I just watched it, thought it was a great movie.

Is it sticking to the book? Would it be worth my while reading the book? I read The Lord of the rings book but not the hobbit.

Of course you should read The Hobbit.

I've read the book but havent saw the movie yet. I'll let you know sunday.

"I read The Lord of the rings book"

???

There are 3 books in the Lord of The Rings trilogy...

I read the hobbit many years ago. Haven't seen the movie. I still remember the quote:
"Chip the glasses and crack the plates! That's what Bilbo Baggins hates"
and that scene in the book generally..
Given that I read the book when I was 8, that's pretty much all I remember specifically about it:P

It was actually written as one big book but the publishers split it up into 3. You can still buy it as one big book.

@requiem: I heard that too, although I"ve never actually seen it published as one big book.
The Tolkien book I've wanted to read but never have is the Similarion.

Silmarillion is tough...it's not as easy a read as LOTR was, less refined. I read it once but it never stuck.

They still publish LOTR as one big book: http://www.amazon.ca/...qid=1355495410&sr=1-6

I think at one point they even split the book up into 6 mini-books for ease of publishing.

that must be one big ass book or really small print (or both)

I saw the Hobbit as well. Liked it a lot.

Similarion is really good. Depends on the person I guess.

technically, as i recall, LOTR is a collection of 6 books. split into 3 volumes.

I enjoyed the Silmarillion.

To be honest though, the Unfinished Tales is awesome; the first two stories are great!

Obviously they don't have endings... but they're pretty awesome regardless :)

The movie was good .. a bit lighter feel than LotR but that's appropriate based on the books. They added a fair amount of material in order to make this a trilogy, but it's done well.

Since I first heard that they were making these movies I've been most excited for the Smaug scenes

I won't see it till tomorrow, but as was point out in an article I read,

In the book, Tolkien makes a passsing mention of giants throwing rocks at each other,
it takes up 3 sentences, and totals 1 paragraph. its background info.

As part of making this a trilogy, apparently this scene is a few minutes long:)


This is one of the few times, the details of a book are being fleshed out, and not edited out:)

oh. i don't have to worry about watching it any time soon. how'd i get here?

could be interesting. haven't read it lately.
Silmarillion was pretty awesome, read it a few times over. nice to see the background behind sauron, amon sul, the witchking of angmar, angband etc.

I just watched, it and have recently read the book. They kept the general story intact, and did a great job of incorporating quotes into the movie. Though the specifics of scenes they changed, there were a lot of places were they changed little things. That part kind of bugged me, BUT... it was still a great movie :D.

(yeah yeah i know its ironic I am commenting about the Hobbit considering my username ha ha ha :D)

I remember playing the ps1 or ps2 game for the hobbit many years ago. Havent seen the movie yet though. Would be good to.

I have read the Hobbit and LOTR many times over the years but I have never been able to get very far in the Similarion after starting it a few times.

Maybe I will try again, lol

It was a very well done movie and they did the intro amazingly as well as one of the other key scenes... they kept to the story for the most part.. everything big was kept in similar to the book but they changed a lot of unnecessary things that were little but really bugged me.

The extra scenes in the movie came from other notes that Tolkien wrote and I actually loved those scenes. I thought they fit very well.

Great movie and better book. If you havn't read it then make sure you do. I saw the Simarillion mentioned above and highly suggest it. It is kind of a mashup of separate stories in some cases that intertwine but some of them I absolutely loved and give you more insight into middle earth.

I 2nd what locket said. I enjoyed the movie. Was a bit annoyed with a few changes they did but all and all two thumbs up!

Exactly! Great movie, but just questioning some of the slight changes. Like the troll scene, the goblin scene, and the eagle scene.

i had that with lotr tbh. I left the cinemas slightly less than impressed, especially given the stuff that had been added basically stood out like dogs balls against the flow of the original tale.

Great movies saw it on Imax 3D

Drow, my biggest complaint about the LOTR was how they turned Faramir from a badass character to someone who can't resist the ring and just another retard like everyone else.

hmmm.... i guess it is time to go back and read the lord of the rings again... its been a while.

For the most part it was a good movie. I'm not a big fan of them adding things, as the story flowed well already. Notable changes: Azog being an actual character and part of the story; Radaghast and the rabbit pulling sleigh, seriously? The whole fight at the end of the movies and only being in one tree. The part of them being 15 "birds" in five fir trees plays into the very next part of the book; the eagles actually speak with them in the book; Frodo should not have been in the movie, period; Bilbo was a well-to-do hobbit and really is portrayed as a bit rounder in the book, so to speak; Thorin is portrayed a much more a hero and badass in the movie than he is in the book... you get my points.

I do say that the scenes with Bilbo and Gollum are well done.

As to LotR, yes, it was originally written as one book, but his publishers wanted it split into three. The Simarillion is broken up into a distince parts, with the beginning focusing on the creation of everything, and the main story, the Quenta Silmaril, about the Elves, the creation of the Silmarils, and their pursuit of and war with Morgoth/Melkor to try to recover them. I don't know that they could ever make The Simarillion into a movie, as it spans thousands of years.

Thorin is badass in the book dude. They just dont have an excess of fighting to be had in it. Most of the new scense(Completely new ones) all came from Tolkien's writings. I disliked the changes to existing scenes as you did but the new scenes worked imo.

I actually really liked the intro and thought it was a neat way to get it started. It isn't like Frodo had any major point beyond having a good reason for Bilbo to be writing.

Yeah, I read it and Faramir was one of my favorite characters.