An Unexpected Journey

Home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

Almost three weeks ago, my daughter and I went to see this excellent film. We had both been looking forward to the film for some time, but I know she was most excited because she finally got to see a midnight movie on opening day. I’ve been meaning to share my thoughts for a while, but since today is Tolkien’s birthday, this is as good a time as any.

As a big fan of the books, I was a little worried about the film. The good news is that my fears were not realized. The bad news is that the film was still a disappointment. No doubt I enjoyed it, and the time with my daughter. A couple of scenes were fantastic and I enjoyed seeing some of the same imagery from the LOTR trilogy, but other parts of the movie had me scratching my head.

One of the advantages of a good book – and this one was a masterpiece, in my opinion – is that you get to imagine it yourself. The disadvantage of the film is that you are seeing what someone else imagines. To me, this film suffers from that in a big way. I didn’t read much of the book the way the filmakers did, apparently.

If you’re as big a fan of the book as I, then you may want to steer clear of the film, but something tells me you won’t. You might, though, want to check out Paul Gould’s excellent piece from yesterday – Lessons from the Hobbit.