Before and after the movie

[Child of the 7th Age]

Before the movie came out, many people in the "Tolkien community" were concerned about its impact. Some expressed concern about the influence it might have on the way the world viewed Tolkien, or the type and level of discussions that would take place on boards like these. Some charged that, after the movie, there would be little reasonable discussion of Tolkien as an author, since everything would be focused on the movie itself rather than the writings. Others countered these pessimistic charges, contending that many new fans would be led to read Tolkien for the first time.

We have had threads which addressed specific questions like how Frodo's image differed in book and movie, but I believe these wider issues haven't been directly discussed.

Almost seven months have passed since we first saw the movie. Were these original fears and criticisms justified? Has this board itself changed in any way? Most importantly, has there been any change in the level or type of discussion of Tolkien and Middle-earth that is going on here(for better or for worse)?

And, on a personal level, what did seeing the movie do for you? Were you a first time fan who might never have looked at Tolkien's books if it weren't for the movie, or someone who had known and loved Middle-earth long before Peter Jackson?

I will post my own thoughts on this later, but would like to hear what others say, both those with the perspective of new fans as well as those who've been around on this board much longer than I.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[ July 14, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[Orome]

I had read the hobbit, Lord of the Rings, the Sil, and several other books multiple times before watching the movie, but did not find the sites such as this until after watching the Movie, and even then, i didn't get registered until this month.

As you can see, most people, more than half of the registered people, did not register until after the movies came out. However most people dont post much unless they have read the books. I dont think that the quality of the discussions has gone down a lot. I don't think that very many people will go out and read the books now when there are movies to watch, but in the months leading up to last december, the hobbit and the LotR all were on the top ten for sales, so there were many people at least buying the books. Just my two cents worth

[akhtene]

Another of your questions, Sharon, which sets one thinking. Where do you get them from? smilies/wink.gif

I’ve been around for a couple of months only, and I had never before really discussed Tolkien with anyone, though I’ve been the admirer of his works for just under 20 years. I don’t think I can be correct and objective about general tendencies. That’s just what I think.
I don’t believe that the film did any harm to Tolkien as the writer or to people who has read or is reading the books. Serious readers (I believe) will stay true to the books, whether they like the film or scold it. But one thing I’m certain of – the film has attracted (or I’d better say ‘revived’ smilies/wink.gif interest in Tolkien. At least I know that many students in my school have got the books to read, and a few even attempt it in English. Now everything will depend on their inclinations and intelligence. If some will perceive Tolkien as just one more craze – well, it’s no worse than other crazes.

For me personally the film allowed to start discussing questions that had interested me for quite a time. I used to think that Tolkien wasn’t of great interest to people (at least judging by all my nearest and dearest). Or he was, but I just didn’t know where to look for them. The film sort of opened the doors. I had a discussion with my pupils (nothing too deep really) and the cause for it was that I brought the movie guide to class. A couple of girls didn’t go further than ‘Ooooh, Legolas!’ but you know, they never do. But some of my class expressed quite serious ideas both about the book/film and life in general.

Returning to this board. I can’t judge what has changed here since the film was released, but I find the discussions here deep and thought-provoking. I somehow feel that the ‘Movie” board is more light-minded than ‘The Books’, but cinematography as art is generally so. (If I’m not right here, I’m sorry. No offence ment to anybody) .

To cut this long and scrambled story short, I believe that the film is just (one more) door to the world of Middle-Earth. And everyone is able to decide whether to enter this door and in which room of the enormous house to dwell. Or to find some other door. Is it bad see a chance and to have a choice?

[Naaramare]

The movie was like an intensely awesome candy on top of a wonderful cake.

The cake's the point, after all. It's what the most work went into, and it's the bulk, and it's what you're eating. The candy's garnish, but damn if I don't love it.

[Orome]

i like the analogy

[Tigerlily Gamgee]

For me... it was the movie that made me pick up the books and read them.
For quite a while I was not reading anything because I wasn't inspired to read anything (sad, I know). I had heard of The Lord of the Rings and I have always loved fantasy, but I never considered tackling such a large undertaking. My friends all love it (those who have read it all the way through), so I had heard about it (but sadly, I didn't even know what a Hobbit was smilies/frown.gif )
I went to see the movie because of my love of movies in that genre, but I got more than I expected. I got a fantasy adventure with true emotions (something you don't get very often)... and it is these emotions that lead me to the books. I was so upset at the end of the movie (particularly because I wanted to know what would happen to Merry and Pippin) that I had to go get the books to find out what happened...

The book lead me to another world with even more that I never expected. I fell in love with them right away. I was mad at myself for not reading them before, but at the same time I may not have appreciated them as much...
It was my lack of knowledge about a lot of things in the book that lead me to these sites and this message board. I wanted to learn more and find out as much as possible.
I am now collecting every Tolkien book I can get my hands on (& that I can afford) and I am trying to learn as much as possible about this great author and his creations.

In short, if it wasn't for the movie, I probably wouldn't be here (that sounds terrible)... but it is the dedication and knowledge at this board that keeps me coming back to learn more, and I am even more excited when I can help someone out who is new and has some of the same questions that I once did.
smilies/biggrin.gif

[Thinhyandoiel]

Good question C7A! I do believe that the movie has attracted (and revived, as akhtene said) more fans. Those who have been "revived" and those who have been drawn to Tolkien because of the movie both have one thing in common. Their love of Tolkien. However you get there makes no difference. They're just two paths of the same road.

I don't know if this board has changed at all, because I wasn't here before the movie came out. Before it came out, I had only read the Hobbit, but could never find LOTR anywhere to read! (All the libraries in my city had the books backed up for months...I was impatient) Then again, I didn't even draw the connection between LOTR and the Hobbit until I saw the movie trailers and recognized Gandalf. But, though I haven't been here long enough to give an honest comparison, I, like so many others, find the discussions both thought provoking (like this one! kudos! smilies/wink.gif) and fun. I think we have the BW and the moderators to thank for keeping this forum "true" to the works of Tolkien.

Seeing the movie I must say was a three hour escape into this world I had dreamed about for a month after I started reading the books (I had read them before the movie). Seeing the characters onscreen made them really come to life for me, even more so than before. PJ was giving life to a dream most of us had shared, to go to Middle-Earth, to share in this journey beyond the limits of our subconscious. I thank him for that.

[Child of the 7th Age]

I drew up a thread from about 16 months ago where people made predictions what impact the movies would have. Take a look. It's intriguing. See "What Effect Will the Movie Have? Some Predictions" Sorry, can't put a link in.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Birdland]

Another good one, Child.

Not to go off topic, but your question got me wondering how many other movies have inspired people to not only seek out the book, but to look for web sites devoted to the author as well.

I'm sure there were some movies out there that lead me to a book,(Raymond Chandler comes to mind), though I've read so much through the years it would be hard to name others. I usually think I seek out a film if I liked the book it was based on.

But the fairly new phenomenon of the World Wide Web has added a whole 'nother element. There are plenty of other authors that I'm as passionate about as Tolkien, but I have yet to seek out a forum devoted to their works.

There's just sumthin' about them Hobbits...

[piosenniel]

Here's the Link to that thread:

Effects (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000481)

[Child of the 7th Age]

Since I began this thread, it's only fair that I add my thoughts.

On a personal level, how did the movie affect me as a Tolkien fan?

I read the Hobbit in the early 60s and LotR in the mid 60s, just before I left for college. A number of people during my undergraduate years shared my love of Tolkien. It was central to my interests and identity. Then I trudged off to graduate school, and became involved in medieval history and heavy, heavy workloads. I continued to read fantasy, but sporadically and lightly.

I have read Tolkien on and off since then. Sometimes it's been central to my life and sometimes less so, but it's always been there to draw upon.

The movie did relight my interest and led me first to e-bay (now I am broke!) and then to the Downs. Without the movie, I wouldn't have found this board or now own twelve volumes of HoMe! I think I've always had a pretty good understanding of LotR. What's different this time is that I'm looking at Middle-earth much more closely through Silm and HoMe, posting on a computer board, and writing fanfiction and RPGs. Those things just weren't around when I first read the books. So, for me, though a long-time reader, the movie did have an impact.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Anna Licumo]

I myself is one who read the books before the movie. However, the movie led me to the Barrow-Downs.

It's funny how the world- or at least the US- takes so much of their interpretaion of the world from the culture. It's like there's a large, gauzy veil over the truth that they have put on. It is only after you delve under it, and experience and know the information *behind* the interpretaion, that you really see it.

I found the old TV Guide report on the movie under a bunch of old school reports in my closet when I was cleaning out. "Elves, dwarves, wizards and hobbits!" They proclaim. It's funny to see the difference- To me, those words hold so much meaning, to my brother, they seem... fake, sterotypical. A D&D set.

So yes, things have changed- and no. There are a lot more people out there reading the books. People I didn't even think *read* talking about Tom's true existance. Tolkien is now a more wide spread and excepted thing, rather than a nerdy RPG bible. There are the 'commerical wights', who have just seen the movie and know little, and toddy old proffesors who smoke and know so much. And us. So really, it's stil the same ol' ME, just a bit better known.

(Okay, sorry for the long rant, that was just my two cents!)

[flyingtable83]

I had read the LoTR and parts of UT and the Sil when the movie was released (I saw it twice opening day, and I had school!). I knew that no matter what for me the books would come out unscathed. For example, I read Battlefield Earth (it took me most of a summer) and loved it. Then the movie bombed, very badly and everyone kind of joked about it. The worst thing that happened was those people who weren't going to read the book before the movie still didn't read the book.
But with FoTR the movie things were different. Most of my friends (and remember I was in high school, where people stay away, far away from books...nasty little buggers) wanted to read at least the Fellowship before the movies came out and everyone ended up finishing the entire book. One of my friends finished it in a week! The movie had a positive impact over the broad spectrum, but did not affect the way I saw the book. In fact much of PJ's interpretation is not far off of my own, so that helped.

[Airedae]

I'll be honest....I did register because of the movie but that's not to say that I did not read the books first. I did in fact read them years and years ago as a child. But as you grow into adulthood I sort of put the books away and got busy in everyday life. When the movie come out it was like bringing my childhood back to me...I could pick up the books that I loved as a child and read them and remember...It was great to remember. I think I put them down because I let others around me influence me that loving that particuliar author and story was unhealthy. Note that I came from a very religious family who condemned the story as devilry....I never did think that and I don't to this day. Frodo has become a part of my heart that I don't think will ever go away. I see alot of myself in him and I've been burdened down so many ways in my life that made me just look to Frodo......I totally believe the saying "FRODO LIVES"...because he does, live in us all....THat's totally not what the topic is about but the truth nonetheless. I think that the movie coming out was a really positive thing in my life....because I got to see all my favorite characters come to life on screen....IT was amazing and I remember the first time I was in the theatre watching it. My eyes never left the screen, I was in awe! THe most amazing experience ever! I think its alright for people to register after the movie because so many people have their own personal reasons for joining. It's never to late to start a love for Tolkiens work and even teenagers of this generation can too and I believe they have. We will always have people that just love the entertainment part but then again, we will get alot of new lovers of Tolkien. I think it can go both ways....Either it helps or it doesn't. It's totally up to the individual I guess.....Thanx Sharon for starting the topic. I was am amazed when I read your posts..you are great..i love coming here and hope that I am welcome.....

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Airedae ]

[burrahobbit]

The changes to the Downs have been brought on not by a movie, I think, but by time. When the board started every topic was new and fresh, unless you had done other boards and other places. Even if you had, though, it was still fun to talk about it here for the first time. One of the first threads was about Balrog wings, another was about Tom Bombadil. The popular questions are popular for a reason. New people come and they ask the popular questions. I have my own answers, but I don't want to say them again every day. What the movie did was bring more people to the Downs. There are more stupid questions than before, yes, but there are also a lot more stupid people. Some of the older people become frustrated by the dumb posts while there are still loads more good threads than at the start.

