Reaction to films based on levels of fannish-ness - LOTR

[dracos_boyfriend]

Keith said (about LOTR) ...

"We saw the film the next day (and I saw it again the other 
night) and while I was jarred a bit by the fast pacing, some slightly 
weird-looking stuff (mainly camp Elves in lipstick or apparently 
sedated!) and some of the changes to the story, I thoroughly enjoyed 
it - I think the final sequence (the Breaking of the Fellowship) 
really made the film with its emotion."

Now, this is interesting to me, as it is the first review of the film 
I've read that was even slightly negative.  For the record, I saw it 
yesterday night at Feltham Cineworld (who now have an animated Tomb 
Raider-esque sequence at the start of their shows to remind people to 
switch off their mobile phones) and I thought it was absolutely 
amazing.  It knocked Potter off the scale, and it frankly amazed me 
(this is what I've been saying everywhere else, so sorry if you've 
read this already) that Jackson can adapt a huge, 700-odd page book 
into 3 hours and make it so damn stunniny, and how Columbus can adapt 
a short, 250-odd page book into around the same time, and make it so 
damn *average* - by dint of being more *detailed*, HP should be the 
better film.  Yet LOTR has better effects - there are no badly done 
centaurs, but wasn't Sauron's castle beautifully rendered?  And did 
everyone spot the little channel thing bringing lava down from Mount 
Doom?  LOTR had better casting - Ian McKellan vs Richard Harris - no 
contest whatsoever, both fine actors, but only one of them can play a 
decent wizard - incidentally, wasn't Ian Holm (Bilbo) in the BBC 
adaptation of the Borrowers?  It had better acting , there were none 
of those rubbish 'you mean to say that that thing was Voldemort' 
cliche line stuff - though Frodo's 'Nooooo!' could easily have been 
cut.  And it and a better soundtrack that was not a re-hash of every 
other Williams suite.

However, these thoughts, and reading what Keith said above, got me 
thinking about our reaction to movies.  I think it's a fair bet to 
say that we're all pretty much obsessed beyond all reasonable help 
with Potter, and that in comparison, we merely *like* LOTR, and some 
of us, like me, have still not read the books.  Did this colour our 
reaction to the movie?  I went to PS fully expecting to *not* be 
bowled over.  My inner shippers were clamouring for attention, my 
inner LOON got free and was running round the cinema, and whilst PS 
was a good film, my canon knowledge meant that, at the end of the 
day, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I did.

Now, we come to LOTR - Keith, I'm right in thinking you're quite a 
big Tolkien fan, if I remember all those Sunday chats?  Therefore, I 
kind of suspect that you went into LOTR expecting the same kind of 
thing I expected when I went to see PS.  To me, PS had the potential 
to completely ruin my carefully constructed mental canon - I suspect 
LOTR might've seemed the same to you, hence your Not-As-Positive!
Thoughts above.  Now, I've never read any Tolkein, I've tried to, but 
I've never gotten into it.  I went into the cinema yesterday with a 
completely clean slate in my mind, ready for this.  I had no 
preconceptions, no knowledge of what was going to happen (it was an 
absolute killer shock for me when Gandalf died, I had assumed he'd 
make it through the trilogy, or die heroically in Part 3) - 
therefore, I think I possibly enjoyed it *more* because of this.

Basically, my point is, when it comes to movies adapted from books, 
will people who have read the books find that their opinions and 
enjoyment levels of the movies are changed in any way?  I think it 
may well be the case.  Would be interested to know what you all think.

Al