What did the movie help you "recover"

[Lalwendë]

The only area of the books which I failed to get a concrete grasp on was what Saruman might look like, how he might behave, and how he might speak. My image of him was always 'shifting' in my mind - which is odd considering his nature - or perhaps it was because of his nature that I never fully got a handle on him. However, now the films have been made I do imagine Saruman as Chris Lee plays him, so I would suppose that this is something I have 'recovered'. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing myself; perhaps I was meant to have no fixed image of him? As for the rest of the books, I imagine them more or less as I always did imagine them, though elements of the films have crept in, as that would be difficult to avoid with such a visually impressive film.

Originally Posted by SpM

I also always had immense difficulties imagining what Ents actually looked like. Now I have a great image, based on (although not entirely identical to) their portrayal in the films.

Now I always had a pretty vivid idea of Ents! I'm one of those people who sees faces and hands and the like in the twisty shapes of trees so I always imagined Ents to be like that, a very peculiar, exceptionally characterful tree.

But, the films have recovered something pretty important, and that's not to do with my images of anything. It's that all the Tolkien fans have finally emerged, blinking, into the daylight!