Back to Middle Earth

Early this morning some of my favorite folk and I went back to middle earth after a long absence.
The almost three hours we spent back there wasn't nearly long enough.
From 12:01 a.m. until almost 3 a.m. we travelled back to the shire, to rivendell, to moria, among other places in "The Hobbit" at a special showing.
It's not surprising that we were all excited after our nine year wait for its premier.
We loved it, because:

• It was enough like the Trilogy to feel familiar and enough unlike them to keep us interested.
• A lot of our favorite characters were portrayed once again by their Trilogy actors. It was fabulous seeing  Elijah Wood as Frodo, Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Cate Blanchett as Lady Galadriel, Hugo Weaving as Elrond, once again.
• Characters particular to the Hobbit were well played. I especially loved the brown wizard and his rabbit sled (though what looked to be bird poo on his beard bothered me!)
• The dwarves with their personas and personalities were charming.
• The links between bridging time and story line, especially those involving the young Bilbo and Gollum moved us along the journey nicely.
•  The familiar and altogether new were woven together by Howard Shore's soundtrack and by dialogue cleverly creating a seamless thread of the tale(s).
• The cinematography was amazing, as before.

Even my husband who is not such a big fan admitted it did not seem like an almost three hour long movie. I am hoping that means he will go back with me to visit again soon!