Tomorrow is, of course, the birthday of both Bilbo and Frodo. Today, however, is the birthday of The Hobbit.
On 21 September 1937: J.R.R. #Tolkien‘s The Hobbit was published.
The book tells of a hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, and his journey with thirteen dwarves to recover their treasure from a dragon, Smaug. It’s sold over 100 million copies as one of the best-selling books of all time pic.twitter.com/NWlHdytg6y
— Tolkien Society (@TolkienSociety) September 21, 2023
I saw a video bit the other day in which we learned that there are hundreds of hours of scenes cut from the Jackson LotR. The mind reels.
More somewhat discouraging news at Variety. It includes this soul anihilating, weale-word studded paragraph:
“Following our recent acquisition of Middle-earth Enterprises, we’re thrilled to embark on this new collaborative journey with New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures, bringing the incomparable world of J.R.R. Tolkien back to the big screen in new and exciting ways,” said Lee Guinchard, CEO of Freemode. “We understand how cherished these works are and working together with our partners at New Line Cinema and Warner Bros. Pictures, we plan to honor the past, look to the future, and adhere to the strongest level of quality and production values.”
Kyrie eleison.
I am reminded of a recent smarmy email from Delta which described the revamping of the rewards program and access to lounges, etc. In effect, it will be super-hard, unless you are flying on the company dime, to advance in the program and use the clubs… BUT… it’s all “This is so wonderful! You’ll love it!”
As SkyMiles Membership continues to grow, we are committed to preserving the exclusivity and experience you anticipate and deserve. We have heard your feedback about the complexity of the SkyMiles Program and for the first time since 2015, we are making changes to simplify the way you qualify for Medallion Status while also rewarding you with more ways to earn Status.
[…]
We are dedicated to earning and maintaining your trust with every choice we make. We genuinely hope our commitment to a simplified program with more opportunities to earn Status will enhance your unique Member experience.
Insulting.
Dear readers, if you have not read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, please do. Then The Silmarillion awaits.
If possible… read the books before seeing the movies. For the love of all that is good true and beautiful.
UPDATE:
Perhaps Delta will adopt this plan in the spirit of “special reward fares for one way trips to Minas Tirith”.
Spirit Airlines Introduces New Bargain Flight Where They Just Launch You In A Medieval Catapult https://t.co/Ke6I3m208p pic.twitter.com/JMCf9bEMTe
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) September 21, 2023
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Is the second (?) season of the amazon production starting soon? just wondering how its being accepted…
American and United are right behind. The only think keeping me from just walking away from participating is the 500K miles I have on American (zero on United, which were holdovers from Continental) that I want to use post-retirement in December to do a bit of sightseeing.
It’s all about the $. Can’t have too many of the great unwashed cluttering up the area where high-rollers and CEOs are having their beverage and nosh before the flight gets called.
Hours spent in commercial air travel these days should count towards retiring any accrued time in Purgatory.
As SkyMiles Membership continues to grow, we are committed to preserving the exclusivity and experience you anticipate and deserve. …while also rewarding you with more ways to earn Status.
If, as a current member, I enjoy the “exclusivity” that I deserve, that means I have the right to be a member of a small, exclusive group. Expanding that group isn’t increasing exclusivity, that’s reducing it. Of course, anybody with a brain and was educated before 2000 saw right through their PR junk immediately. Are they catching younger people with this claptrap because they have been taught by schools not to think?
Thank you for strongly advising anyone who does not yet know them to “read the books before seeing the movies”! Our family also enjoyed Rob Inglis’s reading/performance of the complete Hobbit – repeatedly, and I’ve enjoyed the sample I’ve heard of Andy Serkis’s reading/performance of the complete Hobbit, and they have both read/performed the complete Lord of the Rings, too, and there seem to be a couple more amateur complete readings (sometimes with music and sound effects) I’ve heard well spoken of. So, there are lot of ways to enjoy the full text (reading along or only listening) in addition to reading it (aloud) yourself. Thereafter, abridged dramatizations can also be enjoyable (the BBC Lord of the Rings, for instance, and the Jackson Lord of the Rings films – and the 1991 Soviet Russian television one is a hoot!) – but what a waste and disappointment the Jackson Hobbit is!
Worth adding that once you know The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, there are recordings of Tolkien himself reading/singing selections!
Meanwhile, for The Hobbit, even more needed to be cut.
I struggled to watch An Unexpected Journey to the end. It disappointed me so much I simply could not stand to watch the other two installments.
After we read the book to our children, they asked if there was a movie of it, and I just didn’t have it in me to admit the truth. Or rather, I told myself that Jackson’s movies were not really the same, so I wasn’t lying when I told them, “no.”
More recently, however, I happened upon discussion arguing that the big problem with Jackon’s The Hobbit isn’t that it leaves things out of the books or that it tells a genuinely different story. Rather, the problem is the painful amount of nonsense added in. As a result, numerous devoted fans have created edited versions that cut the movies down to a much more compelling form.
So now I’m planning to let my kids watch one of the more popular fan edits, called the “M4 book edit.” It cuts out 54% of what Warner Brothers released, with the specific goal of being more faithful to the book (other edits focus more simply on being less of a cinematic trainwreck).
On a further tangent, there’s a really excellent video review on Youtube of Jackson’s The Hobbit, discussing what it does well versus poorly, and how it ended up that way. It’s titled, “The Hobbit: A Long-Expected Autopsy,” by film critic Lindsay Ellis. It’s long (3 parts, each over 30 minutes), but it helped the world make sense for me again after the bewilderment arising from the fact that the same director who brought Lord of the Rings to the big screen could also be responsible for The Hobbit.
Someone at the S-n Nod should stand up and quote our friend Bilbo Baggins.
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” (LOTR, ch. 1)
Happy Birthday Messrs. Bilbo and Frodo!
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