Lord of the Rings (2 towers)

[Chang Style Novice]

Oh, sure, there was lots of stuff that didn't mimic the book exactly, and I reread 'em for the first time in about 20 years last month, so they're pretty fresh in my mind. What would be the point of making the movie if it was just like the book? Those were the only differences I saw that I figured weakened the movie rather than strengthening it.

[red5angel]

CSN, I belive your first point will appear in the thid movie. I believ Gandalf will go back to Isengaard then. They cut off the last part of the movie to stick it in the third, including Shelobs lair obviously. That happens at roughly the same time the rest of the fellowship gathers at Isengaard.
I thought in the book Faramir still had a hard time letting go of the ring. I seem to remember he fought for a while internally trying to determine what he would do? As for Dethenor, I couldn't remember but I didn't think it hapened in the book! It was a cool scene though!
Consdier yourself punched!!!

by the way you guys aren't obviously any of the fat alpha geeks trying to impress the retinue of lesser geeks on LOTR lore...

[SevenStar]

Do any of you guys read piers anthony?

[KC Elbows]

I read a bunch of Piers Anthony years ago. Apprentice Adept, some other stuff.

As for the Two Towers, seeing it on Christmas with ze family. I love seeing movies on Christmas.

[red5angel]

7star, I've read quite a bit of anthony. I started to get sick of all the sex though. It seems like the guy has a serious repression problem!!!
Sadly after a while I decided to pick up a book of his to see if I could get back into it, it was called "Firefly" if you have ever read it then you know why after that I stopped reading his stuff!!
He is a good writer but it seems like everything revolved around sex at some point and it almost started to get in the way of the plots.

[FatherDog]

Piers Anthony has excellent ideas for stories.

Unfortunately, he's one of the worst writers I've ever read. He's like a real-life Kilgore Trout.

The Incarnations of Immortality series was his best, I think.

red: I didn't find the amount of sex disturbing, so much as the fact that the age of his heroines tended to decrease with each successive book. Issues there, certainly... although not as frightening as speculating on the issues behind Jack Chalker's fiction.

[Chang Style Novice]

My beef with how Faramir was handled is that it undermines one of the most serious themes of the trilogy to me: the underestimated ones get the most done. Some examplesfrom the books:

Nobody knows from hobbits, but they turn out to be the toughest in terms of resisting the power of the Ring - the only ones with a chance to resist long enough to destroy it.

Faramir is the best in gondor, but Boromir is the most beloved.

The despised rangers are the decendents of Elendil.

Gimli kills more at Helm's Deep than Legolas

Saruman is the supposed supreme wizard, but Gandalf takes him out.

Also, a related theme is the corruption of authority and the nobility of service:

Frodo is finally corrupted by the Ring, but Sam's earthiness (and gollums decent into self destruction) pull him out.

Boromir's desire for glory causes him to grasp for the ring, Faramir's desire to protect Gondor allows him to resist it.

Dethenor's wish to be King and not merely Steward drives him insane and kills him, nearly killing his son, too.
--------
This is the stuff that raises LotR way above the run-of-the-mill heroic fantasy stuff for me, and so when it's weakened by Faramir's inability to resist the Ring in the movies, it weakens the trilogy as a whole for me.

And I think that's enough to tip me into ubergeek territory. Kill me now.

[SevenStar]

I don't find the amount of sex disturbing, but I have read Firefly, so I know where you are coming from. My favorites by him are the Incarnations of Immortality and the Xanth series - I've got all of the Xanth books - been reading them for 12 years now, and most of the I of I series. He does have some great ideas, like his use of puns in the Xanth series, or like his novel "Killobyte".

I think the age of his heroines is based on a few things:

1. Xanth Is an ongoing work, like Dragon Ball, for example. Dragon ball begins with Goku at age 6, and ends with him dead and focusing on his twenty-something year old son. Xanth begins with Bink, Iris and the others from the early books and ends with descendants of all of them. If you notice, most of the books will revolve around someone who is a descendant of a main character from a previous novel.

2. his fans. The character 'Jenny' was created after a fan of his who was sick and in the hospital. She loved his novels and asked to be in one of them. Jenny was 12 at the time.

In Xanth, sex is really a non-issue, because it's not allowed because of the Adult Conspiracy (you'd have to be a Xanth fan to know about it) - remember, there are a list of adult things that kids can't be exposed to, like what sex is, and boys aren't allowed to see panties.

If you notice, the young ones and old ones are also usually grouped together in the novels, for example, Jenny didn't run with Nada or Grey - who were in their early 20's by the time jenny came into the series- she ran with a cenatur that was about her age, so there's no perversion thing going on there either.

[red5angel]

LOL! @ FD, yeah that is sort of what I was getting at. The guy has some real issues.

CSN, I think it did show the struggle, and the Rings will to get back to it's master well. That is well illustrated in the book but seems to be somehting even more stressed in the movies. Good points though, and I basically agree.

7star, haven't read the Xanth series so maybe I am being unfair, mostly the adept series, some one hitters and I can't even think of the series with Death and Time and all that.

[KC Elbows]

It's been a long time since I read Piers Anthony, about the same amount of time as when I read Moor****. I really don't remember much about Anthony, except he seemed really big on characters living in two diametrically opposed worlds. Everything I read by him had that. Granted, I didn't read much of his stuff.

I like LeGuin.

[FatherDog]

Originally posted by SevenStar
I think the age of his heroines is based on a few things:

1. Xanth Is an ongoing work, like Dragon Ball, for example.

I was thinking more of his non-Xanth stuff since, as you say, sex in Xanth is a non-issue.

In Virtual Mode, for example, the heroine is 14, and quite merrily attempting to have sex with a man in his late 20's, as I recall. And in "And Eternity", the end of the Incarnations series, part of the plot is the female character being happy that she's spent time in Purgatory, where time passes slower, so that she's /legally/ an adult and can make out with the 40-year-old Judge she's fallen for, even though she's still physically, mentally, and chronologically 15-16.

It doesn't bother me all that much; they're just books, and society's attitudes towards teenage sexuality are a little screwed up to begin with. But it seems to be a recurring theme in his non-Xanth novels (and even the Xanth ones, to a degree) and it kinda makes you wonder about his mental state.

KC Elbows: Moorcock's one of my favorite writers; him and Fritz Leiber. Both of them extremely prolific with a very wide range of subject matter.

[SevenStar]

yeah, you're right about and eternity. I've never read the Mode series, as nobody I know that's read it had anything real good to say about it.

[OdderMensch]

I decided not to read the books until the movies came out, so i've seen & read fellowship and just saw two towers and am reading it now.

when My bookreading roommate talked about Faramir after I had seen it, i didn't think the char was two far off.

I have more on this, but have to leave mid post, I will say that faramir "had only to reach out his hand and claim the ring for Gondor" yet Frodo kept it at all times, and was relased under forfit of life for Faramir.

Sam has already saved the ring from Frodo at least twice in the films.

gotta go now, more later

[SaMantis]

I was a little surprised at Faramir deciding to take them to Gondor, but by the end I was OK with it. Except all I could think at the end of the movie was, 'Now they have so much ****her to walk ..."

I'm glad they left Shelob's lair for the next film. Otherwise it would be three hours of Sam & Frodo walking through Mordor ... Sam & Frodo STILL walking through Mordor ... et al, ad infinitum.

[Chang Style Novice]

The Two Towers is just the thing after a plate of mushrooms and some pipe-weed.