An Unexpected Journey, or the morning after

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by davem

So, certainly annoying in parts but to actually see Bag End, Moria, Minas Tirith, Erebor.... to encounter those characters in the (digital) flesh, well..... I think you'd have to be very churlish & ungrateful to wish they hadn't happened at all.

Actually, that is about the last thing I like about the movies. I did not need to see a portrayal of Bag End or Moria which are fundamentally different from how I imagine them and thus disrupt my imagination of them. I am a very "landscape-visual-type" person. In fact, I would possibly say that I would have preferred not to see a movie adaptation, if we put the stress on the word "adaptation". But it is a nice movie. I would be equally happy to watch any other movie which I would find likeable. However, I guess here comes the dimension of, perhaps, curiosity, or evaluation from the point of view of a fan, who can say "okay, this was handled well" and "okay, this was handled interestingly" (and, of course, "this was screwed up"). And as for the dimension of introducing new fans, of course, that's no debate.

There are some very annoying things, some points where Jackson seems to have let the technology run wild & also to have failed to rein in his imagination. I agree that the stone giants episode went too far - a glimpse would have been more powerfully evocative. Plus it was yet another point at which the characters, if real physical beings, would have simply died. Jackson seems to have no understanding of the effect of physical force (or fire!) on bodies. I don't care that Dwarves are physically stronger than humans, they wouldn't have survived that - & certainly Bilbo wouldn't.

Absolutely. That is what basically annoyed me the most especially this time (in LotR, it was present too, but I think less - the one thing I can think of was the "balancing on falling stairs" part in Moria, aside from Legolas stunts etc.).

Again, I think we''ll have to reserve full judgement till we can watch the whole thing.

When returning from the cinema, we met a guy who asked us about the movie and asked if it isn't annoying to have to wait for the following movies. That's when I realised: I don't care. For me, the movie is finished, and how I rate the rest, is a different thing. For the moment. Of course, once all the movies are out, I can rate them all together. But I can also rate them separately, and evaluate them separately, and have no problem with that. For example, I am able to tell you that Two Towers was easily one of the worst movies ever, while Fellowship was still quite nice.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Legate

Absolutely. That is what basically annoyed me the most especially this time (in LotR, it was present too, but I think less - the one thing I can think of was the "balancing on falling stairs" part in Moria, aside from Legolas stunts etc.).

I can think of a few points in LotR - Boromir hurled a good 20 feet across the Chamber of Mazarbul into a stone wall & then getting up & shaking his head & getting straight back into the fight, Frodo falling the equivalent of 20 feet from the the Seat of Seeing onto his back & not even being winded, Aragorn's fall over the cliff & Denethor's infamous 3 mile human torch sprint ... I don't think Jackson gets that if you do that with your characters you can't then suddenly switch to giving them normal physical vulnerability in the next scene & expect the audience to believe it. When Thorin was beaten unconscious at the end I was convinced, after all he'd been through without even being fazed, that he was faking it - & that actually spoiled the impact of the scene as I was expecting him to jump up & behead Azog any second.


.

For example, I am able to tell you that Two Towers was easily one of the worst movies ever, while Fellowship was still quite nice.

I can watch Fellowship as a stand alone film, but not either of the others, but I can (only done this once btw) watch all of them back to back - I suspect this is because Fellowship provides the necessary momentum....

John D Rateliff (author of History of the Hobbit) gives his thoughts http://sacnoths.blogspot.co.uk/ I pretty much agree with his points when it comes to his likes.

As to the 3D - again, I just didn't see the point of it. It was well done but I don't think it would have been missed. I read recently that Jackson has decided against converting LotR into 3D. I'd like to see it again in 2D now I know what's coming. I'll save my review proper for then.

[Rikae]

Well, I thought the Goblin King and the battle with the goblins were so awful, so cheesy and over-the-top, that they overshadowed everything I did enjoy: the look of Goblin town and Erebor, the portrayals of Bilbo and the dwarves (and of course Gollum and Gandalf), the dwarves' song, in fact, pretty much the whole thing up to that point. I thought I was watching King Kong for a second there.
What it boils down to: if you are Peter Jackson and you feel something needs more "humor" or "action", you should handcuff yourself to the nearest wall.

[Boromir88]

I had a good laugh from this:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/i...lm.single.html

Two Slate employees, who had not seen the LOTR movies, nor read any of Tolkien's books, give their Hobbit review

[Lalwendë]

Yes, the stunts were unbelievable. However, they didn't detract from it for me because I've become more or less immune to them after years and years of watching TV and films with equally unbelievable stunts. I blame The Matrix!

A thought strikes me that films such as The Hobbit will always be at a disadvantage with obsessed fans like us. This is because the original text is so overwhelmingly powerful at creating strong inner visuals, and even Tolkien admitted that for each reader, this visual would be different. In On Fairy Stories he says that each reader, when they encounter say the word 'tree' then what they see is his or her own picture of a 'tree', on an almost elemental level. So when a film director (or indeed an artist) shows us his or her 'tree' then the odds are stacked against it being like what we have seen.

Bearing that in mind, I have been to see each and every one of Jackson's films with an open heart and mind, realising that his vision will be different to my own. His landscapes are the most wildly different for me. Much of Middle-earth looks a bit like Lancashire or Scotland to me!

