This Topic is to discuss The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies.
LOTR: The trilogy-technically-saga since the original Star Wars trilogy. I actually know a bit of Sindarin, the Elvish language Tolkien made. =D
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I have nothing to say about this.
Not because of how little I know though. I own all the books from the Silmarillian to Return of the King.
I just have nothing to say because words cannot fathom the power of the Tolkein.
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I saw the first hobbit, loved it, saw most of the first LOTR movie, loved that, didn’t see the second hobbit because giant spider scene, haven’t gotten around to finishing the trilogy yet.
I love the Hobbit movies and I can’t wait for the 3rd. I also enjoyed the LotR movies but I think that the Hobbit movies are turning out to be better than the LotR movies.
You don’t like spiders? Well, good luck with Return of the king then. Shelob will get ya.
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I’m in the process of collecting every LotR and hobbit minfigure. Curse you LEGO for ignoring Gondor!
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I spent 2012 collecting Lord of the Rings sets. Hoo boy! 
Anyone read the History of Middle-earth series?
I remember reading the Silmarillian. (Elves are screwed up) Is that what you’re referring to?
No, the History of Middle-earth is a comprehensive collection of every legible note J.R.R. Tolkien made as he wrote what we know as The Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion. There are ten books in total and it’s exhausting
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Tolkien was a professor of language at Oxford University, which explains how he could create such elaborate languages.
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Yeah. Sindarin is his most developed, but I consider his Black Speech to be more fun. There’s a guy that goes by Tolkien on BZP and he’s made a kind of dictionary and grammar rules for Matoran. It’s pretty darn cool.
But yeah, fictional languages (And English grammar) are my thing.
Don’t post the Black Speech! Its words carry evil that would taint these forums
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When I was younger, the LotR movies were my favorite films (and the book(s) were and still are my favorite books). But now, while I still think the LotR movies are very good, I think they kind of missed the point of the books, and also messed up most of the characters by simplifying them and getting rid of most of their development/progression. I think if they’d stuck closer the the spirit of the books, they could have truly been some of the greatest movies ever made. But as they stand, they’re still enjoyable on their own merits.
I thought the first Hobbit movie was ok. I hated the second one. Now, it might have been enjoyable for me if it had been released as its own thing, not based on Tolkien’s work, but as it is, I honestly think it’s a disgrace to Tolkien’s legacy. It glossed over the parts that actually came from Tolkien. Easily 2/3 of it was purely Peter Jackson’s creation. And the parts that were pure Jackson weren’t particularly well written. It felt like a bad fanfic. For instance, that pointless love triangle…it added nothing to the movie whatsoever; it was pure filler that distracted from the main plot (and the “I could have anything down my pants” joke is lowbrow humor that does NOT belong in an adaptation of Tolkien). The same can be said for: the protracted barrel fight scene, the inexplicable focus on Elvish politics (was George Lucas involved in some capacity?), the protracted and mostly pointless mucking about in Lake Town, the scenes with Gandalf that were only included to tie into LotR, the fight scene at the end that turned Smaug from a scary and intelligent villain into a dumb dog, and so on. None of this was necessary, and all of it distracted from Bilbo’s story–he was barely in the movie at all! I will say, however, that I have some hope that the Extended Edition will add in more scenes that actually come from the book, thus allowing for someone to come along and make a truncated, book-accurate version of the film.
Ok, how many of you did I just tick off? XD
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This. This is exactly everything that’s wrong with the Hobbit movie. The stupidest thing of all was the love triangle thing I mean come on! Tolkien’s Hobbit was a tremendously amazing book and Jackson ruined it, by both making into a pointless trilogy (I understand two for that book, but three? You money milking cow…) and by adding in things that weren’t even in the book! They should have titled it something else, because at this point, there’s little that actually came from the book.
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Yup. And before anyone says “But the extra stuff came form The Silmarillion/Unfinished Tales/LotR Appendix A/etc!,” which seems to be a common argument elsewhere, let me add that 1) that’s not really true, and 2) it wouldn’t matter if it were.
