Before and after the movie

[Snowdog]

You say it quite well Nurumaiel! With few notable exceptions... ok, two actually, the movie characters fell short of what the book characters were to me.

I'm an olde book reader here, having read through Hobbit and the Trilogy in 1975-76. They were quite magical these books and the world they created in my mind. I heard of the movies early in 2000, and I approached them with curiosity.

Now, there are so many uber-experts who have never let their imagination go anywhere who think they know all that everyone is thinking when it comes to Middle Earth.

I break down Middle Earth fans thus:

• Old-School Book Fan:
  They read Tolkien’s books sometime between the release of the Hobbit (1937) & the Silmarillion (1977). They came to know the world of Middle Earth through the released writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, and awaited the release of The Silmarillion to relieve their hunger to know more of Middle Earth. Yet were apprehensive as to whether Christopher Tolkien would do justice to the beloved realm of Middle Earth in print, and were even more reluctant with the Bakshi, Rankin/Bass, & Peter Jackson films.
  
• The New-School Book Fan

Of the New-School Book Fans, there are two sub-groups which I call:

• ~The First-Born ~ This group originally discovered the world of Middle Earth after the books Christopher Tolkien released beginning with The Silmarillion in 1977. They include also Unfinished Tales and any of the HoME series. These are the book readers and would have been Old-School Book fans had they been old enough, or had discovered the Hobbit and/or the Trilogy of Lord of the Rings before the Silmarillion came out.
• ~The Edain~ Also known as The Adopted. They are the ones from the groups below who were motivated to seek out and delve deep into the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien & Christopher Tolkien and learn and love the true history of Middle Earth.

The Edain are the cream from many of the groups below.

• The Bakshi Recruit: They first discovered Middle Earth by seeing the Bakshi and/or the Rankin/Bass cartoons. Many went on to read the books and delve ever deeper into Tolkiens writings, and essentially become one of the Edain.
  
• The “Pre-Movie” Book Fan: They heard there was a Lord of the Rings movie in the making, and after looking into it, decided they wanted to read the books before the first movie came out in Dec 2001. Many go on to become Edain New-School Book Fans.
  
• The Movie Recruit: They went to the theatre and saw Fellowship of the Ring, and loved it so much they were inspired to go and read the books, finishing the Two Towers and Return of the King before the release of the movie of the same name. Many go on to become Edain New-School Book Fans.
  
• The Peter Jackson Recruit: Different from the Movie Recruit in that they did not start to read the books until after they saw all three movies. Their viewpoint of Middle Earth is seen through the eyes of Peter Jackson, and they note the differences in the books. Some may go on to become Edain New-School Book Fans, but to most their reading of the books are more an afterthought and of a desire to fill in some of the gaps in the movie, leaving the movie as the cannonized definitive word on their concept of Middle Earth.
  
• The Hardcore Movie Fan: They went to the movies and loved them! They have no desire to read the books or inclined not to do so anytime soon. The movie is Middle Earth, and they like it as presented. Books are boring. They take too much imagination. Who needs to imagine what Middle Earth is like when Peter Jackson already did it for me? Who reads books anyway?

[Alchisiel]

Originally Posted by Snowdog

[*]The Movie Recruit: They went to the theatre and saw Fellowship of the Ring, and loved it so much they were inspired to go and read the books, finishing the Two Towers and Return of the King before the release of the movie of the same name. Many go on to become Edain New-School Book Fans.

I would fall into this category. I watched the Fellowship and got to talking with some coworkers and learned that there were books the movie was based on. So I went to my local Barnes and Noble, bought the Hobbit, and was hooked. After finishing the Hobbit I read the Lord of the Rings books and the Silm-twice. I love the story, but consider the movies as one man's interpretation. I don't get angry about certain parts being left out, that Liv Tyler played Arwen (after all it is just a book folks) or all that hoop-la about Orlando Bloom, Elijah Wood, and Viggo Mortensen. I like both the movies and the books and treat them as separate things, if you get my meaning.

[Neferchoirwen]

Nurumaiel , that was so elegant! I wish that I had parents who were as read as yours and who would have given me the opportunity to be introduced to this world that can only be entered by turning its pages. I remember feeling that feeling of childhood intrigue about a part of an animation that exists in an obscure video tape (in my case, it was a snippet of Puff the Magic Dragon---although, it is a curious thing how as toddlers, we enjoy seeing things like animation without understanding the entire plot---like the way I love the Smurfs movie...oh well).

I do feel annoyed when Lord of the Rings discussions among friends fall into behind the scenes stories, or EE features, and New Zealand. I love the films, but I learned to treat the books as a separate entity from the films.

Snowdog , I was always wondering how to categorize fans, and you've hit the nail right there! I am a movie recruit, and proud of it (but I do regret nursing my book reading bag log to something as ridiculous as not reading LOtR...quite ridiculous for a Lit major such as myself), and am looking forward to giving the gift of middle earth to my kids...and somehow make adopted first born fans out of them (introduce the books to them before I make them watch the films...I'll try, I promise!).

Although, there are people I know (strange as it seems) that haven't seen the movies or read the books (and these are lit majors---less than a handful, as far as I know them). What kind of fans will they be if they choose to read them before they see the films? Just curious...

