# Lord of the Rings movies versus the books



## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

My friend at work swears that the books were far better than the movies. Personally, I enjoyed the movies more. I found the books difficult to get into. 

Thoughts?


----------



## Vagueness (Jan 27, 2011)

does it have to be either or?!  

I love the films, they're a real comfort watch - popcorn, wine and cuddles with my dogs, or in the background while I'm doing deadly dull repetative work.

The book I've read twice, and will read again, and it is a classic, but it isn't a light easy read - the sheer time commitment is a bit larger. And big books hurt more when I fall asleep and drop them on myself


----------



## sighdone (Feb 4, 2011)

Tedious books, tedious films.


----------



## William Meikle (Apr 19, 2010)

Patrick Skelton said:


> My friend at work swears that the books were far better than the movies. Personally, I enjoyed the movies more. I found the books difficult to get into.
> 
> Thoughts?


I love the books more than the films which I enjoy but found a bit too smug. I think it's because of who they cast as Frodo -- too young and too wimpy.

And they missed one of the points of the books. The scouring of the Shire should have been shown -- it's a symbol of what was -nearly- lost.

But the books are great.

Here's a review I wrote a while back

______________________________________________________________________________

This book changed my life. Before it I was a spotty 14-year-old hooked on my science studies. Then I read LOTR, and, at the same time, discovered women existed and...but that's enough of that. You want to hear about the book.

By now there are few people who haven't at least heard of LOTR, and most of them have an opinion. There are the fans, almost fanatics, and there are the people who have read fifty pages or so, sometimes five or six times, but just can't get it, and don't understand what the fuss is about. I might have been one of them, if it hadn't been for an accident.

I asked my local librarian to recommend a book for me as I had read all the Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov works they had. She pointed me at LOTR, and handed me what she said was book 1 of 3. It was only when I got home I found I had book 2: The Two Towers. I arrived in the story just at the point where the first film ends - The Fellowship is broken and Frodo and Sam are heading for Mordor.

I think that is what made me keep reading -I had started at a point of crisis and I needed to know what happened next. Of course I had a lot of blanks to fill in, but I managed to pick up most of them as I went along , and I caught up with the first book as soon as I'd finished the third. (I bought the big all-in-one paperback, the one with the yellow cover. If you were a student in the seventies, it was obligatory to have one lying about, all battered and torn to show that it had been read several times. You used to see backpackers in their hundreds on the trains going south through Europe, all with this version of LOTR falling apart in their hands.)

As for starting at the beginning, I believe the reason a lot of people give up is that they are expecting heroes, wizards, and high magic. What they get is, in great detail, the rural goings-on of a bunch of small hairy creatures who eat and drink a lot and seem to live in an idealised version of the Home Counties. Anyone who has read "The Hobbit" will know that there is more to the Hobbits than that, but newcomers often feel cheated and give up.

They don't know what they're missing.

The story only picks up AFTER Bilbo's birthday party, and after the passing of his ring of invisibility to Frodo. Gandalf, a wizard, discovers the true nature of the ring. It is a magic item of great power, belonging to Sauron himself, a dark god intent on taking dominion over the world.

Gandalf tells Frodo that the ring must be taken to a place of safety, to Rivendell, where the high-elves hold out against Sauron.

And so the great journey starts, with Frodo and his friends, Sam, Merry and Pippin, taking the road to Rivendell. On the way they have many adventures, and the mood begins to darken with the appearance of the dark riders, servants of Sauron intent on finding the ring.

The traveling band is befriended by Strider, a ranger of the north, and he helps them get to Rivendell, but not before Frodo is wounded by the dark riders, and starts to understand the power of the ring.

At Rivendell, many things are revealed; the history of the ring is told, Strider is shown to be Aragon, the rightful heir to the kingdom of Middle-Earth, and a fellowship is forged, of wizards, elves, dwarves, men and hobbits. They form a band of nine who will try to take the ring to Mount Doom, a volcano where the ring was forged, and which is the only place where it can be destroyed.

And so the adventure truly begins. From here on we have battles in deep mountain mines, the loss of one of the Fellowship, encounters with elves in enchanted forests, treachery and betrayal leading to the breaking of the fellowship - and we're still in Book 1!

