Q: Dear 100 Hour Board,
-Any Lord of the Rings fans on the board?
-Have any of you read the books?
-How many of you have seen the movies?
-If any of you have done both, what are some of your favorite and least favorite differences between the books and the movies?
-Have any of you never read the books or seen the movies? If so, give us a summary of what you think the storyline is.
-Does anyone have a favorite character?
-Why is he/she your favorite?
Basically, I just want to know anything and everything that the board members think about The Lord of the Rings.
-Wannabe Hobbit
A:
Dear Wannabit,
-Yes
-Yes, including the more obscure ones
-Yes, except for the third act of Battle of the Five Armies, though I have seen the cartoon Lord of the Rings.
-Keeping Tom Bombadil and the Old Forest out of Fellowship was totally necessary. I really wanted to see the Scouring of the Shire, though, because in my mind it completes the hobbits' character arcs in a really satisfying way while also showing the full extent of Saruman's downfall.
-Hmm, depends on what exactly you're asking. I am a huge fan of Bilbo as a protagonist. I really like Hurin and Denethor in terms of their characterization, but I wouldn't like them in real life. Gimli is my favorite character in the movies.
-Bilbo is fascinating because I think he represents the way that most people are--we're comfortable in our homes with a minimum of adventure in our lives--but given the chance, he is the bravest of the company. Hurin and Denethor are both fabulously complex characters with roots in classical mythology. They exemplify the classic tragic story of a good man beaten down and turned to evil. John Rhys-Davies just brings Gimli to life on screen. I love all of his lines.
-Inverse Insomniac
A:
Dear Hobbit,
Any Lord of the Rings fans on the board?
Oooh, yes! Pick me!!!
Have any of you read the books?
I did read the books, but honestly, I didn't enjoy them very much. Something about Tolkien's style of writing is very hard for me to get into and follow, which is weird for me because I love reading and don't really have trouble with reading comprehension most of the time. I understood the bare bones of the plot and thought it was a good story, but I missed most of the subtlety and the finer plot points, and it didn't leave me very eager to watch the movies.
How many of you have seen the movies?
Several years later, I was at BYU and a friend of mine insisted that I watch the movies. We watched the entire extended edition over the course of two evenings – on Friday we watched The Fellowship of the Ring and on Saturday we watched The Two Towers and The Return of the King. We finished early Sunday morning and ended up pulling an all-nighter after discussing the movies in order to go to church. I LOVED the movies. They are probably my favorite movies of all time and thoroughly knocked Harry Potter out of my #1 fandom spot.
Recently I re-watched the movies and really enjoyed getting to explore the characters more in depth. This time, I feel like I really understood Boromir as a person, and how he exemplified what he said to Aragorn that men have weakness (like stealing the ring) but also honor (like his heroic death). I think seeing Boromir redeem himself at the very end was actually a really crucial point in Aragorn coming to trust himself and accept his destiny.
If any of you have done both, what are some of your favorite and least favorite differences between the books and the movies?
Anyone who's familiar with the archives should know that I really dislike Tom Bombadil. I was really happy to see that he wasn't in the movies. I think my other favorite difference is the movies are actually entertaining and the books are not. Even the extended edition of the movies manages to keep a reasonable pace. I really like the part where Treebeard is reciting poetry to Merry and Pippin and they fall asleep, because I feel like it was poking sly fun at the number of completely boring poems that permeated the books. Probably my least favorite part of the movies is the fact that I think they could have portrayed the Aragorn/Arwyn love story without quite so many slow-motion shots of Arwyn-with-her-mouth-open to elvin music, in favor of something that wasn't quite so cheesy and boring. I don't remember how the book dealt with that, though, and my guess is that it would be equally drawn out and tedious.
Does anyone have a favorite character?
I really like Merry and Pippin.
Why is he/she your favorite?
I think it's really easy to explain why Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, and Samwise are awesome. The pros and cons of Frodo as a character have been discussed by many, many fans, and Boromir has too many weaknesses to be my favorite. What I like about Merry and Pippin is that they're not just comic relief. They start out that way in The Fellowship, and continue to provide a balanced amount throughout the movies, which is essential. However, both their mistakes AND their good, noble choices actually serve to further the plot in a balanced, realistic way where they create both advantages and disadvantages in the fight against Sauron. They undergo awesome character development in this way. We get a really great picture of two irresponsible pranksters who come to discover their true value and strength as heroic characters, even though they never quite overcome their shortsighted nature. Prime examples include convincing the Ents to join the battle, picking up the seer stone thingy and making contact with Sauron, and their role at Minas Tirith both politically and in battle.
-Zedability
A:
Dear Ten,
I'd say I'm a fan, though like Ardilla, I'm pretty casual about it (despite the fact that in middle school I tried to learn Quenya, but I think any nerdy person goes through that phase; the only phrase I remember how to say is "I love you").
