Poll: Which do you prefer, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings?

The only one that I *don't* like is the LotR books....

Probably a toss-up between the HP movies and books.... leaning towards the books.

Same here. Although the HP books clearly win for me, with the LotR movies close behind.

HP Books ->lotr movies i agree. but the lotr books i did enjoy after i saw the movies. i know. i'm a poseur.

but i couldnt get into Fellowship as a book until i understood the basis. then all the verbose bits in the book made sense.

Nothing wrong with being a poseur.

I'm the rare geek who doesn't care for Tolkien. I should read them again some day, but there are so many more books out there that I know I'd be interested in.

I'm another one of this endangered species.

You don't care for Tolkien, you hate Cabell; Why do I love you again?

I felt the opposite - I couldn't stand the LotR movies initially, but then I read the books and watched the movies again (well, the first two - RotK extended edition is sitting by my TV and I'll probably watch it tonight.) and I felt like I appreciated the movies a lot better now that I understood the books.

of course, the books, especially the first half of the third one, were somewhat tedious. Tolkien had no concept of how to reasonably divide the story into chapters, and his whole idea of telling one party's story in its entirety and then cutting to the other party made the overall plot rather difficult to follow - something they fixed quite well in the movies.

And the whole part about 'Hey, there's another tree, let me describe it to you, because I haven't described the last hundred trees they saw.....' also went over better in the movie, because that sort of narration was unnecessary - yes, a picture is worth a thousand words, but dammit, Tolkien, you don't need to spend a thousand words describing every single picture.

either way, I enjoy the HP books more than the LotR books or movies or the HP movies.

haha, i agree. plus it was verbose in a way where...it would take a paragraph for someone to die and i'd have to reread it to find out if he was, in fact, saying that the person died. like 2 chapters later someone would be mourning someone else and i'd be like "wait. they died? where?"

or maybe they didnt and they're just behind the veil..

yeah, there were times reading them where I'd end up rereading the same paragraph three or four times and still not getting it. it was just tedious.

worse were the times when he would take a paragraph or several to describe someone's near death only to tell us much later, in another long, rambling bit, that they weren't actually dead. they were only mostly dead.

to blave!

the books, especially the first half of the third one, were somewhat tedious.

yeah...the first two i got through okay, but it took me f o r e v e r to get through the first part of RotK. In contrast, that was my favorite of the three movies.

I'd say that I probably liked the LotR and HP books equally: HP were *way* easier to follow, but I still liked the plot of LotR on the whole. I'd have to say the movies were on about equal footing as a collective, but the books beat them all out.

you loved the third one so much because it had the battle of shit your pants!

But the movie is only doing this to set up the BATTLE OF SHIT-YOUR-PANTS, which isn�t the actual name of the battle but SHOULD be because you will shit stuff you did not eat when you see it.

ha ha...well, i can't neccesarily deny that. i mean, they were throwing HEADS at them. that's friggin awesome. oh, and the game was cool too. :)

heh...i'm such a girly girl, no?
"You can beat me at video games- you're the coolest girl I know. In fact you're just like a guy. You just don't have wet dreams."
-Brian, the oboe player.
*facepalm*

HAHAHA

yeah...the first two i got through okay, but it took me f o r e v e r to get through the first part of RotK. In contrast, that was my favorite of the three movies.

everyone raves about the RotK movie, but having just watched it (literally - I saw the extended edition last night) I have to say I thought The Two Towers was a lot better. RotK just... dragged. And not because it was the extended edition - it was pretty easy to tell what scenes wouldn't have been in the theatrical release, I thought, and they were actually rather interesting - but just, as important as they may have been to the plot, some of the long battle sequences could have been cut down significantly. I found them rather repetitive.

plus, there was the whole problem of me having to keep my eyes closed for the entire 10 minute sequence with AragogShelob. ick.

I loved the Harry Potter books.. Which I wasn't expecting as I usually don't am not into fantasy.� I haven't read any LotR books and I was asleep within the first 5 minutes of the movie. The HP movies I enjoyed and unlike most movies I watch after reading the book, the only one that has let me down with details was the 3rd.