Books 2 and 3 deal with the fight for middle-Earth, with Aragon and his allies taking the battle to Sauron and his minions and Frodo and Sam trying to reach Mount Doom to destroy the ring. There are huge, stirring, battle scenes, moments of humour (especially when the younger hobbits meet the Ents), spectacular feats of high magic when the White Rider enters the battle scenes, and moments of great friendship and tenderness - I defy anyone to have a dry eye when Sam and Frodo are parted at Shelob's lair.

It all builds up to a terrific climax, and the story comes full circle back at Hobbitton where we see the effect the war has had on the rural life of the Hobbits.

And that is why the beginning is important--you might not see it till right at the end, but it is teaching us a lesson about the value of the simpler things in life--respect them and fight for them... or lose them.

Tolkein's genius lies in melding these simple aspects with world-shattering events, showing how even the "little people" have their part to play in the fight against the darkness.

And he also knows that the best villain is a mysterious one....Sauron hardly appears at all in the books, but his dark presence stretches over everything, and he's always there, his evil eye seeing everything.

I used to have nightmares about that large, red-rimmed eye, but that was before I discovered women, grew my hair, developed a liking for Hawkwind and Led Zeppelin, and started to write fantasy fiction. I've never been the same since... but that's another long story.

____________________________________________________________________________________


----------



## RhondaRN (Dec 27, 2009)

I just read the trilogy last year.  Before that I had watched the movies a scene here and a scene there but never the whole thing, because my youngest daughter watched the movies a thousand times at home and I really couldn't get into it, but she loved them!  So then I decided to read it, and I loved it!!  I truly loved the book and am not scared away ever at the size of a book as long as it's good.  So after reading it, I HAD to watch the trilogy in it's entirety because now I understood the movie.  Then I LOVED the movies!  I thought they were extremely well done.  Bottom line is, I loved the books, and I loved the movie, but I loved the movies a little more only because the movie moves faster.  I sometimes got tired with all the walking they did in the book, lol!


----------



## RhondaRN (Dec 27, 2009)

williammeikle said:


> I love the books more than the films which I enjoy but found a bit too smug. I think it's because of who they cast as Frodo -- too young and too wimpy.
> 
> And they missed one of the points of the books. The scouring of the Shire should have been shown -- it's a symbol of what was -nearly- lost.
> 
> ...


Very good review!!


----------



## Amy Corwin (Jan 3, 2011)

RhondaRN said:


> I just read the trilogy last year. Before that I had watched the movies a scene here and a scene there but never the whole thing, because my youngest daughter watched the movies a thousand times at home and I really couldn't get into it, but she loved them! So then I decided to read it, and I loved it!! I truly loved the book and am not scared away ever at the size of a book as long as it's good. So after reading it, I HAD to watch the trilogy in it's entirety because now I understood the movie. Then I LOVED the movies! I thought they were extremely well done. Bottom line is, I loved the books, and I loved the movie, but I loved the movies a little more only because the movie moves faster. I sometimes got tired with all the walking they did in the book, lol!


A kindred spirit.
This neatly sums up my feelings, exactly.
I loved the book, but I almost loved the movie a tad more because it wasn't quite so long...with quite so many l-o-n-g walking scenes.


----------



## AnelaBelladonna (Apr 8, 2009)

I didn't care for the books but the movies are my favorites of all time.  This is the only time I have ever found the movies to be better than the books.  To me, it was painful trying to slog through pages upon pages of just getting from one side of the road to the other.  I love long books so that wasn't it.  I just found the way it was written wasn't entertaining to me.


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

I liked both, but found the books to be far too waffly and the movies to be far too melodramatic. Plus while I admire the "lets try and keep it true to the book" work they really should have stayed true to the book whilst cutting a few hours off of the run-time.

Whenever I think of LOTR movie synopses I think of this scene:


----------



## RhondaRN (Dec 27, 2009)

Amy Corwin said:


> A kindred spirit.
> This neatly sums up my feelings, exactly.
> I loved the book, but I almost loved the movie a tad more because it wasn't quite so long...with quite so many l-o-n-g walking scenes.


