LOTR Books vs. LOTR Movies

My vote definately goes to the books, but let's see about you lot..

 

both movies were awesome and all the books were awesome. i rank the books a little higher because theres more in them and they came first

 

The books were fantastic! They very much influenced me to take up writing. Tolkien was a man of such incredible vision, with glorious detail. They essentially formed a genre. Every fantasy writer since has, in some way drawn upon Tolkien's ideas.

The movies were a valiant effort, and did the books justice, but they simply could not encompass the whole of Tolkien's universe. Many things were left out and changed in the movies. I relaize this was due to the sheer scope of the stories, a lot of things had to be cut for sheer logistics sake. But I just think that no movie could ever be a trrue representation of Tolkien's work unless it was written and directed by Tolkien himself.

 

Movies.
I was at page 100 of the first book, and so far nothing had happened. That guy takes more time describing each bloody stone along the road than the story. Don't have time for that.
Movies. By far.

 

I agree with Drugar. Normally, I like the book better than the movies, but Tolkien just gets too deep for me to remain interested. When he's describing who's the son of who and will inherit such and such land that borders so and so's land, which belonged to so and so son of such and such..... I just got bored. Also, read how long his battles are. Like one page at the most. And they're not very descriptive.

My $.02

 

FUCK! I clicked movies on accident. The books were MUCH better.

 

The books, i have never ever read any other book that has made the hairs on my body stand upp. The problem i have right now is that i read the lord of the rings first, so now i compare all other fantasy books with the best book of them all.

 

I love both, but they're very different.

 

The LOTR book (I got the compilation) was the first fantasy book, that was written before I was born, that I truly loved. I read the book because I found out the movies were coming out and I wanted to get the whole experience. When I saw the first movie, I was annoyed by a couple of snot nosed brats and their stupid father, so I couldn't fully enjoy it. And when I saw it again, a couple weeks before it came out on video, I truly enjoyed it. It was still lacking important elements that they decided they couldn't fit into the movie, but it was good all the same. Don't get me wrong, I loved the movie, but such after reading such and in-depth version, I could never say that the movies were better.

 

I voted books. Theres so much more depth in them and I enjoyed reading every part. True- some bits can get a little tedious but just when your starting to feel like the boring bit will go on forever, something happens and you get that exited feeling again.

I knew the movies would never beat the books, mainly because of the depth involved and the fact that when your reading the book you get to set the sceane and picture how everything looks. Still they did a great job of transfering the descripive writing from the book and turning it in to visual. Alot of the characters are just how I picture them. :grin:

 

The only character who wasn't as I pictured was Arragorn. Tho Viggo Mortensen was a good choice for the part, way back when, before the movies were out yet, I had a discussion with a friend about who we would've chosen to play what characters. Unfortunately, that was about two years ago or more, and I can't remember who we'd picked. I know Patrick Stewart was on the list as Gandalf.

 

I agree. They cut the entire part about Tom Bombadil out if i remember correctly. or whatever the guy's name was that saved them in the Downs. You know. where they found those daggers/swords?

 

The books! Much more information, and just quite interesting in itself.

 

I'd go with the books any day. I mean, you cant just put 500 pages of excellent literature into a condensed 3 hour movie and get the same effect. The movies, especially the second seemed too hack and slash and didn't focus on the more important areas. Like character development, storeyline etc....

 

A true gamer!

 

while the movies did not contain everything the books did, they still developed characters. no movie could ever contain the detail and developement that the books contained, but they included a lot of it. while parts of the second movie were hack and slash, there was also a lot of developement of characters, especially with the hobbits. the scenes with frodo, sam and gollum were excellently done; the ones with merry, pippin, and treebeard were also good. with other characters, it did become too much hack and slash at times, but there were also good character moments.

 

"... And some people say we Dwarves don't have females. We indeed do, but they are often mistaken for males...."

*in a whisper* "It's the beards."

 

*busts Xento in the gut*

Watch yer mouth longlegs...

 

I'm with the "haven't read the books."

Or more accurately, I gave up on reading them, like retard.

Or with uber, tomahawk-cruise-missile-hitting-a-Syrian-bus, precision, accuracy, I tried reading The Hobbit, gave up, and never bothered with the LOTR books.

That being said, I probably would like the books better than the movie if I could force myself to read them. The Hobbit turned me off with it's, i don't know... Bedtime Story feel. Like a children's book. I don't know any other way to put it, but suffice it to say, I couldn't get through the first 100 pages. People have told me that the LOTR books are a lot better and that The Hobbit seems more like a cute little prequel once you've read the real trilogy, but something about the way Tolkien writes just makes me have to struggle to get through the pages.

I say I'd PROBABLY like the books better is because everyone I know that's even remotely into fantasy books (and more than a few who avoid fantasy/sci-fi like the plague) list the LOTR books as great pieces of literature. Also, I don't like the movies all that much. They're epic and all, and the production, casting, all that shit are top-notch, but they just seem like OK movies to me.

 

Milo, that's because The Hobbit IS a "bedtime story". Tolkien wrote it for his son, but a friend convinced him to publish it. Eventually, he wrote the trilogy to pick up where his "bedtime story" left off.