So few weeks ago I finally downloaded the last film in The Hobbit trilogy but since sister hasn't seen it and it's been pretty long anyway we decided to watch the first two films first. By the time we finished I thought, "Hey, it's been 14 years since the first LOTR film and it's chronologically a sequel to Hobbit and I got all films in blu-ray on my HD" so it makes perfect sense to watch them too so in the end we had this 2-week marathon.
It was really a cool experience. I got to really appreciate both the work of Tolkien and all the hordes of people who created the magnificent if not entirely accurate films. I never read and of the books myself. I tried once but it was so detailed that I gave up. It might be for the best as I didn't have to compare the films to the books or it might have ruined it for me. But I watched and read stuff about Tolkien and was blown away by his vivid imagination and the ability to create a whole fucking world for many generations to come.
I'm currently playing Skyrim and now being able to compare the two worlds I realized just how much of the genre was created by Tolkien. I mean it's not just dwarfs and elves but dwarfs have heavy armor and axes of a certain shape and elves have light armour and use bows and magic. Or the fact that the basic classes of warrior/mage/thief are basically laid out in The Hobbit. Even stuff like giant spiders and crypts is all there, virtually unchanged in all the RPGs.
But apart from all that, I think one of the most important things Tolkien did was create a huge epic tale and put the world's destiny in the hands of not just brave mighty warriors but also small seemingly helpless creatures.
As for the movies, there are many high-budget cinema wonders that come out every year it's easy to overlook just how impressive a work has been done here. The great casting, the fantastic director's work, the beautiful armour and architecture and so much more. It's been a fun ride.
Legolas might be cute, but Thranduil was fucking majestic~