GASP!!!!!!!!!!!! Amy not only are we kindred spirits, I KNOW YOU!!!!! Look at our hometown and you will see that we share it, and actually live down the road from each other, and see each other at Christmas, and OMG I can't believe this!!! I heard you wrote books, but I had no clue you wrote many books and you were here on this very forum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! UNBELIEVABLE!! We share more than we ever knew it appears!!!!! WOW! I have to read your books! After looking at your post, I saw you wrote books, so I clicked on one of them, then went to your author page, and there you were in a picture! That's how I found out it was you. Then looked at our hometown and I knew for sure!!! I'm Allyn's wife, Eunice's daughter in law.


----------



## davidhburton (Mar 11, 2010)

I read LOTR like 12 times as a teenager. I also read the Silmarillion a few times. Die hard Tolkien fan.

Now, I loved the movies. They were brilliantly done and were cast well, *BUT* ... I deplored the roll of Arwen in the film version. I get cutting scenes from the book in order to save time on the movies is necessary. (Although the scouring of the Shire and the Tom Bombadil scenes would have been nice to have included.) But making things up that never happened in the books really irritated me.

I also didn't like how Galadriel was played. Maybe Jackson should have read more about her history before portraying her that way.

Just my 2 cents.


----------



## D.R. Erickson (Mar 3, 2011)

I've tried reading the books numerous times but could never get into it. Very slow-moving. Movies were better, but that guy who plays Frodo sort of shrieks through the whole thing. Very annoying. I guess in the final analysis, I'll pass on them both. No offense to Tolkien or Jackson...


----------



## Amy Corwin (Jan 3, 2011)

Hi Rhonda!
It's great to see you here! I had no idea you had a Kindle--small world.  It's like a million-to-one chance of meeting someone you actually know here... Especially since we are both from a relatively small town!

Well--I'm cheating a little and need to get back to work. But it's nice to see you here!


----------



## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

Lovely books, lovely movies.  Both are classics, IMHO.


----------



## Guest (Mar 10, 2011)

The Two Towers was my favorite book, but the movie was botched horribly. I wanted to walk out.


----------



## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

foreverjuly said:


> The Two Towers was my favorite book, but the movie was botched horribly. I wanted to walk out.


What part specifically? I didn't like how the film portrayed the ents (they seemed dull compared to the book), but I loved the rest of the movie. Gollum is perfect, and the battle scenes are terrific, IMO.


----------



## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

I was unimpressed by the books, had to almost force myself to finish them. I liked the movies, though.

Mike


----------



## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

Despite reading tons of fantasy in my formative years, I neglected the LOTR books until I'd seen The Fellowship of the Ring (which, as a giant Peter Jackson fan, I'd been eagerly anticipating). Thought it was great, read the books, thought _they_ were great.

The movies are an amazing adaptation. The books are very much books--full of songs and poetry and picaresque digressions that, superb as they are in the novels, would have been a disaster onscreen. Jackson and his writing team did a stupendous job cutting out what couldn't work and faithfully preserving what could. Meanwhile, a lot of critical but unfilmably bookish elements were translated into movie-specific terms. That meant making changes the books' fans don't always agree with, but rereading the books a couple years back, Jackson's good intentions were very clear.

I won't say the movies are better. Both versions are classics. But I can't see myself reading the books more than every few years. The movies, those I'll watch any time of day.


----------



## Jon Olson (Dec 10, 2010)

I just could not read the books. Slow slow slow. But the movies were fun, till the trees started attacking.


----------



## easyreader (Feb 20, 2011)

I thought the movies captured the essence of the books very well.  I remember when the cartoon version came out many years ago and you could see the actors behind the drawings.  Very weird.
Then there's always comparing Dune vs the two screen versions.


----------



## Alessandra Kelley (Feb 22, 2011)

I think the books are much superior to the movies.  Although I grew up among hardcore first-generation Tolkien fans, I confess I did not read the LOTR trilogy until I was already an adult.  I found it dense and magnificent.  More interestingly, compared to the many, many Tolkien knockoffs I read beforehand, I found that every scene was in my judgement exactly the right length.  Some were surprisingly, gracefully short.  While Tolkien has his strengths and weaknesses, I found the whole book immensely satisfying and often incredibly moving.

The movies were lovingly done, but I feel they made a great many errors.  They certainly did not know when a scene went on for far, far, far too long (cough -- Battle of Helm's Deep -- cough).  They also cut out a lot.  Also, I wish Hollywood producers would not take a good work of literature and decide that they know how to write it better.  They added and changed a great many things, and in every instance what they substituted or added was nothing more than a Hollywood cliche.

