Amph One Thread To Rule Them All: The Rings of Power + The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings Trilogies

More Hobbit music, from Empire.com! A bit unwieldy, but still a wonderful gift.

Cheers,
Lauré

 

I like the song. It surprised me at first - it feels like a Hobbit interpretation of a dwarven song and themes. Which makes sense to me and is the reason why I really like it.

I'm so happy to hear Hobbit music!!

 

I just can't wait to see this film.

 

Neither can I. We had several crew members reading The Hobbit (some for the first time!!) backstage during the run of the last show I was in. Well, it made me excited.

 

Hehe. There are a few people at my work reading or re-reading the book at the moment. Heck, I re-read it myself last week.

 

They were also discussing the LOTR films; some of them hadn't seen them or read the books, and they were asking not to be spoiled because someone told them Gandalf died. I awww'd.

I'm going to re-read it once I've finished the script I'm writing right now. The Hobbit has always been one of my favourite books; I basically grew up with the story (LOTR too) - thanks, mum!!!

 

So I'm only about 20 minutes in to the Lego Lord of the Rings video game, and I had to share how much I've already nerded out. You start in the prologue and play as Elendil, Isildur, and Elrond in fighting off Sauron and then climbing mount doom to "destroy the ring."

 

A new TV spot with some lovely dialogue between Bilbo and Thorin.

 

Gandalf's magic silver scarf available to buy

WANT.

But why is it so darn expensive?

 

Probably due to it being magic.

 

True.

 

That reminds me of seeing the movies with my brother-in-law, who had never read the books. He was talking about Gandalf dying in FOTR before TT came out, had to bite my tongue so hard -- almost inconceivable to me that there are people in the world that haven't read the books. Of course, I initially read them as a freshman in high school (9th grade), when he was 1.

 

I hadn't read the books before the films, nor did I allow anyone who had read them to spoil me. So yeah, I got all the way through the LotR films never knowing what was going to happen. I actually barely knew anyone who had read them. Being on the JC so much can skew our viewpoint, but in reality nerds are more rare

 

I don't think you need to be a nerd to read LotR. They're a staple of twentieth century literature. Trouble is many people simply don't read.

 

I completely agree.

(And read the books first. 7th grade. And every year since.)
(My brother-the athlete in the family-read them, too.)

 

I read the Hobbit when I was about 10, but didn't read LOTR until the first film came out. I started reading it, but only got to Rivendell before I saw FOTR. I had been spoiled that Gandalf dies and comes back, but for some reason I thought that it doesn't happen until TTT. So seeing the Bridge of Khazad-dûm was still a surprise. But by the time TTT came to cinemas I was already a firm Tolkien fan, having both LOTR and the Silmarillion under my belt.

 

I read a ton as a kid/teenager. But those weren't the sort of books we'd have read in class, and I had absolutely no one to introduce me to them. I just honestly had barely knew anything about them. My friends hadn't read them. Nor my parents. Genre fiction doesn't tend to make its way into literature courses very often, so that was out. It had nothing to do with lack of reading skill or desire.

But even if I had been recommended the books... I'm a slow reader and it would have taken me years to get through LotR. That's not an exaggeration. From elementary on through college, I was reading tons of books already for school and that doesn't leave a lot of time to read for fun (majoring in English sort of kills your time and desire to actually read novels for fun). I did try. To be honest, I've only read the first 100 pages or so of FotR. Never got past that. They may be classics, but that doesn't negate the fact that Tolkein needed better editing.

Oddly, I like the Silmarillion a lot more, but that's probably because I enjoy history and myth.

I didn't read The Hobbit until after the LotR films came out, some time in college I think. That was another one that was never required reading in school nor a book anyone really talked about to me as a kid. I mostly read Michael Crichton, Douglas Adams, and Joseph Heller for fun.

 

My mum read me The Hobbit for the first time when I was three. It's one of the first things I remember. I also grew up watching the animated film. For a few years, The Lord of the Rings was always the fascinating book on the shelf that I wasn't old enough to read, until I was around eight (can't remember exactly) and mum tried to read it to me, but I stole the book and read it for myself (very slowly, took me the better part of six months) with a dictionary sitting beside me.After that, I made a point of re-reading LOTR every year (that stopped when I got into university... putting on plays is very time consuming and requires a lot of reading in its own right).

LOTR/The Hobbit was never required reading in my area's schools. Most people I know around my age either didn't read the books, or read them years after the films came out.

 

My dad was a huge reader and introduced me to the books just before the films were coming out. I think I managed to get through each volume just before the respective film came out, but I remember ROTK being a pain in the ass as a 12 year old to get through. I've read them three or four times since then. Funny thing is I could never slog through the Hobbit until last year.

 

I hear The Hobbit is a required literature in some classes now. At least in Ohio, where I am from. And am currently. Never actually lived anywhere else, unless I count the time when I stayed with a family in Ireland for four days. Or that time in Florida. There's that place on the coast as well. A word of the wise, don't go knocking on peoples mailboxes, the cops will pull you over. I don't even know what I'm on about. Ignore all that, will you.

 

Sooner or later some religious wack-jobs in the US will argue that Frodo and Sam hugging in ROTK is a clear sign of homosexual depravity and get all Tolkien's books banned in half the US.

 

I had not read the LOTR books before seeing the films. I have now read all of them and the Hobbit, but it's been since 2004 for the Hobbit, so I am not re-reading it before the film. That way I can be as pleasantly free of expectations as possible.

 

I'm absolutely positive you did. I was talking about those who simply didn't, and don't. LotR is a glorious text, and I feel sad when I find out that not only did many not read them as children, but they didn't even give them a chance as adults.

And for the record, I have to take my time with The Silmarillion else I grind to an unwelcome halt. It's a great thing, but it's so rich and therefore (I find) best served in small portions. It really frustrates me, actually, because I always read at a terrific pace.

 

I'm one of those people who saw the films first. It's funny because not only did I read a ton growing up and they would have been right up my alley, but my dad tried to introduce me to The Hobbit several times starting around the time I was 9 (a few years before the FotR came out). And being the stubborn contrarian I was I avoided it because he insisted so much that I would love it. I also avoided seeing the first two films in theaters because of that, and then I only grudgingly said we could watch them on DVD together (we had the Extended Editions, so that was my first exposure to it). And... well... you know what happened. I was floored by them, and ended up seeing RotK in theaters with him, and that was my favorite of them all. I read The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit shortly after, in 2004 (I don't remember which one I read first, but I'm leaning towards LotR). I read The Silmarillionin 2005 and that promptly became not only my favorite of the lot but also my favorite book of all time. Now I spend my time insisting to my friends that they will love the books and films and having them not listen. Funny how that works out.

I'm currently re-reading The Hobbit, and want to get that and at least Fellowship and the appendices out of the way before the film comes out since those will be the most directly related to it.

 

As I've said, ad nauseum, the Tolkien books were a huge part of my childhood; the Silmarillion, however, not so much. It was a tough read for me at the time. I've reread it as an adult and find it a work seriously flawed by the fusing and stitching and back-filling that Tolkien's son had to do to get the thing to print. On the other hand, many discrete parts are beautifully written. On the whole I feel that had it been a project seriously worth doing, Tolkien would have done it in his lifetime.