Part 2 on DVD this November +LotR

[Geoff]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, "Steve" <bboyminn at ...> wrote:

Steve:
On a side note, there is one series of books that I absolutely could not get into until I saw the movie - "Lord of the Rings". I tried to read those books, but they are so slow and long winded I simply could not stick with it. But once I saw the movies and had the overall story in my head, it became easier to read the books. 

Geoff:
It's interesting how our experiences differ here.

I first read "The Lord of the Rings" in 1955, a year after the third book appeared 
and I was quite blown away by it.

After that, I made a point of reading it every year, which I did until my teaching 
work made more demands on my time and I also had three children growing up
which didn't help.

This was of course long before any film was thought of, but I found that Tolkien's 
word imagery was outstanding. I could get very clear pictures in my mind of 
people and scenes. By way of example, if you read his description of Minas Tirith 
and compare it with how it was shown in the film, it was the embodiment of my 
own mental view.

For many years, especially after the wretched Bakshi cartoon version in 1978 which
everyone disliked, I always vowed I would not watch a film of LOTR until my eldest 
son, who is also a fan, told me about the Peter Jackson film coming out, which 
incidentally shares a 10th anniversary with HP:PS this autumn, and I decided to 
go.

I have to say that Jackson really made a go of it. There were one or two places where 
I didn't entirely agree but in the second discs on the extended DVDs, he did make 
quite convincing cases for the line he took.

No, I wouldn't consider JRRT long winded. There are parts of the books which are 
more difficult to read - where he segregates the action time lines in the second 
book for example, but coming from a prehistoric pre-LOTR film background 
period of history, I managed with that.
:-)