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Topic:
The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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PetraKenobi
Registered:
Feb '08
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Date Posted:
4/18 8:41am
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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SoA posted:
I read them for the first time when I was 7th grade, but I'd forgotten a lot since then (I'm a college Junior now), so I brought The Hobbit and the whole trillogy with me on my study abroad this semester. Man, I forgot how much I loved these. All I have left on my re-read is The Return of the King. While it's true that Tolkien does take a while to move beyond descriptions and into action, I find his writing as a whole as totally absorbing. I can see it all in my head. And The Hobbit itself is just so much fun. It and the trillogy are really so different in writing style.
I love the movies to. Sure, there are some changes that I don't agree with, like the over-emphasis of Arwen and the changes to Faramir's character, but they were great on a whole. I suppose he was trying to appeal to a wider audience. I know the elves didn't come to help at Helm's Deep in the books, but it added a lot of flair to that scene and didn't toy with the plot badly. Personally, I enjoyed that addition to the movie. It gave it some flair that fans of the book wouldn't have expected.
Ooh yeah, I always thought the Elves had come to HD in the books but after re-reading TTT, I was like, "cool that Pete Jackson put that in the film." and I think he was trying to appeal to a wider audience; with a book-turned-film, you'll have a new fanbase that isn't from the books' fanbase.
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Vortigern99
Title: Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '00
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Date Posted:
4/18 11:01am
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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Love the books; love the films. They're different mediums and different interpretations. Though I certainly favor the written word as Tolkien cast it, the movies have their own style and charm, so I don't "hate" any of the changes and I try to understand them from a cinematic perspective. But as entertaining and well-made as the films are, they'll never "replace" or diminish the towering achievement of the books.
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EUReader
Registered:
Feb '04
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Date Posted:
4/20 2:17pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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Tolkien's fantasy world is my absolute favorite. I've read The Hobbit twice, and on my third go of The Lord of the Rings.
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Amon_Amarth
Registered:
Jan '05
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Date Posted:
5/4 5:46pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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You should definitely read The Silmarillion as well. Capturing the beauty of Middle-Earth and the tragedy of its history in Tolkien's brilliant narrative, it became my favourite book of all times. 
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Jeremyguy
Registered:
Sep '98
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Date Posted:
5/5 8:08pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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I was going to comment only on the books but, after seeing some of the comment about the movie version of TTT, I have to agree that, of all the changes, the absolute worst was screwing up Faramir's character. Horrible, horrible, horrible! He's one of my favorites in the books, and all fouled up in the movies. AAAGGHAHAGHAAHHHGGGGH!
Okay, out of my system.
I have read The Hobbit and LotR countless times since I was in 6th grade or so, and The Silmarillion a number of times as well. This winter, I started teaching 7th grade English and I decided to read the books again. I have found a whole new level of appreciation, as I have been teaching a lot about sentence structure, themes, author's purpose, and reading strategies. Reading the Lay of Earendil in FotR, for example - it was as though I had never read it before, like discovering an entirely new work of poetry. I was fascinated at JRRT's intentional use of language to create setting and mood, and I have marveled at the language throughout all the books.
The Children of Hurin was great, too, but as it's an expansion of a part of The Silmarillion, I opted not to re-read it at this time. I'll get through a few other books and then revisit Middle-Earth over the summer - I've never read the History of Middle-Earth books before.
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Count_Doodie
Registered:
May '06
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Date Posted:
5/6 12:51pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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i just finished children of hurin. loved it. bit confused by the end tho. can someone help me out?
Mablung posted:
But some mistake is here. Not such was your sister. She was tall, and her eyes were blue, her hair fine gold, the very likeness in women's form of Hurin her father
does this mean that Turin did not see her the way everyone else saw her? she appeared to him in the image of another woman? was that Morgoth's doing or Glaurung's? or have i missed the plot completely?
-doodie
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timmoishere
Registered:
Jun '07
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Date Posted:
5/6 9:05pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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Turin simply never recognized that she was his sister. I suppose he felt a kinship with her, soul mates if you will, that initially attracted him to her.
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Count_Doodie
Registered:
May '06
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Date Posted:
5/7 9:13am
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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i'm not sure that's the case. if you compare the two descriptions they are clearly talking about differant looking people.
Turin posted:
Brown as a berry she was, dark was her hair; small and slim as an Elf-child
Mablung posted:
She was tall, and her eyes were blue, her hair fine gold
that's what's confusing me.
-doodie
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Amon_Amarth
Registered:
Jan '05
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Date Posted:
5/7 4:42pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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Jeremyguy posted:
Reading the Lay of Earendil in FotR, for example - it was as though I had never read it before, like discovering an entirely new work of poetry. I was fascinated at JRRT's intentional use of language to create setting and mood, and I have marveled at the language throughout all the books.
You would probably love Lays of Beleriand then. The 3rd of the HIstory of Middle-Earth books, it sums up two epics Tolkien wrote but never fully published whilst alive - Children of Hurin and Lay of Leithan (Beren and Luthien). They are simply a beautiful piece of art, especially the second one.
