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.
) 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.
