Geeking out

My name is Tracy and I love Lord of the Rings.

I know I am about two years late to this fad (the most recent LOTR fad surrounding the movies), but that is just par for the course for me. I saw some 70's cartoon of the Hobbit that scared me to death when I was younger and totally turned me off from these books. Anyway when the first movie came out, I saw it on DVD and fell asleep about halfway through. I was not impressed. I did see the second movie in the theater with Lee and his brother, John. It was more exciting, lots of fighting and scary stuff. The third movie tied everything up nicely.

I bought the book on a whim and read the first few hundred pages then stuck a bookmark in it and gave up. That was over a year ago. Then, last week when I had nothing around to read, I picked it up again.

Now I am a LOTR fan and I am almost done with the entire thing. I love the maps and timelines in the book. I could look at them for hours. Even the appendices are imaginative and realistic.

Lee picked up the first two movies for us to see and I enjoyed them so much more after reading the book. The movies were well done and there are only slight changes made that don't affect the overall story as far as I can tell. The worst part of the movies is Elijah Wood. He just icks me out. I hate when he rolls his eyes around to show the temptation of the ring. His portrayal of Frodo is just too soft for me. But, once I got past his breathy "Gandalf!" exclamations I enjoyed the movies.

The reason this story appeals to me is the simplicity of the whole good vs. evil. The good are so very brave and honorable and the evil are truly horrifying and despicable. However, the twist that makes it so compelling is the sense of hope, even in the most dire situations and for the most repellant of creatures, the Gollum. I never really understood why they kept keeping this horrid little thing around. Why not just get rid of him? I could not feel the pity or hope for him, until I read the entire trilogy. I guess they needed him as a guide, but I still felt like it could have been safer and wiser to be free from his creepy threat. In reading the books and maybe being a little more mature I understand more why his character was necessary to the hopeful theme of the story.

Of course I am aware of all of the religious symbolism and stuff but I haven't read any guides or articles exploring that yet. First I have to actually finish the darn thing and see the last movie again.

Well, there is my confession. I am a LOTR geek officially.