Despite growing up with a love of reading, the fantasy genre has always alluded me. Whether it was from a sheltered childhood, a vast deluge of other interests, or a rather massive blind spot – the fantasy genre was just never on my radar.

Of course I was aware of concepts presented in something like The Lord of the Rings, but until more recent years, I had never once read or watched a single inch of The Shire.

This post is all about my journey through Middle Earth. I’ve included my original reviews of both the J.R.R. Tolkien books and the Peter Jackson movies, including The Hobbit. For a first trip into the fantasy genre, I couldn’t be happier with the adventure!

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien – 5/5

I’m so happy I finally read this!

Since I got back into reading recently, I decided to finally give The Lord of the Rings a shot and I now completely understand why so many people love these books.

The Hobbit may be a children’s story, but Tolkien’s prose and ability as a storyteller is near perfect. I could criticize the middle section of the book for being extremely formulaic, but honestly, it didn’t end up bothering me. These characters, this world, this story – all of it ended up being such a cozy and beautiful read.

I can’t wait to dig into The Fellowship of the Ring next!

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien – 5/5

After “The Hobbit”, I jumped straight into Fellowship with the expectation that it would be a more difficult read. I’ve often heard Tolkien’s writing described as “boring”, “complicated”, and “confusing”.

I’m so glad I completely disagree with all of that!

Tolkien’s writing is like coming home after a long day of work, drinking a glass of warm milk, and reading a bedtime story. It’s a breathtaking masterclass in storytelling and worldbuilding. Sure, there may be moments where Middle Earth’s history is exposited in bulky chunks and I may not 100% understand the importance of those bits – but none of it was boring to me.

“The Fellowship of the Ring” is only part One of this story and I can’t even begin to fathom what happens in part Two or Three. I love these characters. I love this world. I love the strong connection to “The Hobbit”.

If I have any criticisms at all, it’s simply that Fellowship is all buildup. There’s a few major things that happen at the end (that I’m still in awe of), but the majority of it is rising action to whatever occurs in the rest of the trilogy.

The thing is though… this isn’t a bad thing at all. LOTR is supposed to be one big book anyways, so this works perfectly as a first act to a three act story.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien – 4/5

After taking way too long to finish this one, I’m really happy to move on to Return of the King. While I’m still very much enjoying this story, “The Two Towers” is a bit tougher to get through compared to Fellowship.

Most of this book is super slow paced. Not a bad thing, there just wasn’t a whole lot that kept me motivated to keep reading until the very last chunk.

Half of this book is mainly about Merry, Pippin, Legolas, and Gimli. While I do love the section with the Ents and I enjoy some of the bigger moments in the first half. I was mostly left wondering what was happening with Frodo and Sam.

When we do get to Frodo, I was immediately interested again. Don’t get me wrong. I still love all of these characters, but in terms of plot, Frodo’s sections are definitely the most captivating.

I still had a good time and the ending with Shelob’s lair was well worth the wait, but compared to Fellowship, the pacing got to me a bit.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien – 5/5

I’ve officially read all of Lord of the Rings!

Man, what a ride.

To start off, I obviously loved it. Tolkien’s ability to create such an immersive world is masterful. While there are clearly moments that are a bit of a slog to get through, I still couldn’t imagine this story without its details.

As far as Return of the King, I do have a couple of nitpicks, but overall I still really enjoyed it. The climax is fantastic. The relationship between Frodo and Sam is quite possibly the best friendship I’ve ever read about. Aragorn taking his throne was a great ending to his character arc. There’s not much to complain about… well, other than…

The almost 100 pages of epilogue. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely find most of it to be important to the overarching story. Also, I’m not at all surprised that Tolkien would wrap up his epic fantasy as tightly as possible.

In many ways, it’s a satisfying conclusion. Revisiting past areas was really cathartic. The Scouring of the Shire gives the hobbits an exceptional ending. Plus the last chapter with Frodo and Bilbo – makes a grown man cry.

My issue with the epilogue mainly had to do with “The Steward and the King”. This chapter only exists to give Eowyn and Faramir a proper ending and while there are moments that I enjoyed of these characters – I didn’t felt like it was all that necessary.

Tolkien also doesn’t write female characters too well. They’re definitely not poorly written, but on a first read – Arwen feels like a random character just thrown in. Rose is a hobbit that I completely forgot about. And while I really like the ethereal nature of Galadriel, I felt like there should’ve been more of her throughout this saga. Eowyn is the only female character that had an interesting arc, but her pairing with Faramir felt a tad bit forced and rushed.

