Concerning Hobbits, Authors, Critics and Fans…

Here is an interesting article for all of us who love the works of JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis and Peter Jackson. This is just an excerpt. There is a link at the end to the whole article. ~TD

This post is part of the Battle of the Five Blogs, or six blogs to be precise. It is a throw-down of various Tolkien bloggers who are thinking about the release of the final installment of Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Other bloggers in this series are Kat Sas, James Moffett, Sørina Higgins, Crystal Hurd, and Matthew Rettino. Follow the links to check out their reviews, recaps, and rants. We encourage comments and links to your own reviews, recaps, and rants.

There is a curious thing that happens to C.S. Lewis' writing: He made friends.

I think that most true J.R.R. Tolkien fans are going to hate The Hobbit: The Battle of 5 Armies, the newest and last installment of Peter Jackson's series. Some of those fans detested the Lord of the Rings trilogy on film, while I loved them. I lack the technical, absolutely precise knowledge of the massive myth project that are the books that make up The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and the dozen or so other books that tell us about the History of Middle Earth. The second language in my home is not Quenya or Entish, and I haven't tracked the number of new moons that pass in Frodo's long journey to Mordor.

I loved the LOTR films. And though there are moments that make you wince in The Hobbit trilogy-poor computer imaging, characters bent out of narrative shape, unclear lusts and motivations, uneven storytelling, genre confusion, and a general lack of Hobbitishness-I have quite enjoyed the films, as films. I went last night to The Battle of 5 Armies and had a great night out with friends.

But even I, who am willing to throw myself into the adaptation projected on screen, felt uncomfortable at times with how Jackson seems to bend what is to me a pretty straight story.

And yet.... And yet... I want to suggest that Jackson's bending of Tolkien, and my discomfort with it, and the 100s of angry reviews online are all part of the tale.

Let me explain why...
http://apilgriminnarnia.com/2014/12/20/living/

The Hobbit as a Living Text: The Battle of 5 Blogs.