 Hey guys it's Liana and I'm here today to talk about the Fellowship of the Ring. I did finally read the Fellowship of the Ring for the Get It Done Readathon. I have attempted to read this twice before in my life and I never disliked it but it was always the wrong time because of life and not having the time and space to actually pay attention and so I finally, third time's the charm, actually read this freaking book. How did I feel about it? I have watched the extended editions of the movies more times than any human should and I intend to continue to do that. But so that being the case I couldn't entirely forget how I feel about the movies and how the movies would do things because I know the movies like the back of my own hand. I just I couldn't help the fact that as the book would go along my mind would automatically go like oh that wasn't in the movie that was different in the movie. I think someone else had that in the movie. I couldn't not do that but to the best of my ability I did also try to divorce my experience with the book from the movie and not make value comparisons if that makes sense. So instead of I couldn't help myself going like that wasn't in the movie or this was in the movie but different whether it was there or not I couldn't stop myself from that but I was reserving judgment for like if I felt one was better than the other as I was going along. Obviously the the movie feels like canon to me so it was the sort of inverse reaction of being like that character doesn't say that J.R.R. Tolkien you're wrong. No Liana this is who actually does it and they changed it in the movie and then that of course spiraled into me making going down the path of thinking oh I wonder why they changed that when they read this how they ended up thinking based on what's here that they might want to prefer to do it like that you know like because the movie's already existing in my mind but a lot of things are quite different from here so try to imagine if you only have this to go off of what would make you make the movie like that so I did I couldn't help but did a lot of that and I'm gonna put this down next this book's heavy but overall I would say that I don't like the book or the movie better than the other. I like them for different reasons and I think they each do certain things better than the other and certain things not as well and honestly one of my favorite parts of the book was the forward uh or the it was at the end but the forward by J.R.R. Tolkien talking about people's reactions to it and people's suppositions about his own motivations for writing it and the reactions these had with people telling him oh this is what this means or you must have been inspired by this or this part is you know boring and I didn't like this or this part was better and I did like it and him ultimately saying like I didn't write it for you and the things that you think inspired it sometimes maybe you're right and sometimes you're wrong and you can think what you think I didn't write it for you I wrote it for me and the parts that you think are boring other people think are the best part so I wrote the stuff that I wonder right that I thought was good so which I quite enjoyed obviously Tolkien said it more eloquently than I just did overall I would say the I think the movie basically made a movie out of it which because there's a lot of things about this that only work as a book and that's why they would necessarily need to change which is why I don't think it's it's bad for the movie not to be that way and I also don't think it's bad for the book to be that way like they are different mediums and that's the thing that I feel like is uh keep often forgotten is that sometimes stories are in the exact appropriate medium they should be or the way they are being done is appropriate for the medium and that needs to change if you're going to change the medium so to make a movie out of the Lord of the Rings you really couldn't make it be exactly like the book because it works because it's a book you have to change it if you're going to make a movie out of it and that's I think a big misstep that's been made with a lot of other adaptations whichever direction because there's books made out of movies and there's plays made out of movies and there's books made from plays and plays and you know there's a lot of that especially nowadays and that can be great but you have to always take into consideration what the medium is and will this translate or does it need to change or adapt so I think the Fellowship of the Ring isn't particularly action packed and when it is when it does have action it has action in the way of that archaic legendary saga fairy tale it's not that close actual like gritty battle which a lot of more modern books do have a lot of modern books are written more like a movie they're written that way because it's almost like you're documenting what you're imagining as a scene in a movie or how this could be translated on screen because everyone I'm sure is hoping their book will be picked up for a screen adaptation Tolkien obviously didn't have that mindset and didn't have a bunch of like blockbuster war movies to come off of that would have colored his perception or his inspiration he's inspired by old legends and old stories and old myths and that's how this reads but for that reason it doesn't really translate to screen and it was never meant to you didn't write it for that purpose so if you are going to write a gritty realistic really seeing the characters really seeing the battles really seeing all of this it's going to need to get grittier it's going to need to get more like into that side of things this glosses over a lot of those things or gets very poetical about them there's many times in the book where I thought to myself like this was a scene that I remember from the book or I'd remember from the movie where it's a scene with a lot of action a lot of tension a lot of suspense possibly violence and danger but in the book these people are talking a lot like they have the time to talk a lot about it and to describe what's going on and their feelings and have poetry and songs about it and you couldn't do that in a movie the movie would it would be weird to do that or it would be Shakespeare because Shakespeare does that a lot where it's you know a battle but people are all of a sudden they have like solo liquid monologues so I guess you can do it if you're Shakespeare but that's kind of why I think the movie does a better job of making it feel real of making the stakes feel really really personal and really high really tense and really to create that sense of danger the book because everyone's talking so much all the time and philosophizing and it's really beautiful and that's why I don't think