Keep in mind though – these are nitpicks.

Tolkien’s world will undoubtedly stay with me the rest of my life.

Now it’s time to watch the movies!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey by Peter Jackson – 4/5

Now I’m on this quest to experience it all. While I could’ve just watched the original Lord of the Rings trilogy first, I decided to watch all 6 of Peter Jackson’s films in chronological order. So we’re starting with the first of The Hobbit trilogy – An Unexpected Journey.

For all the bad things I’ve heard about The Hobbit trilogy, this first one ended up quite good!

It’s not amazing and I definitely have issues with it, but I enjoyed way more of it than I expected to.

Obviously, the three hour extended cut could’ve been shorter. I’m not the biggest fan of the Goblin section, I didn’t like everything that had to do with the Orcs, and more often than not, the characters do a lot of talking.

BUT, I’ve read the books and honestly, this movie flew by in comparison. Will the other two Hobbit movies feel the same way? I don’t know yet. All I do know is that I’m really surprised that this didn’t feel like three hours.

My only real complaints is that there’s some weird humor strewn throughout; plenty of the jokes fell flat for me.

Having the Orcs be the central antagonists wasn’t super interesting, but then again, I get why they were chosen. I also didn’t like most of the dwarves. They were fairly annoying.

There’s a few weird songs too. While the books are well known for having songs, I don’t think that meant that the CGI Goblin King needed to sing one. Also the CGI for most of the villains hasn’t aged very well. For a movie that came out in 2012, you’d think they’d do a bit of a better job here.

Other than thought though, the visuals are fantastic, the score is beautiful, and I’m really enjoying seeing Bilbo and Gandalf on screen. So far, I don’t feel like the story was stretched out too much (though this could change).

Since the original Hobbit book didn’t give way to much of the LOTR story, there’s quite a few moments in this film that was added to connect the two film trilogies.

I don’t think all of it was necessary, but I did really enjoy seeing Galadrial, Saruman, and Elrond earlier. Foreshadowing the looming threat of Sauran and Mordor was neat too.

It’s not perfect and there’s some flaws with it, but if you like Tolkien’s book, I think you’d enjoy that movie.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug by Peter Jackson – 4/5

Now that I’ve seen the second film in this trilogy, I think I’ve realized something pretty important – these films really aren’t meant to be an adaptation of The Hobbit book.

I mean, yes, they do adapt the book. The story of Gandalf, Bilbo, Thorin and his company of dwarves taking back the Lonely Mountain is exactly what the novel is about. But more importantly, these films are serving as a prequel to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.

Some people may find this pointless, as Lord of the Rings doesn’t really need a prequel (I only say this reading the books, I still don’t know how Peter Jackson handles the film adaptations), but I actually think it’s really exciting to see the events that lead up to Frodo’s adventure.

In Desolation of Smaug, not only are we introduced to Legolas, a character that is prevalent in future films, but a brand new elf character is created with Tauriel – a much needed female character that I did end up liking enough.

Instead of Gandalf disappearing for the middle part of Bilbo’s adventure and never knowing what he’s up to (which he does in the book), we actually get to see him coming face to face with Sauron for the first time.

Now it’s not all perfect. While I felt like the length of this film was better used than the first one, I still think we got a bit too much of the Lake-men. Bard is a cool character and I’m glad that they’re building up to his big heroic moment, but this is where these movies first started to feel stretched.

I could probably say the same for some other scenes, but I know I can’t complain too much, cause I am watching the extended cuts.

I think the big thing that has gotten me so into these films is simply just because of how epic Middle Earth is. I spent the better part of a year reading Tolkien’s books and now I get to see these places and people on the big screen. It’s really, really neat.

Once again, the visuals are outstanding, the score is superb, and the action is incredible. I’m not even an action guy usually, but there are so many incredible action scenes in this film, that I’d be remised not to mention them.

Oh yeah – Smaug! He’s so dope. Everything about him was just as magnificent as I was hoping.

So far, I’m all in on The Hobbit movies. I’m a bit worried about this third one, just cause I know the source material barely has anything left, so I have no idea how they’re gonna use that runtime. I’m still looking forward to it though. Plus, at least I’ll have the LOTR trilogy next.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies by Peter Jackson – 3/5

Yeah, this is the lesser of the three.