I'm in sort of a unique position. I came here on day one, literally. Only BW and I can say that. I used to be one of the top posters, you can find an old thread that talks a bit about how I had something like a third of the total posts. That was more than two years ago. More than one year ago I stopped coming at all. I returned in April of this year. I was around before and after, but not during. The differences, such as they are, were thrown into a sharp relief for me. Some people bemoan the current state of the Downs, say that all of the newbies are ruining it for the serious posters, but I don't see that problem at all. The real problem is that the Downs isn't new anymore, and that it will never be new again.

The chat room is a bit different, though. Generally, it was never the place for serious discussion. I would say that the chat room is the same as ever, just three times more popular and always full.

The movie hasn't changed me personally in any way.

[Eruwen]

Well, to tell you the truth I really wasn't interested in LOTR until the movie came out. I didn't even know there were any other stories besides the Hobbit. {I know, kinda stupid of me.} smilies/rolleyes.gif

Anyway, my friend at school was reading FOTR and I started talking to him about the upcoming movie and different stuff like that. I sort of "hinted" toward my mom near Christmas if she could get me the book FOTR as a present. And, what do you know, she did!!

I started reading it that day and when I was done with that book, I was so eager to read the second one my mom took me to Barns n Nobles that afternoon to get it for me. On the other hand, I had to wait a whole MONTH after I read TTT until I could get ROTK. I really didn't see the movie itself until April.

But I guess it was kinda the movie that got me interested in Tolkien. But in my opinion, the movie was good and all, it just didn't match up with Tolkien's story. I think they could have done a little better in writing the script. But I think the movie coming out has changed me a little in how much I liked the story. It definitly changed my descision on who I liked best out of the story. But I think the movie really did get more people interrested in the story and in the world of ME. I certainly am now. In fact, I'm trying to own a collection of all Tolkien's works on ME.

But I've only been at the downs for a few months, so I can't really tell on how the movie changed the type of discussion here.

But I've gone on way to long here. So I'm stopping. {I really don't know if I even made any sense in what I said.} smilies/tongue.gif Anyway, that's my thoughts. Bye.

[ July 16, 2002: Message edited by: Eruwen ]

[mark12_30]

Airedae, I can relate. I had read the trilogy nine times, and it was part of the fabric of my life's tapestry. I have struggled intensely over thirty years trying to determine how Tolkien's stories and my own religious life could somehow -- at least-- get along. They were at odds for a long time. I set Tolkien aside-- or tried to-- for the past ten years. It wouldn't stay set aside! It kept resurfacing.

When the movie came out it resurfaced for good.

Tolkien intentionally created a myth, a huge, pervasive, encompassingly thorough myth. And I have just begun to realise that in my case-- it WORKED. I began to view reality in terms, and in the language and framework, of the myth that Tolkien created. That was his intention, for those who could receive it.

I think part of my ability to recieve it is improved by my recent studies and renewed interest in catholicism, especially catholic mysticism (I'm an ex-catholic evangelical) and this helps me understand, and recieve, Tolkien's mysticism.

My definitions of heroism, courage, self-sacrifice, immortality and death and suffering and numerous other concepts are hugely influenced by how Tolkien's characters lived and died. My definitions of holiness and purity are hugely influenced by Tokien's stories.

The fun thing is, that now, after the movie, not only am I (suddenly!) free, by my own choice and growth, to reintegrate Tolkien's stories with my faith-- but now these boards and sites (esp. the Downs) have become easily locate-able, and there are LOTS more people to talk to about it.

I had written fanfiction twenty-plus years before, but since then, I had burned it. Don't be upset-- it wasn't any good anyway! But now I am writing fanfiction again.

And I had read Tolkien-literary-analysis before. Now I participate in it, and it has a big impact on how I see things, and even on how I pray...

Am I grateful for the movie? Heck, yeah. Frodolijah pales beside BookFrodo-- but it was Frodolijah that made me look harder at BookFrodo and see what I had set aside. Have the Downs changed? I can't say, but I guess they must have; some threads seem to be getting rehashed endlessly; but there have been some threads that have, in large and small ways, changed my life.

[Gorothlammothiel]

I had read the books some 4 times before the movie had come out, and since the first time i wondered how if it were to be made into a film, all the characters would be percieved. I can't say that the movies has brought the quality of posts down as i only registered in Feb, although i did haunt from Nov last year until then, but i suppose that the films did bring a lot of new members to the downs, for good or bad i do not know.

[Gorothlammothiel]

I had read the books some 4 times before the movie had come out, and since the first time i wondered how if it were to be made into a film, all the characters would be percieved. I can't say that the movies has brought the quality of posts down as i only registered in Feb, although i did haunt from Nov last year until then, but i suppose that the films did bring a lot of new members to the downs, for good or bad i do not know.

[Child of the 7th Age]

First, thanks to everyone who has posted on this thread so far. Your ideas and stories are interesting.

Burrahobbit -- Thanks for the post. I especially appreciate your perspective because you can look at things from a much longer view than many of us. One of the things that has interested me in this thread is the fact that so many of us who joined after the movie, and who do "serious" posts (whatever that is!), had actually been Tolkien fans for quite a while. It just took the movie to relight the fire and stumble around and find this place on the internet, so in that sense I am grateful for PJ. After ranting and raving against him for a while, I've come to realize that he did a great "fanfiction", a personal statement about how he saw the book, but not the book itself.

From looking at the earliest posts, I got the feeling that another thing that has been lost is the sense of intimacy. Because the site was smaller and it tended to attract the "truly dedicated" back then, I think there would have been more closeness. I also got the feeling from looking at the earlier posts that the board was a bit more "male" and just a tad older then (but not too much so) and a little more oriented to the history of Middle-earth rather than the LotR itself. But my assessment could be wrong as this was just feelings that came from sifting through old friends.

Personally, that is the main change that the board has meant for me. It's gotten me into HoMe and the Legendarium as a whole rather than focusing more narrowly on Hobbit and LotR. I've always read tons of Tolkien criticism (I have quite a collection!) so that really hasn't changed.

Helen - That is an awesome statement. This morning I posted on another thread, about rereading Tolkien and tried to explain some of those more personal things. You might want to look at that if you haven't. It's also an interesting thread.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[burrahobbit]

I also got the feeling from looking at the earlier posts that the board was a bit more "male" and just a tad older then

Quam was 13 and I was 16. Balin999 is only slightly older than me, and Kate was 16 too. There were always plenty of young people, but the mostly male part is fairly spot on.

[tangerine]

really? I've gotten the impression that the bulk of the fans are female, but that may be related to the actors who played Legolas and Aragorn in the movie.

I saw the teaser trailer for the movie in feb. 2001, and that's what got me interested in the movie. I work in a theater, so i got to watch it several times. It just shows the Fellowship coming over a hill just after leaving Rivendell, with the theme music blaring. The first time i saw it i wasn't really impressed; i kinda though, um, okay- bunch of guys coming over a hill-real exciting, and the music wasn't doing anything for me. It was really quite a good teaser though: people who HAD read the books were forewarned, and people who hadn't wondered how in the world this trilogy had gotten so popular and picked up the books. I read the hobbit first, since my dad, who was really into the books as a kid and has a 1st edition hardcover copy of the silmarilien, told my that it would make more sense that way. (My older sister ignored this advice, and therefore believes that dragons are friendly and always willing to help.) it took me about two days to get through the hobbit. When i started the trilogy i was about iffy about it; 'a long-expected party' wasn't quite what i was expcting at first, but as soon as i got a coupla pages into it i couldn't tear myself away. Took me three weeks to get through the whole trilogy. by december i was a hardcore Tolkien fan.

My point is that i would have probably not have gotten around to reading the books for several more years if i had not heard about a movie. Alot of really good books tend to be made into really bad movies (like the animated LOTR, It, etc, etc), and i wanted to see what the real story was like. A good friend of mine read LOTR: FOTR just so that she would know what would happen in the movie. And alot of people started reading (this is partially true for me too) because hardcore Tolkien fans told other people that that would understand the movie so much better if they had at least read the books.

[Anarya SilverBranch]

I think that the movie's impact was more positive then negative.

I had the books prior to the movie's release and was expecting what was going to happen in it. My friends, whom I went with, had no clue. Lets just say that they are hooked now. The moment we exited the theater that first time we went they were all buzzing about how they did not have the patience to wait for ttt and went home begging their mothers and fathers for the trilogy. It was funny how my friends reacted to it though because I was sure that the moment we came out of the movie they were going to all babble about how hot Legolas, Frodo, Aragorn, etc were but instead they were all pounding me with questions about what happens next smilies/eek.gif It really freaked me out about how literary minded they had become in a matter of three hours.

[Laureloth]

I, being a new member of the forums, but not of the site, have seen a lot of great discussions on this board. This thread, however, stimulates my curiousity with Child of the 7th Age's insight.

I've loved Lord of the Rings ever since I received the books for my birthday in 1994. I was only 10 years old, but I loved the vivid descriptions and plot of the Lord of the Rings. I do understand the story better now.

Not much changed for me when the movie came out. It only helped me get a better sense of what the characters look like. Now, when I read the books, I picture the characters from the movie. The way I imagined the characters before the movie was quite the same except that I saw almost all elves with grey eyes and Legolas with dark hair.

However, for others, the movie changed the way they look at the world. My cousin, who is 12, saw the movie and immediately asked to borrow my books to read them. Sometimes I think she knows more than I do now!

Over all, I think the movie did the world of Middle Earth some good. It attracted new fans to Tolkien and more people are reading the books. It's also helped the role playing world. I've been rping in Middle Earth since I first finished reading the books. There are a lot more new places to rp now and more members.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Laureloth --

Are you in RPGs here, or on other sites as well?

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[ July 17, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[burrahobbit]

I'd just like to clarify what I said earlier. None of that applies to Novices & Newcomers. That part didn't exist for most of the time that I was around before. I've only ever looked at the list of topics a few times. Quite frankly, I didn't like what I saw. I fear that if I ever really read a topic there that I will break in half and die. None of what I said in my other posts applies to N&N.

[greyhavener]

The movie impacted me more as a mother than as a LOTR fan. I've reread the Hobbit and the trilogy about once a year for the past twenty four years because I enjoy them and get something new from them each time.

Because of the movie my kids became LOTR fans, the little one even had me redo his room with a sort of Elvin motif. He was not satisfied knowing that there is more in the book than the movie and did not want to wait three years to have the whole story, so I ended up reading the Hobbit and LOTR aloud to this eight-year-old. In answering his questions and also through the perspective of experiencing LOTR as a spoken work, I gained so much insight into Tolkien and truth. Now my child is attempting to read LOTR himself...quite a challenge for someone his age. Meanwhile I've read the Silm and am working my way through HoME. This deeper interest has been inspired by the Barrowdowns. My child was the one who actually found the Barrowdowns when he was searching the net for Gollum riddles. We both enjoy different parts of it. He loves the art.

We both agree that there are different advantages to seeing the movie, hearing the book, and reading the book and that we get different insights from each medium because different senses are impacted.

I loved the movie overall and look forward to seeing the other installments.

[ July 19, 2002: Message edited by: greyhavener ]

[Mister Underhill]

I’ve been sitting back to see if any other old-timers would field this one and have been surprised that no one besides burra has replied. Maybe part of the reason is that many of the folks who were around when the board started and guided it through its infancy are now gone, or else post rarely. You’re right, Cot7A – before the movie, the board was a more intimate place and seemed to have a broader focus on Middle-earth – its arcane trivia, its geographical and historical nuances, its textual history, and especially its extra-LotR details – as opposed to a more narrow focus on LotR. You had to crack open your Sil, UT, and HoME if you really wanted to keep up.

The site’s membership was small but dedicated, and especially dedicated to a certain tone and style of discussion. Other boards used to flame us for being too intellectual and stuffy (though they usually used more colorful adjectives), but when I first visited, I was immediately impressed by the board’s unique mixture of witty good humor and rigorous intelligence.

