Like many fantasy fans out there, I was eager to see Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I had some misgivings, though, since he had had to condense the weighty Lord of the Rings in many ways to make it fit into three still-epic movies (which I enjoyed), and seemed to be doing the opposite with The Hobbit — a slight volume aimed at children — by expanding it into, well… three epic movies.
Posts Tagged with Puttin’ the Blog in Balrog
2012: What a year it’s been
Usually by this point in the holiday season (and the year) I am totally exhausted, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank you all for being part of my first year of blogging here at As You Were.
I started in February with a WordPress.com site, and started connecting with great bloggers such as Offer Kuban (wonderful writing on wine and travel), sj (brilliantly booksnobby), Amy (hilarious and with many deep thoughts), Andreas (witty and smart scientific posts), and The Booksluts (who very patiently bore with me as I tried to figure out WordPress.) (Actually, I’d say that goes for everyone who stops by here.)
Small folk, big decisions: Tolkien’s hobbits change the world
J.R.R. Tolkien may have created a vast fantasy world in which the footsteps of gods and monsters made its history tremble, but when it came down to the works he is best known for, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the choices that carried the most weight were ultimately made by some of the smallest people in it: hobbits.
Although Tolkien began his rich history, cosmology, languages, and geography of Middle-earth in the myths that would be published posthumously as The Silmarillion, he gave special attention when writing The Hobbit to a scene which could have been just one of many episodes in the story.
Middle-earth music: The Return of the King
Composer Howard Shore draws from the themes he created for previous films in Peter Jackson’s adaptations of The Lord of the Rings for The Return of the King, and this score caps the trilogy off superbly.
Middle-earth music: The Two Towers
The score for The Two Towers, part two of Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, accomplishes a difficult task: augmenting the action of the “middle.”
There are some lovely swirls as Shore conjures forth themes for the stern but beautiful people of Rohan with help from a Norwegian hardanger.
Middle-earth music: The Fellowship of the Ring
Beginning with a stirring choral piece sung in one of Tolkien’s Elvish languages, Howard Shore immerses the listener in Middle-earth. Rather than composing themes for each of the characters, as per John Williams leitmotifs, Shore adds atmosphere to a story already rich in history.
It’s just as well he eschews character-specific creations; at nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien’s cast was just getting started. The film’s score isn’t monolithic by any means.
