11-09-2002 08:39									#31
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quote: Originally posted by loinburger Ugh. The Silmarillion read like a poorly written history book.

Right, loiny. It was soooo boring it was actually painful to read. I read it all the way through tho.

LOTR was okay, but I never saw what the big deal was. The movie is so much better than the book.

The work of Tolkien I admire most is "The Hobbit." Bilbo Baggins in one of the most interesting characters ever a soft, rotund little guy who only wants to putter around his own place and be merry but who instead is shoved into the middle of an adventure (nasty, disturbing things that make you late for dinner) and who overcomes all obstacles with a good dollup of common sense (oh yeah, and a magical ring ).

	11-09-2002 08:53									#32
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Don't feel bad, Dan, I haven't read LOTR either, nor have I seen the film.

	11-09-2002 09:02									#33
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo Yeah, I know that "Twin Towers" is supposed to be much more interesting, but the same people who say that believe "Fellowship" was a great book.

Perhaps you should have read "The Two Towers" instead, you might have enjoyed it more.

	11-09-2002 11:23									#34
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I didn't read them either, a bit of the Hobbit was enough to make an impression.

	11-09-2002 11:32									#35
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I have seen the movie

	11-09-2002 11:33									#36
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I still think Simarillion is a great book. There's some great stories in it. The beginning is incredibly boring, but then it picks and creates a great epic.

	11-09-2002 11:34									#37
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quote: Originally posted by Dan Severn The first is for that purpose. The default is 4 choices; my internet is too slopw to change them.

Yes
No
Maybe
Banana



I haven't read the book, plan to but haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet. I prefer science fiction to fantasy though.

	11-09-2002 11:39									#38
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It's Bilbo.

I've read it 3 times, in 3 different languages.

	11-09-2002 12:18									#39
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quote: Originally posted by loinburger Ugh. The Silmarillion read like a poorly written history book.

It wasn't intended for publication.

	11-09-2002 13:00									#40
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I've read it, in English only. I read the Hobbit in English and in German and found my prejudice confirmed that translations are a bad thing.

Yes, the story starts very slow, and Tolkien likes to stroll around in descriptions. I like that, and I like also the incredibly slow end. But that's a matter of taste, I can well imagine that there are people who simply need more action. Maybe Tolkien better made a film, with a limit of 10 hours or so - I guess he could do a good job on creating atmosphere.

	11-09-2002 15:34									#41
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Any book that makes you hyperventilate when it's over gets my vote.

	11-09-2002 15:55									#42
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I actually haven't read the books. I do know the basic gist of the plot, though (thanks to Favoured Flight's LOTR Civ2 scenarios).

	11-09-2002 15:59									#43
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I only read it because I was going to see the film and wanted to read it before the film to have my own concept of it in my head. Took me four months; I read it in pulses of maybe three hours of intense reading but just couldn't touch the book again for a week or two. I finished it one Sunday by reading six hours straight.

	11-09-2002 16:07									#44
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The film doesn't do justice to the book. There are so many things that they had to leave out.

	11-09-2002 17:08									#45
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Tried once, about 100 years ago when I was in high school. Got bored, never finished it.

But has anybody read the new Seamus Heaney translation of Beowolf? Tolkein was a Beowolf scholar (one of the most significant of his time), and there's lots that he borrowed from the poem for LOTR. Most Beowolf translations are a snooze because they are overly "poetic," but Heaney's seeks to restore a sense of the direct, blunt Anglo-Saxon language of the original, and he succeeds. It's a great read. LOTR fans should check it out.

	11-09-2002 18:00									#46
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A year ago, I didn't know about it. Half a year ago, we saw the cartoon version of it in class... I'm the type of guy who loves cartoons, but hates when the story is boring...and the story in lotr was not only boring, it was boooooo riiiiiiing...And after we saw this, I heard, the strongest argument to read the books, was because of the story

	11-09-2002 18:26									#47
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quote: Originally posted by Asher I tried to read them once, but I got so bored that I went to watch The Simpsons on TV instead.

Here! Here!

	11-09-2002 18:28									#48
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Hell, it could be worse. You could live in New Zealand, where, as soon as the movie started filming here, everyone seemed to rush out and buy the books and get an extra part in the movies!