When I started out, it took me only a few days of lurking to catch up with most of the posts on the site and get into the groove – back then, it seems, you felt like you really had to have something to contribute before you posted. Newbies would frequently express trepidation in their first posts, wondering if they’d be able to keep up with the high bar set by other posters. Not to give you the wrong idea, though – you’ll never meet a more welcoming bunch than the early members. They showed great patience and restraint with some of my more outlandish theories and speculations.

Trolls with little or nothing to contribute were a seldom-encountered curiosity, and usually soon moved on to more fertile ground. It was easy to keep track of virtually every post that was made back then. The downside was that sometimes whole days would go by without a single post being made in any of the threads you were following. On the upside, you didn’t have to scroll through pages of contentless posts to get to some meat.

Traffic started to increase steadily as the movie’s release approached, and the board’s tone was diluted somewhat – as burra mentioned, the addition of Novices and Newcomers was partly an effort to maintain the board’s intellectual flavor but still accommodate new members who were more interested in fun and conversation than in plumbing the depths of, say, Tolkien’s mythological influences, or whether or not the needs of Khazad-dûm could really have been met by the lone eastern bridge from FotR.

Now, several months and a few thousand new members later, the Downs has clearly changed quite a bit, for better and for worse. New board software without the ezBoard popups = good! Having to sift through dozens of “chatter” posts to get to something interesting = bad. I reckon I’ll refrain from getting into too many details, other than to say that there’s inevitably something lost when you go from a sleepy small-town feel to a bustling boom-town atmosphere. You wonder, who are these people and why is a strip mall going up in place of those trees that my front porch used to look out on? I think it’s the reason why you see some old-timers get cranky. Even if every single one of our 3000+ new members post-movie were an articulate, witty, and thoughtful poster (many, in fact, are), that something, that intimacy, that feeling of being an important part of a small, tight-knit community, whatever you want to call it, would still be gone, or at least diminished.

In terms of style and content of discussion, there are some obvious changes and some that are more subtle. I won’t dwell on the obvious differences for, well, obvious reasons. I’ll just observe that the “serious” discussions these days are different in one way that I’ve noticed. There’s a general trend to discuss Tolkien and his works in more general terms against a wider perspective – Frodo’s grief and how it matches or differs from real-world suffering; Tolkien’s achievement in relation to world literature; how Tolkien’s belief system affected his work, etc. – as opposed to the much more detailed textual debates and analysis of famed threads of yore. That isn’t necessarily better or worse... just different.

[steve]

my outlook on the move was about 50% postive and 50% negative positive for the obvious reasons but negative because alot was left out, and mainly, all these people seeing it for the first time and never reading the books and then saying it sucked cause of the end or are wondering whjy this happened or that happened, u know, dumb questions that would be answered in the book but there to lazy to read it so they see it in the movies and complain about it,

[Evisse the Blue]

Ok, here's my story. I first laid my eyes on LOTR 3 years ago, when I borrowed it from the school's English library. However, there were only 2 volumes available, of which I had become painfully aware after I had finished TTT and realized there was more to come. smilies/mad.gif After a year I finished highschool and went to university in another town - which had a British Council Library. Of, course, one of my first borrowed books was LOTR. Still- even though it is widely held that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, this library also had only the first two volumes! (I still have to figure out why would anyone offer only the first two volumes and keep the third! Maybe because of the appendices)
Fortunately, after another period of frustration, the movie came out, and my fellow compatriots decided to translate the whole trilogy, which I immediately bought and read. However, I have not seen the movie until quite recently (May, to be exact). Why? Simply because I was afraid not to be dissapointed. I already had a clear picture in my mind of the characters, the setting, etc, and it was so wonderful, that I wanted to keep it. Three chances I had of seeing thae movie, and I passed on all of them. Finally, in May, on what appeared to be the final showing of LOTR in theatres, I gave in. My feelings were mixed, and so numerous, that I need not mention here. The most important thing is that I would have regretted not seeing the movie. The movie - though far from perfect- and the books complete each other and make a whole. Not to mention, giving me the opportunity to read TROTK!

[Amarinth]

hello child smilies/smile.gif

i've been meaning with what little time i have to post on your thread but haven't really gotten down to it, but now after reading mr. underhill's post i feel really obliged to. notwithstanding the fact that i have been an early though completely passive member of the BD, i understand what mr. underhill meant and share recognition of the experience of change in the BD. members who used to dominate the boards conking out, the shift from the literary to a more existential approach to lotr, the textural add-ins of the movie, etc.,...the BD has certainly grown beyond recognition.

i 1st read lotr when i was 12, and sil when i was 18, and for 20 years i've been regurgitating tolkien, but never had i a deeper appreciation of it as a piece of literature until i began reading posts in the BD. the movie has brought forth imagery of ME landscape and characterization my own imagination could scarce have contrived, but that's about it. the books having lived in me for so long still dominate my perception of ME. i guess that carries over to my appreciation for BD, in the way that having been involved in it for so long, whatever growth and change could not alter my first impressions of it. i do just wish the oldies would come back, nevermind if some of them intimidate the hell out of me smilies/biggrin.gif.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Mr. Underhill--

Thanks so very much for taking the time to post on this question. Whenever I read the older threads, I am so blown away with the depth of knowledge shown about the Silm and the general history of Middle-earth. If I were an "old-timer" on these boards, I would miss that level of discussion.

At the same time, however, I know that, in the long run, it has to be good to get more people interested in Tolkien and his writings. I truly believe that these books are good, not just good for the twentieth century or the twenty-first, but good as literature that can and should endure for all time. And that can't and won't happen just because of a few critics or a few fans. It has to happen because there are a significant group of people who, in their hearts, can see and value these writings for what they mean.

So, those of you out there, who've been around on these boards, have patience with us. Some of us at least are trying to larn, and we appreciate the guidance you have given us. Thanks again.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[The Green Ringwraith]

I had heard of LOTR and a bunch of my friends had read it. They said "Really, you should read the book before seeing the movie!" And I said, "Fine." So it comes out and it all I can't do to not go ahead and see it cause all my friends are squealing about it. They talked about "Frodo, Aragorn, Legolas!" and I thought the were babbling jibberish! But then I read the book ,and finished FotR in six days. My reward- I saw FotR the movie four times before it went out of theatres. I love it, have read all three books and reread them three times since then and its a exciting each time. I think that the movie goers that just saw the movie and didn't read the book are just getting the icing off the cake and don't know what kind of goodies they're mising by not reading the books. smilies/smile.gif

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Mister Underhill, when I came to the Barrow-Downs at the beginning of this year, I read as many old threads as possible - it was already impossible to catch up then! I must admit, I mourned the fact that I hadn't realized there was a wonderful place like this and wished I'd been around to get the feeling there used to be here! But that is the most significant change the movie made for me - the publicity about the websites introduced me to this one, and it has greatly enriched my life ever since!

I agree that it is more difficult to find one's place in the crowd now - it's triple the size it was even when I came in! Yet I can't help but wonder what would have happened to the Downs without the widening of the scope into general aspects, indeed a strengthening of the feminine point of view which was certainly less in the site's beginnings, IMO.

There is only so much discussion potential in balrog wings, the nature of Tom Bombadil etc. before the topics dry out. Unfortunately, a dead author produces no new material that can be considered. A broadening viewpoint, while containing the peril of dilution, is perhaps inevitably necessary for the continuation of discussions.

Your comparison of the site to a boom-town is quite appropriate; we can no longer keep in touch with everyone in town, but we can build neighborhoods with close contacts and just wave and smile at those we don't know as well. (And we can try to simply ignore those people in the community who irritate us...)

Where will the next two installments of the movie take the Barrow-Downs? Where will they take me? I hope to keep enjoying books, site and movies and I intend to try my best to make this a place I will want to continue to come to!

[Guinevere]

Hullo everyone !

What strikes me, is that apparently everybody here started reading Tolkien as a teenager!
Am I the only one who has discovered Tolkien at a later age? I really wonder now why I haven`t heard about LotR during my stay in England (1971) and in the USA (1973). I read a lot of English books, but none of my friends, teachers etc ever mentioned Tolkien to me...

Only about a year ago, when there was talk about the oncoming movie, my son (16) was recommended "The Hobbit" and LotR by his scout-friends and started reading it (in German).Suddenly I also noticed a large display of Tolkiens works in the English bookshop here in Zürich. So I bought myself the Hobbit and LotR and managed to read FotR before the movie came out. I was immediatly spellbound ,as by hardly any other book before. A whole new world opened up for me! After LotR I read the Silmarillion , a biography and Tolkiens "On Fairie-Stories".

To my own surprise I liked the movie too- inspite of all the shortcomings it conveys much of the books atmosphere.
I have the impression, (like many others said ) that the movies cause a new interest in Tolkien and many young people (especially in the non English-speaking countries) have their first encounter with Tolkiens world thanks to the film, and ,hopefully, many of them will then read the books.

As for my joining the Barrowdowns, well that was also thanks to my son. (Half a year ago I never even used a computer!!)since I had no one else to discuss this topic with, he showed me how to use the internet and find this wonderful site. I was delighted to meet so many other Tolkien-fans all over the world, and since then I`ve read so many interesting contributions and thought-provoking threads, it really has enriched my life!
Thank you all, and especially the founders of the Barrowdowns!!

[Sweatpea Knotwise]

I had only visited Tolkien sites a couple of times before the film. At that time, the people and their wealth of knowledge were too intimidating for me, so I moved on to other things.

Before the movie, I had set LOTR on the shelf – I had always had a high regard for Tolkien, but outside of occasionally rereading the books and listening to the BBC radio production, I didn’t feel any need to live my life around it. This was the case for a number of years, until word of Jackson’s movie caught my attention. I now have a renewed interest in the story, and have discovered that there are others who are quite willing to discuss, question, and share knowledge on every aspect of Tolkien’s creation.

Although I am new to The Barrow-Downs, I have visited several Tolkien MBs since the release of the film. Judging from the apparent expansion of online Tolkien interest, the FOTR movie - warts and all - has been beneficial in spreading the word (and re-igniting the passion of longtime appreciators) of Tolkien’s great work. True, a lot of these fans are ignorant of the finer points, and in the long run many could prove to be merely bandwagoners, but there are also those who seem to genuinely want to learn more. The latter will be the ones to carry on the torch long after we are gone.

If I have repeated what others have said, pardon the redundancy.

A question – have we reached the point where Tolkien is no longer considered the province of nerds? There’s food for thought – the conflicting attitudes toward LOTR; high cachet literature and target of derision.

[ July 27, 2002: Message edited by: Sweatpea Knotwise ]

[Bulelainwen]

I have known about LOTR for about 5 years now but I didnt actually read the books until I had seen the movie. I am reading the books now and I actually like the books more than the movie. Even though I've seen the movie when I am reading the books the characters I imagine arent the ones from the movie. I think that the movie helped, if the people only liked the movie they would have given up by now (thats my theory)

[Nevfeniel]

After I saw previews for FotR, I read the book. When I was finished, I saw the movie. It's a good thing I read the first couple of chapters of TTT, otherwise the movie would have ruined them for me. I actually had read exactly as far in the book as the movie went, and I forgot that I had even started the Two Towers.
After reading LotR, I read The Hobbit, and I just started reading the Silm. It's a little confusing, so I just think of it more as history than a story, although history is a story.
Since I didn't register here until after the movie came out (I didn't even know about the Barrow Downs), I can't really say anything about how the content has changed, but I think it's good that there is are separate sections for movie discussions and book discussions.

[Ravenna]

Although I am a long time Tolkien fan, I only discovered this site a matter of weeks ago, (but then again, its only a couple of months since I started using the web on a regular basis, a bit of a technophobe me, but I'm getting there.) Obviously I can't comment on how the site has changed since the movie, but I can say that I love the serious discussions which are making me think more deeply than ever before, but I also feel that there is a place for the novices and newcomers etc, I could go there and get my feet wet without getting in over my head too soon, as I will only post if I feel I have something valid to add to a discussion.