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Most of the extra stuff (the action scenes, love triangle, Elvish politics, etc.) didn’t come from Tolkien at all. The stuff that did (The parts with Gandalf/the White Council are all I can think of) was not, to the best of my knowledge, described by Tolkien in detail, and if it had been, would certainly have been much different than what was shown.
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Even if it had all come from Tolkien, it would still be a distraction from the main narrative. There’s a reason Tolkien called it “The Hobbit,” and not “The State of Affairs in Middle-Earth 80 years before The Lord of the Rings.”
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Favorite books, favorite movies, and favorite languages!
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Here’s a question: of the three LotR movies, which is the best?
I think it’s The Fellowship of the Ring. It focuses less on epic battle scenes than the others, and more on things like the Hobbits’ whimsy and the Elves’ mystical-ness, thus capturing the spirit of Tolkien’s writing the best of the three.
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I cannot choose, and I have struggled with this for some time. I agree that the Fellowship is very well written, perhaps better than the other two, but boy do I like Smeagol/Gollum. Also, the Ents in Towers were amazing to even read about, seeing them on screen was kinda mind blowing. (It also helps that Helm’s Deep was just a gory glory run that I instantly loved)
Then Return of the King was all out epicness, with the ghosts of the mountain, and the hike through Mordor, and Gron! Gron! Gron!
All and all, the three are very good, book-wise and movie-wise, but I suppose Towers just slightly pulls ahead as it is both epic, and whimsical.
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Andy Serkis’s performance is great, but it’s not the Gollum from the book. He’s not supposed to have split personalities. I would argue that the book version is much more complex, because Gollum is genuinely conflicted about whether he should serve Frodo or the Ring; he wants to do the right thing, but centuries of being twisted by evil makes that difficult; he doesn’t just have a good and a bad personality.
The Ents were awesome. Bonus points for John Rhys-Davies (the actor who played Gimli) voicing Treebeard. Though I’m not sure how well the movie(s) got across the very slow, plaintive, methodical nature of the Ents. I know they did at least to a degree, but it’s been awhile since I’ve seen Two Towers.
Helm’s Deep was a really well-done battle scene…but I’m not sure it really belongs in an adaptation of LotR. The book speeds through the battle fairly quickly, but it takes, like, half an hour at least in the movie. In general, I think the movies put so much emphasis on violence that they lose a lot of the charm, as well as the message, of the book. I’m not a big Roger Ebert fan, but I think a quote from his review of the film sums it up very well:
“The Two Towers” will possibly be more popular than the first film, more of an audience-pleaser, but hasn’t Jackson lost the original purpose of the story somewhere along the way? He has taken an enchanting and unique work of literature and retold it in the terms of the modern action picture. If Tolkien had wanted to write about a race of supermen, he would have written a Middle-Earth version of “Conan the Barbarian.” But no. He told a tale in which modest little hobbits were the heroes. And now Jackson has steered the story into the action mainstream. To do what he has done in this film must have been awesomely difficult, and he deserves applause, but to remain true to Tolkien would have been more difficult, and braver."
Also, the Elves being there made little sense. There weren’t a whole lot of elves left in Middle-Earth at that point, and the ones in Lothlorien would have been preoccupied with preparing to defend their home from Sauron’s coming forces.
Since I’m in complaining-mode, I’ll point out that the ghosts in the book honored their oath and didn’t try to kill Aragorn and company.
The hike through Mordor was good, but not so much the journey there. Frodo as much too loyal to Sam to ever tell him to leave, and he would never have sided with Gollum over Sam. Frodo’s relationship with Sam is based on brotherly love, but his relationship with Gollum is based on pity. The movie makes them seem more like equals.
Not to be “that guy” (heh, I probably already am 
) but it’s Grond, not Gron. It’s named for Morgoth’s hammer.
I don’t remember much in it that was whimsical? What did you have in mind?
tl;dr, the later movies (as well as the first, but not as much) make changes that weaken, or at least fundamentally alter, the story, and focus too much on grandiosity instead of humanity.
P.S. You can probably tell I’ve spent way too much time thinking about this.
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