The only way to (One) Ring in the New Year

Happy New Year, all! While most people are content with an intake of friends and champagne on New Year’s Eve, I have realized that there are reasons I edit science fiction—and very few of them have to do with my being one of the “cool” people. Now, granted, I’m sure there are people who might say I’m just being modest (thanks, Grandma), but I think self-awareness is one of my better traits, and, well, after I explain my holiday tradition, I think you’ll be able to judge for yourself if I am being fair to mine person.

For I am a New Year’s Eve marathoner: a person who plants his posterior on a couch and watches—wait for it—all three movies in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The extended versions. For those of you who don’t want to whip out your abacus, that amounts to almost half-a-day of Frodo, Samwise, Aragorn, and Gandalf doing their thing across the splendor of Middle-earth.

Now, there are other sci-fi draws on this day—Sci-Fi Channel has wonderfully picked up where the ol’ New York WPIX left off with the “Twilight Zone” marathon, but with the advent of TiVo, the need (and desire) to sit through a day of commercial television seems paltry and weak compared to the majesty of a little Hobbit-on-Orc action (please keep your thoughts, like the movies, firmly in the realm of PG-13, thank you). So those can be enjoyed later, at my leisure, whereas to watch the whole of Peter Jackson’s opus-like vision of Mr. Tolkien’s opus (collectively: their “opi”), back-to-back-to-back not only fulfills some deep-seated nerd-need, but also bows to a skewed logic that I crave.

This tradition started a few years ago, when I was young and impressionable, and my father suggested we should watch all the movies in a row. Understand: while I am a Tolkien fan, I am also of the opinion (and I am ready to stoically accept the cries of “Blasphemy!” which this next statement is sure to produce) that the movies are better than the books.

Yeah, I know. Ouch.

But I have my reasons: I grew up reading all the people who had themselves grown up reading Tolkien—people like David Eddings, Terry Brooks, and, well, every Dragonlance author TSR could trot out. So, by the time I finally got around to reading The Lord of the Rings, I’ll admit that I found the books to be a bit … tiresome. My father—a man who can watch the movies and point out where a line should have been in the course of the novels (and which character should have uttered it)—almost wrote me out of his will when I told him that. But since I appreciate the movies so much (and still think The Hobbit to be one of the greatest stories, ever), he decided to let such an infraction slide.

He also realized he doesn’t actually have a will, but that’s another matter entirely.

Having done this done this marathon with my parents for three years now (yes, ladies—still single!), I have realized a few things that make such an endeavor possible:

1. Wear comfortable clothes. Face it—you’re going to be a lazy slob for at least thirteen hours, so dress appropriately. While you might think it fun to wear your Gondor Infantry helmet, it probably is going to give you a headache. It might block your vision a bit, too.
2. Make sure you have a snack/beverage plan. You need to have readily accessible munchables that are not overly elaborate in their preparation. Our first year, we kept making little appetizer-like gnoshes, which stretched out the breaks times and really didn’t add to the overall experience. Too, while alcoholic beverages might seem like a nice accompaniment, go for the caffeine. Having recently forsaken the daily intake of caffeine, I made sure to break that for LOTR Day. I mean, it takes two hours for them to leave the Shire! You’re going to want some sort of stimulant.
3. Break times. As the movies are broken up onto two discs each, there are five natural break points, so use them accordingly: use the bathroom, refresh your drink and snack options, and—this is important—stretch. It may seem stupid, but your body is going to fight you on this, and getting the blood flowing will trick it into another two hours of lethargy. It’s not called a “marathon” for nothing—this is an endurance sport!
4. No talking. Maybe this is just a family thing (Yes, I will watch with you, but that doesn’t mean I need to interact with you), but if we didn’t have this rule, we could be making comments throughout the whole thing. Comments, for me, invariably lead to thinking I’m Tom Servo, and the thing is I like these movies. Once I start riffing on a movie, I won’t stop, so it’s best to put the kibosh on the kibbutzing.
5. No pausing! We’ve all seen the movies, so if, for some reason, someone needs to get up, the disc keeps spinning. The worst of this was, the first year we did it, my dad paused halfway through The Return of the King to wish my mom and I a “Happy New Year!” Having been sitting through over ten hours of movie at that point, we were in no mood for such nonsense, and after being verbally chastised (and pelted with various cookies—we were at the cookie phase of our snack-deployment) he realized never to do it again. Even now, when he sees it’s after midnight and wishes us a “Happy New Year,” I can feel my mom tense up, as if she’s about to beat him about the head and neck with a sock full of holiday clementines. She doesn’t, but I can sense it.
6. Have fun! Remember, if you start taking this too seriously (setting up an over/under for orcs slain; groaning every time Legolas starts acting like the guy at the party with a new iPhone and explicates things for us without bothering to use context …), you’re not going to enjoy yourself. And, when you throw in the fact that you’re risking bed-sores for the sake of these films, getting angry that Jackson couldn’t figure out when to end the last movie, or didn’t include the scouring of the Shire, or dismissed the joyful absurdity of Tom Bombadil … well, you just need to let those things slide. Because don’t forget:

You can always read the book.

Happy New Year!