Quote:
Originally Posted by LordPhillock
Hey all, in light of this, I decided to write my own review on "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Prequel Trilogy" after being sorely reluctant to go and see it. Since I know most of you are well-spoken and intellectual about it, I thought I'd also share my views on what went down with my first (and only) cinema-going look at the film. I'm guessing it fits right in here.
Oh, enjoy the sketches too. |
This is comparable in some ways to my own full review
http://opinionscanbewrong.blogspot.c...d-journey.html I think your points about Martin Freeman's Bilbo are particularly noteworthy. While I found him very watchable, his typical sense of bemused resignation to all the insanity around him didn't seem to mesh that well with Bilbo's combination of reluctance and burgeoning enthusiasm for adventure (even as presented in the film's own dialogue).
I also enjoyed your use of "Playstation 3" as a reference to the more artifical elements of the film. I've noted a lot of comments about "video game" moments in "An Unexpected Journey". I'm surprised, actually, that "The Hobbit: The Game" is not already flooding the shelves. Given how episodic the source material is it's interesting that some viewers got this added impression of "video game" structure in the film. Personally I think that's related to the way the Dwarves (and Bilbo to an extent) were made more "realistic" for the film, which in modern Hollywood terms mostly means "more violent". In the novel each episode is an encounter which has to be overcome in a different way: by trickery (the Trolls), by simply running away (Goblin Town) or by good fortune (the Eagles). In the film each of these events is to a extent maintained, but embellished with extra action. So Thorin poking Tom in the eye with a burning stick and Bifur and Bombur fighting "like mad" becomes a glorious charge with axes all 'round, Gandalf and Thorin turning at bay to fight Goblins in tunnels becomes that extravaganza of ladders, swinging platforms, Kķli swatting arrows out of the air and so on, and "fifteen birds in five fir-trees" becomes Thorin getting instantly smacked down by Azog (and looking like an absolute plum duff in the process, so much for "one I could call King"), Bilbo having a dust-up with an Orc and so on. We also have that extraneous additional chase to Rivendell and the mind-boggling encounter with the stone-giants. If they'd trimmed a lot of this the film might have been less conventionally exciting but it would to my mind have been significantly less generic as well, and wouldn't have been as needlessly long as it was. When I hear about material which was left on the cutting room floor, not always book-based but certainly more character-building, like Bilbo exploring Rivendell, Saruman discussing the Seven Rings and Glóin talking about his family I'm staggered by some of the content they left in.
Even though I personally find the films of
The Lord of the Rings to be largely unenjoyable even on their own merits, besides being (to me) rather poor adaptations, I feel that in hindsight they were significantly more audacious in terms of their pacing and development than "An Unexpected Journey", which I think feels very 'Hollywood-safe' by comparison. Only giving Bilbo (or Thorin) a romantic subplot would have made it more unambitious to my mind.
I notice that you are the composer of the much-lauded Youtube Audiobook of
The Lord of the Rings with film soundtrack. Are you intending to do one for
The Hobbit? And if so, would your disappointment with the soundtrack for "An Unexpected Journey" be an impediment to that? I recorded my own audiobook of
The Lord of the Rings about eighteen months ago (not up to your professional standard) and am in the middle of a recording of
The Hobbit at present, partly out of simple desire but to a lesser extent also because I feel the need in the wake of the films to really re-establish my own grasp on the original text in a "dramatic" way.