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!
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'Mercy!' cried Gandalf. 'If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?' 'The whole history of Middle-earth.. .'
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