[Ithaeliel]

Before the movie came out, I had read The Hobbit and had thought it was pretty good (although I wasn't thinking, "This is exceptional! It's ingenious!"). That was when I thought it was just another pastless/futureless fairy-tale with no complete world to fall back on. Then I saw the movie and realized that it was connected to The Hobbit in a lot of ways, and seeing that there was a history behind the Ring, I became interested and wanted to learn more about it. I found this site in February (though I didn't join the forum till late April) and read the books in March. I just finished the Sil a couple of weeks ago, and I can now declare myself a fan of Tolkien's work smilies/smile.gif.

From what I've seen in the many discussions about, I would have to say that the level of intellect in the discussions has decreased somewhat, although not entirely. Here in the Books forum, I find a lot of good, thoughtful discussions to muse over and learn from. At least the forum has not lowered itself to having 60% of the topics lead down to, "OMG, Legolas is sooooo hot, he'z 2 fine 4U," or anything like that. Also, I've noticed that there must have been a huge inflow of members here because of the popularity of the movie.

Thanks for starting this thread, Child. It gives me a real insight to the changes of this forum over the past time.

[Mister Underhill]

Esty, you’ve made several fine points, as usual. You’re quite right, of course, that you can only get so much conversation out of examining the details of a dead author’s works, a fact which is probably at least as big a reason for old-time member attrition as any other factor. People move on to new interests and new enthusiasms. But are you surprised that a Tolkien fan should show a bit of nostalgia for the irretrievably lost past? smilies/wink.gif

I miss the challenge of poring through obscure corners of HoME in an effort to back up a tenuous theory; I miss the battles with BW, who now posts almost exclusively in his role as Chief Wight and head policeman; I miss Mithadan’s always stimulating topics and thoughtful debates; I miss the synergy of a good back-and-forth with Sharkey in a thread where one post seems to build off of another; I miss galpsi’s wry, inside humor.

All things change. Still, it’s not only the boards that have changed. I find I have much less free time to post now than in months gone by for one thing, and also I find that I burn out on deep Tolkien discussions more quickly than before. To paraphrase the wise man – of making many posts there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Sometimes Tolkien’s books need to be read and enjoyed simply as stories, rather than picked apart, analyzed, and dissected. It’s fun to pop the hood and check out all the engineering and the mechanical details that make the car go, but sometimes you should just go drive it around.

As time goes by and the population of the Downs changes, certain popular topics, some of which you mentioned, recur again and again. And again the wise man’s words apply: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” It’s tough to muster up a reply to the thirty-third iteration of the “Who/What is Tom Bombadil” debate, and somewhere along the line I acquired a subliminal aversion to any thread with “Balrog” in the title.

Yet the Downs continues to draw many intelligent, articulate, and funny members. You figure out whose names to look for as you’re scrolling through the daily topics, the ones you can count on for a thoughtful contribution or a laugh or two. And as often as not, one of these bright people comes up with a new topic, or a new angle on an old topic, that you hadn’t considered before. That’s one of the joys of the Downs, which I still heartily enjoy. Another satisfaction which can only be enjoyed over time is to watch members, particularly the younger members – I’ll omit names to spare embarrassment – grow and mature.

Now I’m really starting to sound like a codger, and I perceive that I have strayed well off the before-and-after-the-movie topic. Suffice to say that the Downs has been indelibly changed by the movie’s release – but its plucky heart continues to rot inside its decaying chest. Long may it moulder!

[Lush]

Well well well.
I only read the LotR (and then moved on to other works) after I saw the movie. I had skimmed "The Hobbit" on a babysitting job years ago, and found it really sweet and enchanting, but had not paid attention to the fact that there were other books that Tolkien had to offer.
Of course, I went to see the movie with some of my more indiscreet friends, who, afterwards were saying (loudly) stuff like : "Yeah, but the coolness won't start until they show the big spider, and everyone's gonna think that Frodo died! And watch out for that Gollum dude, 'cause he's going to save the day when he bites off Frodo's finger! Oh, but, like, Frodo won't do so well in the end anyway, 'cause he'll be sick and stuff, and they're gonna take him on this ship..."
Yeah, you get the idea that some of the biggest surprises that Tolkien had up his sleeve were spoiled for me. I don't think I enjoyed the books less because of that. Not at all. And, like any red-blooded female, I had a helluva time getting to know the characters of Aragorn and Legolas a little better. smilies/wink.gif
As for the morphing of the Downs, you know, "nothing gold can stay..."

[Child of the 7th Age]

Now that all three films are out, at least in the threatrical version, I decided to resurrect this thread. Does anyone have opinions to add, either in terms of the movies' influence on their own reading of Tolkien or the general impact on the discussion of books at the Downs?

Some of those who posted on this thread are still with the site, while others have faded away. I suspect that pattern of "fading" will be accelarated in the coming year, since there will be no PJ flick to draw in newbies. I would guess that the Downs will never return to what is was at its origins: a close knit site where the discussion centered almost exclusively on books. There will probably still be more members than in the pre-PJ days. I would also venture to say that Middle-earth Mirth and N&N are not going away, although the posting there may be a bit less hectic and exuberant as time passes.

More importantly, as Burra noted, we can never recapture the newness of that early experience, when every query was being raised for the first time---just as Frodo could never turn back and become what he was before the Ring. He had to adjust to the profound changes in his life, which is not necessarily a bad thing (unless you happen to be an Elf!)

I do have some concerns how much the movies will indirectly affect the discussions we have in the Books Forum. I have seen a number of posts where a person offered a quote or example that was actually drawn from PJ, and introduced it without explanation into a books discussion. Most of the time, someone else pounces on them and points out the mistake.

Yet, if we're honest, there are instances when all of us, even those who read the books twenty or more years ago, find ourselves influenced by the images and ideas that PJ put forward, sometimes consciously and other times less so. There's a current thread that raises the explicit question of how we view the characters (book versus movie) and I can remember at least two other older ones that discussed similar questions.

Personally, I find that my own images of Samwise and Gandalf have at least been tweaked by Sam Astin and Ian McKellan. Yet there are other movie characters whose influence I sternly resist. To me, even with the staying influence of the Ring, there is no way that Elijah Wood looks or acts fifteen years older than Sam. You do have a sense of Frodo's maturity in Tolkien's writings that is missing in PJ. The latter stresses Frodo's vulnerabilty instead. Wood's Frodo definitely works in PJ's interpretation--but he isn't Tolkien's Frodo (which I prefer).

Again in personal terms, I am still poking around in HoMe but have never fully digested all twelve volumes! But, then, there are only a few who have, even among the old-timers. I find myself giving more time to writing than before. But I still read and keep an eye on the Books forum if anything especially interesting comes up.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 3:03 PM January 01, 2004: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

[Finwe]

You're very right. Who knows, perhaps all the die-hard movie fans will slowly drift away, and the die-hard book fans will remain. (Yes, that was blatant Tolkien-purist superiority there. smilies/biggrin.gif) It will change the Downs, but who knows, it might be for the better. We can never really say what changes will result in.

[mark12_30]

Happy New Year...

This is less a reply to the thread than to Child's current thoughts. Much of what I posted before has not changed much.

Before the movie trilogy: I had let Tolkien and LotR slip rather thoroughly out of my everyday life, although it did keep trying to resurface invarious ways. The movies drew me back into the legendarium.

While I agree with Child that EJW's interpretation (or rather Wood's presentation of PJ's interpretation) of Frodo is incomplete, if it had not been for Wood's presentation I never would have investigated Tolkien's Frodo as much as I did. For three decades, Frodo was always the most obscure main character in the books to me. Having WoodFrodo to contrast with BookFrodo threw BookFrodo into sharp relief, and continues to do so. Without the movies, then, I'd have been much poorer. BookFrodo is now a big favorite of mine, probably my favorite Tolkien character. WoodFrodo is also a treasure, for different reasons.

(For you Star Trek fans, it's like this: I enjoy both Kirk and Picard for different reasons, and now that I know them both, I wouldn't discard either one.)

I wasn't a forum member until the first movie came out. I joined that February, as I recall. So to me, themovies provided a gateway back into the books, into writing, RPGs, and numerous friendships. While it's quite true for me that the books forum seems to have run it's course, there's still plenty to write. Plenty "to do, and to be."

And there's hal;f a shelf of critical works still to get through. And half of the histories are still waiting. Tolkien's letters still provide much food for thought.

I do miss the discussions in the books forum, espcially the ones that have landed in Hauth-En-Ndengin; but they're still there, after all. I guess FWW has replaced much of that for me.

For now I'm steeped in critical work and in my own writing. When the movies leave the theater, I will return to the trilogy again; I don't dare til then, because it affects me so. I still can't just flip to the final chapter; if I must in order to verify something, as soon as I'm done, I slam it closed and turn away.

[Guinevere]

As I have already written in this thread (in July 02), I had read the books shortly before the first movie came out, and shortly after that, I found the Barrowdowns.
Well, obviously, I am still around here! smilies/smile.gif
In the mean time I have read more Tolkien (U.T. and all Tolkien's letters, and LotR and the Silmarillion several times over)and, also thanks to the many insightful threads here in the Downs, I think I have come to a deeper understanding. (As a side-effect I have become such an adept as to be able to partake in Quotable quotes, which is a lot of fun.)
As to the movies: While I really was enchanted by the first one, there was a lot that disappointed me in the 2nd and 3rd one.

But I think that just these differences between books and movies stimulated a lot of very interesting discussions here in the forum! Even if some of them got a bit heated... I really enjoyed reading all those brilliant arguments! (Especially because I myself am not so articulate.)
And just like Sharon and Helen said, it often was just the uneasyness about the movie-characters that made me study the book-characters more closely.

I believe just because there are always new members joining that there is never a lack of interesting threads here (even if they are about the same topic as old ones )

[elenquesse]

I read The Hobbit in 5th Grade, and, to be honest, I found it rather boring. I didn't actually notice when the first movie came out, but my brother bought the DVD, so I noticed the relationships (ex. "Unexpected Party"-"Long-expected Party") and found that FotR was an excellent movie. So then I read all three books and was...inspired.

I couldn't say whether the quality of this board has decreased, but I can say that the quality of the fans has decreased. I like to think I am a true fan--even though I caught on with the movies--but some people...they just assume that it's a title easily earned. I could name several who call themselves such when they haven't even read the books or seem to be interested only in Orlando Bloom smilies/rolleyes.gif And if you're going to see the movies for that sole reason, you'll be completely missing the point!!!

P.S. Ironically, there was an article today in The Baltimore Sun on the fans who have been waiting all this time to "come out of the closet".

[Finwe]

I'd like to consider myself a "true Tolkien fan" even though I find myself defending Peter Jackson's movies, sometimes vehemently, in some discussions. I think the line is rather blurred between being a book fan and a movie fan, because I for one, really enjoy both. Now, I can see how the Leggy-boppers and Ary-boppers wouldn't count as "true Tolkien fans," but just because one enjoys the movies a bit more than the books shouldn't immediately "declassify" them as a Tolkien fan.

[Evisse the Blue]

Yet, if we're honest, there are instances when all of us, even those who read the books twenty or more years ago, find ourselves influenced by the images and ideas that PJ put forward, You are so right, Sharon, and this is one of the things that I really regret but at the same time there is not much I can do to change. It happens, like you said, unconsciously. For instance, a couple of days ago, I was firmly stating that Bilbo was 112 years old when he left to the Grey Havens, forgetting that years have passed bewteen the long expected party and the beginning of Frodo's journey -- luckily I was immediately contradicted by someone and I shamefully recognized my mistake.

So I agree that movie changes our outlook, and not always in good. I admit the last three years were great fun, and not having the movies would have been a loss, in terms of a new experience. The best thing is to keep them separate in our mind. Few and lucky are those who can smilies/wink.gif.

