Just seen it. As you may know, I am very skeptical, if not downright negative towards the movies. However, I am also very optimistic and hoping for the best even if I am prepared for the worst. So I have put away all my prejudices and started watching this completely without any presuppositions, and was looking forward to interpretate everything as positively as possible.
For those of you who liked the trailer a lot, I suggest you don't read any further and just go and enjoy the movie.
For those who continue reading: it was one of the worst things I have seen in a while.
It is still only a trailer, of course. And I am sure the agenda was to show "look, we are making a LotR prequel here" (why else to, e.g., put the Narsil scene there? Random). I can understand that and that is not what troubles me. After all, that was to be expected. But putting these things aside, I still think it does look very, very bad.
I think
Mith summed up my general opinion quite well:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mithalwen
Yawwwwwwwwwwwn... apart from Galadriel sharing a tender moment with Gandalf it is same old same old....
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It is a trailer, so maybe it will have different mood (like some of the "fun scenes" like the Dwarves falling through the door), but, in short:
- too much like LotR. Yes, I think it looks like it will succeed in being in line with LotR movies. If that's what they wish (I assume they do), then they seem to be managing that, but that's
not The Hobbit for me.
- too "serious" - that is partially going along with the previous comment
- too much like LotR and too serious: means epic battles with Trolls, means "Gandalf walks around some place which looks like Moria", means back again the same Gollum - this is
not The Hobbit for me. Where is the feeling of the merry adventure? Where is the feeling of the "this is not really such a serious business as throwing the Ring into Mount Doom"? This does not even look like Indiana Jones (to which the treasure hunting idea could possibly be compared in terms of movies), it looks even far darker and more serious than Indiana Jones, and there is certainly something wrong with that kind of approach!
All this "deep, mysterious, we are being serious here" atmosphere is too much. Thorin whispering to Gandalf in this deep and serious tone. Thorin is supposed to be
annoyed. Not
serious. Too wrong.
- Thorin looks like somebody who has just escaped from Game of Thrones into the wrong movie. (And I am saying that even though I have not seen GoT).
- the worst thing ever: the Dwarven singing. Or: not exactly. When all of them start to sing, it is fine (even though not the way I imagine it). But Thorin alone = reminds me of Aragorn singing in the extended LotR (and that said, I actually did almost quite
like Aragorn singing that - if I convinced myself that it is NOT the song of Lúthien, since I don't most certainly imagine it that way - but here, for Dwarf? Come ON!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar
But, but - there are no instruments at Bag End!!!  I want to see fiddles and flutes and viols and clarinets and a drum and a harp!  |
That too. Although if I stretched my expectations for a good TH movie, I would have been able to forgive even that to PJ - but making it sound the same like (his own-made!) Dúnedain songs - why? Why??? There is no answer to that question, why should Dwarven and Númenorean songs about ancient forgotten past of their race be the same??? This is not anything against the song itself, but it is not a Dwarven song. Most certainly it is not THE Dwarven song. Sorry.
- one thing which is nice in the trailer, really beautiful: the first large scenery where the Dwarves go towards the mountains. Forest in the foreground, mountains in the background. But that was also the one thing nice about LotR. But these epic beautiful wide sceneries are not enough for a good movie. Maybe if it was a nature documentary. Or travel documentary. "Survey M-E with our 13 Dwarves and Mr. Baggins from National Geographic!" But the story needs... story. And characters. And most of all, it should have at least a
bit of the Hobbit mood.
I was originally talking to
Lommy when I first saw this and told her exactly these things. At one point, she mentioned something like that "surely it could have been worse". And that made me think.
No, from what I have seen this far, I
don't think it could have been worse than this. I am sorry. Despite all my best hopes - my best hopes were crushed. I did not believe they will be. But they were. It's all wrong.
I am, of course, still expecting to see more. This was just one small trailer. This is by no means final judgement. But first impression - I give you F-.