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75 reasons why you should read “The Hobbit” before watching the films

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Posted by TheTolkienist on Sep 22, 2012 | 5 comments

75 reasons why you should read “The Hobbit” before watching the films

Starting September 22nd, 2012 thetolkienist.com will host a series of articles from experts, artists and fans why you should read J.R.R. Tolkien’s children’s book classic, The Hobbit, before watching the upcoming film trilogy by Peter Jackson with a first film premiere on December 13th, 2012. It is an ongoing project supported by 75 people from all over the world who would want you to appreciate the unique story that is The Hobbit.

For a very simple reason: Reading a book is an experience that is very different from watching a film. Whereas literature leaves mental pictures open to the individual imagination of any reader a film draws in its audience by presenting pictures in a (hopefully) very creative and fascinating way. Therefore, if you watch the film trilogy by Peter Jackson first you will -in all probability- not be able to come up with your own pictures but will be stuck with his interpretation and that would be great loss for any reader of this wonderful book.
This series is not about telling you not to watch those films – not at all. Peter Jackson and his team have proven over the years that they are passionate, creative and successful film makers whose works rightfully deserve to be watched. However, due to the simple fact that this website hosts this series you may expect very clear statements about this topic from people who have J.R.R. Tolkien’s works first and foremost in mind.
This series has been planned and organised by the Tolkienist, Marcel Aubron-Bülles. Any inquiries should be directed to him at marcel@thetolkienist.com.
1. Brian Sibley. 2. Verlyn Flieger. 3. David Bratman. 4. Chris Seeman. 5. Tom Shippey. 6. Colin Duriez. 7. Guglielmo Spirito. 8. Douglas A. Anderson. 9. Dimitra Fimi. 10. Michael Drout. 11. Thomas Honegger 12. Paul Vigor.

Participants in this series include: Verlyn Flieger, Tom Shippey, Brian Sibley, Colin Duriez, Pieter Collier, Jonathan Fruoco and many more.

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  • Bywater Bob

    Marcel,
    This is a wonderful idea. I eagerly await the posts.
    BB

    • http://www.dertolkienist.de/ Marcel Aubron-Bülles

      Dear Bywater Bob,

      many fellow Tolkienists have been talking about this for quite some time and I suggested we should do a small project out of it. If we can get people to read the book/s then I am more than happy!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1310456260 Troels Forchhammer

    I really love this idea and all of the articles so far. Good work!

    I notice that as of today (September 30th), David Bratman’s article from September 28th has not yet been listed under “The articles so far” – as someone wishing to direct others to this series of posts, it is of great value for me if such an internal directory is kept updated.