If you've already read the book many years ago, read it again. Instead, read the book, and encourage your kids (11 years or older) to do the same. Here is my recommendation: Ignore the movie. My point is that it really is just more of the same, and nothing new. If you liked Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, then I guess you'll like seeing more of the same. It becomes the same dull story about walking around Middle Earth, with brief periods of running from orcs. The 'Silmarillion' was a crappy book and makes for a crappy movie.Īs such, Jackson's movie misses all the child-like whimsy of the Hobbit. It draws heavily from Tolkien's backstory and lore, such as that found in books like 'The Silmarillion'. Jackson warps the story to serve as a prequel to his Lord of the Rings. Almost immediately, it starts in the real adult world. Jackson's movie isn't this children's story of the book. I'm not trying to analyze the book as an adult, but communicate how I felt as a child. I'm probably just ineptly repeating what sophisticated literary criticism has already came up with. It's exactly the journey a child will go through. He comes in contact with the much larger world, full of evil and beauty, in which the Shire or 'home' really is just one small part. But, in going on the adventure, Bilbo grows up. The Hobbit begins with this small view of the world, where Bilbo is content with his little corner of the world, where nothing but the Shire really exists. It's this point of view that's at the center of other children's books, from Peter Pan, to Harry Potter, to the Hunger Games. Santa Claus is plausible not because we believed he could visit a billion homes in one night, but because in our minds, the world simply wasn't that big. There is home, school, but anything more than a few miles away doesn't exist. A child has a narrow view of the universe. It's the first 'adult' book I can remember reading. Peter Jackson's movie has ruined my childhood memories, so I thought I'd write a review.

The silmarillion reviews