Count_Doodie posted:
Turin posted:
Brown as a berry she was, dark was her hair; small and slim as an Elf-child
Mablung posted:
She was tall, and her eyes were blue, her hair fine gold
that's what's confusing me.
-doodie
That is quite strange. I'll re-read it again, or even better, try to find her description in the original Lay.
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Jeremyguy
Registered:
Sep '98
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Date Posted:
5/14 8:12pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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Amon_Amarth - I'm looking forward to it! Thanks for the recommendation.
(I'm also hoping to get to JRRT's translation of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.")
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Independence1776
Registered:
Feb '06
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Date Posted:
7/6 6:40pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
- Date Edited:
7/6 6:43pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Independence1776
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Wow... hard to believe I just now found this thread. I read the books before the movies came out, though it took me a while to read RotK because I had convinced myself that Frodo was going to die. I've read them countless times (literally) since.
My favorite book is The Silmarillion. I love the language, including in the first two chapters. My suggestion: try reading parts of it aloud. You truly get the beauty of Tolkien's writing then. It's prose poetry.
My favorite chapter in LotR is The Council of Elrond. Of course, Elrond's my favorite character, so...
As for the movies, I have a love/hate relationship. I love the visuals- New Zealand was the perfect choice. Many of the changes I don't like, but there are a few I do. But Peter Jackson will never be forgiven for massacring Elrond's character. The changes made to Faramir run a close second.
I'd love to read HoME, but I don't have all of them and the ones I do are packed in a box in another state. It's really aggravating because I need Morgoth's Ring for a fanfic.
Of course, I'm such an LotR geek that I'm trying to learn Sindarin. 
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Rogue...Jedi
Title: Arena Manager
Registered:
Jan '00
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Date Posted:
7/8 1:15pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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Of course, I'm such an LotR geek that I'm trying to learn Sindarin.
I used to know a bit, but I've forgotten most of it.
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GreenLantern_Jedi
Registered:
May '07
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Date Posted:
7/9 3:38pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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I'm just about finished Vol. II of 'The History of the Hobbit'.
I'm going to post a detailed review over at theonering.net - but if you guys want, I'll post it here too.
It's a great study of the Hobbit, made up almost entirely of previously unpublished texts. It sometimes veers too much into the realm of a reference book solely for Tolkien scholars, but casual Tolkien enthusiasts will enjoy it as well. But I'll save the details for my review.
Apart from Tolkien's 'Beowulf' translation, 'King of the Green Dozen', and maybe the unpublished letters, I can't imagine that there's much left in the Tolkien 'attic' to exploit. Maybe facsimiles of the original handwritten pages will begin to be published, who knows? This is all getting so anal that a scholar is working on a book about how Christopher Tolkien assembled 'The Silmarillion' - hmmm, didn't CT already publish 12 volumes of 'The History of Middle Earth' and 'Unfinished Tales' to cover that ground...? Oh well, it's all cake for us Tolkien fans.
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Amon_Amarth
Registered:
Jan '05
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Date Posted:
8/13 4:06pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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Jeremyguy, Count_Doodie - Luthien's description in the Lay of Leithian:
"Her robe was blue as summer skies,
but grey as evening were her eyes;
'twas sewn with golden lilies fair,
but dark as shadow was her hair."
26-30
However, Christopher Tolkien put a draft for Leithan in the book as well. He describes it as an early sketch which Tolkien then partially rewrote after he gave it to C.S.Lewis for reading. Anyway, the earliest version is:
"Her robe was blue as summer skies,
but not so blue as were her eyes;
'twas swen with golden lillies fair,
but none so golden as her hair."
12-15
But in his comment on Canto I CT says that in the Tale of Tinuviel, her hair was "dark" and the initial description doesn't match with Luthien making a robe of darkness from her own hair.
Sorry it took me this long to post it, but I couldn't find my book sooner.
Independence1776 posted:
My favorite book is The Silmarillion.
There used to be a special thread here for the Silmarillion and other Tolkien's work. http://boards.theforce.net/science_fiction_and_fantasy_books_and_comics/b10749/22779015/p1/?165
Locked, unfortunately.
Independence1776 posted:
As for the movies, I have a love/hate relationship. I love the visuals- New Zealand was the perfect choice. Many of the changes I don't like, but there are a few I do. But Peter Jackson will never be forgiven for massacring Elrond's character. The changes made to Faramir run a close second.
QFT!
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Jedi Guardian - Acolytes of Revan
"The Force is fine...but I would have preferred some company."
'Caenorhabditis elegans' is much better than Darth Plagueis at cheating death.
"Don't **** with the Jedi Master, son!" Mark Hamill, CE
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NYCitygurl
Title: Manager of SFFBC, C&G, and NSWFF
Registered:
Jul '02
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Date Posted:
8/13 9:35pm
Subject:
RE: The Land of Middle Earth: Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit.
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Desire and ye shall receive  Seriously, any time you want anold thread unlocked, just let Raven or I know
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