I have read all of the Harry Potter books and enjoyed them but found the movie hard to watch. I am trying to get through the first lotr book. It makes me tired. At first I wanted to read the books before the movie opened, but found the details too confusing. I tried reading the Hobbit and that was a painfully slow read which I gave up in the first chapter. Even now I skip the song parts in fotr. I dont know if there are details in those song poem sections that I should be reading but I am enjoying the book so far as I have an idea of who is who from the movie.
(a) The LOTR movies are so breathtaking that I can’t imagine that you won’t find them money and time well spent, even if they don’t end up being your favorites. As others have mentioned, not having read the books should in no way stop you from seeing the movies. Give them a try.
[warning, pet peeve coming]
(b) Not watching Friends should not be something to boast about. Not that there’s anything wrong with not having watched it, but it doesn’t make you a better, wiser, or more cultured person. It just means that you’ve never seen a very popular TV show, which plenty of people, many of them Dopers, find very entertaining. Maybe you’d enjoy it. Maybe you wouldn’t. But stop patting yourself on the back for being so unique. Oh, and Titanic is NOT the worst movie ever made, or anything even close to it. Jesus.
[end of pet peeve]
I’ve never watched Friends simply because I prefer History Channel. No biggie. Never said it sucked. Just said I’d never watched it.
As for Titanic… never said anything about that at all. But if you must know…I’ve seen it six times, and have the videotape. Loved that one. 
—His descriptions are overly long, his pacing has no happy medium, and his character development could’ve been better.—
A matter of opinion, for one already decided how pacing MUST flow, how long descriptions MUST be, and what sort fo character development there must be.
Small hijack: Ike, have you seen the British miniseries made a couple of years ago out of the first two of these books?
More to the OP: My parents both managed to get into their 60’s without having ever read LOTR. I was not surprised about my mom, but was surprised about Dad, since aside from the fantasy element, the story is full of people hiking and camping and climbing mountains (e.g., stuff he likes).
My dad saw the first movie with me when it came out, and the second, again with me, this past Christmas. Mom only just saw the first movie this weekend. Both of them enjoyed it a lot. They really didn’t need as much filling in on back story as I thought they would.
I did give them bits of info about Middle-earth history and geography, but they began to look frightened when we got into hobbit genealogy (specifically, it was when I was explaining how Bilbo and Frodo are related, and pulled their respective mother’s names out of my memory without effort), so I stopped there before getting to Merry and Pippin.
But even though I am a geek, and they are not, we all still love each other anyway.
For the record, I have seen exactly 3 episodes of Friends, and have never seen a Reality TV show.
:eek: I didn’t know they had made a film of ‘The Hobbit’!
Do you mean the Bakshi film of ‘The Lord of the Rings’? (note that he ran out of money before finishing it).
No, you’re not a failure! (You knew that really, didn’t you…)
I posted on another thread that one of life’s greatest pleasures is to read ‘The Hobbit’ aloud to children. My parents read it to me, and it’s ideal. Lots of mini-climaxes, plenty of vocabulary and ideas and a plot*.
And your audience will be so fascinated by the quality time with you that you can get away with doing all sorts of show-off special effects. When I read to Rebecca (10) and Christopher (8), all doors squeak, all horses whinny and the characters have broad accents from all over England.
I don’t know who enjoys it more, me or them.
*No wonder Hollywoood never filmed it. :rolleyes:
No, I was otherwise engaged on those evenings, set up the machine to tape them, and the machine ate the tape. Is it worth searching out?
I tried to read The Hobbit several times and could never get past the first few pages. I’ve never read the trilogy either. * And I never intend to.*
I do play D&D and read lots of other fantasy (including the 4 Harry Potter books twice).
Now the LOTR movies are wonderful, and I think not having read the books helps my enjoyment of them.
I received all 3 LOTR books and “The Silmarillion” as a gift when I was about 9 years old. I promptly hid them away, and they gathered dust for over 20 years. I dug them out when I heard about the movies being released. I’m not going to read any of them until I’ve seen all of the movies, but I’m curious about the Silmarillion. Do you have to be obsessed with LOTR to enjoy it, or can any casual fan easily read it cover to cover?
yes- it was made in the late 1970s by Rankin-Bass, isn’t bad at all & is far better than either the Bakshi LOTR or the Rankin-Bass RETURN OF THE KING (1980?- also made for TV).
