The Hobbit, oh where do I begin?
Lets start with this picture. I find it to be accurate for most things, but especially for this one.
Ok, it's not just that, it's a lot more than that.
Let's go back and I'll take you on a journey. Maybe not an Unexpected Journey, but stay with me, if you will.
My Parents are avid readers, so I was always encouraged to read, even from a very early age.
It started with picture books and big hard cover adaptations of Disney Movies.
When I no longer needed pictures, I started reading little novels written for my age group. I was obsessed with The Little Mermaid novels about Ariel and her sisters and moral-of-the-story Berenstain Bears novels.
Yup, these are books that I still own.
I only owned a few of each, since our small town book store didn't carry them, so it was only on special trips to bigger towns and cities where I was allowed to pick a few books out for myself. (A tradition my Dad I still uphold when we go to book stores together)
When I out grew those, I had a really hard time find anything to read. All the novels that I could find were about regular girls doing stuff like babysitting or having fights with their friends and even more after-school-specially stuff. It was so boring. I was a girl that dealt with that kind of stuff every day in real life, I didn't want to read about it. So I gave up on reading.
It was very sad.
One day, I came across my father reading an old dilapidated book that was barley holding together. Curious as to what it was, I asked him. It was his old copy of Lord Of The Rings. He had read it about 5 or 6 times at that point. When asked why, he started telling me about Frodo and his epic journey to Mordor. I lost the next hour or so listening to him. I never knew that there were stories full of adventure and other worlds written for grown-ups! What a discovery!
Before my sister and I were born, my father actually read The Lord Of The Rings to my Mom every night before they went to bed. He suggested that we should do the same thing, except that if I wanted the whole story, we should start with The Hobbit.
And that's exactly what we did. I fell head over heels with Tolkein's world and happily spent the next few months getting lost in it. After The Hobbit was finished, we tried to read Lord Of The Rings, but didn't get too far, due to my Dad getting new glasses and needing time to get use to bifocals. We never did get back to it and I moved on to other books. R.L Stine to be exact.
Years later, when I had plowed through ever Fear Street book that I could get my hands on and was looking for something new, my Parents bought me a beautiful set The Lord Of The Rings. White spines with a golden elvish border all framed beautifully in a red box. To this day, it's still the only box set that I own and nothing that I've ever seen has compared to it.
Needless to say, I devoured the entire series in no time. I didn't think anything could ever be better than The Lord Of The Rings and argued that point with whomever would listen. That is, until a friend of mine called me on it. He then brought me the first book of The Wheel Of Time and thus my love of fantasy was established.
I've though of re-reading the Rings multiple times though out the years, especially when the movies were released. It had only been about 3 years since I'd read them when the Fellowship came out.
When I found out a few years ago that they were making The Hobbit, I really couldn't remember much about it. I decided that a re-read was in order.
I even managed to find a copy of the book that matched my book set!
I discovered a few things while re-reading it.
1) It's a lot shorter than I remembered.
2) It's not as well written as I remembered.
3) There's a lot more singing than I remembered.
4) I still hear my Father's voice in my head while reading it. It makes me smile.
When I discovered that they were making 3 movies instead of one, I was caught off guard. It's a very short book, after all. I put that doubt behind me and shuffled to the theatre to throw my money at it.
I've never been so appalled at a movie in my entire life!
Middle-Earth is not my fandom and I don't fangirl accordingly, so the fact that I screamed internally the entire movie says something.
And I'm not the only one.
Thank you Honest Trailers, for expressing into words what I couldn't without frothing at the mouth in rage.
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| say the characters that aren't even in the book, despite the fact that they really do have a point... |
So yes, this is why I haven't gone to see the new movie, despite the fact that I keep hearing that it's much better and less nerd-enraging than the first one. I may yet go and see it before it's gone from theatres.
One thing is for certain, I will not make the mistake of re-reading a book before the movie comes out.
end rant....