Finwe, I know what a Leggy-bopper is, but what's an Ary-bopper??

[Gorwingel]

This is an interesting thread.

I was introduced to the world of Tolkien via the films, and did not join this forum until I had read LOTR and become more immersed in the world of Middle Earth. And because I did finish reading the books immediately after I had saw FOTR, I very much have my own ideas about the story, and how I think it should go. I also think that the books are a masterpiece, and I consider myself a die-hard fan of the written works. To me the films are just an adaptation... The books are an original that will never be matched in greatness.

I am a little nervous right now though because I don't really know what is going to happen to the movie forum (which is the place where I post the most), I guess you could say that the movie portion of my experience is basically over. But with the books my journey has just begun. I have so much to study and to learn. I have not yet touched the HoME, and I have only read the Sil once (and enjoyed it), so I have much more to explore and ask questions about at places like here.

I wish though I would have come before, because it must have been a much different world. A world where you had never heard the words "Orlando Bloom is such a hottie", or "Why did PJ have to do that?” I think now that the films are all released that it is now impossible to get unspoiled image of Tolkien's world as he wrote it, without the films images at least influencing you a little. And that is sad. But the films have brought life to this community, and as this world has become such a part of my world, I plan to be here as long as possible smilies/smile.gif

[Finwe]

"Ary-bopper" is a term that I came up with. It means a crazed Aragorn fan. Believe me, I've met LOADS of them. It's scary!

[mark12_30]

I suppose one can look at the movies as another well-known work added to the pile. THink of PJ as another critical interpretation. We've had everything from William Ready, Lin Carter and Humphrey Carpenter to Joseph Pearce, Tom Shippey, Anne Petty, Verilyn Flieger. PJ is another critical interpretation added to the pile. We may agree or disagree. But Tolkien's legendarium is not diminished by any of them; his works are still securely on our shelves, unchanged, waiting for our attention.

I am delighted, really, that so many scholars are reconsidering the Legendarium. Were it not for the movies, they'd have much less of a market for their work.

[Lyta_Underhill]

Before the movie trilogy: I had let Tolkien and LotR slip rather thoroughly out of my everyday life, although it did keep trying to resurface invarious ways. The movies drew me back into the legendarium. Helen, I couldn't have described it better! There is something in the distant past that was pulled upon by the movies (I didn't pick up the books again until right after I saw TTT, though!). I had a sudden longing to read the books again after that movie, and it wasn't for fascination with any ONE character; it was perhaps a longing for the entirety of Middle Earth itself! (I suspect the Ents did it, really!). I found that, right after my re-reading, that I was hopelessly in love with Pippin, so much so that I wrote an essay about him and posted it here on the Barrowdowns, which I had culled from dozens of Tolkien-related and movie-related sites as my favorite of all of them. I certainly wasn't a Leggybopper or pulled into the movie for a single character--until after I re-read the books! Then, I watched everything Billy Boyd did in FOTR and TTT, and on a slower scale, I watched
everything Elijah Wood did, Frodo being a slower but more intense obsession in the long run. (Even slower, but quite different, is my low-level Aragorn fancy, but, no, I'm NOT an Ary-bopper!) Add one term to the list, though--I'm a Frodophile! smilies/wink.gif

Anyway, the real blessing of the movies was that it plunged me back into Middle Earth in its depth and richness. I don't think I EVER would have read of the rich Gates of Gondolin in "Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin" or marvelled at the harmonic beauty of the Ainulindale or felt the pangs of melancholy at a mind's eye view of Cerin Amroth or Haudh-eh-Elleth if I had not picked up the trilogy again to see "what really happened" after so many years of forgetfulness.

I can say that the onscreen characters have their own reality, although it is not strictly Tolkien's; I have no doubt that Elijah/Frodo REALLY saw the wheel of fire when he spoke of it to Sean/Sam in the Plains of Gorgoroth, and for that alone, he will always be Frodo, if not the Tolkien version, still he went to a place that gave me a greater insight into both Frodo's and Sam's characters at that moment. It has enriched my experience of the books, although the characters and story as shown is not identical.

That's all I can think of at the moment; my head is full and it keeps my thoughts from flowing properly! smilies/frown.gif

Cheers!
Lyta

P.S. Finwe, I have met some that I might almost call "Ary-boppers" but I don't think they were that scary (maybe I haven't met a REAL one!). Most of them were also Leggyboppers! One girl just said, "I like the Elf thing and the Ranger!" smilies/rolleyes.gif

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 1:25 PM January 02, 2004: Message edited by: Lyta_Underhill ]

[Firefoot]

I guess I would be one of those people who picked up the book indirectly because of the movie. What I mean is that I borrowed the Hobbit from a friend, having heard it was really good and having no idea what it was about, three or four months after the movie came out. I had no idea that there was a movie or that it was connected to the Hobbit but as soon as I finished the Hobbit I had to find out more. I never saw FotR (or TTT, for that matter) in theaters, and I read LotR three times before I saw FotR. Another one of my movie-LotR loving friends found this site. I've been coming to the BDs off and on for about 1 1/2 years but I didn't join the forum until recently.

The movie has also encouraged me to go deeper into the book and this site encouraged me to read the Sil - I'm almost done reading it for the 2nd time - and I'm going to start UT after I finish the Sil. I couldn't tell you how the discussion here has changed but the movie is what caused me to find LotR so I guess for that reason I am glad the movie was made.

[burrahobbit]

Same as last time, only more (and less).

[mark12_30]

What Effect Will the Movies Have? Any Predictions? (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=1192)

Also of interest:

Loss Of Knowledge (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=4701)

[Neferchoirwen]

I, like a lot of others, read the books because of the first movie. I was a skeptic of books-to-movie projects (still am, but spotting the differences is something I find intellectually stimulating), and I had to ask my lit thesis mentor if the movie is worth watching in spite of not having read anything. Smart as she eternally is, she told me to go ahead and watch it. (I didn't have enough time to read it, so...)
The end result was my turning out to be a fan, and a member of the Downs.

The movies encourage me to think about new ways to think about the themes and the characters, and at the same time, encourage me to have an open mind.

I do regret that I have not seen Return of the King more than once in the theaters. It was all too overwhelming to see again (waiting for it on dvd is just sooo much better: currently asking dad to get me the EE). It all too much for me that I had to be absent from the Downs for half a year! ( I decided that I was overreacting that way, and poof! Signing in again)

[Lalwendë]

Another ace thread recovery from before my time!

Well, I was a fan long before the films, and I have to say that although I was terrified of seeing them, I was also excited. To my relief, I found they were great films. I can't, however, comment on the BarrowDowns pre-films as I didn't even have internet access back then, and when I did, I found this site quite by accident. I loitered for a while and found to my pleasure that it wasn't 'inane' like so many other Tolkien discussion forums.

Personally, I have nothing at all against the films and the new readers they've brought onboard. After all, a new reader is one who is fresh to the books and still possessed of that special, wide-eyed and fanatical new-found enthusiasm. If truth be told, I'm quite jealous of new readers...I wish I could read it all with fresh eyes again. The amazing experience of my first read will never leave me.

Some topics may come around again, but I think that's a good thing, after all, some of those who have been long-time members may have fresh input to make or have a change of heart. And I just cannot conceive of running out of things to say about Tolkien.

I refer to the 1990s as the dark-ages for a Tolkien fan, when it was considered uncool and it was nigh on impossible to find someone to discuss Tolkien with on a regular basis. Everyone was seemingly 'in the closet', so to speak. Like a Viking invader, Peter Jackson swept across all of this bringing widespread acceptance and a whole new audience. And like the Vikings, whether he was brutal or came in peace, well that's open to debate. ;)

[Azaelia of Willowbottom]

I wasn't here before the movies happened... It took me a while to find the BD's, so I can't say what these boards were like before the movies, but I can comment on the whole Tolkien experience.
I will forever regret that I only became a fan of the books a month before the movies came out. Hence, I have hardly any knowledge of what it was to be a Tolkien fan in the long stretch before the movies happened...And the only world I know is one of drooling fangirls (though I don't deny that some of the actors are goodlooking) whose only reason for watching the movies is their "Orlie". I am enough of a fan of LOTR to be quite annoyed by these people. I know that these people are, for whatever reason, far less numerous here than on other boards I've visited.
I can say that, whatever BD was like before LOTR, it seems to me to be still a place of high standards where I can go to find truly deep and intelligent discussion. I feel that every time I come here, I learn something. Hooray!

On my general Tolkien experience... Before the movies, I never cared much one way or the other for the chapters in the book taking plce in the Old Forest. I had no violent dislike (though I know that some do), but I didn't feel totally amazed by them, either. Now, after the movies, I sort of treasure them because the chapters are hidden away in a corner of Middle-Earth completely untouched by anything PJ did... I'm not saying PJ's movies were bad: I loved them! But now the chapters in the Old Forest are somewhat sacred to me because the way I picture them is wholly my own, not affected by PJ's imaginings. What I picture is something unique to me...and I love that.

[Gondor Girl]

The reason I read the books was because of the movies. I had heard of The Lord of the Rings (books), but that's all I knew. Then the movies came out, and I didn't even want to go see them at first because I had no idea what they were about. I finally saw The Fellowship a while after The Two Towers came out. I saw it because we were playing the music from The Fellowship in my orchestra class, and all my friends in there loved the movies, so I just had to see what the big deal was. I soon found out. I absolutely LOVED the movies!! In fact I loved them so much, I just had to read the books. I was kind of disappointed that Peter Jackson left out some important details, like in the Fellowship how Frodo waits 13 years before he does anything about the ring!!!! That made me mad, but I guess Jackson couldn't put everything in the movies (that would be a very long movie).
So if I hadn't seen the movies I wouldn't have known how good Tolkien's stuff was, and I probably wouldn't have read the books. :)

[haltred]

I knew about the books before the movies came out . But found them a bit boring . Then the movies helped put a face to the charecters . Though having
reread the textx several times since I find them mopre and more enjoyable.
I see some archtypeal charecters Sam the loyal friend and comrade , Frodo the
champion who comes inspite of himself, Gandalf the moral back bone of the group, Aragon teh king in waiting and he doesn't really want the job.
Sauron evil incarnate, Sauraman man corrupted by evil, Grima politician
Gollum victim of the power of the ring Afraid I can't type the ring except maybe as evil.
Did the movies change my view of the books ? No . The books are what they are and the movies what they are. To remain true to the books the movies would each have run 8 hours so you couldn't do that . So PJ crafted a rather good story board keeping the essence of the book while keeping the action flowing. And te ending of ROTK is pure magic. And I'll never look at the how it was done making men who are BIG into hobbits & drawves. I'll let the magic that both Tolkien and Jackson bropught to the story live on. :)

[Child of the 7th Age]

Thanks to all those who gave their recent opinions and ideas on this thread. I am always intrigued at hearing how people first get interested in Tolkien, and what role the movies played.

~Child

[Nurumaiel]

I was first introduced to LotR long before the movies came out. I was just a little lassie when I first watched bits and pieces of the Return of the King cartoon. It had been recorded on video tape and then was recorded over and lost, save the very end, which I watched numerous times, puzzled and intrigued by it. When I was five and going on six my elder brothers received for Christmas some LotR cards, which instantly sparked our interest. We would play a game we called, 'the Frodo game,' for hours on end. I would be Frodo and my brother would be Beregond... two names we had picked up from the cards. My father was a devout fan of LotR, and my godfather, who lived very close by us and who we saw quite frequently, was equally ardent, and we heard discussions on that fascinating subjects all the time. For my sixth birthday I requested a 'movie about Frodo' and after some searching my parents found a copy of the Return of the King cartoon from which I had seen extracted scenes as a very young child. At the end of the film I was almost in tears, and I was saying, 'Yes, Gandalf, there is Hobbit in me, there is!' From then on the road was laid, and I had only to move along it.

