WTH JRRT?

Spoiler for the beginning of The Two Towers book or the end of tFotR movie.

In the Fellowship of the Ring movie, Boromir's death was this great event of redemption. He fought of tons of Orcs single-handed. It was, to put it simply and colloquially, epic.

In The Two Towers, his death is practically glazed over. Aragorn hears Boromir's horn and runs to help him. But, alas, Boromir was "pierced with many black-feathered arrows; his sword was still in his hand, but it was broken near the hilt; his horn cloven in two was at his sing. Many Orcs lay slain, piled all about him and at his feet". Then, Boromir and Aragorn have a brief conversation, in which Boromir tells Aragorn that the Orcs took the "Halflings" (which is his word for "hobbits"). But, he fails to mention which hobbits were taken before he died.

This is just another instance of how the movies go into more emotional depth than the books. Which, as a contemporary reader, appeals to me greatly.

Just a quick note: now that I'm back at school, things might be going more slowly than I hoped. I'm taking eighteen hours at college, and also balancing a social life with two groups of friends. But, that will not hinder me!

DFTBA!

I Finished FotR!

Yes! I finally finished the Fellowship of the Ring! It took me about a month, which is an unusually long time by my standards. But because I finished the book, I watched the movie. This is my opinion of the books/movies thus far.

I think that the books are really difficult to get into, just because they are not written in a format that is typical with contemporary literature. While I was reading Fellowship I noticed that Tolkien focuses more on the setting and the lay of the land, over the characters. I found myself wishing there was more emphasis on the action scenes, like I'm used to from modern media. Tolkien is letting us into his world through a small, albeit pivotal, event. I don't dislike his writing, and I definitely respect him, but it's not my "cup of tea" exactly.

Movie-wise, I saw lot more of what I wanted from this book. There were exciting action scenes and focus on the characters. I was partially distracted the whole movie though because Merry is played by Dominic Monaghan, who was "Charlie" in LOST and "Simon" in FlashFoward. Anyways, here were my major problems with the movie: not enough of Lothlorien, which was one of my favorite locations from the book, and that it made Boromir's greed so obvious. But beyond that, it was an excellent movie. Gandalf's death was well done. The way he fell reminded me of Dumbledore's death in HBP, which made the scene a stab in the heart for me.

Another small note is that I made a video about this project and it's on my YouTube channel! The link is: http://dft.ba/-hpo21yt. If you do the YouTube thing as well, please subscribe to me!

Much love and DFTBA!