Lord of the Rings: Then and Back Again


 So first I want to talk about the Lord of the Rings series. It was wonderful. Due to the hard work of all of the great actors, including (but not at ALL limited to) Sean Astin, Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom, Liv Tyler, Andy Serkis, Sean Bean, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Christopher Lee, Ian Holm, and Hugo Weaving... and the amazing directing by Peter Jackson, this is a beautiful work of art that became an instant classic and totally stands the test of time.

It's worth watching over and over. It's one of the very VERY few movies that seems to never end. I felt like it was ending about six times, and then it kept going. Indiana Jones felt that way, too, but with only like three endings. But man, I can't recommend the original trilogy highly enough. WATCH IT. No nudity, I don't believe there's even any strong language, and only stylized violence. 

The following movies, made up of the Hobbit stretched a little too thin over a cracker in order, it seemed, to make more money, was good quality but not as good as the original. And the new series on Amazon Prime is trying REALLY HARD to recapture the magic of the original series, but mostly failing. The writing is pretty awful. The only thing they seemed to get right is the scenery, which is pretty great. I haven't finished watching the new series yet, so I'll let you know my final verdict when I do.

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