Will The Hobbit do damage to the books?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Lotrelf

You guys are way too harsh on Jackson.

I disagree. If they had to adapt the books to film, it could have been done without alienating so many long term print devotees.

Originally Posted by Lotrelf

My thoughts were that he won't be much happy. If I'm not wrong, Tolkien did not want to make movies based on his books.

Tolkien said in a letter that he thought the books "unsuitable for dramatisation". Seeing how he castigated a proposed animated adaptation for doing things like having the Eagles carry the Fellowship early in the Quest, and describing Lórien as in line with "the gimcrack of modern fairy tales", I do think he would have been severely unimpressed; though not necessarily with the omissions in the films, but the outright alterations, some of which, like Faramir trying to take Frodo to Minas Tirith, are downright obscene.

Originally Posted by Lotrelf

Had it not been for his movies, I'd missed these books too. None of my friends read books, of any kind (they think it's a time waste!). CT is right about the books and the movies. I'd have acted the same way, if I had read the books first.

The inducement into reading the books is the sole benefit to the movies, in my opinion. I only wish you were not in the minority, as I fear.