It took me a lot longer to write this recap than any of the others because I’ve been so busy living life. One of the things I really wanted my 30×30 list to do was to restart my excitement for life and the little things and it’s done exactly that! At the same time I’m also glad I waited as I got to add the cool picture below to this post!
I added this to my list because let’s face it I needed to re-read it. The last time I read it was in high school just before Peter Jackson’s trilogy was released. I read them quickly and didn’t really take them in (I was still in my “I only read Star Wars novels.” phase. I remember the second book being such a struggle because it felt like it took SO long to read. It did take me a month to read, but looking back there’s no telling what that reason was. This time, however, I flew through all four of them in less than a month and I read books between the them! You can read my reviews of the books:
- The Hobbit (One of only five books I’ve re-read since I started this blog)
- The Fellowship of the Rings
- The Two Towers
- The Return of the King
I think what I enjoyed most about this re-read was how much more of the detail I appreciated. I know that’s what I bitched about in the past, but it was wonderful to see the minor (and major) changes between the books and the films. I definitely prefer the books now, which is a shift, but I can appreciate everything Jackson did and didn’t do. I understand why he shifted things around for dramatic effect and more importantly I think he even improved the films by making more than one badass female character.
The Hobbit films are a different story. I believe Jackson got bored so he added a bit too much ridiculousness (the barrel scene in the second film) and lost his way. He has added  A LOT of information from Tolkien’s other middle-earth writing which has pissed a lot of people off. I haven’t minded the expansion of the story, but I have minded the ridiculous self-gratifying scenes, the new shooting style and the made up elf-dwarf romance. We’ll see where this last film goes, but I’ll probably stick to the original three films if I ever do an “epic watch” like I did with Star Wars.
As I said above, I was glad I waited before posting this because I randomly ran across a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring in Spanish at the same bookstore I got to hold an American First Edition of Wuthering Heights. It was neat to randomly find that especially as I was finally making headway in Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal. I doubt I will continue reading books in Spanish, mine is beyond rusty, but it was still cool to flip through it. I’m also glad I resisted purchasing all the additional Tolkien books I found at a bookstore a few weekends ago as I’m not sure those are for me. As I said in my The Return of the King review I read some of the appendices and will even attempt to conquer the The Silmarillion one day as I already own it, but I’m not so sure about the deep intricacies of the history of middle-earth.
I’m glad this was on the list and I can’t wait to re-read these in a few years to see what I notice next time!
Wow, that’s a big reading month. Well done! That would probably take me a few months to get through.
I think my least favourite part about the Hobbit movies was the molten gold scene. That was just awful. I could actually deal with the barrel one, even though it was silly, but the last 30 minutes of that movie just hurt.
That scene was outrageously ridiculous. I spent the entire time thinking, there’s no way this was in the book and when I re-read it I definitely remember breathing a sigh of relief that Tolkien wasn’t that much of an idiot 😀
I love Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy whether you’ve read the books or not I think they will be classic, well loved films. As for The Hobbit trilogy so far I’ve enjoyed them but not loved them. I don’t like how the story has been stretched out and some of the changes made I think have changed the mood of the story. Then again I might be biased against it as The Hobbit is my favourite book 😛
I agree completely! Although I’be enjoyed the first Hobbit films I’ve not been enamored. I feel they’ve lost some of Tolkien’s frivolity.
Jackson pissed me off so much with the first Hobbit movie (Oh look, someone is dangling by their hands at the edge of a cliff. Again.) that I didn’t even make it to the second one. Sounds like that was a good decision! I do have plans to do a marathon watching of all of the Lord of the Rings movies sometime though.
Definitely marathon them! I’ve marathoned the extended editions and it was worth it. I’m still just sort of meh on the Hobbit films mostly because if anything it’s another return to Middle-earth.
That’s good to hear. The marathon is something that sounds good in theory, but I’ve worried might be less fun in actual practice!
Yeah towards the end I was exhausted. You need activities to keep you going throughout.