...best movies ever made ...and best book ever written

Disagree

I grew up on fantasy, read the books, films were arse!



Here is my summary of the plots:

Fellowship of the Ring: Some walking, then a big battle.
The TWo Towers: Some walking, then a big battle.
The Return of the King: Some walking, then a big battle.

Didn't transfer to the screen for me, sorry

PREDOMINANT said:

PREDOMINANT said:

Spoiler!!!

Nomad said:

Hey, I was in a brick proof box!! I rib my brother about these films all the time, he LOVES them

MartyMcFly said:

PREDOMINANT said:

your brother has good taste

I liked the first two..
The third has a weird ending.. and ending.. and ending..

HowComeYouDontCallme said:

so much of the story has to tie in at the end hence all the endings

Nomad said:

PREDOMINANT said:

booooo!! you suck

Nomad said:

True!!!

My life has changed with the whole Tolkien Experience!!!

Nomad said:

Cheek said:

YES!! finally someone who agrees with me thank you

Nomad said:

My admiration is so otherworldly...

PREDOMINANT said:

I never took the time to read the books but I did see all of the movies and id have to agree with you very highly!

Probably not, no.

Still, great stories.

noepie said:

Well, I mean, really!

And then 10 Oscars or something

PREDOMINANT said:

oh shut up you!! this is meant to be an APPRECIATION thread come on all you Tolkien fans!!!

Nomad said:

No it isn't it is a Discussion thread, nowhere does it say LOTR appreciation it says LOTR and invites comments!

PREDOMINANT said:

Doesn't even compare to this baby!!

andykeen said:

If we are going to get into sequeal or continutation movies then ruling all out THE GODFATHER!!!!!saga

The books are better, the films were excellent though.

lilgish said:

I think Peter Jackson made an amazing job! He has triumphed! Cuz everybody thought it's impossible to make The Lord Of The Rings movies!

Nomad said:
...best movies ever made ...and best book ever written



I don't think they're the best books ever written, but I do love the story, and I might even consider bringing this to read if I ever had to stay on a deserted island for a while.
I liked the films too, but not as much as the books. As already mentioned, there's a whole lot of walking and big battles , but I still think they're remarkably well done, and Peter Jackson deserves all the credit he gets.

I'll probably get slammed for saying this, but Tolkien is overrated as a writer. I've read more enjoyable, better written fantasy by RA Salvatore, Piers Anthony, Melanie Rawn, Peter F Hamilton, and JK Rowling, to name just a few.

Tolkien is renowned as the inventor of the genre (and even this is arguable), but when it comes to enjoying a good book, this should be of no consequence. So, if you take the LOTR as just another fantasy trilogy and forget all the usual baggage that goes around who wrote it, then I bet you'll be able to compare it to other fantasies, and find it lacking. Having said that, there's far worse out there too (the latest drivel from David and Leigh Eddings springs to mind, should be subtitled 'an excercise in tedium and one dimensional characters: how not to write a fantasy story', very sad given that they wrote a book on how to write fantasies), so Tolkien is far from the worst, but by no means the best either.

As far as translation to the screen is concerned, I agree wholeheartedly with Predominant. Having watched the first one with a friend in the local cinema my overall impression was - New Zealand is beautiful, but what a boring film. My friend was slightly less enthusiastic than me, commenting "I've been waiting 15 years for them to make this big pile of horrible shite".

Admittedly, I haven't seen the 2nd or 3rd films, so for all I know they could be brilliant, but I doubt it. I'm not willing to sacrifice the required 7 or 8 hours of my life to find out.