids named Frodo and Sam who have to take the ring somewhere? Then there were a bunch of other characters helping them, I think, a lot of walking, some talking, and some battles. Oh, and a good wizard and a bad wizard, who killed the good one, I think. I don’t even remember how it ended (other than that it wasn’t really an ending, just a pause before the next movie).
The first time I saw FotR was on video, but it was not the Extended Edition. I liked the movie much better after seeing the Extended Edition with the extra 30 minutes that filled in some gaps.
So many movies these days - generally kids’ comedies and the like - are clocking in at 75-85 minutes. If I may be so crude, What the FUCK? I can’t tell you how infuriated I’d be to have the lights come up so quickly, even if it WERE “Kangaroo Jack” or “Master of Disguise.” If a movie isn’t 100 minutes, I’m marginally disappointed, even if it’s wonderful, like “Annie Hall,” which is, IIRC, 88 minutes. 2 hours is good, 2 1/2 is great.
hrh
It seems like a lot of people start reading LOTR in their mid-teens, which is interesting since I don’t think Tolkien intended it to be read by people so young. It probably has to do with the book being marketed and published following “The Hobbit”.
I found the books interesting but difficult to get through. It helped immensely when I started thinking of the books as a history book rather than a novel.
O/T: I used to love Anne Rice - mainly “Interview” and I even trudged through Queen of the Damned, but now I won’t touch her stuff. It’s appalling how bad her writing has become. Not even the characters save the books, IMHO.
A common complaint. When my teenage son picked up FOTR for the first time, I advised him to just hang in and slog through until they get to Bree. He did, got hooked, and is now a second generation Tolkien Geek.
I read Tolkien initially when I was in junior high – probably because I encountered the story of “The Hobbit” first, and reading the next series just seemed like a natural extension.
I AM a fan of the books (and of the movies), but I can completely see the viewpoints of people trying to read the book and getting frustrated quickly. I’m re-reading LOTR right now, and the first volume (Fellowship) does drag in many places. Chapters 3-8 are pretty slow (chapter 9 is where they get to Bree), and SPOOFE sums it up nicely – Tolkien can spend several paragraphs describing a pebble.
The pace does pick up once you get to Two Towers, though. During my re-read, I have found that to be a much quicker read than Fellowship (and oddly, I don’t remember being frustrated at all reading them when I was a kid).
Way back when, I too got stuck on book one…tried three times to get through it.
Finally, I believe it was page 87 or so, the story started - at least one that I could understand.
I have since read it three times over the years.
I can understand some people not liking it…there are lots of popular forms of entertainment that bore me to death (Superbowl, folkdancing, opera, bagpipes, etc.).
There are people who never got what was so great about Gone With The Wind either.
Who knows - mabe after the third film is out, and the whole set is on DVD and you are stuck at home some cold and snowy day, you might watch the whole thing and change your mind.
Or not.
Personally, I’m a massive Tolkien geek, and have been since childhood. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with the world he created. But I can understand completely why some people don’t like it. It’s just not to everyone’s taste. I can even understand why some people outright loathe it, especially The Silmarillion. It is is no way a “modern” work, at least IMO. The characters are very static, the prose is long-winded and even vague, and it’s difficult to 1) figure out exactly what’s going on sometimes, and 2) give a crap about it.
For me, it’s really a “mood” book. I have to be in a certain mood to really enjoy it. (Strangely enough, I spend most of my life in this “mood”.) Sometimes I pick up one of Tolkien’s books and I’m carried away with emotion. Occasionally I’ll pick up a book and think to myself “What is this?!” The thing is, a lot of times it’s more entertaining and thought-provoking to talk about the events and characters than it is to actually sit there and read it. I’ll admit it. If you get past the silliness of his language and some of his situations, Tolkien really did have interesting ideas and stories. I look at it as more of a latter-day mythology. It’s great fun to talk about the ancient Greeks and their writings; it can be hell to read through it.
As for the movies, I love them. But I can see why other people might not. There’s something ultimately very surreal about them, but not in standard dramatic sense. Every now and again it smacks of people playing dress-up and I get this terrible twinge of self-consciousness. I think to myself, “Who are you trying to fool, Mr. Jackson?”
But then it passes, and I just let the story carry me. Which is really, I suppose, what literature is about, at its core. Does a story move you, does it have some meaning to you, personally? If not, then you’re not going to like it. If it does, then you will. But there’s nothing wrong with liking or not liking anything. We all have our own reasons, and as long as it makes sense to you, what does it really matter?
P.S. Quadgop, what’s the translation?
It’s QADGOP, dammit!
“When all is counted, and all numbered at last…”
Hi everyone - another LOTR fan here, but like many have already said, the book does draaaaaaaag in places.
My own personal gripe is the whole Sam and Frodo journey to Mordor thing - I find the whole thing a bit dull to be quite honest. Day after day for a large chunk of the book, just dust and ashes and boring boring boring - I have actually skipped those parts in TTT and ROTK before…
Having said that, I think TTT film version did that whole thing very well, I have to say I love the films and might even consider them gasp more enjoyable than the books…
ducks and runs for cover
I read LotR sometime around 12 or so. Thought it was pretty good.
Now I see the movies. I thought they were great. Some of the best stuff I’ve seen (And I still want a Balrog, damnit…).
So I went back to reading the books… And as I’m reading them, I couldn’t help thinking, “Damn, the movies did this part so much better.”
It feels like blasphemy or something. Books are supposed to be better than the movies based off them, right? But here, it seems to be the exact opposite, and it seems to be one of the only movies that has done so…
Well, I wasn’t around in the 60’s, so I can’t say what triggered it then.
But surely you can see my point as far as this recent wave is concerned.
I’ve loved Tolkien since I first started reading The Fellowship of the Ring in the early 70’s. I don’t care that it’s a fad to love the series now. It just gives me more people to argue with about just who Tom Bombadil is. 
I can…and don’t call me Shirley.
I was around in the 60s (first read the trilogy in 1968). The wave of Tolkien mania then was triggered by the US paperback release, in 1966 or so. Very popular on college campuses, and it seemed to resonate with the hippy culture of the time, which is the antithesis of computer geekdom.
The current wave is, of course, tied to the movies. The relationship between computer/internet geekiness and Tolkien fandom is an interesting topic worthy of its own thread. I think that, regardless of whether Tolkien geeks like computers, or computer geeks like Tolkien, the Internet has certainly enabled fans to link to each other–just like every other kind of fandom.