[Child of the 7th Age]

First, I have already thanked Nurumaiel personally for her wonderful post, but I want to add my thanks here. Not many of our families have been so intimately involved with introducing us to LotR. You have some great memories there!

Snowdog - Those categories are fantastic. I fall into the "Old-School Book Fan". But you might want to have at least one "sub-category" in that group: the "Frodo Lives" generation, the U.S. college students from the late sixties whom Tolkien felt had good inclinations but were also a little nuts and who came at the book from a different angle than his own. (He was undoubtedly correct about this!) Everyone had the books in college and many had posters plastered on their dorm or apartment walls -- usually the psychedelic one done by Barbara Remington that JRRT couldn't stand! We even had pins that said "Gandalf for President".

A number of this group were "tree huggers" and thumbed their nose at the establishment, instead specilizing in baking bread and toting protest signs! Certainly not what Tolkien had anticipated, but we saw LotR as a way to break out of the "bourgeois" constraints left over from the late Fifties and early Sixties.

Looking back, I have to smile but it was a time of excitement. The general reader in the U.S. did not yet know about the books (totally unlike today), and we felt we'd stumbled onto a secret world that was all our own....

Just curious....but is there anyone else out there who had a similar experience in college?

[piosenniel]

Great categorizing, Snowdog!

Another old school fan here . . . the battered old paperbacks from my college days lean haphazardly together on my bookshelf, touching covers with Diet for a Small Planet, another book from back then. I'm sorry to have lost the old buttons of that era in my many moves - but here are a few of them for your perusal:

Frodo lives!

I would concur with the need for a sixties subsection as proposed by Child.

~*~ Pio

[mark12_30]

Snowdog:

Old-school here, too.

I had no Frodo-Lives buttons (or Gandalf for President, either). But I did have several psychedelic posters.

My fellowship was not in college, but in Junior-high. Eomer, Faramir, and Gimli (as we called ourselves) sat cross-legged in the hall during lunch break and swapped fanfics, written and spoken. Mary-Sues, every last one, and all long since burned or shredded. But I wonder if I still have any of those old charcoal drawings...

Soooo... Old-School. Ah....... **cough** if we're neither Edain nor Eldar, What does that make us?

Ents?

Maia?

Valar???



Nuru-- wow.

[drigel]

Excellent catorization! I would be remiss though to say that if you are going to subgroup a sixties college students group out of the oldtimers, please give us GenX'rs a place! hehe .. I was in the 5th grade in 1975 when i picked up The Hobbit (what a wonderful age to start reading Tolkien!), and Immediately/ permanently became a fan. I may be an unusual throwback, however. My LOTR paperbacks were smashed between Asimov and Robert E Howard. I have gone through the cycles already succintfully described on this thread. My journey came after the sixties "I have discovered my own little world", but I had the advantage of being able to soak up all the wonderfull, more refined art that was being done during the seventies. Of course it all came to a crashing end with Bakashi lol. Sigh... so many hopes for that flick that were dashed....

I was completely ignorant of the excellent Tolkien internet presense though, until the movies came out and I started researching. So - thank or curse the movies for my involvement here! As a newbie (kinda) to this site - i can definately discern diparate groups here. Some make me think, others dont. I still read on. For me, I get just as irratated by a high faluted philosophical academic as i do a Legolas is so hot popcorn eater ... no offense intended.

As an oldtimer (cough), my view of PJ's endeavour was one of interpretation, which is of course what it was. TTT was where it was very evident to me. My thoughts at the end of that movie was how hard it would be to interpret LOTR to film. ROTK (for me) showed even more evidence of the glaring interpretation decisions made by PJ. And showed me even more insersions of his movie making style which, to me, detracted from the Tolkien experience. Too many Goonies influences. Might work for King Kong - didnt work for LOTR. I will enjoy PJ's interpretation of The Hobbit or Silm as well. But, as I enjoy the different opinions here, I would also appreciate any other filmmakers interpretation as well, as long as the intention and the budget were as honorable as PJ's....

[Snowdog]

Being that I managed to make Old School by a year, and was one who was in line for the opening of the Walden books the day the Silmarillion was released, I didn't have any knowledge of the cultures before 'my' time which was 1975-76. So I will work all your 60's suggestions into it, and hope to get in touch with this charming old gent who told me he read the triligy in 1956 in the U of Washington library. he was a 'beatnik' and was a precurser to the whole 60's Frodo Lives generation.

As an oldtimer (cough), my view of PJ's endeavour was one of interpretation, which is of course what it was. TTT was where it was very evident to me. My thoughts at the end of that movie was how hard it would be to interpret LOTR to film. ROTK (for me) showed even more evidence of the glaring interpretation decisions made by PJ. And showed me even more insersions of his movie making style which, to me, detracted from the Tolkien experience.

I knew his interpretation would be way off as soon as I saw a blade held by "Arwen" at the throat of Aragorn in the wild . Nuclear Galadriel, Elves in Helms Deep, searchlight eye of sauron... But it was all ok for a movie because I know what its really like, stored in my head.