The Lord of the Rings

I discovered the Lord of the Rings trilogy while I was in Jr. High in the late 1970s. I became obsessed. I read and re-read them regularly. My mom helped my obsession by purchasing the Rankin/Bass record & book version of the cartoon Hobbit movie. She must have taken me to see that movie but this was before we all had movies at our fingertips so it was a one-shot theater experience.

This obsession has stayed with me for 40 some years now. First I found other books by Tolkien including The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and the Tolkien Reader. Then I found books about Middle Earth including:

• Tyler, J. E. A., The Tolkien Companion 1976
• Day, David, Tolkien Bestiary 1979
• Day, David, Characters from Tolkien 1979
• Fonstad, Karen Wynn, The Atlas of Middle-Earth 1981

I remained on the lookout for Lord of the Rings related material but I had neither the budget I wanted nor the access I wanted. In library school I found other sources including articles about Tolkien, his colleagues, and assessments of his work. This was all fine and good but I wanted the magic of the stories. Then Peter Jackson's movie trilogy came out and I was blown away.

I recognize that he had to edit some scenes out but his visuals more than made up for the cuts he had to make. He brought alive scenes that I was unable to fully visualize in my head. I bought the movie DVD releases as soon as they came out, then the extended versions on DVD, then the Blu-ray versions. I also bought many of the books associated with the movie including:

2001

• Fisher, Jude, The Fellowship of the Ring Visual Companion 2001
• Howe, John, Myth and Magic: The Art of John Howe 2001
• Kors, Lisa, Lord of the Rings: National Geographic's Beyond the Movie 2001 (documentary)
• Sibley, Brian, The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide 2001
2002

• Fisher, Jude, The Two Towers Visual Companion 2002
• National Geographic Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring: Beyond the Movie 2002 (documentary)
• Sibley, Brian, The Making of the Movie Trilogy (The Lord of the Rings) 2002


2003

• Fisher, Jude, The Return of the King Visual Companion 2003
• Sibley, Brian, The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-earth 2003
• Smith, Chris, The Lord of the Rings Weapons and Warfare 2003
later

• Cordova, Carlene Ringers - Lord of the Fans 2005 (documentary)
• MacKay, William, Tolkien Trivia A Middle-Earth Miscellany 2012
• Howe, John, A Middle-Earth Traveler: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor 2018

I'm always interested in another book about my favorite books/movies. Nowadays I watch the Lord of the Rings Trilogy right after Thanksgiving. I put up my Christmas trees and decorate my house and watch the movies. This is a tradition I have maintained for almost 20 years now.

I can't close this blogpost without mentioning the Hobbit movies. When Peter Jackson and his team were working on the Lord of the Rings they had a lot more time to polish the scripts. For the Hobbit Jackson was brought in late and his inner 12 year old boy was given more screen time than he got to have in the Lord of the Rings. If his team had more time with the script I think we would have seen less crude humor and gross out the audience scenes. There are parts of this trilogy that I truly love, including any scene with the elves, the opening scene in the first movie where the dwarves show up at Bag End and Galadriel at Dol Goldur. I love the blending and retelling of pieces of the Lord of the Rings appendixes and the Hobbit. I think they did a great job honoring the theme and visually much of it was amazing. But I do not watch this over and over. I get tired of the gross out parts and juvenile humor.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and I hope you too get to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy this weekend. Oh, and if you're wondering what to get me for Christmas any book about the movies or the trilogy will make me happy. - Jenny