While the movie versions were entertaining, I found them a lot thinner and paler than the books.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

For me, reading the book was like watching paint dry. The movies are superb, though I have reservations about "The Two Towers," particularly how Faramir was handled. Jackson's (and his co-writers') streamlining of the narrative was first rate. The changes were essential to make the film work as cinema. People who complain about this missing scene or that missing scene forget how long the movies already are. What Jackson and his team accomplished is astounding. Look at Chris Columbus' take of the first two "Harry Potter" books. He stayed so true to the books - every scene is exactly how Rowling described on the page - that his movies have no pulse. Columbus lost the magic in the process; it wasn't his imagination, it was all Rowling. Which is fine for the book - it's her book. But it was his film. Cinema and books are completely different mediums and literal translations from page to screen never work. Film directors and producers _do_ know more about making films, which is why they generally don't write novels. Jackson made some hard choices, but he stayed true to the spirit of the books. He is a master of his craft.


----------



## Javier Gimenez Sasieta (Feb 18, 2011)

I enjoied the book a lot, but from my point of view the films are much better than the novel. The book is a bit repetitive, with a lot of songs and quite big for what´s telling.

On the other hand, the movies transmit much better the epic feeling, the sense of a magic world, with its own history, past and legends.

In the books, there are boring episodes, e.g: Tom Bombadil. I remember that for me, the most enjoyable book was the third: The return of the king. (and it was the fist movie I liked the most)

Anyway, good book, and good films.


----------



## Guest (Mar 10, 2011)

Daniel Arenson said:


> What part specifically? I didn't like how the film portrayed the ents (they seemed dull compared to the book), but I loved the rest of the movie. Gollum is perfect, and the battle scenes are terrific, IMO.


I actually wasn't impressed with the battle scenes, and Helm's Deep was particularly disappointing mostly because of Legolas and Gimli. Gollum was great, but I was expecting Shelob, but instead she got pushed to the third movie. In her place, we're stuck with a nazgul coming dangerously close to Frodo, which wasn't in the book at all.

The movie was also just too long. My uncle and I tried to watch them all in one shot, but we (rightly) skipped over the second half of the Two Towers. It just wasn't worth it.


----------



## Alessandra Kelley (Feb 22, 2011)

I don't object so much to cutting out scenes from a book to make a movie.  I understand well that the two arts have very different pacing and necessities.

What I object to, especially when so much of the actual book needs to be cut and all screen time is precious, is adding completely new, unnecessary, extraneous invented scenes out of the Hollywood trope list.  The added, padded material, to my mind was no improvement on J. R. R. Tolkien's original writing.


----------



## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

DYB  Agree..."reading the book was like watching paint dry"


----------



## William Meikle (Apr 19, 2010)

Patrick Skelton said:


> DYB Agree..."reading the book was like watching paint dry"


I'm as much of a fan of fast paced books as anyone, but I found LOTR to be a completely immersive experience. The attention to detail and slowing down to take a look at the history of how they got to that point of time in Middle Earth all added to that, so that I felt I was reading about a real place rather than a fictional one. To me, that's part of the genius of it.


----------



## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

foreverjuly said:


> I actually wasn't impressed with the battle scenes, and Helm's Deep was particularly disappointing mostly because of Legolas and Gimli.


Really? I thought the battle of Helm's Deep was the highlight of the movie. Such a grand, epic scale to it.

I think I know what you mean about Gimli and Legolas, though. They were more dignified in the books. In the movies, Gimli was largely a comic relief character, and Legolas was the "cool, stunt performing, shield-skateboarding" guy.


----------



## STOHara (Feb 23, 2011)

Daniel Arenson said:


> What part specifically? I didn't like how the film portrayed the ents (they seemed dull compared to the book), but I loved the rest of the movie. Gollum is perfect, and the battle scenes are terrific, IMO.


There's no reason TTT needed to be 3+ hours. Most of the stuff in the middle could've been trimmed, particularly the part where everyone thinks Aragorn is dead and Galadriel's recap of the story.