There’s still stuff that I enjoy here: Gandalf and the Counsel is still a really great inclusion. Thorin had a fairly satisfying ending. Smaug and his end was also really cool.

But other than that, this film is mainly just about the titular “Battle of the Five Armies”. Over an hour and a half is dedicated to this battle and while some of it is neat, most of it is pretty boring.

Does this sour the whole trilogy for me?

Eh. I’m not sure.

I still had fun with those first two, but I also had fun with the Star Wars prequels on my first time through those. I definitely think this is significantly better than Star Wars (I’m really not a huge Star Wars guy), but the comparisons are wildly similar.

Both trilogies tend to have too much going on. Both have a lot of CGI battles. Both have a ton of expository dialogue. The difference is that I enjoy Tolkien’s world and characters far more than those in Star Wars.

I mention all of this, because I think on a rewatch, this trilogy won’t hit as hard and I’ll start to recognize more of its faults.

That’s okay.

I’m sure TLOR trilogy will be even better. I just know that this film ended up showcasing a lot more flaws than the prior two and that’s kind of a bummer.

It’s especially strange that this was the shortest out of the trilogy and yet… it felt like the longest.

The Hobbit by Rakin-Bass – 4.5/5

Before watching the Peter Jackson LOTR trilogy, I had to check out this strange Rankin-Bass adaptation.

Considering that their forte was mostly Christmas classics, I feel like this worked rather well.

I’m a huge fan of the animation and the music is way better than what ever they were doing in “Un Unexpected Journey”.

I wouldn’t say it’s a great substitute for reading the book, but it’s a solid adaptation. Definitely check it out if you haven’t already!

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by Peter Jackson – 5/5

After spending the past year reading these books for the first time and the past couple of days watching The Hobbit films, I am now absolutely floored at how great this adaptation is.

When reading the books, Fellowship ended up being my favorite. It’s such a fantastic start to an epic journey and it sets everything up in the most perfect way.

Those books are undoubtedly fantastic, but I wouldn’t say that they are better or lesser than this film. That’s what kinda blows my mind, cause so many adaptations fail to capture the wonder of the source material, yet here we are – Peter Jackson has fully realized the world of Middle Earth on screen and I don’t feel like we lost anything.

(Except Tom Bombadil. Peter Jackson you’re a COWARD! I didn’t say anything earlier, but Tom Bombadil is the best thing to happen in this universe and it’s an absolute shame that he isn’t featured in these movies. I will be doing a separate review detailing all of Mr. Bombadil’s merry adventures in the future.)

I watched the extended cut, which runs at almost 4 hours and you know what? Very rarely did I feel that length. I’d say there’s a couple of action sequences that go on a bit too long, but other than that, I loved my time here.

Starting the film with Bilbo writing the Red Book and narrating the “On Hobbit” section is both funny and charming. I love that first Ringwraith chase, as Frodo and the hobbits are on their way to Bree. Meeting Aragorn in the Inn was great.

Aragorn is actually a character that I didn’t click with much at all while reading the book, but now I fully get why people love him so much. I’d say that’s one thing Peter Jackson does exceptionally well – he sets up Aragorn’s quest for kingship early on, so that we have something to look forward to.

In the books, I had no idea that Aragorn would be the titular king in “Return of the King”. Maybe I’m stupid, but I don’t think Tolkien set that up as well as he could have.

Another thing that’s nice about this film is that the world building and lore is established pretty early on and in a fairly easy way to understand. Not a slight on the books, but there was times where Tolkien just had expository dialogue about people and places that my brain completely forgot.

Another big change is having Saruman and Gandalf meet early on. I’m so glad this is here. Not only does it show how powerful Saruman is, but also how much room Gandalf has to grow.

Speaking of Gandalf, he’s fantastic! I enjoyed his character a lot in the Hobbit films too and I’m looking forward to future moments throughout this trilogy. ALSO, the mines of Moria were undoubtedly epic. I can’t believe the Balrog looked better than most of the CGI in The Hobbit trilogy.

Honestly, there isn’t a sequence I didn’t enjoy. I’m glad that Boromir had a more meaningful prescene in the film. Lothlorian was just as beautiful as I imagined it to be. Howard Shore’s score is so good, it might as well be its own character in this world.

If I had to make any complaints, it’s that Merry and Pippin are kind of dumb. I mean, they kind of were in the book too, but… I don’t know. I didn’t love them. I’m expecting their character to get better alongside these next two films though.

