I love this book. Love it. One of the first books I really fell in love with. One of the few books I’ve read more than once that doesn’t have Harry Potter in it. So seriously – why the hell did it take me three years to see today’s FNE Movie Month feature, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey?
As you can probably guess, I don’t watch a lot of movies throughout the year. I watch a lot of television shows, but not a lot of movies. Now I have a month every year that I use to catch up on a bunch (30 in case you didn’t know) of movies. Why some of these weren’t on my list last year really doesn’t make sense.
When I first heard that they were going to make the Hobbit, I remember reading that Peter Jackson was going to produce the movie, but that Guillermo Del Toro (who I think is one hell of a visionary director) was going to direct. I think it was around now that they were thinking that the story would be split over two movies. Then Del Toro ended up leaving the projcet, and Peter Jackson was stepping back into the director’s chair. And splitting the story over two movies turned into splitting the story into three movies, coming out yearly starting in 2012.
I started reading “The Fellowship of the Ring” around the time that the original Lord of The Rings trilogy came out, but I never finished the book. I think that all three LOTR books are actually bigger than the Hobbit – and they all each got only one movie per book.
An the Hobbit gets three.
Okay, part of me was annoyed by that back then. I thought, really another trilogy? Then the movies came out and the Middle Earth phenomenon was back in full force. And I just let it pass my by.
Until today.
Because I love this book. Because I love reading Fantasy (mostly R.A. Salvatore and Terry Brooks). Because I love epic stories. Because of all of this.
I loved this movie. Every moment. Every character. Every action scene. Everything. It’s been years since I’ve read this book. I read it once when I was in the 8th grade. That’s already 25+ years ago. I then read it later in college – but again that’s probably 17 years ago. So it’s been a while. A lot of it stuck with me, but not everything. The fact that they’re spreading out and expanding things over three movies doesn’t help with the memory either – because I’m not exactly sure what is or isn’t expanded on. I have some guesses, but mentioning them here just exposes me as not knowing the book as much as I want to.
I’m really going to have to read it again.
Couple things to note:
- I’m glad Peter Jackson was back directing these movies. It helps with the overall style. I’m sure Del Toro would have been fantastic, but it would have been different, and I like that these all feel like different stories within the same movie universe.
- I wonder how many people think The Hobbit book is a prequel to the Lord of the Rings books? In the movie world, the Hobbit came out years after the LOTR trilogy, and since it takes place before it’s technically a prequel. But in the literary world – the Hobbit was Tolkien’s first book and came out almost 20 years before the LOTR.
Not much more to say really. I’ll definitely be watching the other two movies in this trilogy this month. Not sure exactly when, but it’s happening.
And if you’re wondering – he seems to like all these movies – well, I choose movies I actually want to see, so more often than not I’m going to like the movie. I’m sure it won’t be a “30 for 30” for positive reviews, but so far so good.
8 DOWN. 22 TO GO.
