There are dwarves inside my head, singing their plangent tunes of yearning and longing and sorrow and homesickness and the good times, before hubris struck, when dwarves were cashed up and powerful and lived in sumptuous surroundings, and folk from all over Middle Earth tipped their hats to them. All together now:
Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.
The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells,
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.
The rest of the movie lyrics for Over the Misty Mountains Cold are here, where you can also catch up on all things Thorin Oakenshieldish.
The Hobbit is exactly what you expect it to be. Wonderfully padded with plenty of asides for Tolkien fans, with characters taking time out to sing and eat and tell tales and give swords their proper names and due respect, as well as lots of old friends dropping by to catch up with us and each other and, continuity-wise, set the 'something Evil lurks in the shadows' vibe for LOTR. It's as comfy as bed socks and pyjamas in Winter, just with orcs. And trolls. BIG trolls. You can never have too many trolls. I actually prefer them to the orcs. Less gnashing of teeth and grunting, more personality and comedy. Disgusting as they are, the trolls of Middle Earth nonetheless know how to use the word whom correctly, I noticed. If Peter Jackson ever does a George Lucas and fiddles with the first three movies, I'm thinking he needs to go back and add a few well-spoken trolls to LOTR.
In fact, after today's rich, Tolkienesque serving of The Hobbit, I feel like digging out the LOTR box set, extended version of course, and heading back to Middle Earth for another heaped helping. Not today (I'm stuffed), but sometime soon. It'll be interesting to see how the whole eventually ties up once the next two movies of The Hobbit trilogy have been delivered for our viewing pleasure.
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