it's necessarily bad and I like the book for itself but there are scenes that I remember from the movie again we're like where it's danger and battle and things like that we're like I mean just like the fact that in the movie when Frodo is stabbed by the morgle blade that after that he doesn't really talk like he gets stabbed and after that like it's clear like he's in he's in dire straits he's dying and this is like high tension and they're like we gotta get him to Rivendell and then like Arwen shows up which obviously it's not Arwen in the book scoops him up and gets him to Rivendell where he's cured and it's a lot more suspenseful and it's you really have this sense of how dangerous this is and how bad a thing this is that happened to Frodo because people aren't standing around to taking the time to monologue about it whereas in a book like you could write it the way that it was in the movie and then it's more like a modern book or like something akin to what you know Abercrombie would write but in the book it's a lot more people discussing it and philosophizing about it and being poetical about it and I mean Aragorn has the time to like I might be wrong about this I have only read this once now but I'm pretty sure it's after Frodo is stabbed by the morgle blade that Aragorn has the time to recite the lay of Baron and Luthien and it's beautiful it's great but also like you know we don't have time for this we need to move along because buddy over here's dying you know I mean so like the movie does a better job of creating that like stakes and tension and drama that but there's a lot of the poetry then that is necessarily missing from it because that would it would take away the suspense and tension to include that but a lot of it is really beautiful and and you're it's gone now and you're missing out on that so the book takes its time you know because I mean even just Frodo leaving the shire like the fact that it takes years and years before he actually leaves the shire whereas in the book it's a lot more condensed the sequence of events I really actually love them being with Tom Bombadil and I also 100% see why that's not in the movie and I like both and I approve of both and I think they're strong for different reasons in a book you have the space and time to have all these extra side quests and them meeting someone like Tom Bombadil which is also ultimately kind of pointless to the story there's a lot of interesting mystery to who Tom Bombadil is but it's absolutely not necessary cutting it from the story and in the way they did in the movie it's fine from a modern day editor's perspective if a modern day editor was editing Tolkien they'd probably say that's cool and all but like you don't really need this doesn't really move the plot forward it's not essential information for your reader so it's fun and maybe you can release a novella about this but it doesn't belong in the main plot so I enjoyed it and I liked it but I also appreciate 100% when it's cut so a lot of things like that too there's just like a lot more instances of people stopping to sing to recite poetry and it's beautiful and I really like it and I know how it's clear how much effort was like how much Tolkien loves this world and how much effort he's put into creating these languages and these cultures and these all this lore and so if you like that kind of thing which I do then I enjoy it but also I don't if a movie did that were constantly stopped to do that I don't think I would enjoy it it only works in a book because in a book it feels appropriate to stop for lore in a movie you're like let's get the show on the road guys we have works to kill I don't say I wouldn't say that it increased my enjoyment of the movies or decreased my enjoyment of the movies the movies are different and different for a reason and I think the movies are fantastic now having read the book I like even more approve of their choices I would say like I see which departures from the book there exist now and I think I know why those choices were made and I think that those were ultimately the right choices to make for a movie because what works in a book doesn't work in a movie so yeah I've read the fellowship I will be reading at some point the two towers and return to the king which I suspect I will feel similarly about because I love the two towers movie the most out of the three because I like battles I love all the battles but I having read fellowship and what I know about Tolkien I don't expect there to be a great deal of high action battles in two towers so I'm kind of excited it's like the bulk of two towers is battles so I'm kind of interested to see what that's like in the book because um yeah it's not that way that was another thing in fellowship of the ring it struck me as that'd be one thing that I would almost say that I prefer about the movie but it's it's also just different is that Aragorn talks a lot in fellowship of the ring the book and the movie I really really enjoy the enigma of him because he hardly says a word and when he does it's like careful considered and important because it's very few and like he picks and chooses his words and when he's going to say them so like the first time that they meet him he hardly says a word and even when they're in Rivendell he hardly says a word he's very enigmatic and I really like that about it so in the book Aragorn's still a great character but he's very much chatter so I don't know exactly why they decided not to make him that way because if I'd only ever read the book and ever seen the movie I don't know that it would occur to me to make Aragorn an enigmatic silent character and I think that really works so that'd be one thing that I would say that I think I like better about the movies I mean he is delivering a lot of exposition because he is teaching the hobbits a lot of lore and you know reciting a lot of poetry so I guess I see why he's chatter in the book it's just that was the one thing where I was like Aragorn to me is this like silent enigmatic stoic character and it's just so weird to me that he's talking all the time like all the fucking time so I didn't dislike it but if I had to pick I prefer the the quiet enigmatic Viggo Mortensen Aragorn to the book Aragorn but I still I still like the book I still do so let me know in the comments down below how you feel about Lord of the Rings book or movie or both or neither and yeah I'll maybe do another video when I read Two Towers and Return of the King and Hobbit and I did buy the Silmarillion because some people commented and told me that they thought that I would like the Silmarillion which I found shocking but we'll see you so yeah I post videos on Saturdays sometimes Wednesdays so like and subscribe and I'll see you when I see you bye