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Lord of the Rings: How to Read Tolkien

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I've read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit, and watched the movies. What I'm going to say is my personal opinion.

First of all, about Lord of the Rings - this is one of the few times when the movie seems much better than the book. However, in case of Hobbit, the book was actually good, while the movies were crap.

How to read Tolkien? It's a good question. The Lord of the Rings book trilogy was SOOO boring. It gave a 2-page background story for each character, even if that character was going to die 3-4 pages later. And the main characters? I knew who was Argorn's grand-grand-grand-father, what he did, which kingdoms ruled, whom he married... but I barely knew anything personal about Aragorn himself. Therefore, almost no drama. I didn't care much for the characters. It brought me out of focus. I barely finished the trilogy.

On the other hand, the Hobbit book was much more interesting.
 
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I disagree with Inarius about the books.
The fellowship of the ring was dragging on a bit, but the two towers and the return of the king were exciting stories to me. Although the aftemath dragged on as well...
While I was reading the darkness during the siege of Minas Tirith I got a terrible sunburn... :P

Although it is true: Aragorn was still a mystery and there was a lot of backstory.
 
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I recommend reading LOTR when you're feeling a little writer's block or laziness coming on. It's a bit of a chore to read, so it exercises your mind.

I'm reading it right now and it makes me feel really creative. I thought of two great ideas to start writing yesterday. (and they haven't even made it to Rivendell)
 
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I thought the lecture was very interesting. I would be cautious in applying it too directly to screenwriting as writing from the novelist perspective tends to be slightly different. Though his point of mixing narrative from the perspective of the character with that of the omniscient perspective is valid and useful. Different emotions are evoked when the audience knows more than the characters than when the audience is learning with the characters. That also offers the writer some leverage.

Storytelling is shaped by the medium. While Marshall McLuhan is most well known for his "The medium is the message.", he also made a comment that is equally important, "Every artist sets a trap to catch the attention of public." The script is that crossover between the written and the audiovisual story. Whereas the novelist needs to engage the reader's senses and capture their attention to continue to read, the filmmaker can provide certain sounds and sights that can change the nature of the viewer's relationship with the story. Watching a film without the sound or listening to a film while blindfolded changes the quality or level of engagement. Or watching a foreign film without subtitles would still be better understood than the written text in the language.

While the patterns of character and plot development from literature and plays do strongly influence screenwriting, the screenwriter is involved in an effort that anticipates collaboration. Something that becomes apparent when looking at adaptations of novels to the screen where often others can change the content to make it "trap the audience" for the new medium. But certainly the concept of how to draw the viewer into the world is both a skill and art that every storyteller needs.
 
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