Quote Originally Posted by sephiroth1084 View Post
All of you bashing Tolkien...I'm sorry for you.

The three things to keep in mind about his writing:

  1. Before anything else, Tolkien was a medievalist, and draws heavily upon the medieval style, although he has much more sophisticated characterization, descriptions and narrative flow.
  2. What he really wanted to be writing was his mythology, which became the unfinished Silmarillion, but was pressed to write a sequel to his children's story, The Hobbit, by his publishers. and The Lord of the Rings ended up as a sort of bridge between the two.
  3. He was more concerned with showing off the world, the language and history of Middle Earth that he had been working on for half a century than he was with the plot, though obviously he was very much concerned with that as well.

I really can't understand how anyone could find the movies more enjoyable than the books in any way other than as a lack of attention span. Sorry if I'm coming off as harsh here, but they are some of my most cherished books, having read them 5 times now, and getting something fresh out of them each time through.



The movies were fun, and pretty, and did a pretty good job of staying true to the novels, but they still fall short.
I love his imagination and what he did however I am not going to lie and say his story writing skills were not without flaws.

I am not bashing just stating how I feel when I read his books, as I am a avid book reader since I was 7 (I can walk by whole book sections at bookstores and literally have read almost every book or at least every author).
It is not uncommon knowledge his storytelling method had flaws but that is not bashing him. As far as enjoying the movies more I say it is a wash for me. The books have greater depth and feeling but the movies did not drag at points as the book sometimes did.