Finally broke down and bought LotR blu ray...

last couple times i've read it, i've had to skip bombadil's part.

I've enjoyed the novels far more as an adult, but that's a matter of taste I suppose. Given the material I don't think Jackson could have done much better than he did. It's very tough to project writing style into film. By necessity you capture story and character, but wholly replace the richness of prose with richness of image. Unavoidable.

S.

I loved the novels as a kid and hated them in my twenties. I'm now of the opinion that they were groundbreaking at the time (but not as much as people seem to think) but the prose was weak, the faux Shakespearean dialogue irritating, and the storytelling ... misguided in several places.

For me, the movies improve on the books and I can only think of a small handful of examples where that has been the case. Godfather being the most obvious one. Such an awful pulpy shit book and a great movie (2 even).

With LOTR they are a lot closer in terms of quality but I give the movie the edge for changing how often we see each set of characters and getting rid of the garbage poems and songs and overly long descriptions of mountain sides. Basically good editing. The movies do fall down a little bit here and there. The ending is too long and the stuff in Hobbiton at the end should still be there. Would have been easy to cut some epilogue and squeeze that in. Some of the fights are too Hong Kong style as well. I remember people cheering in the theater when Legolas had his epic fight scenes but they look kind of over produced and too flashy now. I was also irritated that the Dwarf had such a shit role and was mostly used as a comedic foil.

Still, they are an amazing cinematic achievement and a beauty to behold.

I did Trilogy Tue twice (once in the theater, once in the home) and now I never want to see any of them again. The first one is particularly egregious - it is soooo boorringgg. And oh god the whining at the end of the third movie.

Enjoyed it at the time, of course.