> Not alot of Lord of the Rings fans here.
I wouldn't be too sure of that.
But a lot of us are also Star Wars fans who were let down by the reality of episode 1 after all the hype it had. So now my strategy is to try to keep my expectations low, and maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
> The first one was awful. Although I wish they hadn't left out
> Tom Bombadil
No Tom Bombadil! Down with Tom Bombadil!
As for the earlier, animated films - "The Hobbit" and "The Return of the King" were pretty bad. They were watchable for me as a kid, but no longer. Bakshi's misnamed "The Lord of the Rings" (i.e. part 1) is a mixed bag. It has a lot of flaws, but I was also impressed with how much stuff from the book
did make it into the film. The animation was interesting for its time, but badly dated now. The soundtrack is quite good, if poorly recorded. The big problem of course is that it just stops at the halfway point, and since "The Return of the King" was done by a different company entirely for a different target audience, it makes no attempt to resolve half the stuff that was happening in LotR. It's great that Peter Jackson is able to produce a three-film version as he is, so this shouldn't be a problem.
> I also really like Lord of the Rings - but I'm thinking that
> the handling of it will make it more of a guys flick.
I'm curious what you mean here, Cindy. Do you mean more of a guys flick than Harry Potter? (Sounds reasonable; no argument in this case.) Or do you mean more of a guys flick than someone else's adaptation of LotR would be? Is there something you've heard about the production that makes you think this? The main changes I've heard of seem to be giving Arwen more to do, and putting more of the Aragorn/Arwen story (from the appendix) into the main story. It seems like this is likely to make the story a bit more interesting from a "chick flick" perspective (though overall I agree it'll probably be much more a "guy flick"). Of course if Arwen turns into Xenarwen, Warrior Princess then all bets are off.
It looks like the Dec 17 on the poster is out of date - the UK premiere is Dec 10, and most of the rest of the English-speaking world gets it on the 19th or 20th. See
here.
I still haven't read Harry Potter - I imagine I will eventually, even without having any kids of my own.
[This message has been edited by Jim Yingst (edited November 06, 2001).]