XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid   
      
   In message    
   "Tahiri"  spoke these staves:   
   >   
   > Am I first? I have seen the film and overall I liked it.   
      
   I saw it Saturday with the kids, and I also really liked it.   
      
   It is not exactly a deep film in any sense of the word -- it's   
   hack&slash action-adventure and nothing else. No hidden depths, a lot   
   of video-game inspired aesthetics, but nothing exceptional. It is,   
   however, thoroughly entertaining -- a bit like a really good roller   
   coaster ride.   
      
   The main thing that I think has allowed me to enjoy this film on its   
   own merits is that it has so little to do with Tolkien. The mere   
   skeleton of a plot remains the same, just as some of the Dwarves have   
   some few elements in common with the homonymous character in Tolkien's   
   story (Balin: old, scout, kind to Bilbo), but that is all -- all of the   
   fleshing out is Jackson.   
      
   My experience with the LotR films can be compared to seeing the face of   
   a loved one transplanted to an evil git: it still _looks_ like your   
   loved one, but it is a completely different (and, at least to me,   
   disagreeable) thing underneath.  This time I met an unknown face, and   
   though it did bear some vague family resemblance with a loved one, the   
   resemblance wasn't strong enough to make me expect anything about the   
   person underneath, and so I could better meet that person on their own   
   terms.   
      
   --   
   Troels Forchhammer   
   Valid e-mail is    
   Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.   
      
         The major problem [encountered in time travel] is quite   
       simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this   
       matter is Dr Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveller's   
       Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations.   
      - Douglas Adams, /The Restaurant at the End of the Universe/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)