Best of the three?

[Alexa]

I definetly prefer FOTR. There are too many battles for my taste in the other two. Not that I dislike Golum performance, he was fantastic. But I love the Shire and the hobbits when they have no worries for the future and all the members of the Fellowship.

[mace windu]

Well even though FOTR was a bit faithful to the book it did miss alot of cool stuff out for example. Tom Bombadil and the barrow wights. That was my fave part of the book.

[fungi from Yuggoth]

Fellowship was easily the best. The other two suffered from a distinct lack of personality, and a chronic case of CGItis.

[Calis]

Bombadil was a pain in the a$$.

Fellowship was the worst IMO, though it was still great.

I am a fight scene person and I think Return of the King was best, then TTT then FOTR.

[Animaiden]

I think that they were all great, but I liked ROTK (extended edition) the best. They added many scenes that tied things together better, and,of course, there was the drinking game. All three movie were wonderfully done, and I can't really pick "the best one".

[alexhurry]

Almost definately Return of the King, The Fellowship is a close runner up, two towers is a decent adaption of the book, but I felt it just didn't have the same feeling to it.

[kaneda]

In the cinema I loved the FOTR, like other people have said it was the most faithful to the book. In the cinema I wasn't as keen on the two towers, sure I loved the fight scenes, loved the parts with Gollum, but I rememeber coming out the cinema with my friend and complaining about the change of Faramir's character, and them going to Minas tirith. I can't really rememeber my reaction to the third one except for thinking that the film was a never ending film that we wouldn't get out of.

So in the cinema in my humble opinion the best was FOTR.

BUT it slightly changes in the special edition DVDs. With the DVDs the two towers is my favourite - and I can actually understand why they did what they did with Faramir, and it actually works (although they could have cut out that boring speech Sam does about 'because theres good in the world' blah blah blah). Plus the two towers has the best speech in the whole trilogy "fell deeds awake, now for wrath, now for ruin and a red dawn"

The return of the king, is still never ending (and i actually never watch it to the end - I don't understand why we need to have that scene with Sam and his family), but it does have the immense mouth of sauron bit!

BUT (final but) if i could only watch one of them again, it would be the fellowship of the ring, so i suppose overall that is my favourite one.

[cyborg_cinema]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

Best of the three?

...Fellowship is the best.

[Thadlerian]

Originally Posted by fungi from Yuggoth

Fellowship was easily the best. The other two suffered from a distinct lack of personality, and a chronic case of CGItis.

I second that, for those reasons most of all.

FOTR had what I would call moments. Those are those little places in a story when you feel you're watching/reading something you'll never forget, and which you look forward to enjoying again. FOTR had lots of them.

TT had none, or, worse; it had the opposite: It was a charade of embarrassing moments like Legolas on the shield, and endless Gimli jokes.

ROTK was just exhausting to watch, and I can't really enjoy that.

[sanityassassin]

I agree with most of the previous posts I really wanted to see tom bombidall and the barrowights but it was the most faithful and the shire was just like i thought it would be the tt was good in parts but the elfs coming to helms deep really ruined it for me and the return of the king was very drawn out it was the only one ive not got on special dvd

[Thadlerian]

Originally Posted by sanityassassin

...I really wanted to see tom bombidall...

Nah, I don't think that would have been good.

Peter Jackson would probably just have used him for a lot of lame jokes anyway. Tom Bombadil as depicted by Tolkien is completely incompatible with the tone of the movie.

[sanityassassin]

Originally Posted by Thadlerian

Nah, I don't think that would have been good.

Peter Jackson would probably just have used him for a lot of lame jokes anyway. Tom Bombadil as depicted by Tolkien is completely incompatible with the tone of the movie.

he did provide some light relief in a tense section of the book

[Thadlerian]

Originally Posted by sanityassassin

he did provide some light relief in a tense section of the book

Yeah, I really enjoyed that part. And that is what Jackson would never be able to recreate.
Humour in Tolkien's LOTR was moderate, allowed the reader to smile, and feel the relief of the characters.

Humour in Jackson's LOTR is just supposed to have you laugh out loud, without having to think first.

[Teir]

Originally Posted by cyborg_cinema

...Fellowship is the best.

As far as the films are concerned...
I have to agree. You always get those who prefer the lager scale of the next two ie. Helms Deep and of course the all deciding confrontation at the end, but theres just something so much more effective when the fellowship was all together.....and i think you find that in both the book and movie. Maybe its just me....
Then again prehaps it was the way fellowship was put together, there was a different editor for each of the films working with Jackson (shrug).

As for Tom Bombadil, i don't think he would have worked in the films. Comedy 'mood lightening' was achieved primarily by merry + pippen. i think Tom would have over done the effect. And besides, there would not have been time. Jackson had to pick out what bits were needed, and Tolkien only added Tom into the novel because his children (child?) wanted him to.

[Spook]

Originally Posted by cyborg_cinema

...Fellowship is the best.

Have to agree.

It's the first film that feels the most exciting to me; and like I'm watching something special on screen. There's just nothing wrong with it that's worth serious criticism.

Of course the other two are excellent in their own right (in my humble opinion anyway.) But it's FOTR that I stick on in the background whenever I paint or want to watch a film I consider a masterpeice that's fun and not a serious effort to watch. I think also as someone who loved and was raised with Games Workshop it was like seeing that world come alive since it's more or less created from Tolkien's works with a little tweaking here and there.