By the way, I am a bit worried about the next two films. I shouldn’t be, but the books had big chunks that were a bit of a slog to get through. I guess we’ll see.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers by Peter Jackson – 4.5/5

When reading the books this past year, Two Towers was a bit of a slog. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty that I love about it, but I can’t lie and say that it was all fun. The pacing of the book made it hard to get through.

In Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien splits up the Fellowship into three separate parties. In The Two Towers, we see the fallout of this. Group One is Merry and Pippin, who got caught by the Orcs. Group Two is Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas, who track the two hobbits, hoping to save them. Lastly, Group Three is Frodo and Sam, who have gone by themselves to Mordor.

In many ways, I like this a lot. Not only does it help the story advance in much bigger ways, but it allows us to really dig deep into these characters and get to know them better before the final book takes place.

The unfortunate thing is Tolkien split The Two Towers into two seperate parts. Part One deals with most of the Merry/Pippin and Aragorn/Gimli/Legolas parts and Part Two deals with Frodo/Sam.

What this means, is that it takes half of the book to get to the stuff that I cared about the most – which was Frodo and Sam.

I bring all this up, because I really, really, really like that Peter Jackson doesn’t do this. Instead, we get a fairly balanced runtime, where we bounce back and forth between all three of our major parties.

Now, this film still dragged a bit for me in certain parts, but honestly, after having the foresight of reading the books, and again, knowing that the pacing is much more improved – I still enjoyed my time throughout most of this.

Frodo and Sam are absolutely my favorite part of this movie. Not only do we start to see more hints of Frodo being slowly corrupted by the ring, but we start to see more of Sam’s dedication to his friend too. This relationship is by far the most important one in this whole story and without one or the other, this world would be in mortal danger.

I also really like Gollum. He has this incredible duality in him, where you can’t decide whether he should be trusted or not. Clearly, he shouldn’t, but Frodo still sees good in him and Gandalf did say that he would have a part to play in all of this. Also, obviously, Andy Serkis is phenomenal in this role. The flipping back and forth between Gollum and Smeagol is so intriguing and I thought it was brought to life extremely well.

I do wish Frodo’s quest hadn’t been halted by Faramir and the men of Gondor. The biggest hurdle for me, when reading this book, was getting through all of the chapters about Faramir/Denethor and Eomer/Theoden. I now understand their part in this story and I actually appreciate it more, but I don’t get why Peter Jackson decided to halt the hobbits and have Faramir as an obstacle in the way that he did.

Speaking of the men in this story. I now realize that The Lord of the Rings has a lot to do with Frodo and the ring, but it also has a lot to do with the passing of the Third Age and the beginning of the Fourth Age of Middle Earth. The entire reason Aragon is so important to this story is that he is the future King of Men. Most of the ancient and magical people of the world pass on from Middle Earth, making the Fourth Age the “Age of Men”. This is something I didn’t realize fully until after finishing the books and it has made me appreciate Aragon’s (and the men of Rohan/Gondor) part in this story more.

With all of that said, these sections felt the longest to me. Sure, there’s the Battle of Helm’s Deep which acts as the climax of this film. It’s dope. I do like it. But I’ll be honest, it’s still not as interesting as everything else that happens in this story.

Seeing Theoden being corrupted by Saruman was cool. I absolutely LOVE that Gandalf comes back as Gandalf the White. I’m glad that Eowyn gets some of her character moments earlier on, so that I can actually care about her later.

Aragorn is still dope. Again, he’s another part of this story that I have appreciated more with these films. I like that Gimli and Legolas get some funny moments together. I’ve seen some complaints about Gimli being turned into comedic relief, but I have absolutely no qualms with that. His humor was leagues above the humor in The Hobbit movies and in the books, it was Gimli and Legolas’s friendship that I loved the most about these characters, so I’m glad we get some of that here.

In the context of this trilogy so far, I did like this a little bit less than Fellowship and it’s simply because there’s a lot of preparing for the Battle of Helm’s Deep.

Everything with the hobbits though is great. I will say that I wished I got a bit more from Merry and Pippin, but I can’t really argue about that, because what more could you have done? Audiences would definitely not enjoy an extra hour of the Ents talking, so I completely understand why that part of the film was pretty much a C-Plot. Definitely important, but not as important as everything else.