One cold and snowy day, when the fire was briskly blazing and the baby was playing about on the floor, my father left the room to return with a rather old-looking book. It was rather large, and it was hardcover, and it was not in the best condition though it was readable. He sat down upon the hearth, opened it up, and began. We were enthralled from the first, delighted to hear more about our dear Frodo, and the Mr. Bilbo Baggins we knew about a little, and that wise old Gandalf, and of the loyal, endearing Samwise Gamgee. We would not let him stop reading until he was completely exhausted the first night, and afterwards we were miserable if he did not read us at least a chapter. His actings out of different scenes were charming to the heart of a child, and the manner in which he spoke when he read of Boromir's death, or of the bittersweetness of Frodo's passing into the West brought a tear to every eye. The laughter when he sang the song of the Man in the Moon, dancing and capering on the hearth, was full of childish delight and bliss. And, oh! weren't we sorry when we did something that incurred the terrible punishment of staying away from the fireplace until we had made up for our wrong. Foolish and stubborn pride brought this punishment upon me once, and I wept heartily, but still would not give in, until at last even pride had to give way. And how happy I was to be sitting at my father's knee, free from disgrace and, more importantly, delighting that I could hear about dear Frodo once again! Sorrow was bountiful when my father closed the book, looked at each one of us gravely and sorrowfully, and said with a little smile, 'The End.' It seemed impossible, and I for one wept the lonesome nights, reflecting that we would never again hear the tale. And, faith, how I would like to go to that fireplace now and sit at my father's feet and say for myself, 'Well, I'm back.'

It was impossible for it to end there, even though the tale itself was done. There was no end of stories made up and acted out, stories of dear Frodo, and even more enjoyable, stories about the numerous children of Sam. Back then we could each take on the role of three or four children apiece, and though it was eventually narrowed down to only two apiece, the fun never ended. Snails provided valuable playmates for 'Little Frodo' and 'Little Merry,' and oh dear, the stories we made up! If Tolkien had been present our only hope of avoiding his wrath would be that he understood children and that their little games were always ridiculous. Faith, taking on the role of 'Little Frodo,' I never ceased to bring the wrath of Gandalf upon me, from drowning his own pet snails (oh, horror that Gandalf should have pet snails! but children can't help it) to things that don't bear mentioning. As ourselves, we always thought of excuses to get Sam and Rosie out of the way, and then as the Gamgee children we would bring about havoc under the care of Gandalf. Fortunately 'Uncy' Frodo always gently intervened when things looked bleakest for Gandalf, if it was not our own real-life supper calling us away from Gamgee mischief. The Gamgees always were the center of attenion. I remember being about eight years old and patiently explaining to a friend of mine just who Frodo and Sam, along with the latter's wife and children, were, just so the two of us could play together that charming 'Frodo game.'

Time went on, and admittedly we would play other games, but somehow those others games always wound up into LotR. Horror of horrors! Could Narnia be played without our dear Frodo? No, nay, never! There was nothing to do but mysteriously bring Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin into Narnia so they could run about with the Pevensie children, and indeed, yes, be captured by the White Witch! Oh, nothing would stop us, not even the barriers between worlds. It was nothing to bring LotR into Narnia, or the other way around, or even to let Darth Vader run rampage in Middle-Earth even the fancy struck us. We grew older, and LotR was never abandoned. Our love for it was renewed with all vigour, for we came of an age where we were capable of reading the grand books ourselves.

And then the movies came out.

If our fervour for LotR had cooled any, it was brought to a raging blaze at that. The children who hadn't even been born on the wintry night when my father first read to us the story became immensely interested in Frodo, and there was no end of excitement and proclaimations of devotion to the movies. They were wonderful, and increased our already burning devotion for LotR, and made it much easier to read the book, for it was much simpler to go through the lengthy descriptions when the films depicted the landscapes in a marvellous way.

And then, slowly, slowly the first excitement of the movies began to fade and things didn't seem quite right. For the most part, Middle-Earth was our own little world still, because nobody we knew really loved it as much as we did. They were only passingly devoted to LotR, and they'd move on whenever the next big film came out. We owned Middle-Earth, still, but it was being invaded by mysterious forces. People would ask us if we liked LotR, and with a fire in our eyes we would cry fervently, 'Yes!' And then they would start talking about New Zealand, and the charming Orlando Bloom, or the big, charming eyes of Elijah Wood, or the amusement they derived from Merry, Pippin, and Gimli. We didn't like what we heard, and annoyance grew in us.

And, of course, after watching the movies numerous times, we noticed something rather... odd... about the characters. They had the names, to be sure, but something was lacking in each of them. Nobility in some, honour in others, and then others seemed to just be missing themselves. The books were brought out, read, and it seemed an entirely different world than that we had seen on the screen. Slowly we began to fade away from the films. We talked about the books instead of the films, we talked about the characters instead of the actors, and we immersed ourselves in our own darling Middle-Earth again.

Assuredly, I love the films very much and I'll always hold them dear, for they were magical and charming. But they weren't LotR to me, not the LotR I grew up with. Watching the films I find myself in a place that is similiar to Middle-Earth, but is not Middle-Earth. The full magic, the full charm, the full honour and nobility, the full of everything held precious in my childhood and now, I only find when I take up the old, worn, half-torn books that my father read, and creep back to the fireplace, and sit down as if I were at my father's feet again, and read of dear Frodo, and of Mr. Bilbo Baggins, and of loyal Samwise Gamgee. And then I smile and murmur softly, 'Well, I'm back.'

[Snowdog]

You say it quite well Nurumaiel! With few notable exceptions... ok, two actually, the movie characters fell short of what the book characters were to me.

I'm an olde book reader here, having read through Hobbit and the Trilogy in 1975-76. They were quite magical these books and the world they created in my mind. I heard of the movies early in 2000, and I approached them with curiosity.

Now, there are so many uber-experts who have never let their imagination go anywhere who think they know all that everyone is thinking when it comes to Middle Earth.

I break down Middle Earth fans thus:
Old-School Book Fan:
They read Tolkien’s books sometime between the release of the Hobbit (1937) & the Silmarillion (1977). They came to know the world of Middle Earth through the released writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, and awaited the release of The Silmarillion to relieve their hunger to know more of Middle Earth. Yet were apprehensive as to whether Christopher Tolkien would do justice to the beloved realm of Middle Earth in print, and were even more reluctant with the Bakshi, Rankin/Bass, & Peter Jackson films.

The New-School Book Fan Of the New-School Book Fans, there are two sub-groups which I call: ~The First-Born ~ This group originally discovered the world of Middle Earth after the books Christopher Tolkien released beginning with The Silmarillion in 1977. They include also Unfinished Tales and any of the HoME series. These are the book readers and would have been Old-School Book fans had they been old enough, or had discovered the Hobbit and/or the Trilogy of Lord of the Rings before the Silmarillion came out.
~The Edain~ Also known as The Adopted. They are the ones from the groups below who were motivated to seek out and delve deep into the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien and learn and love the true history of Middle Earth.
The Edain are the cream from many of the groups below.

The Bakshi Recruit: They first discovered Middle Earth by seeing the Bakshi and/or the Rankin/Bass cartoons. Many went on to read the books and delve ever deeper into Tolkiens writings, and essentially become one of the Edain.

The “Pre-Movie” Book Fan: They heard there was a Lord of the Rings movie in the making, and after looking into it, decided they wanted to read the books before the first movie came out in Dec 2001. Many go on to become Edain New-School Book Fans.

The Movie Recruit: They went to the theatre and saw Fellowship of the Ring, and loved it so much they were inspired to go and read the books, finishing the Two Towers and Return of the King before the release of the movie of the same name. Many go on to become Edain New-School Book Fans.

The Peter Jackson Recruit: Different from the Movie Recruit in that they did not start to read the books until after they saw all three movies. Their viewpoint of Middle Earth is seen through the eyes of Peter Jackson, and they note the differences in the books. Some may go on to become Edain New-School Book Fans, but to most their reading of the books are more an afterthought and of a desire to fill in some of the gaps in the movie, leaving the movie as the cannonized definitive word on their concept of Middle Earth.

The Hardcore Movie Fan: They went to the movies and loved them! They have no desire to read the books or inclined not to do so anytime soon. The movie is Middle Earth, and they like it as presented. Books are boring. They take too much imagination. Who needs to imagine what Middle Earth is like when Peter Jackson already did it for me? Who reads books anyway?

[Alchisiel]

The Movie Recruit: They went to the theatre and saw Fellowship of the Ring, and loved it so much they were inspired to go and read the books, finishing the Two Towers and Return of the King before the release of the movie of the same name. Many go on to become Edain New-School Book Fans.

I would fall into this category. I watched the Fellowship and got to talking with some coworkers and learned that there were books the movie was based on. So I went to my local Barnes and Noble, bought the Hobbit, and was hooked. After finishing the Hobbit I read the Lord of the Rings books and the Silm-twice. I love the story, but consider the movies as one man's interpretation. I don't get angry about certain parts being left out, that Liv Tyler played Arwen (after all it is just a book folks) or all that hoop-la about Orlando Bloom, Elijah Wood, and Viggo Mortensen. I like both the movies and the books and treat them as separate things, if you get my meaning.

[Neferchoirwen]

Nurumaiel , that was so elegant! I wish that I had parents who were as read as yours and who would have given me the opportunity to be introduced to this world that can only be entered by turning its pages. I remember feeling that feeling of childhood intrigue about a part of an animation that exists in an obscure video tape (in my case, it was a snippet of Puff the Magic Dragon---although, it is a curious thing how as toddlers, we enjoy seeing things like animation without understanding the entire plot---like the way I love the Smurfs movie...oh well).

I do feel annoyed when Lord of the Rings discussions among friends fall into behind the scenes stories, or EE features, and New Zealand. I love the films, but I learned to treat the books as a separate entity from the films.

Snowdog , I was always wondering how to categorize fans, and you've hit the nail right there! I am a movie recruit, and proud of it (but I do regret nursing my book reading bag log to something as ridiculous as not reading LOtR...quite ridiculous for a Lit major such as myself), and am looking forward to giving the gift of middle earth to my kids...and somehow make adopted first born fans out of them (introduce the books to them before I make them watch the films...I'll try, I promise!).

Although, there are people I know (strange as it seems) that haven't seen the movies or read the books (and these are lit majors---less than a handful, as far as I know them). What kind of fans will they be if they choose to read them before they see the films? Just curious...

[Child of the 7th Age]

First, I have already thanked Nurumaiel personally for her wonderful post, but I want to add my thanks here. Not many of our families have been so intimately involved with introducing us to LotR. You have some great memories there!

Snowdog - Those categories are fantastic. I fall into the "Old-School Book Fan". But you might want to have at least one "sub-category" in that group: the "Frodo Lives" generation, the U.S. college students from the late sixties whom Tolkien felt had good inclinations but were also a little nuts and who came at the book from a different angle than his own. (He was undoubtedly correct about this!) Everyone had the books in college and many had posters plastered on their dorm or apartment walls -- usually the psychedelic one done by Barbara Remington that JRRT couldn't stand! We even had pins that said "Gandalf for President".

A number of this group were "tree huggers" and thumbed their nose at the establishment, instead specilizing in baking bread and toting protest signs! Certainly not what Tolkien had anticipated, but we saw LotR as a way to break out of the "bourgeois" constraints left over from the late Fifties and early Sixties. :D

Looking back, I have to smile but it was a time of excitement. The general reader in the U.S. did not yet know about the books (totally unlike today), and we felt we'd stumbled onto a secret world that was all our own....

Just curious....but is there anyone else out there who had a similar experience in college?

[piosenniel]

Great categorizing, Snowdog!

Another old school fan here . . . the battered old paperbacks from my college days lean haphazardly together on my bookshelf, touching covers with Diet for a Small Planet, another book from back then. I'm sorry to have lost the old buttons of that era in my many moves - but here are a few of them for your perusal:

Frodo lives! (http://www.tolkiencollector.com/images/pinbann.gif)

I would concur with the need for a sixties subsection as proposed by Child.