I've read the books, started on The Silmarillion this semester, and I also own a copy of Unfinished Tales that I haven't read yet. I've also seen the movies, but despite that, it's hard to remember the differences between the books and the movies, although I do have to say, it's one of the best adaptations I've ever seen. Part of this is because description of scenery and characterization can be taken care of through other elements only available through film.
As for a favorite character, it's always been Pippin, but I also have to say I really like Eowyn. You know, woman going and doing awesome stuff just as well as the men in her family.
I've mentioned before, but I'm currently in a class that is looking at Tolkien's work in language construction and reconstruction, and it's giving me an entirely different perspective on the series that I find really fascinating.
-Tally M.
A:
Dear Halfling,
I'm a casual fan. I've read The Hobbit, the LOTR trilogy and occasionally peruse the LOTR Wiki, usually about Balrogs. The Silmarillion was too dry for my taste, but I might give it another shot sometime. I've seen the LOTR trilogy but never got around to watching the Hobbit movies. My favorite thing about the LOTR trilogy vs. the film trilogy is that the film does a better job of cutting back and forth between the Fellowship's narrative and Everyone Else, whereas in the books you hear almost everything about someone and then get to hear all about someone else before things come together. In Return of the King, for instance, I seem to remember you hear about Everyone Else all the way up to where things are bad at the Black Gate and they can tell Mt. Doom is having serious issues without hearing from the Fellowship, and then suddenly Tolkien's like "Oh yeah, back a while ago Sam and Frodo were chillin' at Cirith Ungol and they haven't even gotten into Mordor yet, so let's join them and hear ALL about what they have been up to (spoiler alert: there's a lot of walking) before we ever unite the two narratives at the end.
But perhaps I don't remember right.
As far as the films go, I liked the visual design for armor, weapons, and buildings. Particularly Elven stuff.
I like Boromir a lot, because I feel like he needs some support for his epic altruistic suicide thing, which made me very sad.
I would like to take this moment to observe that the way cave and war trolls are portrayed in the LOTR trilogy (no idea about the Hobbit movies) is pretty cool. They're big, not particularly smart, but they don't let it get them down. They have kind of a mean streak, but they're really just Ordinary Joes just trying to make a lower-class living in a Middle-Earth world. You go, cave trolls! Sometimes when I am battling small children with pillows at family gatherings I like to pretend I am a cave troll. While I haven't found it necessary, apparently if you load a pillowcase with jeans instead of a pillow it makes your attacks far more effective. It might also slow down the process of being overcome by sheer force of numbers (or cousins who are probably too old to be biting your ankle).
Galu,
--Ardilla Feroz
A:
Dear Hobbit,
I was a fan in elementary and middle school, when I first read it. Since then, I have decided that while the Lord of the Rings is great because it was an innovation in literature, and was the introduction of my favorite genre to the world, it is not all it's hyped up to be. In retrospect, I think it is very good we have evolved away from Tolkein's style of writing. I really do not want the scenery of a valley painstakingly described to me over ten pages!
I read all of LotR and the Hobbit when I was eleven.
I have seen all of the movies... once. I have not seen the extended versions, for which many of my friends fault me.
It has been too long for me to make credible statements about differences between the two.
Pippin.
He is the funniest part of the whole series.
Sincerely,
The Soulful Ginger
A:
Dear Hobbit,
I just want to add that I only have one BYU friend (that I know of) who has never seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies or read any of the books. One time, she got home from class and said, "Guess what happened to me today!?"
She then told me that in class that day, her professor had asked anybody who had never seen or read Lord of the Rings to raise their hand. She was the only one who raised her hand, and the whole class started to boo her. Yep. They actually booed her.
I think that story summarizes how strongly a lot of BYU students feel about Lord of the Rings.
-Vienna
A:
Dear Mormons can be Hobbits too,
-If I can be a fan without having read the books, then yes. Cuz I plan to read the someday, at least.
-No.
-I have.
