The Hobbit – An unexpected review… of sorts.

The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey

I took the missus out the other night. Usually we use this time to escape the screen. Having an ambitious toddler in the house means we watch far too much television. After she has gone to bed. After the house is quiet. After the energy is gone. What we usually do is sit on the couch, zone out on our phones, with something on in the background. We talk. We read. We relax.

So on nights that we are free, we usually choose to step outside of our pattern. We avoid the theater, or things that can be done with a sleeping baby on your lap. Like go out to nice bars. Or meet up with friends. Or other… inappropriate things…

But for the Hobbit we chose to spend our evening in the dark, in a quiet theater, with 3D glasses upon our noses.

3D is another thing we usually avoid. It’s a gimmick. A tired and old ploy to pull more money for something I quite honestly could do without. But our time was limited, and it was the only showing. It was even recorded in a high frame rate. It’s another technology gimmick. A way to make the viewer think they are seeing something special. To put it simply it makes everyone look as if they are moving at a strange speed. Not every advancement is ideal.

But we lived with it. We sat through all 2 hours and 45 minutes of the fantasy world. A dive back into the world Tolkien put onto the page, and that Peter Jackson last brought to the screen in the Lord of the Rings.

Visiting Middle Earth is always a treat. Its magical mysteries have always pulled me in far more than any other fantasy. I remember reading the trilogy, by the light of a lamp, late at night, after my father had gone to bed. I wasn’t sure if he would want me reading it… I feared he wouldn’t. He didn’t appreciate fantasy books. He thought they would rot my mind. I hid the books under the cushions of the couch in the mornings, hoping they wouldn’t be found. I had borrowed them from a friend and didn’t want to be forced to hand them back before I had devoured every last word.

They captivated me at that young age, and again when I read them as an adult. Fantasy was never my favorite genre, but the stories of Tolkien weren’t simply a fairy tale. They were an adventure, a fable, a grand tale. They inspired me more than I knew until the first story I wrote ended up set in a fantasy world.

So watching the Hobbit was a journey home. A comforting bubble of escapism. I didn’t need the third dimension to enter Bag End, or smell-o-vision to capture the feast that the dwarves consumed, or surround sound to hear Gollum hack up his lung. I had already heard, and seen, and smelt the sensations of the hobbit world. I had already ventured forth many times and experienced the adventure while turning the pages of a book in the late of the evening.

But still I loved seeing it live. I liked to see how others imagined what I already knew. I like to see the actors upon the stage, portraying old friends, and enemies. I reveled in the spectacle, the sights and the sounds. It was all over too quickly.

As we left the theater I could still hear the clashing of swords, the songs of the dwarves, and the taste of butter from the popcorn I had consumed.

As I squeezed my wife’s hand, and got into our car, I realized we had shared the same thing. It wasn’t just a book we had each read and imagined. But a real, almost tangible thing was the silver screen. Something special in the medium, that adds to, and does not subtract from, the original priceless experience.

I love reading. And I love a good book made into a good movie. It’s a rare find. Go see the Hobbit. It’s worth the time.

C