~*~ Pio :D

[mark12_30]

Snowdog:

Old-school here, too.

I had no Frodo-Lives buttons (or Gandalf for President, either). But I did have several psychedelic posters.

My fellowship was not in college, but in Junior-high. Eomer, Faramir, and Gimli (as we called ourselves) sat cross-legged in the hall during lunch break and swapped fanfics, written and spoken. Mary-Sues, every last one, and all long since burned or shredded. But I wonder if I still have any of those old charcoal drawings...

Soooo... Old-School. Ah....... **cough** if we're neither Edain nor Eldar, What does that make us?

Ents?

Maia?

Valar??? :eek:

:D

Nuru-- wow.
:cool:

[lindil]

Were you a first time fan who might never have looked at Tolkien's books if it weren't for the movie, or someone who had known and loved Middle-earth long before Peter Jackson? No I read LotR at 11 or so in 6th or 7th grade the year before the Silm cam out in 77.

Were these original fears and criticisms justified? 'fraid so. I give Alan Lee and Howe's contributions a solid 'A'.
Casting and setting/Scenery were incredible as well, but the aspect that pretty much ruins 2 and 3 for me are the incredible and usually pointless liberties PJ and co. took with the scirpt. I was one of thousands who signed anti-'xenarwen' petitions and I am at least encouraged by the fact that they seem to have helped to keep her from becoming the warrior princess we all had heard rumours of. Oddly enough, while I am somewhat of a militant [anti- PJ] around here my purist sister in law flatly boycotted 2 and 3 after 1 [unfortunately not the expanded version which added much of what was worth seeing [more Galaldriel, elves, lothlorien and rivendell] and I must say having scene 2, 2+ and 3 [all but 3 multiple times] I might as well have saved the $'s. And put it towards Martin Shaw's audio Silm! It is amazing that PJ could have gotten so much right and then [from the standard purists pov] butchered the rewriting of lines, and equally the many plot discrepancies and charactrerizations. I give much of these a 'D'. I had no heart to see "RotK' again once was painful enough. I suppose I will give the extended version a watch, at least the new scenes.
So... PJ gave me some great imagery and still managed to confirm my worst fears...

Has this board itself changed in any way? Most importantly, has there been any change in the level or type of discussion of Tolkien and Middle-earth that is going on here(for better or for worse)? Of course, when the 'eldest' of us landed here in the spring and summer of 2000 the movies had yet to really shape the serious Tolkien discussion or attract the thousdands of newbies. I think overall the admins [and Esty!] did an incredible job of making the Downs forums more relevant to both the N&N's and the oldsters. Of course that feeling of being in a cyber coffehouse had to due to shear numbers give way to something more akin to a food court in a large mall, but considering the massive influx, I never saw any other board adapt as well as we did. One thing I have noticed in the last few years are the large number of introspective Downs threads.
Discussing the fellow downsters, the forums and our community which now has a life of it's own. In the first year or so, there was virtually nothing but Tolkien discussions. I may have [without intending] began one of the first introspective-threads with my poll on polls during the ez board days!

Burra posted earlier that " there are still loads more good threads than at the start." Well and truly said. His points about the newness being gone as a bigger factor than the movies are certainly factors, but the movie generated newbies in a hornburg like assault on our little community, forever changing it even as the natural process of aging and maturing was ongoing at the downs.


Even though, for the last year, I am rarely in my barrows, and the longest threads [aften the most interesting] are simply time-prohibitive, this is still my favorite hangout place on the net, by far, changes and all. So many of the great early folks have stuck around as well as some from 2001 and 2 who have become some of the strongest members.[/QUOTE]



And, on a personal level, what did seeing the movie do for you? Make we want to go back and read the books with the fervent prayer that the movie characters would not be burned in my mind like they are in the post Return of the Jedi novels! I seem to have escaped that disease for the most part, though I recall seeing Caras Galadhon from 'frodo's ' pov while reading not too long ago [fortunately 'Haldir's' commentary was missingubb/smile.gif].


Overall the Downs has succesfully navigated the waters of the movie and considering the massive addition of incredibly young members [ agood thing imo] the 'soul' of the Downs has stayed true to the inital warm-hearted and serious community that is here now.

If JRRT were around, I think he would enjoy it way more than the movie!!! [although he wouldf be saddenend to hear that the languages forum is only a secret link treasured by a few [actually if anyone still has it...]

It has been sad to endure so much commercialization [the pringle's 'Gandalf' comes far too easily to mind] and shallow comments by movie-going non-readers, but many of them feasted on the fragments of Tolkien that made it into the movie, and I am certainly pleased to find more worthy studies and such on the Legendarium and Tolkien than ever would have been possible without the massive spillover from the movie.

I am extermely proud that the Downs pre-dated the Movies and that it's essential character is above it, staying true to the Barrow-Wight's goal of a Tolkien/Books oriented community. No small feat in a world full of stalled attempts [being responsible for many myself!] and bitter disputes here is a little bit of Imladris...

Underhill posted : Yet the Downs continues to draw many intelligent, articulate, and funny members. You figure out whose names to look for as you’re scrolling through the daily topics, the ones you can count on for a thoughtful contribution or a laugh or two. And as often as not, one of these bright people comes up with a new topic, or a new angle on an old topic, that you hadn’t considered before. That’s one of the joys of the Downs, which I still heartily enjoy. Another satisfaction which can only be enjoyed over time is to watch members, particularly the younger members – I’ll omit names to spare embarrassment – grow and mature.
So well said I felt it deserved a repeat.

Snowdog, excellent breakdown - of course I am pleased that I am old-school by a matter of months...:smokin:

[drigel]

Excellent catorization! I would be remiss though to say that if you are going to subgroup a sixties college students group out of the oldtimers, please give us GenX'rs a place! hehe .. I was in the 5th grade in 1975 when i picked up The Hobbit (what a wonderful age to start reading Tolkien!), and Immediately/ permanently became a fan. I may be an unusual throwback, however. My LOTR paperbacks were smashed between Asimov and Robert E Howard. :) I have gone through the cycles already succintfully described on this thread. My journey came after the sixties "I have discovered my own little world", but I had the advantage of being able to soak up all the wonderfull, more refined art that was being done during the seventies. Of course it all came to a crashing end with Bakashi lol. Sigh... so many hopes for that flick that were dashed....

I was completely ignorant of the excellent Tolkien internet presense though, until the movies came out and I started researching. So - thank or curse the movies for my involvement here! As a newbie (kinda) to this site - i can definately discern diparate groups here. Some make me think, others dont. I still read on. For me, I get just as irratated by a high faluted philosophical academic as i do a Legolas is so hot popcorn eater ... no offense intended.

As an oldtimer (cough), my view of PJ's endeavour was one of interpretation, which is of course what it was. TTT was where it was very evident to me. My thoughts at the end of that movie was how hard it would be to interpret LOTR to film. ROTK (for me) showed even more evidence of the glaring interpretation decisions made by PJ. And showed me even more insersions of his movie making style which, to me, detracted from the Tolkien experience. Too many Goonies influences. Might work for King Kong - didnt work for LOTR. I will enjoy PJ's interpretation of The Hobbit or Silm as well. But, as I enjoy the different opinions here, I would also appreciate any other filmmakers interpretation as well, as long as the intention and the budget were as honorable as PJ's....

[Snowdog]

Being that I managed to make Old School by a year, and was one who was in line for the opening of the Walden books the day the Silmarillion was released, I didn't have any knowledge of the cultures before 'my' time which was 1975-76. So I will work all your 60's suggestions into it, and hope to get in touch with this charming old gent who told me he read the triligy in 1956 in the U of Washington library. he was a 'beatnik' and was a precurser to the whole 60's Frodo Lives generation.As an oldtimer (cough), my view of PJ's endeavour was one of interpretation, which is of course what it was. TTT was where it was very evident to me. My thoughts at the end of that movie was how hard it would be to interpret LOTR to film. ROTK (for me) showed even more evidence of the glaring interpretation decisions made by PJ. And showed me even more insersions of his movie making style which, to me, detracted from the Tolkien experience.I knew his interpretation would be way off as soon as I saw a blade held by "Arwen" at the throat of Aragorn in the wild :rolleyes: . Nuclear Galadriel, Elves in Helms Deep, searchlight eye of sauron... But it was all ok for a movie because I know what its really like, stored in my head. :D

[drigel]

aye snowdog i concur
It didnt kick in for me with the Arwen/Aragorn scene - it was the exorcist Bilbo at Rivendell - yikes. For an oldtimer, it was dissapointing :) stick with the authors narrative - that scene would have been just as powerfull if you could have dropped the freakish melodramatics

[Encaitare]

Those buttons were great, Pio! Time for me to scour E-bay and find some for my very own. :p

it was the exorcist Bilbo at Rivendell - yikes. For an oldtimer, it was dissapointing stick with the authors narrative - that scene would have been just as powerfull if you could have dropped the freakish melodramatics

It would have been cool if it had suddenly gone very surreal, with Frodo envisioning Bilbo a tad "Gollum-ized" -- like was planned for Frodo to look for a moment in the EE of TTT, although they took that bit out.

I wish I was an "old-school" fan... too bad I'm too young! I could have been one of the "first born" had I only had a bit more willpower around the age of twelve... I couldn't make it past Tom Bombadil at that age, tricky guy that he is. ;) So I'm just one of the Edain, a new-school book fan. Woohoo! :p

[Lalwendë]

Snowdog, those categories are great - but I'm disappointed I'm not considered true 'old school' :( At least I'm one of the first-born though. I first read Tolkien way back in 1982/3, first the Hobbit, then LOTR, then straight onto the Sil and Unfinished Tales, and then onto whatever I could find in the library. I was only12 when I read it. My brother got the books and he loved them, and I thought, 'this has got to be cool if my brother likes it'. So I pinched them from him.

I used to have to sneak the books into school, where I constructed a little hidey hole to go and read in. It was under a pile of those old metal-framed chairs with the canvas seats, which had been piled up in a store room. I took a long time to read it because I did not want it to end and kept going back to parts I found particularly good. I also used to draw pictures of scenes in the books, one which springs to mind was Boromir's death scene. My mum must still have that somewhere as we are a hoarding family.

Everyone had the books in college and many had posters plastered on their dorm or apartment walls -- usually the psychedelic one done by Barbara Remington that JRRT couldn't stand! We even had pins that said "Gandalf for President".

Child - I am jealous. You might laugh at this, but when I read Tolkien I developed this obsession with all things late sixties/early seventies, and accumulated a large number of like-minded friends. This was the 80s, and we would go round listening to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, early (Gabriel-era) Genesis, Fairport Convention.....We used to write Frodo Lives on everything. And we were considered peculiar. ;)

By the time I got to university - 1989 - Tolkien was sadly considered for geeks, especially to my fellow English students, and I struggled to find anyone who would openly admit to being a fan. Still, me and my goth flatmate were of like minds. We once went to join a uni sci-fi/fantasy society and ran away because all the young men there scared us. Not because we were scared of young men, au contraire, but these were scary men. It was all very Mike Leigh. :p

[Neferchoirwen]

Child - I am jealous. You might laugh at this, but when I read Tolkien I developed this obsession with all things late sixties/early seventies, and accumulated a large number of like-minded friends. This was the 80s, and we would go round listening to Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, early (Gabriel-era) Genesis, Fairport Convention.....We used to write Frodo Lives on everything. And we were considered peculiar. ;)

I always thought that I was born in a wrong decade as well. Oh well...

[Snowdog]

Snowdog, those categories are great - but I'm disappointed I'm not considered true 'old school' Sorry. The cutoff for old-school was the release of Christopher Tolkien's Silmarillion, because before that, the last release was Return of the King in 1955. The late 70's brought the Silmarillion, and the Bakshi & Rankin Bass cartoons, and a bit later the Unfinished Tales and the HoME series by Christopher Tolkien. I suppose a 'New Old-School' catagory could be made for those who read the books without any influence from the Christopher Tolkien releases or the cartoons & movies....