----------



## Guest (Mar 10, 2011)

Daniel Arenson said:


> Really? I thought the battle of Helm's Deep was the highlight of the movie. Such a grand, epic scale to it.
> 
> I think I know what you mean about Gimli and Legolas, though. They were more dignified in the books. In the movies, Gimli was largely a comic relief character, and Legolas was the "cool, stunt performing, shield-skateboarding" guy.


I think Orlando Bloom ruined the entire movie for me right at the beginning when they had that wide shot of them running along the hillside and he stumbled on a rock. An elf stumbling?? Peter Jackson must've been livid.


----------



## Daniel Arenson (Apr 11, 2010)

foreverjuly said:


> I think Orlando Bloom ruined the entire movie for me right at the beginning when they had that wide shot of them running along the hillside and he stumbled on a rock. An elf stumbling?? Peter Jackson must've been livid.


Have you watched the RiffTrax for _Lord of the Rings_? They never missed a chance to skewer Orlando Bloom.


----------



## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

williammeikle said:


> I love the books more than the films which I enjoy but found a bit too smug. I think it's because of who they cast as Frodo -- too young and too wimpy.


I don't know if Elijah Wood was the problem so much as Jackson's take on Frodo's character for me. I love both the books and the films, but I miss some of Frodo's character development in the films. For instance, in _Fellowship of the Ring_, I understand that Jackson wanted to elevate Arwen's role and I'm okay with that, since Tolkien hardly mentions her in the books. However, I do object to Jackson giving Arwen one of Frodo's best moments at the Ford--in the book, Frodo, even though he's weakened from his wound, faces down the ring wraiths, not Arwen.

Frodo has a quiet strength and sometimes spooky mysticism that make him my favorite character.


----------



## Tara Maya (Nov 4, 2010)

I loved the books and I loved the movies. I thought the books were very, very true to the books, and the few places where they deviated, they did better. There was only one scene, my favorite in the whole three books that was not quite as awesome as I always played it in my mind: when Faramir has Frodo captive and finds out that his brother Boromir tried to take the ring. But no one could do that scene as well as the cinema in my mind. I do  wish Faramir was a little sexier, but they totally made up for it by making both Legolas and even Frodo total scrumptious hotties. Honestly, when I read the book, I imaged Frodo as a fusty middle aged dude. The movies made him crush-worthy. Also, they made Arwen a real character. As a female fan of LOTR, I will always be grateful for both of those things.


----------



## William BK. (Mar 8, 2011)

Oh, man, this is like a _Star Wars_ versus _Star Trek_ discussion. Personally, I think movies and books are both fantastic, but they're also very different experiences. I can see why some would prefer one version over the other--especially the movies over the books. I came to the books via the movie but didn't find this to cloud my judgment one way or the other. I'm just a Tolkien geek all round.


----------



## anguabell (Jan 9, 2011)

I read book only because of the movies, and now I love both. Although I admit that endless antics of Gollum in the movie version are quite annoying. And Faramir's story could have been better in the movie too. But I loved Elves. There should be more books and films about Elves.


----------



## hs (Feb 15, 2011)

I read and enjoyed the books and wound up enjoying the movies too.  I thought it was one of the better film adaptations I've ever seen. I liked the film for "Two Towers" more so than the book, which I thought was the worst of the three. The film's focus on the battle at Helm's Deep made it much more interesting for me.


----------



## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

My hubby loves the books but I prefer the movies.  It might have something to do with the fact I was introduced to the movies first, whereas he was a fan of the books before the movies ever came out.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

STOHara said:


> There's no reason TTT needed to be 3+ hours.


It was actually just shy of 3 hours, which included lengthy end credits.


----------



## tim290280 (Jan 11, 2011)

foreverjuly said:


> I think Orlando Bloom ruined the entire movie for me right at the beginning when they had that wide shot of them running along the hillside and he stumbled on a rock. An elf stumbling?? Peter Jackson must've been livid.


Orlando "one look" Bloom. He doesn't really act, he just shows up and stares with that slightly quizzical look on his face. For further evidence refer to any of his films, he is worse than Steven Segal.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

tim290280 said:


> Orlando "one look" Bloom. He doesn't really act, he just shows up and stares with that slightly quizzical look on his face. For further evidence refer to any of his films, he is worse than Steven Segal.


But he's a lot prettier than Segal!


----------



## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

DYB said:


> It was actually just shy of 3 hours, which included lengthy end credits.


