Everybody's Tolkien (Tolkien Reading Day)

asia one ^

[Perdogg]

Now this is precious.

$6.2 billion and counting.

That's how much films based on J. R. R. Tolkien's books have made in all at the box office so far.

And there's still one part of The Hobbit trilogy to come.

The Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) and The Hobbit are also on the list of Top 10 best selling books of all time - LOTR at No. 2 with 150 million copies sold. The Hobbit is No. 6 with 100 million copies sold.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

It’s a great book.

I love the Ring Trilogy and find the Silmarillion fascinating.

I would not have gotten this far if I hadn't read the others first. It would be awful. But if you read the Lord of The Rings trilogy first, the Silmarillion tales simply blossom as you read and the other books take on so much more depth.

[Perdogg]

The silmarillion audio book has been posted on youtube. Trying reading along for a while with audio book until you get used to the structure.

[null and void]

The basic point remains, how long in book time do the stories take vs how long is available for a movie?

[Altariel]

Hopefully more people will actually read the books. People who see a movie and then decide “I don’t need to read the book, I’ve seen the movie” when the movie is (loosely) based on such classics don’t know what they’re missing.

[Vanders9]

He always thought that movie adaptions of his books could not be made, which is one reason he sold the film rights so cheaply.

[Vanders9]

Really? Its perfectly clear to me.

[Resettozero]

Very good. Thanks.

[Vaquero]

no need....I enjoyed the Hobbit and the Rings...but I am done now.

[BlueDragon]

Everybody's Talking [youtube, Nillson, 1969, featured in the movie Midnite Cowboy]

[Ransomed]

Here’s an essay gene Wolfe wrote around 2000 or so concerning Tolkien. Pretty good stuff, he actually wrote Tolkien a letter back in the day and I guess Tolkien responded.

http://www.thenightland.co.uk/MYWEB/wolfemountains.html

Freegards

[AD from SpringBay]

It kinda goes along with Heinlein's rule ("nobody likes the soup 'til they pee in it") so I suppose we're supposed to swoon at the marvellous job the director did (blech) as opposed to the way he butchered the story.

Yeah... The Hobbit movies are more like fan-fiction than a screen adaptation of the book.

[Vanders9]

Oh come on...its obvious...big exciting battle scenes sell movies. Simple as that.

And to be fair, there are a lot of battles in Tolkein's books. Its just that most of them are "off-camera" as it were. But of course, in a visual artform like film they cannot really be "off-camera". They have to be included, or at least more included than in a book.

[Resettozero]

Very good. Thanks.

[Tanniker Smith]

Started reading the Hobbit in Seventh grade. Didn’t make it through, but I skipped to the end. I’d seen the movie on TV. Finally got around to reading the ebook about a year ago. Fun read, if you remember it was a children’s story, unlike LotR.

[Perdogg]

I thought it was more intelligent than the modern children’s book. There are a lot of issues that I do not believe children of today would understand in the Hobbit. Especially the issues of war and peace and being brave and bold.

[Perdogg]

I am glad Jackson is including things in the Hobbit movie that we did not know about until the LOTR. Like the white council’s assault on Dol Guldur.