DWill wrote:Sorry if this is curmudgeonly, but regarding "The Hobbit" movies, why has Peter Jackson decided to make 3 films out of that one book? The books of the trilogy, all much longer than The Hobbit, got but one film each. The Hobbit is a charming book, but giving it super-epic treatment is surely a mistake. The reviews of the first installment are uneven, unlike the critical reception for the other Rings movies. Some of the reviews point to lack of substance as the film's major failing.

http://moviereviewintelligence.com/movi ... d_journey/

Why make 3 films? Simple. Money.

Oh, yeah, forgot that one! Like geo, I found the LOTR movies to be windy and kind of hokey. And the books were a little like that for me, too. You have to really love this genre, and it's just not my favorite one. There seems to be agreement, though, that Tolkien is at the top of the genre.

tbarron wrote:I've also read that some have tried to read it as a description of WWII, and that J.R.R. Tolkien himself was appalled by all such attempts to find connections between his fantasy world and real world history.

I've heard theories about it being based on WWII but I never heard that JRR had denied them. As I was watching the movie I thought that the elves could have easily been France.

Perhaps some of you who tend to be frustrated that I do not jump through your hoops preferring, no, let me say instead - setting my own agenda, would do well to redirect their frustration to educating themselves as to what Tolkien had to say when he school Lewis on what myth is.

Most of what you believe is confused if not clearly wrong on the issue.

I liked the Hobbit overall. I took some issues with the ludicrous luck they dwarves had throughout, falling off ledges time and again to be caught by someone, who also falls and is also caught.

That's a fine gag and i wouldn't be mad to see it happen on screen, but i believe it went down 2 or three times in the first hobbit, and i'm betting it will happen again.

That was kind of irking me a bit until i put it through the lens that this is really Bilbo's retelling of what happened. The LOTR movies were sort of in the moment events that we tracked from start to finish without a narrator. The hobbit will be told by Bilbo, and like Gandalf said at the begining when describing the invention of Golf, this tale will be seasoned with tall-ness.

Also, Radagahst was driving me nuts.

Tolkien responded to complaints about the 'luck' experienced by various participants in The Hobbit and TLOTR as the presence and action of God.

Regarding Barefoot_Bookbabes comment that Tolkien never denied that TLOTR was about WWII, he did in fact do that,

"Many commentators[89] have remarked on a number of potential parallels between the Middle-earth saga and events in Tolkien's lifetime. The Lord of the Rings is often thought to represent England during and immediately after World War II. Tolkien ardently rejected this opinion in the foreword to the second edition of the novel, stating he preferred applicability to allegory."

[Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954), The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings, Boston: Houghton Mifflin (published 1987), Foreword, ISBN 0-395-08254-4]


Christianity itself follows this pattern of inner consistency and external truth.

"This theme is taken up at greater length in his essay "On Fairy-Stories", where he argues that fairy-stories are so apt because they are consistent both within themselves and with some truths about reality. He concludes that Christianity itself follows this pattern of inner consistency and external truth."

Longenecker, Dwight. Why Tolkien said No to Narnia, Spero News, 12 November 2008. Retrieved 4 April 2009.

"His belief in the fundamental truths of Christianity leads commentators to find Christian themes in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien objected strongly to C. S. Lewis's use of religious references in his stories, which were often overtly allegorical.

Longenecker, Dwight. Why Tolkien said No to Narnia, Spero News, 12 November 2008. Retrieved 4 April 2009.


http://www.leaderu.com/humanities/wood-biography.html

Hi all! I'm new here. I just saw the movie, finally. I loved it and am looking forward to the next installment. I've read all the books but it's been at least ten years or more. My kids have not read the books and I pointed out that Bilbo did not see the ring fall from Gollum in the book, he found it before even meeting Gollum or seeing him. My family felt that it was not a significant point. I did. Gollum believed his ring was stolen and in the movie it was stolen, in my mind, if Bilbo did see the ring fall from Gollum. In the book Bilbo later realized the ring came from Gollum, whom lost it but that was after he found the ring. At that point there can be the argument that Bilbo stole the ring as he did keep it. Of course the argument can be that he really didn't steal it because how could he in good conscience return it to a thing like Gollum or "finders keepers". So my question is does it make a difference in Bilbo's character on whether he picked up the ring after seeing it fall from Gollum or after he found out what Gollum really was. In either case did he steal the ring from Gollum by not returning it.