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Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man
But surely it is, on one level. You yourself say that this is how you read it as a teenager (much as I did). That reading wasn't "wrong" in comparison with the way that you read the book now. Just different.
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Because, looking back I think my early reading of the book was (perhaps inevitably) simplistic. I think if my reading wasn't 'wrong' it was certainly shallow. I'd say that's the case with the movies. If PJ was 16 years old I'd find it easier to accept his version. I don't think LotR is
on any level an 'action novel' - any more than War & Peace is. That it can, & often is, read as one, merely shows the limitations of the reader. Art often has to be grown into. I think PJ tried to make a movie which would appeal to the widest possible audience. Tolkien wrote a book that appealed principally to himself, without any real thought of who might read it. Its interesting that Tolkien succeeded where (for many of us) PJ failed.
I don't want to come across as someone who just dislikes the films on principle - I
so wanted to love them. I just can't. I'm simply not moved by them. I wish I could be. It would be nice to have
more of Middle earth. I've watched them a good few times - FotR maybe a dozen times, the others a bit less. I even spent a whole Sunday a few months back watching all three EE's. Afterwards I suppose I felt that I didn't
really dislike them a great deal, I just didn't care. I don't think I'll watch them again. There's something I can't really define clearly that's just not
there. Its not 'Middle earth' for me.