The Nature of Things

I discovered J.R.R. Tolkien, like many of my generation, in college. I read the trilogy, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and I was transported. I reread the books many times over the years. In fact, for several years, it was my annual ritual to reread The Lord of the Rings , so all those years later, in 2001, I was excitedly anticipating the release of Peter Jackson's filmed version of the first book in the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring . I wasn't disappointed. I thought it was a wonderful movie and I've rewatched it many times. I should mention that in the intervening years between college and 2001, I had had two children to whom I had passed on my love of Tolkien and when the first movie came out, we went to see it together. And the same for the next two. We enjoyed them all, though, for my money, The Fellowship of the Ring was still the best of the lot because it was closest to the book. When it was announced that there was going to be a Hobbit movie, I loo...