Dotsie said:
I've said it before and I'll say it again - the LOTR trilogy was much better as films Yeah, Jan'll get me, but I just found the books a bit dry with too many wierd bits, and an ending that I thought would never happen. The second book in particular was improved.
I'm not saying that the books were bad. I just wouldn't be tempted to read them again.
For general fans I'd agree that the films are better in terms of pace of storytelling. On a forum basis the films brought the punters in and made it fun to roleplay but the ones who stayed and gave the content spin and polish were the people who understood and appreciated the sheer depth of the books.
Tolkien's one of those people that you're really into or not at all and a lot of his appeal is far away from the martial aspects (which Tolkien
was crap at writing - character development too in some respects). The 2 commercial books are only the very pinnacle of the iceberg (even less than the tip) of what Arda's all about and, in a similar manner (but not style naturally
) to Terry, there's more than a simple story of Elves and Trolls and a big bad Dark Lord etc.
Where Tolks is cerebral and analytical, Terry's satirical and humane - neither of them do much in the way of authentic war action (as opposed to focusing heavily on specific acts of evil or violence) that's actually not important to either of them. Tolkien created a whole world that he literally mapped obsessively and approached in an academic manner. Even the linguistic aspects (which is mainly geared to Elves I admit) is only a quarter or less of the sheer detail and depth that he built into his world that's truly anal but totally fascinating to seriously addicted fantasy nuts.
Terry's far more accessible to a modern, intelligent audience and, with his books they largely make lousy films that don't really deliver the true tone and message of his work - they obviously keep the wisecracks but for me totally miss the root message. so are all form and no real substance, but I've only seen glimpses of the various TV films and animations and they just don't work for me. On the other hand Peter Jackson's LotR screenplay reeks of Tolkien and so does make the transition literally magical in places, except for certain liberties with the story to justify hiring Liv Tyler and the utter travesty of the ending for which Newline has to take the flak as it's absolutely a cop-out to give the US audience their feel-good hit
No movie can ever really carry over the atmos and spirit of a well-written book - we see this with Twilight, I think although I've not seen any of the movies or read the books and probably never will. They're not good books so people are saying on here, but they can make good movies (if you're the right age and have the required teen hormone levels) that have initial fan impact by good casting and lots of gory-ish action, but will likely fade eventually because the glamour can only last for a certain about of time without good storytelling to back it up - it's just the latest step in the cult of the vampire/werewolf that isn't even original (Dracula for instance does have true romance and searing tragedy even though that too isn't a terribly well-written tome and the rest is just Hammer Horror tinsel). Twilight doesn't even have the more mature and in your face appeal of the Ann Rice books (Interview with the Vampire) or even the Blade series for instance - it doesn't really
add anything to the genre, but it does have a lot of pretty faces and that of course gets it the attention of the Hollywood bankers.
In the end it's how a book can get into your soul without relying on visual impact and as we all probably know on this forum, visualising words and literary themes is beyond the ability of some people to imagine with any degree of fondness or appeal - they need the movie and not all movie-makers have the ability or heart to make something like the LotR trilogy that does manage to capture the true spirit of the books, even though they had to sell out in places.
