Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-48285-20161205164344/@comment-26871067-20170211221057

OnePieceNation wrote: So do you like the lord of the rings movies/books ? LOTR is so extra to me, honestly.

This isn't me knocking the cultural impact that they've had, but by the time I started reading fantasy novels (admittedly, this was as basically an 8y/o), the things that Tolkien pioneered had become staples of the fantasy genre. By the time I was tackling LOTR itself, it felt like a long-winded cliche-fest, even as I recognized "these things are only fantasy cliches because of these books".

It doesn't help in the slightest that the people I knew as a kid who were fans took affront to the idea that someone didn't find LOTR as holy and perfect as they did (in that way that 15y/o boys who want to be Special and Different can get). They always tell you "don't let fans ruin a series for you", but that's easier said than done. It's definitely shaped my approach to being a public fan of things, though.

That said, I thought The Hobbit was okay. Nothing mind-blowing, but okay. But the movies were, from what I heard, a stretched-out, padding-laden mess of a production, and I hate Bingledang Crumplesnoop so I wasn't going to watch them anyway.