-N/A
-Yes. When Bilbo wills his ring to Frodo, Gandalf realizes it's the one that Sauran could use to destroy the world. So he puts together a team of some hobbits, elves, dwarves, and men to help Frodo take the ring to the lava underneath Sauran and destroy it. Something about a black cat in an inn (that's the only part my sister remembered after watching it for the first time). Scary horsemen chase them, and they can see otherwise invisible ring-wearing Frodo. Someone in the fellowship gets greedy and ends up dying, leading to the disbandment of the fellowship. Sam Wise (wait—Samwise? Really?) accompanies Frodo, and they also come across Gollum/Smeagol. One of the men is a king who returns, but this causes the slimy-haired steward to try to kill him and then jump off a tower while on fire. One of the hobbits looks into a crystal ball and then has to serve the slimy steward for some reason. There's a women-elf-sorceress who shows Frodo what will happen if he doesn't destroy the ring. The disbanded fellowship fights in numerous battles with orcs (orci? orcim? orcoi?), many other armies help them, and Will Turner—er, Legolas—takes down a mammoth. But it only counts as one. And they get ghosts to help them by promising them honor, because they can totally do that. Gollum convinces Frodo that Sam ate all their food, so the former two leave Sam, but then Sam saves Frodo from a giant spider. Orcs capture Frodo, though, and they manage to make it to the lava place just as their other friends are distracting Sauron by fighting a suicidal battle. A combination of Frodo's success and Gollum's stupidity result in the ring falling into the lava, being destroyed, Sauron dying, and the orc army somehow giving up. Everybody goes home happy, except Frodo who is scarred and goes to America with Bilbo and the elves. Oh, and Gandalf dies but is resurrected.
-Yeah, not Legolas. Probably Sam because he's so loyal, or Gandalf because he's awesome.
-See above.
-El-ahrairah
A:
Dear Hobbit,
I read the books for the first time when I was in elementary school, and I was a bit of a Lord of the Rings fanatic in middle school and high school (though not to the same degree as Star Wars). I've read the Silmarillion twice and actually enjoyed nearly all of it. If anything, I think I prefer the Silmarillion over the other books because I care more about world-building than about plots. It's been forever since I've read any of the books, though, so that should probably go on my list of things to do once I graduate and don't have homework anymore.
The movies are okay, but they give a much more... hopeless or fatalistic, I guess... feel than the books. I haven't seen any of the Hobbit films yet and don't really care enough to change that in the immediate future.
My wife, on the other hand, has neither read the books nor seen the movies. I asked her to summarize the plot as best she could, and she obliged with two versions—first, a brief summary of the plot elements she's reasonably sure of, and second, a somewhat more... loose... retelling of how she imagines the story probably goes.
I really have no idea what the plot of Lord of the Rings is other than some random guys traipsing all around New Zealand trying to find some volcano thing with a magic eye floating over it so they can sacrifice the ring to the volcano thing. And on the way they meet some non-hobbit people and that creepy gollum thing and there's a war or something and giant trees and then I guess they destroy the ring. I don't even know. That's seriously everything I know. And I think I made at least half of it up.
So, now that you know I have no idea what the plot is; I present to you the pop culture version of The Lord of the Rings.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was a hobbit, named Frodo. He had some friends, Chandler, Ross and Joey. They have an obsession with a ring they saw after sipping lattes and eating delicious pastries in front of Tiffany & Co.'s every morning.
One day this ring magically shows up in their possession and Frodo's all "I volunteer as tribute to put this thing back where it came from, or so help me. So help me!" Everything's all cool until Frodo totally freaks out and is all like I can't handle this. And his uncle reminds him that with great power comes great responsibility. And Frodo's all like I'm Batman! I can deal with this.
They head off to see the wizard and they have to cross this crazy bridge thing. The bridge guardian says to Frodo: "You've gotta ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" Frodo looks at the bridge guardian: "You’re a wizard, Harry." Harry lowers his wand and lets them pass.
So Frodo and Co meet Gollum and he's all, dude, help me help you. Frodo nearly gives him the ring and Gollums all like Bazinga! I just want to become all powerful like 'he who must not be named' then I'll be the most powerful genie in all the world. So Frodo's all like, nope. It’s not going to happen.
Later Gollum steals the ring. And Gollum's all like I'm the King of the World! Because Gollum isn't mentally stable he loses the ring, and Frodo finds it again. Gollum watches Frodo take the ring and Frodo sees Gollum watching and tips his Fedora at Gollum and says 'here's looking at you, kid. Then he walks off into the sunset.
To pass the time while they are walking they sing a rousing, morale building song while flashbacks play of all their trials so far. They each get a solo and then there’s the grand finale with the rousing ensemble where each character sings their own part and everything come together in perfect harmony.
While they were singing and reminiscing they end up at the volcano of death and Frodo's all like 'man, I didn't think volcanoes were this big and do I really have to climb up there and chuck this ring in there and what's up with that eye? I mean that's super freaky.' So then Ross looks at Frodo and is like 'take chances, make mistakes, get messy!' And Frodo totally side eyes him. Then he musters up his courage and shoves Joey. "Out of my way, football head." And he starts hiking up the volcano.
He gets to the top of the volcano and considers lying about the ring and keeping it and being all powerful but then he tosses the ring into the inferno and it melts and he's all like 'science rules!'
Frodo climbs back down the volcano and meets his friends and with a dead serious look on his face says "The truth is out there."
And... scene. Roll credits!
That... is different. I'd probably watch that movie.
-yayfulness
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