Looks great. Am I a bad person for liking the Hobbit movies more than the actual Lord of the Rings?
I'm not quite sure how what I said could be misinterpreted...
If this is too long, for ya, I underlined the short version.
It's understandable, but... a wrong question. If that makes sense? The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are two very distinct works.
Speaking with respect to the books, first. The Lord of the Rings is the sprawling epic; the Hobbit is a light and happy fairy tale. Think, for lack of a better comparison, that LOTR is the
Kalevala and the Hobbit is a very light and fluffy Brave/Valiant Little Tailor (Seven at One Blow).
After the Hobbit was published, and became pretty popular, the publishers came looking for more, and Tolkien kind of welded the Lord of the Rings onto the back end. Even went back to the Hobbit to make some changes so it fit better.
Soooo the way you phrased that sounds... weird, you know? Kind of like saying "is it bad that I like Star Wars a New Hope more than the actual Star Wars the Phantom Menace?"
Then the movies kind of did it backwards. They made the Lord of the Rings first, it was a big sprawling epic, and the movies were a really high-quality adaptation, even kept pretty true to the story of the books. Then they sort of welded the Hobbit movies onto the Lord of the Rings, duct-taped a bunch of extra **** in, and then chopped it into three pieces.
When Tolkien published the Lord of the Rings he went back changed some little things in the Hobbit, like the details of the Riddle Game and how Bilbo found the ring. Jackson, when he made the Hobbit movies, changed a LOT of things. I think he overemphasized the lighter and flufflier tendencies so it got almost slapstick; but he also duct-taped in a lot of Dramatic And Portentous Foreshadowing of Doom, mixed in some background about Gandalf fighting the Necromancer, and pulled a bunch of stuff out of his butt.
Soooo when considered in the context of the movies, my reaction is less dependent on your comparison of the movies and more on "wait, you actually like this seriously flawed adaptation of one of my favorite books ever?
I bow to your superior Tolkien knowledge.
You probably shouldn't. As I was replying I was thinking about how much I've forgotten. Think it's time for a reread!