It was called An Unexpected Journey and so it turned out to be the case for both the title character and myself.
11 years ago in 2001 a quaint little film hit cinemas. You may have heard of it, a fairly low budget picture actually, called The Lord of the Rings.
I had never read the books but it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable and loved movies of my life.
I waited eagerly for the next movies in the saga to be released and when the final movie came to town, I joined a few hundred other eager moviegoers and embarked on my own journey via a movie marathon of all 3, culminating in the 3rd film I had yet to see.
To describe it as epic would be a gross understatement! 11 hours straight of solid adventure was enough to leave even the heartiest of Tolkien fans in an intense “movie coma”.
It’s one thing to sit through 3 separate movies of 3 hour length. After each one you get up, walk around, go about your normal life and forget what you’ve watched. But to watch them back to back means there is no escape - you are on that journey with Frodo and his friends and it will not stop until the very end.
I will rewatch these 3 movies from time to time and relive parts of that journey, loving every minute of it.
And so brings me to today.
I knew The Hobbit was coming to theatres. I knew it was the prequel to Lord of the Rings. Yet in my mind I thought it to be the smaller, possibly dimwitted cousin of the original trilogy. I thought it was a single movie that they had “Twilighted” and ripped into 2 to get double the earnings from fans.
Not the case.
Today began the 2nd, and yet the timeline would suggest the 1st, journey into Middle Earth with Bilbo Baggins.
Peter Jackson has again created another trilogy, each released a year apart to build my enthusiasm, eventually culminating in another grand finale in 2014.
And throughout the movie I was reminded about my first journey via little cameos of characters from the original: Frodo, Saruman, Elrond, Galadriel, and Gollum of course. And every time I hear that music, I’m instantly taken back 11 years to that first time I saw Fellowship of the Ring.
It has inspired me to once again give the books a try.
I have in the past attempted to read both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
When I was about 10 I had been given a copy of The Hobbit and as an avid reader I gave it a go. Around half way through I came to the bottom of a page and, as one is expected to do, began reading the next.
“Blah blah blah…….blah blah blah……blah?? What the…..!”
If you’ve ever read Tolkien you’ll know he can beverywordy and descriptive. It’ll take him 3 pages to describe a road. Admirable though this ability is it does make for slightly tedious reading. And it was this reason why it probably took me almost an entire page to realise what was wrong.
My book was misprinted and had cut out around 50 pages.
I stopped reading immediately and so have no idea how this new adventure ends.
Once I fell in love with Lord of the Rings I gave the books another chance and successfully finished the trilogy. Though I adored the movies I still found his writing just too detailed to allow the story to flow and be enjoyable.
Yet Ash bought me a copy of The Hobbit for Christmas (it’s bound properly, I checked!) and I am determined to give it another try to see if my literalistic palate has matured.
In any case, like the book or not, I’m now hanging out for next December so I can enjoy the next step in the adventure.
“Home is now behind you. The world is ahead.”
Truly. Epic.
So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. —Dead Poets Society
^
Must watch this again.
My dad: One of the guys that dated Taylor Swift should write a song called "Maybe You're The Problem"