Anyways, I’m glad I’ve finally seen 2/3 of these movies. I’m very much looking forward to the conclusion.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King by Peter Jackson – 5/5

You gotta hand it to Tolkien. Not only did he create a magnificent work of art, but his ending is such a great finality to everything, that It leaves you incredibly satisfied.

Plus it means Hollywood can’t ever make a subpar sequel trilogy!

While it’s the longest one in the extended editions, totaling a hearty 4.5 hours, once again I loved just about everything here. This epic conclusion has great moments for every character. The film, once again, streamlines the plot, so that everything is paced in the most perfect way.

I was a little let down by The Two Towers, because we didn’t get as much Frodo/Sam as I would’ve liked, but honestly, I’m glad they moved the Shelob section to this film.

I love how much of an interesting character Gollum is. He was great in the books, but seeing his full arc brought to life by Andy Serkis is still so, so cool. I also love the Mount Doom sequence. The tension between Frodo, Sam, and Gollum is top notch.

Plus, I gotta say – Sam is the GOAT.

Merry and Pippin also fully come into their own here. It’s still crazy to me how little their roles seem at first, but by the end, each play such a pivotal role in the defense of Gondor and Rohan. Seeing everybody at the end bow to the hobbits definitely made me shed some tears. It’s just such an awesome celebratory moment for them.

Aragorn finally accepting his role as king was even better for me in the films, than in the books. The Dead Army that he commands was also a really dope visual, with that final battle easily being the best in the trilogy for me.

I still really like the bromance between Legolas and Gimli. They have such an interesting and fun dynamic together and I couldn’t help but laugh everytime they compared their kill count.

Gandalf is still great. Love that dude. It’s great to see him and Bilbo go off together at the end.

The end of Saruman was something that I do like more in the books, but I get why they changed it here and it made for better pacing, since all eyes turned immediately to Sauron.

I’ve seen some people complain about how long the ending(s) are, but trust me, they handle this better in the films. The last 100 pages of the book is just wrap-up and 30 of those pages have to do with Faramir and Eowyn falling in love. So I’ll take this version any day.

I do wish we got the Scouring of the Shire adapted, but I can imagine that would’ve taken at least another 45 minutes to show. Plus, they killed of Saruman early so, I get it.

I think that’s all I have to say for now. This was such an epic trilogy that I am so glad I’ve finally seen. I will absolutely end up watching these again in the future and honestly, it’s probably my favorite trilogy now. I can’t think of anything else that even comes close.

And that’s it! That’s all of –

The Lord of the Rings by Ralph Bakshi – 2/4

Just when I thought I had finished watching all of The Lord of the Rings for the first time, this 1978 animated adaptation reared its stinking head.

It’s not that I hated this, cause there’s definitely some creativity at work here, it’s just… this is a project that had way more ambition than skill. The animation is atrocious at times (Most of time tbh). Some characters were live action, others were rotoscoped and drawn over, even some of the more cartoony characters had awful designs.

Pacing is another thing that needed more work. I get that they only had one movie to tell this massive story, but in the same movie that briefly skipped over the introduction to the Fellowship, we also get a 5+ minute “action” scene where the Black Riders are doing fortnite dances in a field.

I also wish this movie had captured the wonder of the original book more. By making Sam Gamgee look horrendous and barely spending any time with the hobbits, this film never felt as cozy and down to earth as the books did. Conversely, this film never captured the epiccness of certain scenes either. Even though there are action scenes, they mostly just ended up being confusing.

There are a few things that I like. The background art is fantastic. A lot of the voice acting was solid. The direction is also mostly solid. There are multiple scenes that utilize different angles and shots to tell the story. In a lesser film, more scenes would have been facing one angle the whole time.

When it comes down to it, there certainly is a lot of creativity in this film, it just comes at the cost of not having the skills, budget, or resources to quite pull it off.

Final Thoughts

And THAT is the end of my Middle Earth journey… for now.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time with these books and films and who knows, I’ll probably end up revisiting them in the future. Behind rewatches and rereads though is the extended universe.

Should I read the Silmarillion?

What about playing some of the video games? I checked out Shadow of Mordor a long time ago, and while I liked it, I got distracted and didn’t get super far into it.

What I’m mostly interested in is the rest of the fantasy genre. A whole pantheon of worlds was just opened up to me. Will I enjoy other fantasy writers as much as I enjoyed Tolkien’s? Or will most of them be just pale imitations?

Let me know! What’s worth checking out? I’ll add it to my never-ending library of future possibilities.