Heh, the theatrical release, maybe. The extended edition is like 3:25 or so, not counting credits.

I may watch these movies too often.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Heh, the theatrical release, maybe. The extended edition is like 3:25 or so, not counting credits.
> 
> I may watch these movies too often.


Correct, the theatrical release, which was the original release (and is currently it's the only version available on bluray.) In fact at some point Jackson declared the theatrical cuts of the movies his own preferred versions, which was why he didn't call the longer versions "Director's Cut" but "Extended Edition" instead.


----------



## William Meikle (Apr 19, 2010)

DYB said:


> Correct, the theatrical release, which was the original release (and is currently it's the only version available on bluray.) In fact at some point Jackson declared the theatrical cuts of the movies his own preferred versions, which was why he didn't call the longer versions "Director's Cut" but "Extended Edition" instead.


The main quibble I had with the theatrical release was that it cut Saruman's death scene out, so we didn't get closure on that or the Wormtongue sub-plot. Felt like a mistake to me.


----------



## DYB (Aug 8, 2009)

williammeikle said:


> The main quibble I had with the theatrical release was that it cut Saruman's death scene out, so we didn't get closure on that or the Wormtongue sub-plot. Felt like a mistake to me.


Christopher Lee agrees with you! He was furious when he found out Saruman's death scene was cut from the theatrical version. I agree as well.


----------



## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Patrick Skelton said:


> My friend at work swears that the books were far better than the movies. Personally, I enjoyed the movies more. I found the books difficult to get into.
> 
> Thoughts?


They're good books, for sure. But who has that much time left in his life?

Nothing but [email protected] on television again, so last night we started the LoTR movies again, rationing ourselves to three quarters of an hour a day.

Unless you're a specialist (or, I guess, a snob, though all the LoTR fans I know are charming people), it seems to me those movies have 90% of what matters in the books, which is a huge compliment as most movies have about 30%.


----------



## William Meikle (Apr 19, 2010)

Andre Jute said:


> They're good books, for sure. But who has that much time left in his life?.


Me for one.

But then I love all those long Russian classics, and Dickens too.


----------



## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

DYB said:


> But he's a lot prettier than Segal!


You can say that again!



Andre Jute said:


> They're good books, for sure. But who has that much time left in his life?
> 
> Nothing but [email protected] on television again, so last night we started the LoTR movies again, rationing ourselves to three quarters of an hour a day.
> 
> Unless you're a specialist (or, I guess, a snob, though all the LoTR fans I know are charming people), it seems to me those movies have 90% of what matters in the books, which is a huge compliment as most movies have about 30%.


Very true. And despite my comments concerning the movie Frodo, I always cry at the end of both the movies and the books. Jackson and Alan Lee's vision of Middle Earth is absolutely amazing--every set matched what I imagined when I read the books, and how many movies manage that?


----------



## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

I said, "They're good books, for sure. But who has that much time left in his life?" and William Meikle replied:



williammeikle said:


> Me for one.
> 
> But then I love all those long Russian classics, and Dickens too.


I envy you, William. I really would like to read Dostoievsky again. But at this rate it will be 2016 before I get to him...


----------



## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Just watching LoTR again. 48 minutes in the movie to move the Hobbits from home to the Inn -- that's expensive film time, a most respectful treatment of the material in the book.


----------



## ak rain (Nov 15, 2008)

To me

the books leave you with a whole world and history Tolkein created I fell in love with these books and read them over and over.
the movies while good left you with battles and war 

sylvia


----------



## Mainak Dhar (Mar 1, 2011)

I am what may be charitably described as a LOTR fanatic- devoured the books and watched each movie several times- and bought the boxed extended edition DVD as soon as it was available. To be honest, I usually prefer books v/s movie adaptations because when I read, I love to visualize in my mind the characters, locations and events- makes it really more enjoyable and helps me really give flight to my imagination along with the author. Unfortunately, most movie adaptations tend to have a very different visualization v/s what I had in mind (not to say that's good or bad) and as a devoted fan, I was very skeptical of the LOTR movies. I must say I enjoyed them a lot- not only because I think Peter Jackson did full justice to the scale of the saga- taking pains to spread it out v/s trying to cram it into one movie, paintstakingly creating the lands - but also really bringing the characters to life in a way that rang true for me.


----------

