Just returned from a late-morning matinee showing of Return of the King, the third in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I enjoyed it, and the seige of Minas Tirith is the spectacle it was cracked up to be. The postscript, which in the book feels important, drags on a bit in the movie.
I wonder if there’s any chance that my son or daughter will read the books before seeing the films. While there are some movies that should be the first encounter one has with a story, the Tolkien books — like many others — deserve the expanse of the printed page. Your imagination must take over. I first read the trilogy in some dingy paperbacks with faded covers. The contrast between the growing force of the story and its dim packaging remains striking to me even now, and I’ve had mental pictures of the fellowship’s characters for years. While I’m glad that the movies were made, and made well, I do regret slightly that the pictures in my head have been superseded. I know my mother had the same fears, although I think she, too, broke down and has seen the films (at least the first two, so far). Given Tolkien’s deep love of language and words and even fonts, his tales deserve to be read first. After all, Tolkein invented several languages and alphabets for these and other tales of Middle Earth. That’s personal passion writ large.
Is there anything I can (or will) focus on with such single-mindedness? To date, the answer is no. While I think that’s good for my family and (probably) me, I do admire stubborn obsessiveness in the pursuit of perfection. These movies weren’t perfect, but they did strive to deliver Tolkien’s vision, and (from all reports) that took a bit of obsessiveness in of itself.
The next major epic to get the New Zealand treatment? According to Slashdot, Narnia is next.