"We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures.
Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things!
Make you late for dinner!"
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, Ch. 1
I proudly am a Lord of the Rings fan. To what extent? No, I
am not an expert in elvish , but I own the extended/special feature trilogy and
watch it at least twice a year, I am in eternal love with Legolas and I think
stale toast should be called lembas bread.
Once I knew the premiere of “The Hobbit” would be in 2012 I
made sure I read the book before watching the movie. I was not able to do this
with LOTR, and I must confess its magic really decreases if you already know
Boromir will die. I prolonged reading this book until I left on a trip to
Mexico that would approximately take 9 hours from house to house, because I
believe that the only way to enjoy traveling by yourself is with a good book.
The only knowledge I had of Bilbo’s story was that which
Xbox showed me during a post-operation vacation I had to unfortunately take. My
mom’s coworker was nice enough to lend me his Xbox with a couple of games and
“The Hobbit” instantly won me over. I spent two weeks as Bilbo; gathering,
jumping, running and fighting my way through middle earth. I am a slow player
and never knew what happened after the enchanted forest with the spiders. I might
ask for an Xbox for my birthday.
 |
| I fell in love with this little guy. |
I found “The Hobbit” to be written in a much more accessible
language than LOTR, less descriptive and focused on the action of the story.
The adventure Bilbo takes on is magnificent, funny, exciting, scary and touching.
I enjoyed every page, song, character and meal Bilbo encountered. The story has
all the magic needed to truly wish dragons, elves, goblins and maybe even giant
spiders were part of our world.
The movie of “The Hobbit” was a very anticipated event; and I made my boyfriend come with me to the midnight premiere, even
though we both knew he would fall asleep. Eleven dollar nap for him. I already
knew that the book would be better; and that the dwarves I imagined reading
where not the miniature sexy bearded models I saw (no complaints there). Unfortunately,
The Hobbit feels as a second LOTR; another trilogy without enough backbone. The
special effects are out of this world (get it? They are in Middle earth? Ha);
the goblin king was especially depictive and nightmare worthy.
In conclusion, I do encourage you to read The Hobbit. I have
already added it to the future night time reading library for my kids, because
I know The Hobbit will show them what bravery and friendship are all about (and
it will probably take them the same amount of time to read the book and watch
the trilogy).
PS- For a further opinion on the movie please watch this
sketch from SNL. I am particularly looking forward for movie 10.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3zHgHaoVko
