Dvader said:

You are not going to except that the battles are told better. I just read part of the battle in ROTK, it was crap compared to the movie. No scene with Gandalf consoling Pippen about the afterlife cause they knew that soon the enemies would take down the gates and they would be dead. That dialogue from that scene was taken from different parts of the book, I like how the movie did it better. Half the time Pippen was running around the city with the other servants of Denethor, useless stuff. The only part that was well described was the battle with the Wraith King which was almost recreated perfectly in the movie.

Throughout the books I like how some of the scenes or even characters were consolidated into more compact scenes. Take for instance in the books they never had to light the torches at Gondor that would call the Rohan, in the books the torches were lit, the King sort of thought about helping them for a while, then he took weeks getting people ready, and the book describes them getting ready for weeks. In the movie you get this epic scene of the torches being lit across Middle Earth and it finally reaches Rohan, Aragon bursts through the doors like a badass and exclaims "the flame is lit" and the king is like "fuck yeah lets go to war!" That is better.

Oh and Denethor, did he catch fire AND run off the top of the tower, no he simply caught fire. Or earlier in the movie, the scene with Denethor eating and Pippen singing being shown as Faramir marched off to his death, that was a perfect scene showing how selfish and self involved Denethor was. The book has a scene where Pippen sings but its not in that context, its random moment. The book has Faramir riding to his "death" but not matched with that scene. Together its far more powerful.

Yes a lot of this is the difference between what you can do in a movie and what can be done in a book, I understand that. I am probably completely biased cause I saw the films first, I dont know. I just know most of the changes in the movies I agreed with, I felt it helped the story moving along more smoothly and emphasized key moments.

I'm not sure gamingeek will survive that.

Foolz said:

I just read To Serve Man. Then I read a weird fan-ficcy To Serve Man for no other reason than I accidentally downloaded that thinking it was the real thing. The real thing was a little spoiled what with knowing the punchline, but it was pretty good anyway. Nothing amazing, but worth reading.

By Damon Knight? (according to amazon, that's a hard to find book).

SteelAttack said:

Dvader said:

I heard the Similarion sucks. (From Yoda)

It doesn't suck. It's just that is not a cohesive work like LotR or The Hobbit, but more of a collection of separate works that help to fully flesh out the background of the Tolkien universe. It's a heavier read, but some of the stories told in there are well worth a read.

The story of Beren and Luthien, or the one of Turin and Glaurung are just a couple examples of kickass stuff that happens during the time of legends that many LotR characters refer to.

I flat out prefer the Simarillion, especially Turgon and the hidden city.

bugsonglass said:

SteelAttack said:

It doesn't suck. It's just that is not a cohesive work like LotR or The Hobbit, but more of a collection of separate works that help to fully flesh out the background of the Tolkien universe. It's a heavier read, but some of the stories told in there are well worth a read.

The story of Beren and Luthien, or the one of Turin and Glaurung are just a couple examples of kickass stuff that happens during the time of legends that many LotR characters refer to.

this sums up the silmarillion perfectly.

i don't understand why you guys grabbed dvader by the neck for what he said.  i think you hold the book on a high pedestal or something.  personally, i see vader's point regarding action sequences in LOTR.  i think you are taking a "high horse" stand and refusing to consider that anything other than Tolkien's holy book can do an equally good (or in some instances better) job in telling the story.  dvader said that he was specifically talking about the battle scenes.  not about character development, or depth, or background, or the work on the whole.  his point is valid.  whether i agree with it or not i don't know as i haven't seen the movies yet

Nope, Vader just plain sucks.

SteelAttack said:

Dvader said:

Barely enough to know what is going on, what are you talking about, you know exactly what is going on in the movies.

Really? Did you know exactly why the Wraith King was killed by Merry's blade?

Oh god I sound like such a fucking nerd.

Let's just forget about this. I'm not trying to say the movies are inferior or whatever. If someone enjoys the movies over the books, more power to them. But I won't accept the notion that the movies portray the story (or parts of them, like battles) told in the books even better than the books themselves.

I like both the movies and books, I just don't compare them saying one is better than the other because both mediums do things that the other can't. For instance a book can tell you what a character is thinking, the internal monologue for instance, whilst films can't do that unless there is some out of place narration going on.

Foolz said:

Dvader said:

Together its far more powerful.

Yes a lot of this is the difference between what you can do in a movie and what can be done in a book, I understand that. I am probably completely biased cause I saw the films first, I dont know. I just know most of the changes in the movies I agreed with, I felt it helped the story moving along more smoothly and emphasized key moments.

I'm not sure gamingeek will survive that.

I'm not even going to read that. There comes a time in a mans life when he just has to hold up his hand and STOP - the bullshit.

Kidding D.  

Yodariquo said:

This is a required book for one of my university classes:

 What kind of class are you taking?

I finished Huckleberry Finn.  What a great book!

Yesterday I read another Penguin Classic:

I knew the gist of the story (like anyone) but it was a nice read nevertheless and only 90 pages long so easy to read in a day.

I now started reading Gomorrah.  I watched the movie last year (based on the book) - if you haven't watched it, do so pronto - and decided to read the book after talking to a friend who told me the book has more story threads and better explains the ones depicted in the movie.  By the way ... Iga you should have read this prior to going to Naples - or maybe it's best if you haven't

i am considering reading Stieg Larrson's Millenium trilogy (or at least the first part to see how I like it).  Have you guys read any of those three books (girl with he dragon tattoo ...)?  What did you think of it/them?  

i normally stay away from books which are that popular (at least while they are that popular) but i've heard wonderful things about friends whose taste i trust.