LORD OF THE RINGS!

I relly liked lord of the rings but you have to admit that the first one did drag quite alot at the end.

i take it that your talking about the film, the books are fantastic!
although also i do have to agree, of all the films the first was the worst!

Is this the books from hell thread?

lol! nah, this is a shrine to the great books!

I thought the first movie was the best by miles. The other two are just eternally long battle scenes.

I cried through the entire third movie. I loved the books when I was in 9th grade but doubt I'd have the patience now.

I like LOTR a lot, and rereading them is great because you know what parts to skip.
Tom Bombadil--OUT
Council of Elrond--OUT
Not Real Great Epic Poetry--OUT

No I did actually mean the first book. It dragged far to much ( and the fellowship walke dthrough another feild and the first blade of grass was light green. The second a shade lighter.....etc)
Don't get me wrong i love the books alot but the first was definetly the worst.

Sorry i meant Walked through a field. i guess im just tired.

THE SILMARILLION!
That one's the real kicker. I'm not saying it's better than LOTR, but if what you like about Tolkien is epic mindfuck, in fact if what you favor in literature in general is psychedelic, surreal, epic mindfuck, The Silmarillion is the font.

If you want to really appreciate Tolkein, read the following:

Norse mythology (Beowulf, etc, too)
Edith Hamilton's Mythology
The Golden Bough, sir james Frazier
Morte d'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory
Bullfinch's Mythology

oh, and also
Led Zeppelin's fourth album

I loved LOTR, i was obsessed, crazed, spoke elvish and acted like a hobbit, now i'm varsity...

i have to agree with SJ Lefty, tom bombadil is definately out, but not the council of elrond, it is one of the most informative parts of the book, i love it! although mu mate would agreee with you, he hates that part too! i also agree on the skipping the song and poetry parts!

The hobbit is also a fantastic book, its just jam packed full of excitement! did you know that they are bringing the hoobit out on film in about 3 years?!

one last rant, although i am addicted to the books and films, and the third was my favourite, what and why was aragon singing at his wedding?! and when did that occur in the book?!

and why didnt they show eowyn and farimear getting together?!

and where was the epic battle in the shire, that was one of my favourite parts!

Cos it takes ages to get over eowyn whining about being a noble woman. Besides it will probably be in the extended version.

i suppose, i cant beleive they cut all of sarumans bits too! i dont mind the film being longer, i would watch it even if it was 5 hours long!

controvercial, but:

I loved the films but hated the books.

The books were too slow, and the writing style changing from book to book bugged me. Reading the book 1 wasn't too bad, but 2 & 3. What a drag.

The films made the story a cohesive whole for me.

Now 'the hobbit' I really enjoyed! (and look forward to the film - Gotta keep that film making money machine rolling :o)

apparently the hobbit should be released in about four years, did you know that they are stil filming the extras for the extended dvd!

I love these - and re-read them about once year and have done so since mid-teen years. (Yeah, I'm a geek.)

When we were little, my sister and I had a record with the dialogue and music from the cartoon version of The Hobbit and to this day we walk around whispering "Far o'er the Misty Mountains cold to dungeons deep and caverns old, we must away, e're break of day ..."

I do think that the books are dated and there are some racist and sexist elements that I'm not particularly comfortable with, but those don't destroy the magic of Middle Earth, at least not for me. I think that, for when they were written and why they were written, they're pretty darn brilliant.

Im almost into Middle Earth years but I still think the books are amazing,but yeah,Tom Bombadil was boooooringggg

News-

http://www.banterist.com

from IMDB today:

Shocking fans who had assumed that director Peter Jackson, who was responsible for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, would direct The Hobbit -- a kind of prequel to those films -- and another Lord of the Rings epic, Jackson said on theonering.net website Sunday that he had been advised by New Line that the studio "would no longer be requiring our services on The Hobbit ...[and] was now actively looking to hire another filmmaker." Jackson said that the studio cited the ongoing lawsuit that Jackson filed against New Line in June of 2005, charging that the studio had committed fraud in reporting the revenue for 2001's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, which allegedly resulted in Jackson being underpaid millions of dollars. If the notice from New Line was a ploy to induce Jackson to drop or settle the lawsuit -- as Jackson seems to suggest in his message to "Ringers" -- it apparently failed to achieve its objective. In the message, Jackson said that he was "very sorry our involvement with The Hobbit has been ended in this way. ... This outcome is not what we anticipated or wanted, but neither do we see any positive value in bitterness and rancor. We now have no choice but to let the idea of a film of The Hobbit go and move forward with other projects."

"New Line Chief Exec Robert Shaye has slammed director Peter Jackson
(Lord Of The Rings) and stated that he will never be allowed to direct The Hobbit.

Jackson, 45, has been involved in a legal battle over payment from The Fellowship Of The Ring. Shaye has now said the director will never make another movie for New Line so long as he is in charge.

Shaye says "He [Jackson] got a quarter of a billion dollars paid to him so far, justifiably, according to contract, completely right, and this guy, who already has received a quarter of a billion dollars, turns around without wanting to have a discussion with us and sues us and refuses to discuss it unless we just give in to his plan."

New Line will pick a new director for Lord Of The Rings prequel The
Hobbit which they hope to release in 2009."

In regard to the books: I read them avidly when I was 14 years old. Two years later I tried to reread them and decided they were not quite all that I remembered them to be, the major obstacle having become the somewhat turgid writing style of Tolkien. To paraphrase Dr. Johnson, when you are weary of orcs, you are not necessarily weary of life.

For a more complete picture of the acrimony between New Line and Jackson here is part of his response as posted on Ain't it Cool News:

"Our issue with New Line Cinema has only ever been about their refusal to account for financial anomalies that surfaced from a partial audit of The Fellowship of the Ring. Contrary to recent comments made by Bob Shaye, we attempted to discuss the issues raised by the Fellowship audit with New Line for over a year but the studio was and continues to be completely uncooperative. This has compelled us to file a lawsuit to pursue our contractual rights under the law. Nobody likes taking legal action, but the studio left us with no alternative.

The rest can be read at the site.