I don’t know if The Silmarillion could ever be made into a film. The chapters of the book have a lot of names and places which would be hard to adapt into a script. When most books are made into films or audio dramas they have to be converted into something like plays. It may be possible to do that, but unfortunately much of the story has to be changed. Still, the conversions worked quite well with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings radio dramas, which I think may be better adaptations than the movies.  The radio dramas had less money and technology, but the script writing was better and closer to the books.

I've begun my annual reading of LOTR. This year as well as reading The Hobbit first, I played the first of the Peter Jackson movies at the time I read those chapters, and also listened to the BBC radio serial. It was a good way to take in a lot about Bilbo (including his reactions and thoughts), before going straight on to more hobbits and the continuing story.

I was listening to BBC Hobbit on an old set of cassette tapes*. To get the best out of each tape, I ran each one forwards and back at rewind speed (buttons FF and REW) before playing at what was supposed to be normal speed. Even so, the final one was limping along, the sound was getting slower and lower toned, and the tape started getting chewed up in the heads twice! So I dug up a good online copy to listen to the final chapters without having to keep running to the stereo! Here's a link to it. https://archive.org/details/the-hobbit-bbc-radio-drama

I succeeded in finishing Hobbit by 31st March, and started LOTR on 1st April.  This year I began with the Foreword to the Second Edition as well as the Prologue, and am now in chapter 2, The Shadow of the Past.
So it begins.

*If you are slightly younger than me, and have never owned or even seen a cassette tape, ask someone over 50, who still thinks CDs are cool, and they will probably enlighten you.

@coracle

The radio drama of The Hobbit which I own on CD is a different one than shown on the link.  But my CD’s of The Lord of the Rings are the same as the drama shown on the webpage.  I think I remember listening to the dramas on the radio many years ago.  Radio plays are not often broadcast on the radio very often today.  I wonder if people will still have the patience to listen to recordings made by simpler technology from decades ago.  🙂

@narnian78 those who grew up in the 60s and 70s got to listen to repeats of older radio serials and comedy programmes. BBC had so many great ones that we got on NZ radio. 

I didn't know about the LOTR radio serial until after the first movie came out, and BBC played them again. My cassette set of LOTR began wearing out a few years ago, so perhaps this year I'll download a new set.

@narnian78 They do still have a fair few radio plays on the BBC here in the UK — apart from the famous long-running serial The Archers, I've definitely heard dramatisations of recent books (with multiple actors and sound effects, I mean, not just readings from the books themselves) and probably some original plays as well, in the last few years. I don't think they're as popular as they were in the past, but they're definitely still around. Radio plays have the advantage of telling a story in dramatic form while still requiring the audience to use their imagination to fill in the visuals — I remember hearing a saying recently that was something like "I prefer radio to TV because the pictures are better!" (And really, I agree with that myself.) So I think there's still enough of an audience, at least over this side of "the pond", to encourage producers to keep making them.

@courtenay 

I think audiobooks are actually more popular in the U.K. than here in the U.S.  I’m not sure what the reason for that is. Radio plays would also be listened to more often. It is quite easy and not that expensive to purchase them on C. D. or download. The audiobooks by Big Finish of Dr. Who are available online through Amazon and other websites.  I remember that many years ago a radio station in Grand Rapids, Michigan (not far from where I live) broadcasted plays, but it was to my knowledge the only station in my area that had those kind of programs.  Somehow here in America people have more of a desire for the visual media.  It isn’t always a good thing, but it’s often hard to change people’s tastes. But there are also people who like old classic television, and I am one of them. 🙂

It doesn’t seem like a bad idea to animate audio dramas in the same way as was done with the lost Dr. Who episodes.  I like the idea, but I wonder how many people would watch an animated version of The Lord of the Rings radio play or the audio dramas of Narnia such as Focus on the Family or the BBC's radio dramas. I guess today’s viewers would want something with live actors and expensive special effects, but I think there is something appealing in the dated old fashioned cartoon. And that may be closer to what Tolkien or Lewis had in mind.  The 1977 cartoon of The Hobbit was too short and looks kind of primitive now.  The later cartoon versions of The Lord of the Rings weren’t all bad (they were alright for children’s viewing). They weren’t great films even by the standards of that time (although not terrible movies), but I think they did have a nice old fashioned quality about them.

Do you ever wish that Middle Earth was a real place?  Something very close to it probably existed in early medieval Europe or Britain. I can imagine a world which wasn’t spoiled by technology, which would seem primitive but more genuine. And it was a world mostly without machines. The creatures such as hobbits, dwarves, and elves might be fictional. But I think the humans living there were real.

@narnian78 I live in New Zealand and it's not difficult to imagine! My home is rather hobbity  and I have a vegetable garden.

I am in my annual reading of LOTR, and have just finished Fellowship. 

@coracle 

I think Lord of the Rings film trilogy and the Hobbit Film Trilogy were filmed in New Zealand. Where I am, in the state of Oregon, it feels like a Lord of the Rings geography.

@jasmine_tarkheena Those six films most definitely were filmed here.  I have been very fortunate to visit a number of filming locations. The photographer Ian Brodie compiled two books of movie locations, one for LOTR and one for Hobbit, telling where each location is and what was filmed there. One a couple of roadtrip holidays I took his books to spot and photograph as many places as I could.

When Hobbit 1 was just coming out, I stayed in Wellington (where his studios are, and where lots of 'backyard' type shots were done for LOTR) and tried to follow the hobbits' journey. I spent a while looking for the place where Frodo told them in 'Fellowship' to "get off the road!"... and where they scrambled down a bank. It had changed a bit in 10 years, but I loved imagining I was one of them.

Excuse the double post; it is almost 24 hours.

I have just come to one of my favourite quotes in the book:

(Eomer) "How shall a man judge what to do in such times?"

"As he ever has judged," said Aragorn. "Good and evil have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among Elves and Dwarves and another among Men."

We don’t have high mountains here in Michigan, but I think our forests and lakes are something like The Lord of the Rings. The natural beauty of the landscape has a magical quality about it— especially in the wilderness of the northern part of our state. If Tolkien had visited Michigan he would have been reminded of places in his books. The Great Lakes would have been much like the seas in his books. The U.P. is still mostly unspoiled by man’s progress, which is something that Tolkien loved. It is incredible to think that there are still places like that existing in our modern world. 🙂

Michigan's U.P. is really beautiful—one of my favourite places. The landscape there reminds me an awful lot of Ontario, Canada, where I live, particularly central and northern, with its vast forests, hundreds of lakes, rocky areas, picturesque hills and vales. I love, too, that these huge areas are widely unspoiled in both MI and Ontario. And in other places are miles of pastoral rolling farmland. I could see a Middle-earth being filmed here or in MI to excellent effect. (However, as you mentioned, @Narnian78, the filmmakers would have to go elsewhere for tall mountains.)

@jo 

The Upper Peninsula is wonderful in being like both Narnia and Middle Earth. I wish that both Lewis and Tolkien had traveled to Michigan to see places which are like what they wrote about. But they passed away many years ago so unfortunately there’s no chance of that.  But of course movies about Narnia and Middle Earth could be made here since there are other unique places similar to Britain such as the national parks like Sleeping Bear Dunes and the Pictured Rocks. Lewis and Tolkien would have certainly been pleased at the natural beauty of our state. 🙂