While it did skip over a lot of the details, I thought the third movie was the best of the three (granted, the third is also my favorite of the books). The first two were quite true to the books, but they also dragged a good bit. The third one had the spirit of the book down, along with the major plot points, but didn't get quite as dull in the middle.

The third was my favorite book too.� I still haven't seen the last 3rd of the movie.� In the theater I fell asleep, when I watched it with a friend of mine I also fell asleep, and yesterday at work it was on but we went into red so I missed it again, and last night I decided to watch it all the way through but again, I fell asleep.� The third is just not working out for me.

OMG.

*has frantic sex with your icon*

Oh my dear.� I have many times.� *hearts* Shane

The LOTR books are my bible. I'm one of those geeks that tries to learn elvish.

The films blew me away, looked perfect, but were not the same story as the books. There were crucial thematic differences. So I think of them as amazing films but not a great translation of the books onto the silver screen.

HP is enjoyable fluff both the films and the books. So far I've preferred the books but I think that might change with the next film as the book had so much filler screaming to be removed. A good editor could have done wonders for it.

Do you speak elvish, too?

Closest I got was speaking Elvis.

Thankyou. Thankyouverymuch!

Of course I do. You are old school enough to remember that on AMMF my sig was DrWhoFru but also Feanole. Feanole is Noldorian for spirit of wisdom or knowledge.

That rings a bell.

I haven't read any of the LoTR books. Of the things I have seen/read, I prefer Harry Potter in book form. I don't know if I have ever liked a movie version of something better than the book. Not even Pride & Prejudice, and that had Colin Firth! :)

This is the kind of poll where it would be nice to allow rankings instead of a single vote. and then assign point values to each response and compute the percentages based on total number of points used. Josh? :)

1. LOTR books
2. LOTR films
3. HP books
4. HP films

That's totally my score, too ;-)

I'm some sort of obverse of you guys:

1: HP books
2: HP movies
3: LOTR movies
4: LOTR books

1. LOTR books
2. LOTR films
3. HP books
4. HP films

so, I suppose I should answer my own question...

1. HP books.
2. HP movies.
3. LotR movies.
3.5 Everything else I've ever read in my life.
4. LotR books.

Has anyone else read any of Tolkien's books other than LOTR and the Hobbit? I have read the Silmarillion, the complete History of Middle Earth and I believe every work of fiction he published.

i read the hobbit, the first lord of the rings, & the silmarillion. read & liked the hobbit, then found fellowship of the rings way too boring.

read the silmarillion mostly to prove that i could, because a boy i liked loved it & he read it in the original english & he didn't even speak english officially. i finished it but didn't really enjoy it much.

the first lord of the rings......then found fellowship of the rings way too boring.

wait...am i missing something? I thought the first LotR was The Fellowship of the Ring...

you're missing something, but not what you think ;)

the first half is a list of which of tolkien's works she's read.

the second half is a discussion on her impressions of them.

what confused you is that she referred to FotR also as the first book.

hooray for renita! she understands me!

although that might not be such a good sign for her continued mental health :P

it's because i loves you so much :)

and dude? continued mental health? HEH! i wish there were some to continue from :p

hee!

okay....i think i get it now. thank you. :)

\o/

I really like all of them,actually.. the HP books get a bit tedious [ok, so like LOTR doesn't, but I like that storyline better..] The potter kid looks alot cuter now that he's hit puberty [disclaimer: I am -not- a pedophile.. just making a statement]... and yes.. i like the slash.

"No! No! Dobby doesn't like master!"

"No! No! Dobby doesn't like master!"

'Dobby's a f*cking f*g!'

(for reference: TTT extended, disc 1, scene selection, chapter 30, then press down to highlight the ring icon and hit enter. :)

HP Books
LOTR Movies

Those are my preferences.

Hmm..Well I think Harry Potter is very talented and a great actor..And Umm Hez a total cutiepie.
I dont really enjoy Lord of the Rings because I dont really see the point.