Will the films overshadow the novel, as unlikely as that may seem to us right now?

[IronParrot]

I'd like to point out two examples of legendary novels, modern classics that much-anticipated film adaptations came from. And as a result, with both these cases nowadays when you mention the title, the film is the first thing that comes to mind. As a matter of fact, the younger generation doesn't even know about the source material.

I refer to none other than Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind and Mario Puzo's The Godfather.

Do you think the same thing will happen with LOTR?

[bmilder]

Interesting question. I don't see how that could possibly happen, since the books themselves have such large followings... but you never know.

On a side note, I was barely able to sit through the movie version of GWTW, so I'm not even going to attempt the book :p

[IronParrot]

Yeah... you'd be amazed with a film of that length, how much they actually cut OUT. They had to take out Scarlett's son by Charles Hamilton completely. I sat through the film and enjoyed it, but never finished the book... I thought my overdue bill was already big enough...

But remember that GWTW (the book) was HUGE back then, like LOTR still is today. It was, long before Jaws, the first real blockbuster. Some women fainted in the opening show when Clark Gable appeared... that is a fact. But now, the film is even bigger than the book!

[anduin]

Hopefully people that see LOTR without reading the book will make a point to read the book. Or perhaps they will be inspired to read LOTR before the movie comes out. I made sure that I read The Godfather before I saw the movie, and I have to admit that I have a hard time telling which was the better of the two.......hopefully it will be the same with LOTR :)

[juntel]

The books being so big, if the movie is very good, i guess some people won't go to the books...
Reading can take a long time, and the more people have things to do in their lives to survive, the less they'll take time to read, and that's very unfortunate I think.
But that will depend on wheter the film is good or not.

I have some friends who didn't want to read the Dune saga because of the movie... Fortunately, I managed to convince them into reading them!

[anduin]

Well, I guess some people are just impatient when it comes to reading ;)

[juntel]

Yeah... some people can become that way...
Hey, by the way, has LotR ever been trimmed into a Reader's Digest form?
(RD even have their own Bible version!)

[IronParrot]

Now that's comedy!

[Michael Martinez]

Reader's Digest has never been given the rights to compress THE LORD OF THE RINGS (I don't know if they have ever tried to get them). Although it's hard to say whether the movies will overshadow the book in the long run, I don't believe they can do that in the short run. More than 80,000,000 copies in more than 30 langauges have been sold since THE LORD OF THE RINGS first came out. The only other book to sell more copies is the Bible. GONE WITH THE WIND is a major piece of literature, but it pales beside THE LORD OF THE RINGS. :)

Okay, maybe the difference isn't THAT great between the two books, but LOTR is also a well-established book. GONE WITH THE WIND hadn't been around that long when it was made into a movie. And the fact that the first LOTR movie as well as the two Rankin/Bass television specials didn't turn people off the books probably says a lot about the quality of the story. If anything, I expect Peter Jackson's movies to help the sales of the novel. Just the mere announcement of the impending movie project spurred new sales.

[Eruve]

I think part of the reason GWTW and Godfather as movies have overshadowed the books they were based on is that these are two really good movies. Both are classics. If PJ turns out a classic good enough to stand beside these two, that would be wonderful. But we'll just have to wait and see.

[Elanor]

I'd just like to add Frankenstein to the list--not that the movie could ever overshadow the book, but many people have misconceptions of the story because they've never read the book, and the movie(s) became much more popular with the masses.

I personally think the LotR movie will be great, and many people will be inspired to understand the complete story after seeing it, and turn to the book.

[IronParrot]

I completely agree. But while Frankenstein is certainly a classic film that overshadowed the Mary Shelley novel in reknown, it wasn't as cherished with glamour and awards in the public as GWTW and Godfather. Now, this brings up an interesting question: are the LOTR films going to be Oscar-calibre? I say yes, simply for artistic merit. I think PJ is aiming for that level, not just any odd adaptation blockbuster. I think he's going to pull a GWTW on us.

[Darth Tater]

This thread's title is gonna give me nightmares ;)

I hope that the movie will be a companion to the books, made to accompany them. I hope that in advertising they try to point people towards these wonderfull classics. However, I fear the worst. I fear that people will watch the movie and then think they don't have to read the books. This, in my mind, is the greatest sin against Tolkien. :(

[Michael Martinez]

Well, Peter Jackson is going to miss competing with it by one year, but "The Wizard of Oz" is probably the most highly acclaimed fantasy movie of the 20th century. No other movie has even come close to matching the popularity of "Oz", despite the fact it was based (quite loosely) on a children's story. The special effects were state-of-the-art and actually paved the way for some future special effects (the tornado, for instance, was created with a stocking, but the footage was so realistic it was used in meteorology classes for many years).

I'm not sure most people have even read L. Frank Baum's book these days, or that he even went on to write 13 more Oz novels. But virtually everyone in the United State and Canada has probably seen the movie at least once.

