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or if I'd seen them first
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Maybe that's the case. I saw the movies before I read the book and now I enjoy both.
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whereas when you're watching the filmsyour never quite able to forget that its Sir Ian McKellan in a fake beard & robe pretending to be Gandalf & fighting a special effect.
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That's just you. When I see that sequence, not for a second do I not believe I'm seeing Gandalf the Grey defy the Balrog, in the same way as when I am reading the corresponding passage in the book I do not believe that all I'm doing is looking at some ink printed onto some paper.
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But Drama is naturally hostile to Fantasy. Fantasy, even of the simplest kind, hardly ever succeeds in Drama, when that is presented as it should be, visibly and audibly acted.
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I agree with Tolkien here...I saw the movie
Eragon recently and it was appalling. So was
Dungeons and Dragons back in 2000. One before LOTR...one after LOTR...and yet both were terrible. In fact, I think the LOTR movies are the only fantasy films I've seen that have done both drama and fantasy well at the same time. I believe this is because they have their roots in literature, where drama and fantasy can coexist (as the books prove).
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disbelief had not so much to be suspended as hanged, drawn, and quartered
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