Reblogged from Tumblr: The whole Hobbit spoiler thing!

[vulgarweed]

I am so happy that there even IS a potential for such a thing as "Hobbit spoilers."

(No, I don't mean book-plot spoilers: I have no sympathy for anyone who can't bother to read a very short playful book written for the author's young children 75 years ago.)

It's that I don't know what's coming next.

My father was a SF/F fan from the 50s/60s onward, and he and my mom read 'The Hobbit' to me when I was, jeez, no more than 4. So I was really primed to see the Rankin-Bass animated version of The Hobbit . It was a TV special, but in my rural community a lot of people didn't have TV (hell, a lot of people still didn't have phones), so my (public) school managed to get it on film (with taxpayer funds) for an assembly in my elementary school gym. The year was 1977. I was 8.

Stuck with me. I took my dad's copy and read it again.

I took out a lot of books from my (public, mind you) school library. The librarian thought I might like A Wrinkle in Time and she was totally right.

It wasn't until the summer of my 11th birthday that I felt ready to take on Lord of the Rings. But OMG, once I started, I was hormonal and adolescent enough to tell my own parents I would RIP THEIR FUCKING THROATS OUT if they dared to distract my attention for one second from this book.

I am so, so apologetic for that now. Teenagers are awful people by definition, and not by their own faults. But my dad had a little smile in the corner of his mouth even when he was dragging me up to my room in a headlock. And my parents still never ever took my books and flashlight away. They knew damn well I'd wait and watch for the light under their bedroom door to go off, and then I'd keep reading.

That was in the late 70s/early 80s when I was a kid. Ten years ago (when I was in my early 30s), I got a random, no-holiday, surprise present from my dad. It was from the Noble Collection: a resin replica of the top of Gandalf's staff that's also a candleholder. Got a scented candle burning in it right now.

I know the whole legendarium well. It's built into my life from my single-digit years. There is no point in my life I can remember when I didn't know who Gandalf and Bilbo were. I like the fact that Hobbit movies will surprise me. I'm totally steeped in the lore. I've read almost all of the Histories of Middle-earth books. I really LIKE the fact that I don't know how the story will play out! I don't know what will happen with the White Council/Dol Guldur/Necromancer plot. Peter Jackson is writing fanfiction (as he must, because he doesn't have the rights to use anything from the Silmarillion or the Unfinished Tales or the History of Middle-earth).

I will actually be in suspense for the next two movies - and that's awesome!

I have ideas about how I'd end it, cinematically. Bilbo looking at the map, very sadly. The red eye at Barad-dûr getting brighter. The sound of massive slabs closing over Dwarven tombs. PJ might choose to use some of those ideas, or none. I DON'T KNOW, and that's what I can't wait for!

Comments

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

I'm definitely looking forward to the next two movies as well - and before I saw the first one, I wasn't enthusiastic about it at all. PJ did a far better job than I expected.

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

This exactly!! Especially now I'm rereading, I'm even more excited to see how they interpret things. It helps that I trust PJ to 1) care about the source material, but still 2) do what needs to be done to make it work as a movie

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

I am really, really happy with it, and I'm excited too. And I had my doubts going in, but I got sucked in very hard, very quickly. I was a starry-eyed 8-year-old again.

My friend Greg - who was my boyfriend when the LOTR movies were coming out, and we lived in geekytown together - put off seeing it because reviews made him really skeptical, but when I finally got him to go, he was like a little kid too. He said he thinks he might love it more than the LOTR movies. More room to stretch out in the story, less rushing through plot points.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

Yup, I'm on a reread too. It really struck me how Tolkien kind of rushed through some things - you don't think of him, of all people, as the kind of writer who ever does that, but he did! There are a lot of places where I wanted a lot more detail than the book had to offer. That's where the imagination comes in, and PJ & crew have a very well-developed one where Middle-earth is concerned. I trust him too. I won't like everything, but odds are very good I'll love it as a whole.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

And supposedly we're going to be getting an extended edition DVD in a few months' time, so we have even more Hobbitty goodness to look forward to before the second movie appears on the screen. Yeah!

[htebazytook.livejournal.com]

Yes! Stuff is more summarized, more than LOTR [I think], I assume because it's a children's book

My new headcanon I feel like that The Hobbit movie is the real events, and book is translated for kids or whatever

What is striking me more than anything is how in the movie the dwarves get to be more epic and noble or something, but in the book it's just like OOH SHINY THINGS and they're always talking about getting the treasure and not so much reclaiming their homeland, sort of thing

[hsavinien.livejournal.com]

Yesss, me too! I was just all kinds of happy with AUJ and I'm really thrilled to see what they do with the rest of it. Also, I'm holding out hope for Galadriel showing up in her old armor. I'm actually more happy with the Hobbit stuff we've got so far than I was with the LotR trilogy. It's better that they get to expand to fill the time than have to cut so much.