My kids first saw those movies at ages 9 to 14 after we read the books aloud with plenty of breaks for conversations about the plot, themes, etc. If you find the books are too scary or too difficult for your kids to understand, you can stop reading them for now and try again when they’re older.
As long as the kid isn’t easily scared, I think they’re pretty much ageless. The violence is handled tastefully, there is sexual tension but no sex and the language is mild.
My 9 year old got a little scared of some stuff in The Hobbit movies (they'd been read the book previously), but not debilitatingly so, so that seems around the age.
They have to be exposed to Tolkien in some form before the age 7 or they won't turn out right, but it doesn't have to be the live action trilogy. But it could be. I'd do it if I had kids.
Depends on the kid, I think. I took my daughter to see The Two Towers at the theater when she was 7. But we also watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer together since she was about 4 years old. I would not have taken my older daughter to that movie at the same age because it would be too scary.
it depends, are we talking about the scene where Denethor eats those tomatoes? because that's inappropriate at any age. outside of that, probably 8 is fine
I’m old enough to having read the books first because Peter Jackson wasn’t born yet! Read them at 12 years old and then 5 more times by the time I graduated HS. I’d say 10+ is the right age for the movies
I watched them as a very young kid (around 4-5), and I loved them. The only downside to watching them that young was for years i mispronounced some of the character names. I called Saruman “Saulimon”, Aragorn “Eragon”, and Sauron “Sore-on”.
How long can you or should you protect your children from evil. There is a price for not educating them about the battle of good and evil it is as old as time. You could show them pictures of starving children in Gaza instead
additionally:
it's okay for kids to be afraid of things. it's okay for kids to be sad about things. children should learn how to feel feelings and how to process them so they don't grow up into adults who can't feel feelings and process them.
I honestly think there's something there for all ages. It's fundamentally a story about doing the right thing even when we're scared, and I think that's a lesson that can be taught at any stage of life.
Too young? Watch that while they're in utero, watch it before they are even conceived, watch it while your conceiving, just keep watching it throughout their entire lives. If they don't grow up to know every word, every scene, every aspect of the trilogy you've failed....
I have a student (4th grade) who rereads The Hobbit at least once a hr and I’ve taught him yrs now and he’s read it like 5 times. Lol I’d say never too young. We bond over our love of the lord of the rings lol
I think the films are terrible myself, maybe even genuine cognitohazards (they're definitely more explicitly racist than the source material) so I'd save them for later years
I saw them all by age 9 and that was fine for me. I was a sensitive kid & uncomfortable seeing some of the violence but I don't think I was too young. And I had read the books so I knew when to look away when they were about to show things I didn't want to see: heads catapulted, finger bitten off
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That said, I had my daughter watching the Rankin Bass Tolkien movies from like, birth - and she seems fine at 12 now~
Anyone able to live longer than that, more power to them. Watch the lot!
it's okay for kids to be afraid of things. it's okay for kids to be sad about things. children should learn how to feel feelings and how to process them so they don't grow up into adults who can't feel feelings and process them.
I know this for a fact as this is how we realized how grossly inappropriate LotR is for young children.
"Mommy, why is that man's head on a stick?"
https://youtu.be/17kvIcRtMhM?si=LMW4FkaZakAWy61a
It's hard to follow for some kids (and adults) and also has quite a bit of violence that some more sensitive kids will get upset at.
Also there's a decent amount of fantasy horror in there that younger kids will definitely get nightmares from.