Why I Love Lord Of The Rings

This article explains why I love Lord of the Rings so much.

The Lord of the Rings (LOTR for short in this lens), is my favourite book of all time and for so many different reasons.

I love LOTR: I love the books, and I love the movies and games that have been inspired by them (more on them later).

It inspires me!

There, I said it.

In fact, the reason I am writing this lens is that I was digging around in the loft the other week and found a box.

It felt fairly heavy, but I didn't know what was in it.

I got it down and when we looked inside, I found a set of old board games which I used to play in my teens.

One of those games was an obscure I.C.E. Game called "Fellowship of the Ring", based of course on my beloved books.

My son and I immediately got to work on the rules and although it's pretty complicated, we worked out how to play it and had a great time.

I will put some more details about the games later on, but for now ...on with the show!

Picture: my very own Lord of the Rings book box set by me.

The Real Thing

As I said above LOTR (the book) is my favourite of all time.

"But why?", I hear you cry.

Well, I'm glad you asked me that.

I love the story.

I love the themes.

I love the epic scale, the feeling that you are reading about history in the making (even if it is a made up history!).

It has sentimental value for me: my granny bought me my first all-in-one copy when I was about 10 and I've never been the same since!

I'll explore some more of these topics in future posts.

My first copy was in one volume and was a gift to me by my granny.

The pages were paper thin (pun intended), but it had great artwork on the front,

I have kept it safe for many years, even though I have bought a separate box set in three parts.

One of my favourite aspects of LOTR is that of friendship.

It's a theme that runs throughout the books and has been modelled fairly well in the movies too.

Frodo and Sam are the obvious examples here.

Sam, with his down-to-earth optimism, honour, steadfast loyalty and courage is badly needed by Frodo; more so as they reach the end of their quest.

These are qualities that I think are all to often missing in our modern world, as they are seen as "old fashioned".

Other characters are not left out of this equation either.

I can think of Merry and Pippin, Gimli and Legolas and even people like Beregond (the tower guard at Minas Tirith - sorry he's not in the movie!)

I have read that Tolkien was highly impressed by the character of the everyday soldiers during his time in the Trenches in WW1.

My understanding is that he based the character of Sam on these people and I think it shows!

I came across this interesting site that shows pictures of all the book covers that have been used for Lord Of The Rings, from when it was first published, up until the present day.

I share it here for your interest.

There was a storm of fury on both sides of the Atlantic when Lord of the Rings was first released as a boxed set on Blu-ray and DVD.

Why?

Because it only included the "theatrical" versions of the movies, not the extended editions, and didn't have all the extras that many fans wanted.

Do you love or hate the LOTR movie Extended Editions?

If so, then let us know why!

I think the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions are:

So "The Hobbit" movie is out!

Are you like me and can't wait to see it?

Are you jumping up and down with excitement, or are you cool about it?

Sadly, I don't think I am likely to get to it until the New Year (but there is always hope)!

These days it seems that movies are only out for 5 minutes before they appear on Blu ray or DVD.

Well, now it's here ...Roll on December for the next installment!

The first time I watched part 1, I was in shock as I thought they had changed it too much from the book.

However, having watched it again with my kids, I enjoyed it a lot more second time round. Once you've accepted how they have linked it in with the LOTR movies (very cleverly, I might add), then it makes a lot more sense and is still a great story.

If you really can't wait for the DVD to come out, watch the trailer to remind you how great the movie is!

You can also see a sneak peak for movie number 2 - due out any day now.

Here's a number of Xbox games that have been inspired by Lord of the Rings over the past few years.

You may not be able to get some of these now, but it just shows how much interest there has been.

Here's some other kinds of games around the Lord Of The Rings Theme.

You wouldn't think there were so many different variations on the same thing, but there are and they all play differently!

Do you like the books?

Do you love/hate the movies?

Do you play the games?

Why do you like, or not like them???

Tell us, precious!