Welcome to Middle Earth

The 22^nd of September is known as Hobbit Day. Why? Because that is the shared birthday of the two best known hobbits…Bilbo and Frodo Baggins; lead characters in The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings respectively. If those names mean nothing to you then you may as well stop reading now! 

Middle Earth is a land invented by JRR Tolkien and is the location for the story he wrote for his children in 1937 – The Hobbit. The Lord Of The Rings was originally intended as a sequel but ended up as a much more scholarly tome. It managed to steer a course between pedagogical, academic exercise and crowd pleasing, page turner. 

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It hasn’t been out of print since the release in 1954 and has gone on to sell over 150 million copies translated into about forty languages. In 2003, the BBC commissioned a poll to find Britain’s best loved novels. The Big Read produced a list of the two hundred most favourite novels according to British readers: The Lord Of The Rings came in at number one while The Hobbit was twenty five.

Obviously, any book that is that popular is going to be adapted for stage, screen, and radio. Not to mention board games, video games, and audiobooks. Having said that, there really aren’t that many! That’s down to size and scope which is often what hobbles fantasy adaptations. Unsurprisingly, the only adaptations made before this century tend to be radio and animated efforts.

Anyway, here’s a list of what we’ve written around the great work and what we may do in the future.

Articles

A history of Tolkien’s works and adaptations

A rather good film biography of Tolkien

A fan film short – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Parody

What people are saying
about the RunPee app.

dd33803, 07/05/2023

This is a great app. I wish more people would support it

This app provides info about movies, reviews, ratings from people who have seen it before and after viewing. It has links to info about the movies. It let’s you know when there will be a lull in the action and how long it will last. If you want to know what happens during that time, you can check the brief synopsis (you have to click a link, so no accidental spoilers). It has a timer you can set (silent) to alert you to a break. It also tells you whether there is anything extra during or after the credits. It’s really a wonderful app. I’ve subscribed for a couple of years to support the developers, but I noticed some of the links to provide feedback didn’t seem to work today. They also made it free, with voluntary donations to see the pee-times. If you haven’t tried it, I encourage you to do so, and subscribe if you like it. I really hope the app is supported so it can continue to be maintained!

Developers note: RunPee doesn’t make much money but it supports itself nicely. Donations are appreciated, but not required. We’ll add as many movies to the database as we can until there are no more movie theaters.

View all reviews: Apple App Store | Google Play Store

     

Actor Biographies

Benedict Cumberbatch – Smaug in the Peter Jackson Hobbit adaptations

Martin Freeman – Bilbo Baggins in the Peter Jackson Hobbit adaptations

Ian McKellen – Gandalf in all six of Peter Jackson’s adaptations

Ian Holm – Bilbo Baggins in the Peter Jackson Lord Of The Rings adaptations, Frodo Baggins in the 1981 Radio Adaptation of Lord Of The Rings

Bill Nighy – Sam Gamgee in the 1981 Radio Adaptation of Lord Of The Rings

John Hurt – Aragorn in the 1978 animated feature film.

Film Adaptations

1978 – The Lord Of The Rings

2001 – The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring

2002 – The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers

2003 – The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

2012 – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

2013 – The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

2014 – The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies

Rob Williams

Former teacher, lecturer, homelessness administrator, pharmacy dispenser now happily retired, happily married, and a very happy granddad. I live next to the Mersey but on the side Daniel Craig and Taron Egerton come from rather than the side the Beatles came from!