Maybe it's just me, then.
But I do find myself identifying with the Hobbits in the book much more than I was able to in the film. Perhaps that's down to the perspective. The book story is told largely from the PoV of the Hobbits, as if they are relating it to us, whereas we are more like detached onlookers in the film. Yes, I can identify with what happens to the characters (just as I can identify with what happens to Luke in
Star Wars). But I don't feel that it's like something that a friend is telling me, and which could happen to me, as I do with the book.
As for the Shire, well it is not really how I imagined it in the book. In my mind, the Shire is a lot more like the English countryside and less like Tellytubby-land (as
Mithalwen put it
). The Shire of the book is much more a "real" place to me than the Shire in the film. That's not to say that I don't like its film depiction. It works well on film. It's just not the "real" Shire to me.
