Final Fellowship of the Ring trailer...

[Xayd]

http://www.psychosis.net/lotr/fellow...herings_fs.mov

All I can say is wow, this movie rocks already . 30 meg quicktime file, and worth every bit of the download, there's quite a bit of action in this one.

[Blankman]

Wow! And how! I've been trying to get my wife's blessing to allow me to buy the Tolken books from Easton Press but no go so far.

[DrZaius]

Wow, I'm really looking forward to these movies. I think they will be akin to the next "Star Wars" type movies with a big following.

[Xayd]

If I'm assuming correctly, you haven't read them Blankman?

If so, YOU MUST READ THESE BOOKS! There are four in the ring series, and you also should read Unfinished Tales as well, which goes into alot of the backgrounds of the characters and races in the ring series.

The Silmarillion is a bit tedious, ya might try it after but it took me awhile to go through it, it reads kinda like a college history book .

Tolkien is truly one of the greatest authors of this century. Some like Stephen King and Anne Rice have had very good character descriptions/developments, others like Lovecraft have done excellent settings and plots tied in over multiple stories/books, but Tolkien litterally wrote four great books from top to bottom, everything as close to perfect as could be, with the ring series.

I've read quite a bit in my 20-something bored Generation-X years, but Tolkien and Lovecraft are the only two that I've stumbled across with writings worth reading over and over again.

[Blankman]

You are correct about that. Actually my friend who got me into computers and starting teaching me the tech side of things has been driving me to read the set ever since word of the movie hit. That's why I thought I'd check out your link...gonna have to read them soon.

[Paul Victorey]

You haven't read the books??

Just BUY them, they're not that expensive. I have 4 copies of the trilogy, and 2 of the Silmarillion. Plus I have all the other Tolkien books (Lost Tales I and II, Unfinished Tales, etc.) The only Tolkien stuff I don't have are the Chris Tolkien stuff, as they seemed to be entirely annotated versions of stories in the other books?

[Chris in U.K.]

Yup, Paul,

Don't know how many times I've read TLOTR and the Hobbit over the years, but I could never really get into the Silmarillion. I also really like Farmer Giles of Ham (one of the shorts).

Haven't seen you around for a while - more trouble with that biker gang?

Chris.

[Paul Victorey]

Nah, I've just been ungodly busy with school. Last week I spent more than 36 hours over the period of 3 days with one project. And it's just been nonstop project, test, project, test, test, homework, etc.

Neural Networking is a fun class, but boy is it time consuming!

On the topic of the Silmarillion, it takes some getting used to. My first read, I didn't get very much into it, but I've read it now 4 times and I like it more with each reread. It's a very different kind of story that the LotR -- much more like a history book, or a long epic like Homer.

[Blankman]

Ok, now I'm feeling bad. Almost like the time I forgot our anniversary. I guess I had better get to it before the movie comes out and spoils it for me...

[Demosthenes]

I have never been able to force myself to finish those books. I read The Hobbit at the young age of whatever age you are in fifth grade by the persistent persisting of the wise Mr. Halin. I was not fond of it. In fact, it annoyed me how everyone who read it later kept telling me how good it was. Now, I know I must have been "too young to have fully appreciated this work of art on all its complex levels", so I picked up Fellowship of the Ring later in life. I am still young at heart and still obviously could not appreciate this book for all its complexity, so a year later or so (not too far in the past) I started The Two Towers. I could never finish it. I love the Middle Earth idea and everything pertaining to magic and such, but Tolkien just repeats. Every character is introduced in the same gray and hunched manner and then casts off the cloak of despair and rises with clear blue eyes that glint in the sun light, and so on. After the third character was described as such, I dropped the book, went to the library, and checked out Bored of the Rings, a much more contemporary novel.

As per the Silmarillion, it was written for Tolkiens own good. It was his way to organize his imaginary world and prevent contradictions. It also left a solid history and meaning to his world. I do not think it was meant for sale, but when money and a big name is involved, publishers find it hard to resist a chance to cash in.

I will, however, probably see the movie and hope, that somehow, this time the movie is better than the book. Personally, the book just seems too subjective to the reader for a single interpretation to be widely accepted. This is but the opinion of a person who cannot appreciate literature for its complexity.

Respectfully,

Demosthenes

[Paul Victorey]

This trailer is probably the only good thing to ever come out of Quicktime.

Arrgh, I can't even convert it into a real format -- it's some "new" QT format that all the conversion progs I've seen can't make heads nor tails of.

I *hate* quicktime, it's as bad as ASF. Why people wouldn't use the obvious choice of MPEG-4 is beyond me -- maybe they LIKE huge load and seek times in their files, or lower quality video and audio...