Would you trade 7 HPs for 3 More LoTRs?

[Haldomere Banks]

I'm beginnning to wonder if the universe is really fair? I mean, JRRT gets three movies and JKR gets seven? Remember that PJ had to fight to get three full movies to cover LoTR. I wonder if HP had started up first, would LOTR have been released as six movies, plus the Hobbit?

Here are the times for the theatrical releases and the SEE DVD times, in minutes:

FoTR 178, 208
TTT 179, 203
RotK 201, 251
total 558, 672

HP1 152
HP2 162
HP3 141
HP4 157
HP5 160
HP6 160
HP7 160
total 1,092 minutes!

So, LoTR ran just under 10 hours in the theater and 11 hours, 12 minutes in the SEEs. Assuming that the last three HP movies run a few minutes longer than the average to date, since those books are so long, HP will run 18 hours and 12 minutes!

I like the HP books and movies a lot. But I would give them up entirely in exchange for a full treatment of LoTR, with each of the six Books in the three volumes getting 140 - 160 minutes in the theatrical release. That would ahve totaled 900 minutes, and we wouldn't have had to worry so much about bladder control. ;)

If PJ could have done SEE version of each of those films, at 200 - 240 minutes, we would have had 18 hours of LoTR, with no arguments about leaving Bombadil and the Wights out, and there would even have been time for the occasional elevensies.

If only JRRT had given the six books their own names, instead of numbering them, maybe we would have gotten it.

Hjal

[Elwen]

I am not sure about that.... HP is written as 7 standalone stories, or at least stories that have a clear beginning and end every school year.

The LotR story doesn't work that way.... No film company would have allowed a director go for six sequel, with a proper payback arguably only at the end of the first (playing up Rivendell as some sort of ending), and after Helm's Deep! And the last film would have the big finale halfway through, and in your scheme of things, perhaps almost an hour of ending after that. PJ got enough flak for 20 minutes of 'endings' after Sauron falls.

I'd say that the combination between PJ's pictures and the BBC radio version of LotR is probably the best version we'll ever have, and I think that we got a pretty good deal with these two. :D

[Eriol]

I love them both and it's never enough.

Actually, I believe Tolkien did have titles for each of the six books originally. I have seen a box set with them broken out just that way, with titles, and the Appendices in a seventh volume. I really want to get it someday, but it goes for a lot of money.

[Haldomere Banks]

I saw this set a few years ago, and it was expensive. Tolkien didn't give the six books stand-alone titles, since he intended them to be published as one volume.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0261103873.02._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1056427314_.jpg

This is from reference.com: Because the three-volume binding was so widely distributed, the work is usually referred to as the Lord of the Rings "trilogy". Tolkien himself made use of the term "trilogy" for the work, though he did at other times consider this incorrect, as it was written and conceived as a single novel.

A 1999 (Millennium Edition) British (ISBN 0-262-10399-7) 7-volume box set followed the six-book division authored by Tolkien, but with the Appendices from the end of Book VI bound as a separate volume. The letters of Tolkien appear on the spines of the boxed set which includes a CD. The individual names for books in this series were decided posthumously, based on a combination of suggestions Tolkien had made during his lifetime, title of the volumes, and whole cloth - viz:

T Book I: The Ring Sets Out
O Book II: The Ring Goes South
L Book III: The Treason of Isengard
K Book IV: The Ring Goes East
I Book V: The War of the Ring
E Book VI: The End of the Third Age
N Appendices
...
Note that the three titles The Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard and The War of the Ring were used by Christopher Tolkien in The History of The Lord of the Rings.

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings
There's a paperback set of the 7-volume edition on eBay right now for AU$30 including shipping in Australia:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Lord-of-the-Rings-LOTR-by-JRR-Tolkien_W0QQitemZ270005096350QQihZ017QQcategoryZ64 205QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You can find paperback and hardback sets at ABE. The HB sets are US$160 to $300:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?bx=off&sts=t&ds=30&bi=0&an=tolkien&y=13&kn=millennium&x=54&sortby=2

Hjal

[Reba]

well, after being at the Gathering of the Fellowship and watching 2 of the 3 LoTR movies on a very uncomfortable hotel conference room chair, I gotta say the SEE movies are long enough as they are ;)

I can't imagine having an HP movie marathon after they're all done. It would take an entire weekend methinks!

[Tinuviel846]

I would definately trade HP for LOTR...
Probably because I don't like the new Dumbledore, and since Dumbledore was my fav character, it's kinda ruined for me...
I still love the books, though i still like LOTR better...

[Colli]

I would agree that the LotR movies were much higher quality than the HP ones have been.. but that is an awfully long time to try to sit still without going to the bathroom, and I agree it would have been hard to market 6 LotR movies. I'm happy there is such a difference in the LotR books and movies because when I read the books I can read them and still remember the mental pictures I had before the movies came along. :)

As for HP.... I have no idea what I thought all the characters looked like before the movies came along. Daniel, Emma, and Rupert forever, for better or for worse. :)

[franlock]

I would not because to me, Lord of the Rings had the perfect ending and I'm satisfied: I do not need any more movies. Lord of the Rings is like chocolate cake and I've been made three beautiful, wonderful chocolate cakes. If the bakers, PJ and Fran, came back and gave me a fourth, fifth or sixth cake I'd be on the floor for fear of vomiting or exploding. Plus, PJ and Fran are baking a wonderful cake right now called The Lovely Bones and I am very excited to eat it.

[Pilgrim Grey]

It's not exactly accurate to compare the running times of the HP series with the running times of LoTR. For starters, the number of books is different, and the production method is different. Secondly, as Elwen already said, the structure of LOTR is such that splitting it by book into 6 films simply wouldn't work. And thirdly, HP is much, much longer, and in some places no less dense, than LOTR. You've got 1000 pages of LOTR compared to, what, 2 or 3 times that for HP.

For what they are, the LOTR films were very good, and an incredible achievement. While none of the HP films has really lived up to their potential so far, I think it's unfair to criticise them simply because they're not on the level of LOTR.

[Elwen]

.... and one might add to this that MORE isn't necessarily better.

Of course there are places where one gets the feeling that the LotR films should have fleshed out the story a bit more, but there are also some lengths in there. All in allm they got it about right.

I think it is part of making a good film to also understand where to cut a story down to size. Looking at the movies and the radio version, LotR seems to be that kind of story that takes about 12 hours to tell, give or take a bit - both versions leave out little that should not have been cut and keep up a nice tension. :)

So.... MORE isn't BETTER. Most time it isn't, IMHO.


I even wonder about this with HP.

Of course many people will see all 7 films in the cinema... but will they last as well as LotR seems to be doing?

I can just manage to find three evenings close together to watch LotR now and then... I wouldn't even attempt to do this with HP.

In fact, seeing that there are 7 films I haven't even started buying the DVDs... it is just too long a series to bother with for home viewing, IMHO.

[lithorose]

Dusting off the thread....

I'd have to go with HP over LOTR. Because I asked myself what another 4 movie's worth of LOTR would cover and well, there isn't much drama left. We'd get more talk and more wandering about looking for food, but that isn't terribly interesting.;) That and I just don't have much patience for long movies anymore. We were watching HP1 last night and I could hardly sit through it; about halfway through and I felt like I ought to be off doing other things, and I knew how much story they had left.

On the plus side, though, my dad seems to be coming out of his anti-HP thing. He sat through POA with us over Christmas, and seemed quite interested in it, as well as sitting through SS, even asking questions the next day. :D