Most people who enjoyed The Silmarillion that I’ve spoken to have read and enjoyed LOTR first and were deeply interested in knowing more about the history and backstory hinted at throughout the text. The Silmarillion provides this in enormous depth. However, it is not an “easy read” (I mean it can be very dry in parts, the language can be archaic and it has a cast of thousands), and to approach it without that initial desire to fill in the details would be a formidable task. I’m not sure if the films will instill this thirst in many viewers.
Oh ** Clint **, sorry meant to add this in before. Below is a link to a Custom Tolkien Book List devised by Steuard Jensen, the head honcho at rec.arts.books.tolkien, which may help you decide whether to just dive straight into the Silmarillion.
http://tolkien.slimy.com/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~steuard/booklist.pl
I enjoyed it, and do recommend it if you liked the books. It’s tightly compressed, but I think they manage to pack a lot of detail and flavor of the novels into the 4 episodes. The look of the castle and sets are pretty good for television. The Harry Potter movies remind me somewhat of it, in that both feature so many familiar British character actors; here, they’re chewing scenery like nobody’s business and apparently having a great time doing so. Peter Ustinov as the cook, for example, goes straight over the top.
The boy who plays Steerpike impressed me, but Fuschia seemed old for a supposed 13-year-old (the same actress works better later on, when the character’s older). Little Titus is nowhere near as ugly as I imagined.
One of my favorite parts is in the 3rd episode: Irma Prunesquallor’s quest for a husband. Stephen Fry, as the school headmaster, enumerating his reasons for proposing to Miss Prunesquallor is a delight to behold. I would recommend it for that alone (provided you like Mr. Fry), if nothing else.
The series is available on VHS and DVD in the U.S. It was one of the last things I bought on video, and I’m sorry I didn’t wait a couple of months for DVD.
All is forgiven.
There’s nothing wrong with having read the books, and not liked them. Different tastes for different folks, after all, and while I can’t understand how a fan of fantasy could not like them, I can accept it. Likewise, there’s nothing wrong with not having an interest in reading them in the first place: There are some folks who already know that they’re not interested in fantasy.
But you say that you have some interest, at least, in fantasy. Give Tolkien a try. If you like the books, great! If you don’t, well, you won’t have lost much for the effort. I will warn, though, that Tolkien can be a bit slow on beginnings and endings. If you start with The Hobbit (which I would recommend, by the way), give it at least until you meet the trolls before deciding. If you skip over The Hobbit and start with Lord of the Rings, give it until the midway point of Fellowship (i.e., the start of the second “book”).
As for The Silmarillion: Don’t even start it unless you’ve read and enjoyed Lord of the Rings. It really wouldn’t be accessable on its own. And it doesn’t need to be read cover to cover, either: There are actually several different works in the book, and if the Valaquenta or Ainulindale are a little too thick for you, you can safely skip directly to the Quenta Silmarillion, which is a collection of stories of the Elves in the First Age.
I agree with the notion that that the story in LotR is awesome, but the actual writing is just painful. I gave up half way thru Two Towers, just couldn’t stand it any more.
The Peter Jackson movie adaptations on the other hand, are some of the best movies ever made! I have the extended version of Fellowship on DVD and it is simply great.
I’ve seen the Two Towers twice, and can’t wait for the extended version to come out on DVD… nor can I wait for Return of the King.
Absolutely excellent. I’ve also seen all of Jackson’s other movies, and most of them are at least original, and mostly excellent. The Frighteners is great. Too bad it was mostly overlooked when it came out. Michael J. Fox’s best performance, hands down.
I think the Rankin-Bass one was the one I saw. Searched my brain file for a visual memory, and I recall the art in that movie looking very R-B-ish. I think I liked it, but it was soooooo long ago that I honestly don’t remember much of anything about it.
But, Euty has forgiven me. I shall sleep much better tonight.
IMO and IME - as someone who has read all 3 (or six, or one) Lotr books before seeing the films I think you should read the books after seeing the films. But do read them. And even if you find it a chore reading them (as I did) keep it up. You may (eventually) find yourself tempted to read them again (as I am)
I think it is the sheer mass of information, words. On first reading - I probably picked up about 10 percent of what was written (the ‘summary’ of the story) which means that [with a suitable gap between] I could probably be motivated to read the books 10 times in my life (my mum has read it/them six times so far)
Although I loved the films. I can’t help thinking it would be a much better experience if I didn’t know what was going to happen to our friends in the fellowship
I know what is going to happen in ‘Return of the King’ before it is even made. That is not a good thing.
After I have read ‘Small Gods’. and if I haven’t bought another Terry Pratchett book, and If I haven’t started reading my mum’s Sherlock Holmes books, I will probably be reading Return of the King for the second time