So, yes, there is a very real chance Peter Jackson's movies will take on a life of their own, but I still say that LOTR is popular enough on its own merits it won't be forgotten. The Oz books were never as popular as Tolkien's books have become.

[IronParrot]

I've read all fourteen Oz novels, and I own all of them except #13 (The Magic of Oz).

The Wizard of Oz (the film) is another great example. Now, personally, I don't think it overshadowed the novel, but it certainly associated a lot of cool-as-hell songs with it. The thing is, I'm a big fan of the original children's novel, but when I watched the film, I didn't mind a bit that they stopped the plot while Dorothy was still in the Emerald City. I don't even mind the ambiguity of the "it was only a dream" possibility, even though the books make it clear it was actually real, and even go as far to have Dorothy, Uncle Henry and Aunt Em move to Oz when the farm can't support them anymore (hope I didn't spoil too much for you). I don't even mind the gifts the Wizard gave them all in the film, which were not present in the book at all.

Why? Well, because those creative licenses made Oz the film so wonderful in its own right! It only detracted from the novel as much as say, 2001: A Space Odyssey did to Clarke's novel when Stanley Kubrick decided to cut Saturn out of the story and combine all its scenes with Jupiter. Now 2001 is a special case because Clarke, when writing the sequels, decided to go with Kubrick's version afterwards.

As for LOTR... well, we're obviously opposed to ANYTHING different from the novel because Tolkien made it such a well-planned, flawless universe. But PJ is entitled to his own creative license - and if he cuts something out WITHOUT detracting from either the film OR the image of the Tolkien novel, I'm fine with that.

[Darth Tater]

I too read all the Oz books when I was young, since my parents are avid believers in the "read the books before you see the movies" thing. I have to agree, and though I know some will not, I wish everyone would.

[Hernalt]

Considering the target market for the novels you mentioned, I think it's easy to conclude that children will rarely if ever become exposed to literature deliberately meant for an adult audience. I was in third grade when a classmate chick was hauling around GWTW, and that was haled as a stellar accomplishment not just by the teachers but by us students, even if we thought we were hot stuff tackling Madeline Engle. the ease of marketing GWTW or Godfather to young readers is well-nigh impossible, but it will be a simple matter marketing and PUSHING Tolkien on younger people now. I'd say it should have been required class reading long ago, but there is such a thing as being 'called' and 'chosen' to behold something apart from the mainstream. The story Itself has defied cinematography for decades, and this erosive effect of having no canned 'director's cut' for mass consumption has etched Tolkien's words indelibly into millions of seperate imaginations. The very scope of Tolkien's realm has *forced* people to employ the grey matter they rarely use for such matters, unless they're big readers to begin with (which plenty are).

I know that what you're ultimately getting at is for the generations to be born. They'll have a canned Campbell's Tolkien ready to pop in the DVD. They won't have to exert any mental muscle fibre to achieve interal vision. BUT, I was able to conjure up different visions for both the Star Wars saga AND Dune when reading the novels long after I had seen the movies. I think it is a two-way street, and Visual splendor does not totally snuff out the imagination. Will the book experience a resurgence? Absolutely. Jackson's vision itself, all 6 hours told, is but a barely adequate teaser/trailer to the real cinema of the imagination, when that young person finally pays the ticket of reading time and sees their own movie in that surround-sound cranial theatre.

[Darth Tater]

Amen.


Myself as well as a number of my friends all basically learned to read from Tolkien. We all went to the same small school, which at the time lauded his work. They have practically banned it now as demonic. Come on, the guy was a great Christian, as well as a literary genious. I hope these movies spark young minds to break such ludicrous barriers as my old school has set up and will encourage them to explore the wonderfull world that Tolkien has to offer.

[IronParrot]

Demonic? What the @#%$?!

[bmilder]

Yeah, didn't you know IP? Reading about Sauron is the same as selling your soul to Satan :p;)

[Finduilas]

That is absolutely insane. Tolkien is one of the best writers of the century.

[Elanor]

It seems to be a "popular controversial issue" these days. Some people have even banned A Wrinkle in Time, which is about as Christian a book as you can get!

[IronParrot]

Hah! You call this sacreligious! The BIBLE is about as sacreligious as it gets!

Not to advertise - this isn't even my site - but check this out:
www.skepticsannotatedbible.com (http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com)

[Hernalt]

Well, Mr. *Six-Pounder Field Rifle* (aka IronParrot), that's dangerously close to a religious toe-stepping! There are 'Frontier' boards, which are not so civilized, where that could topic be better gutted open. I figured that the more heartless cavemen invented "God" so that cavewomen would know that at least SOMEONE loved them. Kind of like a boobtube for the spirit that kept everyone occupied, and that sprouted gameshows. As world-weary and cynical as that sounds, religion in general has provoked human imagination farther than has any other stimulus. Being a "Christian" is still a high and fine ideal, so long as the person does it for themselves and their soul does not perish of doubt.