How young is too young??

[Big Ranger]

I know there was a thread going on about how to start kids on Middle Earth, but, specifically, my little 3.5 year old (smaller than a Hobbit!) daughter has been bugging me and bugging me about LOTR...she's ****ed that there's no pictures in my big 3 vol. book, she knows almost everyone from my various desktops and screensavers, and she constantly wants to watch my downloaded TTT trailer to pick everyone out (Uncle Aragorn!! Grampa Gandalf!!) (the Uncle/Grampa etc. thing is a Chinese deal...)
Anyway, I'm going to sit her down this weekend and we're going to watch the FOTR DVD together.
She's too little to get into the theater anyway, and we can take breaks as needed this way.
Anyone think this is a bad idea??
Anyone had a similar experience?

[Adunauriel]

I don't think it's a bad Idea... No I don't have kids of my own, but if I did I would rather they see it with me. That way I could skip past the scenes that I felt were too graffic for them. I say that I hope she likes it, and that it doesn't scare her. We don't want to loose a fan at such a tender age....:)

[Catz]

i think its a fabulous idea Ranger and congrats to you for doing it this way instead of dragging the poor child to a theatre where shed get bored and everyone else would get annoyed....its a long time to sit still for a kid of that age...breaks are essential...
:catz:

[Big Ranger]

Originally posted by Adunauriel
I don't think it's a bad Idea... No I don't have kids of my own, but if I did I would rather they see it with me. That way I could skip past the scenes that I felt were too graffic for them. I say that I hope she likes it, and that it doesn't scare her. We don't want to loose a fan at such a tender age....:)

Yeah, I don't know...she don't scare easy...she sees stuff all the time that would have scared the POOP out of me at twice her age, and it doesn't even faze her...I guess this will be the big test...if she makes it thru the Ringwraiths...they had me wetting my pants when I saw the Ralph Bakshi cartoon in the theater...and I was like 24 or something!
Maybe it was just the Ralph Bakshi cartoon itself that scared me... roflmao

[Tar-Ancalimë]

well i grew up with the trilogy from a very young age. dont remember how young, probably not 3, anyway it wasnt the movie for me but the books, but go for it if you think she really can... and if she doesnt, you can always stop before the end y'know...

[Bonos-Girl]

has she already read/been read the hobbit cos i think that everyone should read that first...it makes more sense in the story if you see what i mean?

[Pil]

That is a very good idea...read her the hobbit...get her interested in ME....then show her fotr....:)...hope she likes it! :p...(you can always switch it off if not!) ;)

[Aerandir]

Yeah, that's a good idea.

~Aera

[Lady Arien]

Your little one sounds like ours....pretty fearless.....she's shown an interest in it when it's been on....but I don't count on her to actually sit/lay down and watch the entire thing....she just doesn't like to be motionless that long....my nine-year-old never moved.....he was fascinated......by all means....watch it, watch it!!!

[Big Ranger]

Originally posted by Lady Arien
Your little one sounds like ours....pretty fearless.....she's shown an interest in it when it's been on....but I don't count on her to actually sit/lay down and watch the entire thing....she just doesn't like to be motionless that long....my nine-year-old never moved.....he was fascinated......by all means....watch it, watch it!!!

Yeah, we'll definitely be going in installments...as far as reading The Hobbit, right now she doesn't have much patience for books that a) Don't have a lot, I mean a lot, of graphical content, or 2. She can't read herself.. or maybe that's the same thing...
I can guarantee she'll sit still for a minimum 40 minutes of FOTR, but I wouldn't be able to get more than 5 minutes of pure reading into her...
220, 230, whatever it takes...
It is pretty cool, I think, for her to be in a position where there are no dividing lines between the "media" in which the story is presented, that it's just "The Lord of the Rings", movie, book, whatever...she has no sense of , you know, "Well it was a book first for a long time, then there was the movie", you know, for her, it's just the story, I think that's cool.
In a weird way, it brings it back to a traditional mythology, I think, you know what I mean, where, traditionally, The Story was the whole deal, and whether it was told by Old Dude 1 or Old Dude 2, or Granny 3, or whether it was represented in a fresco or embroidered on a tapestry, the medium wasn't important, it was all about the story...
Make sense? I mean as compared to, like, for us, where The Hobbit and LOTR are BOOKS. Period. Then, there were the MOVIES.
Sort of like (I don't care what anyone says, I loved it) Empire Strikes Back scene in Reign of Fire...

[Big Ranger]

Originally posted by Bonos-Girl
has she already read/been read the hobbit cos i think that everyone should read that first...it makes more sense in the story if you see what i mean?

Sorry, got my replies in the wrong order here, try again..
I have TOLD her the story of Bilbo in a kind of condensed oral version, so she knows a lot of the backstory...

[Sindarin]

I don't have any children of my own, yet if and when a child does come into my life, I intend to introduce them to Middle Earth when they are still young, somewhere between the age 5-9.

I'll start them off with the books by reading The Hobbit first, the LOTR Trilogy second, and then finally the films.

[Orkybash]

I would wait till she's old enough to be read the books, myelf. I'd rather have her introduced to Tolkien's vision of the world and the story than Jackson's, since they two at times don't quite mesh.

[Arwen, Elven Princes]

My little sister was only two when she saw, and she loves it! her favourite scene is the party and other scens that take place in hobiton, and she to likes to watch the trailers I downlaoded. You have sit with her though the rest of the movie though of she'll get scared. I intend to share Tolkein's world to my children when I think they can handle it, and when they're older I'll have them read the books. I started my own world when I was only four or five, six at the most and I still have it and intend to keep it for the rest of my life. I'll never grow out of it, even though I'm a mature 13 now. But anyway, back to the topic...

[Little Devil]

No age is too young for Tolkien IMO :grin:

[Orkybash]

Maybe not for The Hobbit. I remember being about 5 or 6 when my mom read me that one.

Then I tried reading Lord of the Rings on my own... hoooooh boy, I couldn't even get through the first few pages!

[sierra]

My 3 year old sister watches LOTR with me all the time and she loves it. I don't think its a bad idea.:thumbs:

[Moraneah]

For What???:mmmm: :blush: