[Timboli]

To be fair to me, I wasn't intent on listing every aspect of the LOTR. And I wasn't about attacking or defending various aspects of Tolkien's work ... hence no mention of Aragorn's love affair and any blending of the races.

I guess you could say that Tolkien wrote things very black & white, which is one of the criticisms out there, and certainly the notion of corrupted Elves gives some food for The Last Ringbearer alternative view. As the author says, the winners get to have their version of the truth as the accepted one.

I cannot agree with some earlier comments, about no more worthwhile tales in Middle Earth. Tolkien spent most of his life working on his myth, fleshing out the background. So it seems quite a shame to me, and I am sure thousands of others, maybe more, that we haven't yet gotten more stories, certainly not fleshed out like the two (which is one story really) that he did. Seems poor return, great as they are, for all the time and effort he spent ... most of which, was not on that single story at all.

If you view The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, as two separate stories, which they certainly can be .... one about a quest to recover something from a dragon, the other though related, about saving the world .... then you can do some form of comparison.

As one replier here has already said, they read and liked The Hobbit only. There are many readers out there, who have only read or finished the first story. It's an easier read, lacking most of the descriptive stuff that Tolkien added to the LOTR.

For that very reason, I have never been able to make up my mind, about which I like most. Sometimes it is The Hobbit, because the tale is simpler and moves along at a good pace. Other times, it is The Lord Of The Rings, because of a great overall story, and lots of interesting and entertaining elements, and just the sheer imagination with names and languages ... brilliant inventiveness.

If you look at The Hobbit in isolation though, it is not too hard to imagine other worthwhile stories from Middle Earth, and certainly you can form a basis of that on the many many other things, that Tolkien mentions through his writings and Appendices.

A good writer could flesh out something totally worthwhile and enjoyable, using what Tolkien has already provided. At the end of the day, as I have been saying, it is all about story for most people ... and there are plenty of great storytellers out there, that don't need to get involved in world building ... especially if it is already done.

If the Tolkien Estate (or family) were diligent enough, all the fears should be unfounded. And really, if you ask me, the movies (good as they were ... mostly), are really where their fears should really lie. In fact, they should ensure alternative movies appear sooner rather than later, to lessen those issues. In fact, I reckon a pure CGI based movie or TV series, would be the better way to go .... much easier to realize many aspects of the full story, and stay more true.

It is always tough to avoid watering down, which leads to misunderstandings, wrong impressions etc, especially when many elements are set in concrete visually (audio too), like they are in a movie, and often down to choices of the director etc ... even more so when the author is dead, and none of his family get involved. Unfortunately that is often the flaw of that medium, and why I myself prefer something less realistic to our existence. I just never bought into the Hobbits, as portrayed in the movies for instance. Gandalf was okay, as were many of the Elves, Dwarves sort of .... Orcs and Goblins etc too. And the landscape while often amazing, never really gave me the sense of Englishness as described by Tolkien.

But I must admit, that unlike many, I liked it when things did not stay true in The Hobbit movies. That made it easier to divorce the book from the movies ... at least for me. Easier to see them as just great Fantasy, with a Tolkien enhancement.