The Hobbit vs Lord of the Rings. Which is more Purist?

[Alatar]

I don't think so. As I said, rewatching all 6 over the last month has reminded me of how good LotR was. The use of old camera tricks and miniatures made it feel much more real than the CGI over-use in The Hobbit. Its not perfect, not by a long shot, but its pretty damn good.

[LoremIspum]

I wonder if we all love movie LOTR more than we live movie TH because LOTR gave us a beautiful middle-earth and the book - for the first time. We loved it, we hated it, but we lapped it up greedily. The movies, the fandom and oh the message boards!! The beauty of seeing rivendell on the screen, the first sight of the pillars on Anduin.

By the time TH came, a lot of our hunger had been sated.


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Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.

I don't think there was anything quite like LOTR when it came out. The sheer attention to detail and portraying this whole fantasy world as if it has really existed in history was something unprecedented at the time (not so much now - modern audiences expect it). There was tons of goodwill attached to the movies as well, as there were no sky high expectations, it was directed by an unknown dark horse director from outside of Hollywood.

You cannot step into the same river twice though. I think the Hobbit movies are solid genre films, have a wonderful cast and are occasionally brilliant (and often frustrating), I also found I enjoy them a lot more on DVD. Their biggest problem is standing in the shadow of trilogy that won 17 Oscars.

In terms of changes, I was never actively angry watching the Hobbit as I was with LOTR, though after several viewings I got used to all of the changes and additions and they don't bother me that much.

It will be interesting to see how the Hobbit holds up in a couple of years, LOTR doesn't do it for me that well I'm afraid, though it's place in history is not about how well it adapted Tolkien's work but the impact it had on modern film making, movie advertising, people who decided to take up career in film thanks to it etc...

edit - also can I add how glad I am that we have those three movies done this way - they really tie up well with Jackson's vision of Middle Earth from LOTR (something that I think is really under appreciated)

Someday there will be a movie adaptation of the Hobbit that's just one movie and faithful to the book with a different Gandalf and different visual style. Bah... there might be several, the road goes ever on! But the chance of tying Jackson's LOTR movies with the Hobbit story with the same actors and set in a broader legendarium was only one. I for one am glad to have it in my movie collection.

[Passdagas the Brown]

As a "tone" purist, I think LOTR is the greater violator, as it has an excessive melodrama that I find very much at odds with the tone of the books. The Hobbit is guilty of this from time to time, but is generally less "bombastic" when it comes to scenes of emotion.

On the other hand, cinematographically I think LOTR does a better job of capturing the essence of the source material than the Hobbit films do.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I wonder if we all love movie LOTR more than we live movie TH because LOTR gave us a beautiful middle-earth and the book - for the first time. We loved it, we hated it, but we lapped it up greedily. The movies, the fandom and oh the message boards!! The beauty of seeing rivendell on the screen, the first sight of the pillars on Anduin.

By the time TH came, a lot of our hunger had been sated.


---------------
Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.

I don't think there was anything quite like LOTR when it came out. The sheer attention to detail and portraying this whole fantasy world as if it has really existed in history was something unprecedented at the time (not so much now - modern audiences expect it). There was tons of goodwill attached to the movies as well, as there were no sky high expectations, it was directed by an unknown dark horse director from outside of Hollywood.

You cannot step into the same river twice though. I think the Hobbit movies are solid genre films, have a wonderful cast and are occasionally brilliant (and often frustrating), I also found I enjoy them a lot more on DVD. Their biggest problem is standing in the shadow of trilogy that won 17 Oscars.

In terms of changes, I was never actively angry watching the Hobbit as I was with LOTR, though after several viewings I got used to all of the changes and additions and they don't bother me that much.

It will be interesting to see how the Hobbit holds up in a couple of years, LOTR doesn't do it for me that well I'm afraid, though it's place in history is not about how well it adapted Tolkien's work but the impact it had on modern film making, movie advertising, people who decided to take up career in film thanks to it etc...

edit - also can I add how glad I am that we have those three movies done this way - they really tie up well with Jackson's vision of Middle Earth from LOTR (something that I think is really under appreciated)

Someday there will be a movie adaptation of the Hobbit that's just one movie and faithful to the book with a different Gandalf and different visual style. Bah... there might be several, the road goes ever on! But the chance of tying Jackson's LOTR movies with the Hobbit story with the same actors and set in a broader legendarium was only one. I for one am glad to have it in my movie collection.

Word.

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Sent from my LG G3 using tapatalk

[Inanna]

I agree, Loremlspum.


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Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.

[Túrin Turambar]

Personally, and purism aside, I think that the LotR films are just much better films than the Hobbit films are (something backed by RT and plenty of reviews, both from critics and the general public). I'm not the first person to use the two Star Wars trilogies as an analogy, but I've had this discussion before on theforce.net when the prequels were coming out, with similar results. You can do all sorts of breakdowns and comparisons without really highlighting that fact.

[JewelSong]

I really, really, REALLY would have loved for PJ to do "The Hobbit" exactly as he did it but without the extra and invented stuff. No Azog, no extra orcs, none of that ridiculous confrontation with Galadriel, certainly no Legolas and definitely no Tauriel (ugh!) In other words, follow at least the spirit of the book, even if Goblin-Town is hokey and the Stone Giants over-kill.

And give the dwarves some damn beards, already.

[Alatar]

Well, barring the Dwarves' beards, there's already a fanedit to meet your needs, but I'm personally waiting for the EE of BOFA to come out to see what the Faneditors do with the full suite of scenes available to them!