h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So are you voting LOTR?

peace.

Yes, I suppose I am. To me, it's the best of the three.

A prediction:

By December 31st, the cinema-going population will be split roughly in half.

There will be those who sneer at Muggles, and those who are aware that there are matters too deep, dark and terrible for the Hobbits in their Shire...

There will be those who worry about You Know Who, and those who understand that a Wizard gone bad is the least of your problems.

There will be those who know that your friends will lie to teachers to save you, and those who know that a friend will go with you into Moria for no other reason than he's your friend.

And there will be those who can sing the Hogwarts school song, and those who can recite, untranslated, "One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, One ring to rule them all..."

Narnia's not going to get a look in...

But that's because of the films, not the books.
Anyhoo, my vote to the question goes with Lord of the Rings. It has a greater sweep and sense of history than the other two, a symptom of Tolkien's love of the subject.. HP is great stuff, and works well with modern day kids, which is a good thing, and Narnia did much the same in its day, just feels a bit preachy in this PC world.
Of course, if it was a free vote I'd go with Gormenghast, a truly fantastical world, and beautifully written.

Well, I vote for Harry.
Simply written, without being patronising, and a great blast. I think I read all the books in a weekend.
DG, who wishes he was eleven. And a wizard.

Has anyone ever tried to film the Narnia books in their entirety? I know the BBC did that series some years ago - or was that just 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'?

Seems to me that would be a huge and very brave undertaking. At least HP and LOTR have got more or less the same characters running through the series. It's only the later Narnian books that have Lucy, Edmund et al in them - think of the casting problems!

Actually I am with Munchin on Gormenghast.

I worked in a school once which was scarily similar (full of subsections of society with no inter-reaction between them), and which I swear to this day was oriented east-west on the inside and north-south on the outside.

Proof of discontinuities in space and time.

As I recollect in the last version of the Lion and the Witch by the BBC Lucy was FAT. This was a child growing up in the second world war. I don't think so.

Ben

I think the fact that young master Potter and his fellow Hogwarts chaps and chapesses even made it onto a list including books of such standing as LOTR and the Narnia series is worth about 90 votes in itself. If you think of the head start the others have had over young master Potter he's done pretty darned well.

Having read all of them - LOTR most recently, HP not long ago and Narnia a while back - I have to say that Narnia would be pushed to make it on to my list. There's no doubt that the books were good but they were all a bit wicked-witch-of-the-westy and lacked the escapism of either HP or LOTR.

As for the two films, I thought HP was fantastic although my one criticism would be that they were clearly aimed at those who've read the books as it assumed that you knew various things.

Will be interesting to see how LOTR is translated into film when there is so much inherent background in the books.

Score wise it would be foolhardy to say that LOTR isn't the best but then as I've said, the mere inclusion of HP in this list is flattery in itself.

I've just been reading the Empire magazine's latest special on the LOTR film. Apparently, because of the lack of a tangible 'bad guy' in it they've made the Ring a character. It speaks, it sings, it lures. I'm most intrigued by that I have to say. Not sure what to make of it though...

Now that's interesting.

Making the Ring a character. I wonder if they're implying that it's an extension of Sauron's will?

Given that it's impossible for any movie adaptation to be completely faithful to the book, I'm not approaching LOTR with anything but a sense of anticipation. If the film is half as good as the book, it will be excellent.

I haven't seen HP. I have read the books and I must say, I'm impressed. I can't see what all the devil-worshipping fuss was about, though. It's more worrying that the Harry Potter series might give children the unrealistic expectation that boarding schools are fun. In the UK, where they cost a fortune to send your kids to, the person who gets a licence to call their boarding school Hogwarts is in for some serious wealth.

I wonder if the same 'demonic' criticism was levelled at LOTR when it was first published. Perhaps, fifty years on, we just breed a more paranoid version of Christian fundementalism.

I wonder if the same 'demonic' criticism was levelled at LOTR when it was first published. Perhaps, fifty years on, we just breed a more paranoid version of Christian fundementalism.

By the look of the trailers the film will certainly at least be visually stunning . Just a little hint of the Balrog in there to tease...

But no Tom Bombadil (sigh).

The music sounds ace as well.

I read the Silmarillion but found it VERY hard going.

p.s. I think there have been two Elronds, but the Galadriel mentioned early on is the one in LOTR isn't she? It would make her about 4/5 the age of Middle Earth!

Sorry. Forgot to read the last page.

I actually included Narnia in this list because I asked another group of SF internet people about HP vs. LOTR and they kept going on about Narnia.
The TV series made by the BBC were all classics in my opinion. In fact, my family has them all at home on video. I base all my opinions of Narnia on them, since I haven't read the books. Is this wrong?
Also, have any of the kids in that gone on to do anything in adulthood?

I don't think it's exactly wrong to base your opinion of a story on the film (or TV) version, but you do often get a very different perspective of it. For example - agc Ben described Lucy as being fat in the TV series; compare this image with the original line drawings of Pauline Baynes, who portrays all the children as, not under-nourished, but slim. But then, I haven't seen the TV version, so I can hardly comment on that, either, except that I've heard it was good and I know that the book version of TLTWATW is a cracking story.

To be honest, though, I hadn't read them, either, until I bought the set for my daughter and we read them together. There's at least as much in them for adults as there is in Harry Potter (although the Christian overtones, certainly in the last book, are a little overwhelming). Why not give them a go?

There is only one Elrond, he's the same one as in the Silmarillion, son of Earendil, brother to Elros and yes, Galadriels is *that* old - Elves are immortal remember

There is only one Elrond, he's the same one as in the Silmarillion, son of Earendil, brother to Elros and yes, Galadriel is *that* old - Elves are immortal remember