[CSteefel]

The events concerning Bilbo's finding of the Ring are repeated in Tolkien's prologue, so that was covered even in the book. I was thinking more about whether the reader already knew the full history of the Ring, which they don't in the book.

Many people saw the movies first, as we saw in the posts about when people first read the books. It seemed like about one half actually saw the movies first. In any case, there is such a thing as literary suspense even where the plot is known. One plunges oneself in to the story and follows the growing knowledge of the characters, even if the reader knows the plot. It isn't a simple matter of "plot spoilers", which would imply that there is no reason to see a movie or read a book a second time (actually, many people think this)...