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I'm a Bakshi Recruit Edain I suppose, having had my first taste of Middle Earth in the television movie of The Hobbit. I read TH after seeing the movie, and then spent a long time wondering about the "further adventures" with the Ring that were mentioned at the end of the movie, but not the book. I was still pretty young then, and the sheer size of LotR kept me well away from it (probably for the best).

I then saw the Bakshi cartoon and decided that waiting was for losers and tackled LotR despite its size -- which was greater than anything I'd read before by an order of magnitude. It took me the better part of six months to get through the thing, but get through it I did. . .even the "boring bits."

I'd like to think that in the time since I have become something more than an Edain, however. Perhaps we can add a new category:

Half-Elven: one who has successfully married their Edain experience of the books to deeper lore and become an Elf-friend; one who is of both worlds at once, and yet not belonging to either fully; who has the choice to join those in the West, and thus repudiate their childhood selves who fell in love with the movies, or embrace those early experiences and remain mortal.

[mark12_30]

Half-Elven-- I like it.

THen we can have Valar and Maia (Gandalf-For-President and Pre-Sil.)

**cackles with glee**

I dunno, Snowdog, maybe you should make the Pre-Sil's all elves and the post-Bakshi all Men. Then the Pre-Sil's can be divided up into Noldor, Sindar, etc, without getting all power-hungry and calling themselves Valar....

[tar-ancalime]

I suppose I'm one of the First-Born. I was introduced to Tolkien at an early age by an older relative who's famous in our family for having once (in the 1970s) turned in a term paper written entirely in Tengwar. I have to admit that it was a few years before I made it all the way through the Lord of the Rings; I was halfway through The Two Towers when some junior-high hoodlum stole my book! I was a superstitious kid and I took that as a portent, and didn't get myself another copy for quite a long time.

I saw the Bakshi cartoon shortly after reading The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time and didn't even make it through--I found it incredibly boring! The Peter Jackson movies didn't spark my interest in Tolkien, but they were the catalyst for my feeble pokings around on the Internet which slowly led me to the 'Downs.

[littlemanpoet]

I'm an Old School Fan. My two older brothers were Frodo Lives fans. My oldest brother read Riddles in the Dark to me in 1968, when I was 8 and he was 16, as a bedtime treat. That night changed me. Next day I started The Hobbit for myself.

My mother made capes with hoods for my two older brothers, and they traipsed all over the community in them; my oldest brother grew his hair long and had a scraggly beard, and he made himself a sword. Us boys and my sister were Gandalf, Aragorn, Eowyn, and Pippin. They decided that I was Pippin because I was so immature. :D I hadn't read LotR yet by then (1968). So us three brothers have more or less digested Tolkien (and Lewis to varying degrees) into our way of looking at the world. He is the greatest authorial influence for all three of us.

I read FotR and TT not long after, but ran out of gas at the beginning of RotK; I think I was disappointed that it was about Minas Tirith instead of about Frodo and Sam. I didn't pick up RotK again for a year and a half. But I finished it pretty soon after that, and started re-reading it in my teens. I read The Silmarillion right away when it came out, and snapped up Unfinished Tales the moment I discovered it in the book store. I was bequeathed by my oldest brother the old Middle Earth map in glossy paper, drawn up by Pauline Baynes, and still have it, and consider myself lucky. It's gorgeous!

Unlike many Tolkien purists (which I admittedly tend toward), I did enjoy the Bakshi film, although I hated the crazy-weird Treebeard with the stomping root-feet! I loved his Shire, Bree, Weathertop, Rivendell, and Moria; I can't remember his Lorien.

I did passionately dislike the Rankin-Bass Hobbit movie, but I did like most of the RotK movie by Rankin-Bass - except for the singing orcs!

You might say that my mind-images of the characters of LotR are influenced equally by my own imagination from the books, by Pauline Baynes' illustrations on the map (where you can only see the Fellowship characters' backs) , and by (cringe) a Lord of the Rings strategy game I bought way back in the late 70's, that came with cards depicting all of the major characters in the books. Actually, I thought those cards did more justice to Tolkien's descriptions than any of the movies, and much of the art out there! I have since given away the game to a friend - he still plays it to this day.

I loved PJ's FotR, but was outraged at TT; but then I found that I could live with his interpretation of RotK. I guess, going by my own lights, I judged that PJ had to jettison Tom Bombadil and the Old Forest, had to merge Glorfindel and Arwen, had to cut back on how much Lorien he showed. I judged that Elves at Helm's Deep was heinous, as was Theoden's querulousness after being healed by Gandalf! And all that pointless arguing in Helm's Deep for the sake of creating tension! blah. And that ridiculous Nazgul scene at Osgiliath, with Frodo offering the ring to the Nazgul? An outrage. Same with the mischaracterization of Faramir. But all the changes in RotK I felt had to be made in order to achieve the film - even leaving out the scouring of the shire, no matter how disappointing.

None of the characters' images from PJ's movies have had any kind of lasting impression on me. I can switch to them in my mind, if I wish, but my original images overshadow them.

I can't really speak to changes at BD, because I only showed up in January of 2002, and watched the membership climb in a hurry. I've felt that the intelligence of discussion here at BD was quite high, and that has kept drawing me back. And I've met some internet friends here that have been truly worth knowing. Mark 12_30 of special note, and Diamond 18 too. Now that I've started naming names, I must say that I'm leaving out so many; but I've had LotR and writerly interaction especially with these two individuals, and am blessed for it.

[Ealasaide]

Speaking as an old and rather dusty lit major, I have always preferred books over their movie versions with only a few exceptions. I've always viewed Hollywood's attempts to translate books into movies with skepticism largely because making a good job of it is a nearly impossible task, when one considers all the factors involved in making a big budget film.

In making a big budget studio film, one cannot rely wholly upon the vision presented by the author of the source material. The producer must consider target audience marketability in adapting the script to the screen format, which involves the pace of the film, time constraints, etc, etc. Since the majority of movie-goers are in their teens and early twenties and generally not devout readers, the story line has to be both pumped up and collapsed at the same time in order to appeal to them, which oftentimes leaves not much left of the original source material. Add to this the social and money poiltics of Hollywood and you generally end up with a mess. Taking all of that into consideration, I believe that PJ did a remarkably good job with his films, although they are all flawed to some extent. (I think everybody hated TT. :p ) Movie-making is a business primarily and an art form only on a secondary basis. With that in mind, I find PJ's movies a remarkable achievement, even though I merely like, rather than love, them.

The Tolkein books, on the other hand, present a very personal vision on the part of one creative entity, J.R.R. Tolkein. I'm sure Prof. Tolkein did not write with focus groups or test audiences in mind. He was not bound by time or money constraints and was able to present a very deep, detailed and well-thought-out collection of works that will endure, I am sure, for hundreds of years, while PJ's movies will eventually become - for mass culture, anyway - a curiosity of pop culture and will remain, as movie technology evolves, a product of their times.

All that being said, I can't comment on what the Downs were like before the movies came out since I arrived here sometime in between the release of FotR and TT, I think. Maybe it was between TT and RotK... I can't remember! At any rate, I came not as a result of a frantic search of the web for anything Tolkein related but by word of mouth from a friend of mine who had been haunting the Downs for some months prior to telling me about the site.

I guess that means I fall in with the post-movie crowd, although I really did not come here as a result of seeing the movies. :)

[mark12_30]

But Ealasaide dearie-- the question wasn't when you arrived at the Downs; lots of Old-Time Book Fans arrived here post-movie. The question was whether you read the books Before the movies or Because of the movies. Aren't you in the Geezer's Club-- I mean, the Tolkien Coming Of Age Club? Then you must predate at least PJ's movies.

Methinks you are selling yourself short. See Snowdog's excellent chronological rating system in post 65 on page 2 of this thread.

[Ealasaide]

Ah, dear me... that's what I get for being hasty & posting without breaking out my specs and actually reading a thread closely first .... :rolleyes:

Yes, you are right, I am an Old School Geezer (wonderful rating system, Snowdog!), having read the books back in the mid-seventies, well prior to the release of any movies.

I just misunderstood the purpose of the thread. I had thought it was contrasting the differences on the Downs before and after the release of PJ's movies. That's why I thought the yardstick was based on the timing of one's arrival to the Downs. My bad! :o :)

[mark12_30]

Well, that *was* C7A's purpose of the thread originally. But it's taken a few zigs and zags since then, including Snowdog's enjoyable and thorough Tolkien Addict Location Grid. So far, we haven't gotten our knuckles whacked.

*peers at Sharon*

So not to worry; I just didn't want you to erroneously disqualify yourself from your Geezer's Club rocking chair!

;)

[Ealasaide]

Many, many thanks! I would have missed my rocking chair very much... :D

[HerenIstarion]

I will sell myself long (is there such an expression or did I just invent something new? ;))

I consider myself Old-School Book Fan, even though I was born in 1978 and my Tolkien reading started in 1989 (the Hobbit and Smith of Wotton Major, both mysteriously found on a bookshelf, everybody in the family denying buying them when questioned. But I know 'twas my granny who bought them)

The rationale to be found here: Tolkien Middle Age Club (http://69.51.5.41/showthread.php?t=4675&page=1)

Honestly, I suppose I meet requirements - I did not know about Bakshi version, and that cartoon of Hobbit don't remember by whom till much later, and when first asking for Silm77 and HoME (1994 or 95, same granny) to be bought for me in Germany, where she was going for her health's reasons, I expected to get something finished, probably what happened after, or what happened before, but in no way drafts and comments - more about Sam and Frodo, or Bilbo, and Gandalf.

Later, when I've read all of them and a bit more (Niggle, Giles and company), the thought of movies came in. Movies? I often imagined what a movie may have been done out of those wonderful books, and always concluded 'it were impossible, for it must be perfect'.

But lo! They are already shooting, and release is by Christmas! You should be joking? Nope, I've seen it on TV, they are shooting!

Ah, unlike, Nurumaiel (excellent post (#63 of the current thread), my compliments) I did not (http://69.51.5.41/showthread.php?t=9506) like the movies at first. That was wrong, this was a lie, the whole piece of that was missing. Probably, I wanted to see the movie so much I was not inclined to forgive slightest imperfections. But I wanted it strongly for the books' sake.

But now, I consider it as a piece of art in its own right. Not entirely unrelated to the books, of course, but independent I still prefer to read my books, but I suppose a lot of people prefer reading Tolkien's verse, per instance, to my ReVerse (http://69.51.5.41/showthread.php?t=10740) ;) - as both me (heh, self-confidence is the thing I never knew the lack of) and PJ are doing the same thing, to an extent - we are sub-sub-creating. I'll make myself more clear - we take somebody else's work and base ours on it. It may be argued that Tolkien did the same - basing his books on this and on that, but he has the wider base, his sources are less known, and skill is far greater. To an extent, his is the thing new, original, not eclectic, (sub-creation with one sub), ours - consequent (sub-sub-creation with two subs)

It does not mean the sub-sub thingy is bad in itself. But by definition it is A. Not the same thing. B Of less value as original (in a sense it is not original idea, it may of course be in a sense of skill - suppose PJ based his movies not on books but on Bakshi version - the result would be better in a sense - contrived with more skill, but worse - not original, sub-sub-created) Or, another analogy - the first man who invented painting is a lot more original, in one sense, than all, per instance, cubists or whoever, though his skill is crude compared to theirs

But I feel I stray in my own thoughts, let me state a conclusion before I get completely lost. Basically, it comes down to:
I appreciate the movies, but I love the books. Movies did not change my appreciation of the books, and of the Two Frodos (http://69.51.5.41/showthread.php?t=1784) the printed one is the stronger.

[Snowdog]

HerenIstarion, I guess you would be New Old-school! ;)