Ain't it grand?

[theburningman]

Ain't it grand to see each volume of The Lord of the Rings take its rightful place back in the top ten of every major bestseller list, thereby being introduced to a new generation of readers who will come to love and appreciate (or, in some rare cases, snore through) this book just as we do?

And all because of the movies. Who cares what relatively insignificant changes were made to plot and characters? These movies (or, as I like to think of them, this large movie) has gotten dozens of the students in my eighth grade English classes to pick up my favorite book and read all 1300 pages. And only one in the last two years has told me that it was boring and he liked the movie better.

Bless you, Peter Jackson.









Thank you, you can close this thread now.

 

[stevelabny]

the books are awful
the movies are great
therefore the movies are better than the books

i know at least 4 other people who feel the exact same way
(not counting the savages who dont read)

so mark down 5 more...
retitle the thread "are the movies better?" and you will get MANY more responses from those who agree with me.

Giving a kid these books to read is asking him to grow up hating books.

 

[KenM]

Or like me, after many years of trying to read the thing, give up in frustration becuase of JRRT's boring, total lack of pacing or plot devolpment. He has the main characters break out in song about some minor thing that happened in the history of Middle Earth 500 years ago that has NOTHING to do with the plot of the story. But major plot devolopments are hardly mentioned. The movies are much better IMO.

 

[Umbran]

I think one of the best thing JRR Tolkien has done for us is to show use exactly how impatient we have become. He's shown us exactly how short our attention spans are, and how horribly we have become addicted to instant gratification.

 

[garyh]

I love the LotR books, they're what got me into fantasy literature after my dad lent me his copy of The Hobbit many years ago.

I don't see why the Ring-haters feel the need to shout down this thread; I think theburningman has a very good point. If you disagree... why post?

[action]puts on fire-retardant vest[/action]

 

[KenM]

I think one of the best thing JRR Tolkien has done for us is to show use exactly how impatient we have become. He's shown us exactly how short our attention spans are, and how horribly we have become addicted to instant gratification.

I don't think I have a short attention span. I have read many long books and series'. I read Les Miserables uncut, thats 1500 pages. I read a song of ice and fire, the first three books, each book took me a week, total of about 2000 pages. Those are just some excamples, The EE of the movies are great, and will set the standard for epic movies. JRRT's books are slow and boring, put me to sleep. Thats why I don't like them, not because of how long they are.

 

[jester47]

I don't think I have a short attention span. I have read many long books and series'. I read Les Miserables uncut, thats 1500 pages. I read a song of ice and fire, the first three books, each book took me a week, total of about 2000 pages. Those are just some excamples, The EE of the movies are great, and will set the standard for epic movies. JRRT's books are slow and boring, put me to sleep. Thats why I don't like them, not because of how long they are.

Yeah, when I belt out "ramble on" with my friends it is always pertinent to what we are doing and how our lives are going.

JRRT does put a lot of trivia in his stories, and trivia is one of the ways (actually its his primary way) of making the world he created seem more real. Notice we dont get that trivia in the Hobbit. That is because it is a childrens story. LotR is not. It would be interesting to see what LotR would have been like had he written it in the same kind of language as the hobbit.

Aaron.

 

[stevelabny]

i would never call this an attention span problem.
i also have read all THREE THOUSAND pages thus far of A Song of Ice and Fire.
and numerous other series of varying levels of quality.

the lotr books are SHORT by comparison.
the problem with them is as previously stated the pacing, the ridiculous songs, the pacing, the never-ending hstory that has NO impact on the current story at all, the pacing.
a six page description of a valley does not interesting reading make.
and then theres the brutal pacing...

as for why i would post if i disagree with the original poster...
are you actually serious?
should all threads be single-posts?
this is the real world where peopel disagree and like to give their own opinion.
i didn't shout, i didnt insult the original poster, i wasnt offensive.
but i did think he was seriously misguided in his thoughts that most people like the books better than the movie and i felt someone should warn him.
so i said to myself "self, why not me? why not now?" and i typed my response.

Consider this, the movies are great, so obviously that reflects that at its core, the story of the LOTR books is great. It has spawned so many different versions of the same concepts, including the very D&D game. So I'm not a LOTR-hater, I'm a Tolkien writing-style hater. There's a difference.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

I can easily read 1000 pages in three days, if I'm interested in the subject. (Of course, that means only sleeping, eating, and reading...)

If I'm not interested in the subject, I can read 3 pages in a thousand days.

It's hard getting through the books again. I've done it once, that's enough...

 

[Dark Jezter]

I love the LotR novels and have read them several times, but I don't view them as the greatest books ever written like a lot of people do.

I actually prefer the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard over the Lord of the Rings as far as fantasy tales go; REH's Conan stories are fast-paced, hard to put down, and star my favorite hero character in fantasy. LotR is damn good as well, but it suffers from agonizingly slow pacing at times (and I don't exactly have a short attention span regarding books).

Having said that, I think that the LotR movies are absolutely fantastic, and easily some of the best movies to come out in the last decade. I know several people who prefer the movies over the books, which might be my own opinion as well (I'll have to see RotK before I know for sure).

Hooray for Peter Jackson!