Monday, May 4, 2015

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Why yes, this is really late because like, this movie came out last year and yet here I am writing about it. Why? Well, simply put, I haven't watched it. Well, should I say, I hadn't watched until this afternoon. I was unable to see the final installment in The Hobbit in theaters and opted to buy it as soon as it came on DVD. Then, it promptly sat in my room for weeks because I refused to watch it. And I refused to watch it for one simple reason: I didn't want it to end.

There are times when a story captivates me so strongly and I am so emotionally invested in the plot and the characters that I refuse to see a story to its end. I will literally set the series/movie/book aside and wait a while until I finally gather the courage to watch the ending. This happened when I read the final chapter of the Naruto manga, when I finished reading the Harry Potter books, when I got to the end of the Rose of Versailles anime - I mean, this happens A LOT. A lot more than it should actually. But finishing this amazing journey into Middle Earth was one of the hardest to complete.

Back in middle school, I remember admitting to one of my friends that I disliked the Lord of the Rings because I didn't understand the movies. Granted, I had only watched snippets and had never truly sat down through an entire movie. She found it odd because she said she understood it perfectly but she shrugged and said that if I didn't like them, well, I didn't like them, no big deal. But I was curious. See, so many loved the movies, so many praised them and I so truly wanted to understand them. So in my early years of high school I read the Lord of the Rings and I was completely sucked into the world of Middle Earth. So I watched the movies, over and over again, finally realizing how amazing they were. And then Peter Jackson announced the Hobbit movies. I had every intention to read the book before watching the first movie but I was so busy that I just went and watched the movie (Truth be told I have yet to read the book but I will read it). 

And now, I just think about this amazing world and the fact that I'll never be able to dive into it anew again. There will be no more films and while I can rewatch the movies and reread the books as much as I'd like, I won't have the feeling of, "ah, a new movie" again. I love everything about these movies. The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones - all amazing universes that have come alive in ways readers would have never imagined. I will always want to go to New Zealand in order to see with my own eyes the real-world Middle Earth. Tolkien's epic works are among the many that have spurred me to try to write my own unforgettable characters in their own unforgettable world. I still have much work to do, much more research, much more planning, but I just wanted to take the time to appreciate the wonderful work of Tolkien and of Peter Jackson and his team. It was a wonderful ride. Also, I kinda cried when it ended. The mark of a true fan right? 

Farewell for now Middle Earth. 

Farewell. 

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