gasp Catching Up. (pauses for breath)
Tolkien is directly responsible for my love of reading (and subsequently my continued geekiness). When I was 9 I saw a review of The Hobbit on a kids show (between cartoons) and asked my parents about it. They gave me a copy for Christmas that year and it took me months to get through it (I wasn’t really a reader at that point). By the time my (10th) birthday came around I was totally hooked and I still have the (much “loved”) copy of the book that I received as a present. I read it in 3 weeks frequently staying up until 3-4 in the morning. From there I started devouring my school library and the rest is history.
When the movies were released myself, my brother and 2 others went to all 6 sessions on the opening day. We were totally amazed. They made me CARE when Boromir died. Even Tolkien had never evoked that emotion in me. In the books I hated that guy and cheered when he went down. “Who cares, that guy was a d-bag.” Sean Bean made me understand the dangerously seductive nature of The Ring. Gandalf bought tears to my eyes and I KNEW HE WOULD BE BACK! When The Two Towers came around we again saw 6 sessions on opening day. By now it had become a serious tradition. A few weeks later my mum asked me to take my grandma as she’d “seen the first one and she’d really like to find out what happens next.” It turned out about an hour in I realized that grandma had actually seen Harry Potter and there’d been some communication issue. She seemed to enjoy herself although at one point she leaned over and said “they must have searched for ages to find a guy so skinny to play to Gollum. His make up is amazing.” I never did explain that to her. For the record I did NOT get to see Return of the King 6 times on day one (it’s one of my greatest regrets).
Just a quick note on the super-extended-hyper edition (the one that comes on 4 discs and comes with the book-end statues). The commentary and other special features was so awesome and so extensive that by the time I had watched it all I felt like I had been a member of the crew, helping to make the movie. When I’d seen it all it felt so very sad. Like I was actually there shaking hands and saying goodbye to these guys who I’d spent months with.
