Urbannen said:
Iron Chief: I hate to say it, but I almost totally agree with your assessment of the LotR movies. Fellowship was cool, after that too much emphasis on boring characters, and RotK didn't have the scenes you mentioned that I also wanted to see. The idea of Sauron regaining his body for the final fight would have been brilliant for the movie.
And ultimately would prove unsatisfying, to me, and defeat the point of the trilogy in general...but that's another discussion entirely. (Mind you, some of us don't consider characters like Theoden and Faramir to be boring characters by any stretch, but that's yet another discussion).
The scenes and closure for certain topics you're looking for will be in the Extended Edition for RotK. Saruman's scene will be there, as will Sam and Frodo in goblin armor (as certain action figures show
), the houses of the Healing and a few others.
ruleslawyer said:
I know very few non-genre readers who haven't read and respected (if not loved!) LotR, and few who liked Harry Potter. I have very few fantasy fans among my friends; those who aren't tend to be very appreciative of LotR, and too old and critical for Rowling.
Then I'm guessing we could shorten your sentence to "I know very readers, period."
Almost every single genre reader I know loves Harry Potter and many non-genre readers, as well. I know many non-genre readers who simply couldn't or wouldn't penetrate LotR. That number has changed since the movies came out, and many readers who failed to get into the books when younger are trying again, and navigating their way through it.
Rowling isn't just popluar because she appeals to kids. Her books get more sophisticated with each new one, and are suprisingly relevant to kids and adults around the world. A quick glance at the books, movies and TV forum will show that Harry Potter is well loved amongst ENWorlders.
A large problem with comparing Conan and LotR is that it's like trying to compare a military Humvee against a JetSki. They're radically different in approach, design and intent. Conan was intended as popular fiction, an escapist fantasy that intended nothing more than to entertain and transport the reader to an imaginary place, taking the reader 'into the moment'. LotR was designed to evoke the old epics of myth, more as an epic poem in the form of Beowulf or the Nordic myth cycles than of a novel. Reading LotR with the intention of interpeting it as a novel renders it as a poor example of such. Reading it as a poem of mythology or a mythic tale places it in a different category, with different rules.
And both approaches are equally valid and distinct. Perhpas the question should not be "
Is one better than the other?" but "
Does each achieve the author's goal when he wrote it?"
I'm glad to hear the original Conan stories are in print, so that I can actually read them. Does anyone know if Marvel collected the comics and magazines into trade paperbacks? To this day, my wife regrets having sold her collection of them, and I'd love to get them for her again (not to mention BWS and the other fantastic artists and writers who worked on it)>.