There's not as much hyperbole as you might expect in that. I have difficulty naming my friends who WEREN'T in the movie, and I only know one or two diehard film students who, like me, refuse to read the damned thing.

	11-09-2002 18:28									#49
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The LOTR books are some of the greatest books ever written.

Far better than that classical Shakespeare or Odyssey ****, that's for sure.

	11-09-2002 18:38									#50
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Was never crazy for the hobbit... so I didn't bother with LOTR.

I'm picky with novels. The only novels I liked were the three Timothy Zahn SW novels (how you guess?) and AL|ENS: Labyrinth.


Other then that, I like reading WWII books. One I recommend is called "The Invasion of Japan". The book is about how the US were to invade Japan if the nukes didn't do the job.

	11-09-2002 19:21									#51
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I dont know how many times I've read TLOTR, 20 maybe. I've probably read the Silmarillion 3 times (but not in the last 20 years). I just saw the movie. I wasnt dissapointed, but I wasnt thrilled either. Too many unnecessary changes and I dont like the portrayal of Frodo as a bit of a wimp. Curiously, I was worried they would turn him into too much of a classic hero.

	11-09-2002 19:51									#52
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Funny thing - I read the book many times when I was younger. It was probably one of my favorite books too, and a lot of my reading choices were determined because of LOTR.

I reread it a couple of years ago. Maybe because of familiarity, but the characterization seemed too 2-dimensional and forced. (Especially the whole Gimli infatuation with Galandriel - and Bombadil ... ughhhh) The main story still held me though, and it is an incredible story. And Tolkien does one one thing better than just about any other fantasy author, and that is he is a master of creating a strong historical context for his world. (That's why out of all his books, the Silmarillion is my favorite one)

When the movie came out and had eliminated Bombadil and seemed to do a more relistic job of character development, I felt I might never go back to reading the books again...just pop in the DVD.

(As a sidenote, when they made one of my other favorite books 'Dune' into a movie back in '84, I had the exact opposite reaction - the movie was so bad that the book looked even better - though SciFi channel's recent adaptation was very good)

	11-09-2002 20:17									#53
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What was lost in the movie from shortening the flight from the Shire and the encounter with Bambadil was the development of Frodo's character.

The sci-fi's dune was much better than the pitiful first movie.

	11-09-2002 20:21									#54
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quote: Originally posted by Mr. President The film doesn't do justice to the book. There are so many things that they had to leave out.

You mean like Tom Bombadil, the most extraneous character in all of modern fiction?

	11-09-2002 20:25									#55
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The first hundred pages suck?
The latter two books are better than "Fellowship"?

You guys are on pipe-weed. The first book is far better written -- the latter two are good, but they're pure escapist adventure with a little bit of the Spinal Tap druid set thrown in for color.

Tolkein is one of those things that's a great, mind-blowing experience if you read it when you're about 14 or 15. Like Cyberpunk or Ayn Rand or the Foundation Trilogy (we'll bury Isaac decently and pretend the sequel and prequel abortions never happened). By the time you hit 18 or 19 you're too mature to ignore the triteness and one-dimensionality, but in junior high school there's nothing better. And they make you feel superior to your peers as well, which is always good for a middle-schooler. ;-)

	11-09-2002 20:32									#56
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quote: Originally posted by Mr. President The film doesn't do justice to the book. There are so many things that they had to leave out.

Very true. The fellowship forms a very tight bond in the first book. That was lost. In the movie, you can tell that everyone likes each other, but you get no sense of how good of friends Gimli and Legolas become and how important it actually is. You get no sense of how good a guy Boromir actually is as well.

	11-09-2002 20:42									#57
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Read LOTR all the way through early this year, not really because of the 1st movie, and while I certainly found certain parts slow as heck, many others were more than excellent enough. It's a very good book taken as a whole...

Began the Silmarillion soon after that, interesting but too inconsistent in its quality, so I haven't read it since.

	11-09-2002 20:44									#58
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If they'd left out about half of the orc-chopping, the movie would have been much better, and they would have had time for more character development.

	11-09-2002 20:54									#59
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The funny thing is that I thought Liv Tyler was going to play Legolas. I still think that would have been more interesting than her playing Arwen which reqiuired their re-writing the book.

	11-09-2002 21:12									#60
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Haven't read LOTR? Your loss.

-Arrian