I have to throw in another point that I didn't cover yesterday fully. The acting was totally superb. The Dwarves often have little individual personaility to me in the text but the film really did bring them out, some in particular. James Nesbit wasn't an actor I especially liked but he steals several scenes in The Hobbit as Bofur, and I want his hat. Ken Stott's turn as Balin was touching. Graham McTavish as Dwalin was frightening, like a proper nutter. Mark Hadlow as Dori was great - I liked his scene with the camomile tea/red wine. Loved Adam Brown as Ori (playing him as the Much the Miller's Son of the group). Aidan Turner and Dean O'Gorman are not at all like Legolas and played the parts of young laddish Dwarves very well. You don't need me to say just how good Richard Armitage was as Thorin - he owned the role.

Martin Freeman was as perfect for Bilbo as I knew he would be.

I need to see it all again in 2D and enjoy it more rather than be distracted by bits of gubbins flying at me from out of the screen while I fiddle with plastic shades...

[MCRmyGirl4eva]

I'm going on a double date tonight to see it. SO. FREAKING. EXCITED!!!!

I'm just hoping that it won't differ from the book too much, like LOTR did.

[Bêthberry]

Taking a nod from Boro, here's more chuckles about the film, courtesy of The Onion:

Hobbit to feature 53 minute long scene of Bilbo packing.

[Oddwen]

I was more pleased than anything with it. When it stuck to the book, it was lovely, and when it didn't, well, at least it was nothing we haven't seen before with LotR. Sometimes literally.

I did love Thorin and Company and hope there will be much, much more of them in the EE. Balin especially was awesome. I would follow him into Moria. Thorin was fantastic, and I'm soooo glad they didn't take the "Reluctant Hero" route as was done with Aragorn.

The weak spots for me were all of the goblins and orcs. Every word of their dialogue is stunted and far too "modern". And as for Azog...ugh. No. "He died of his wounds.......LONG AGO." I was half hoping that it would be Bolg following instead for revenge, and given an opportunity to show some orcish loyalty as a parallel to Thorin's followers, and also finally see some orcish angst...oh wait, it's PJ&co.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

I've had enough of idiotic wannabe-creepy grins of PJ's orcs into the camera for half an age

Seconded. Thirded. Fifteenthed. Forever.

I'll definitely see it again though.

[Rikae]

Yes, Bofur was a good character, and one of the rare cases where embellishing on the book created something decent, in my opinion. I liked the dynamic he had with Bilbo, sort of big-brotherly teasing with an underlying protectiveness. Martin Freeman was wonderful, very sympathetic. One scene I found really moving was the moment he caught up with the dwarves carrying the signed contract (I was a little disappointed he didn't get the oversized green cloak and hood from the book afterward: for some reason those items always seemed important in my mind).
I didn't care for Barry Humphries as the goblin king. I suppose some might have found him entertaining, but to me he just seemed very out of place (a friend of mine called him the film's "Jar Jar Binks" and I agree). I shouldn't entirely blame the actor: his lines were dreadful. As for the battle that followed, it looked like something out of a roadrunner cartoon. The goblin scenes actually made it difficult to for me to fully enjoy the neighboring "Riddles in the Dark" scene. The latter was on a set that wasn't nearly dark, or large, enough, but Freeman and Serkis could have probably managed to be convincing in the produce department at Wegmans. The writing still wasn't great, with too many dual-personality jokes for my taste. I'm just not a fan of Boyans and Walsh, and never will be.

I really loved the dwarves' song* and wish there had been more new music. I'm actually sad that neither the elves nor the orcs sang. Tra-la-la-lally's are optional, but, well, you know what they say about elvish singing, in June, under the stars.

One really minor thing that that annoyed me far too much: why does Galadriel need to strike a dramatic pose at all times while having a conversation? Surely they could have come up with slightly less corny way to make her look impressive. Yes, I know she does a bit of that in LoTR, but it isn't as extreme.
I'll just stand on this ledge here with my back to you all so everyone knows I'm special.

I wasn't really happy with the Necromancer (who looked like something out of a sci-fi movie), but mostly liked Radagast, though his costume was over-the-top. The embellishments to the plot surrounding Azog weren't really objectionable: of course PJ wanted to create more continuity and at least Azog doesn't do too much that the generic goblins didn't in the book.

I suppose I sound too critical. I certainly found more to dislike here than in FoTR, probably because more was invented/padded, and several scenes seem to have been there because PJ was going down some kind of "successful movie formula" checklist. I'm still looking forward to the next one. A friend I went with, though, said that she felt like she didn't need to read the book after watching this, which just... *sigh*
What do you say to that?

*Edit: the version in the movie, not the one at the end.

[TheMisfortuneTeller]

Many thanks to Boromir88 and Bethberry for the humorous links. After suffering through two-hours and forty five minutes of this bloated turkey -- not to mention two days of intestinal flu -- I really needed the laughs.

My Chinese wife tried to read The Hobbit in English once, and never managed to get past Chapter Six: "Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire." After viewing this miserable excuse for a movie, I told her: "See? You don't have to feel so bad now. Peter Jackson reportedly speaks and writes English and has been over all these stories innumerable times, and even with a half-a-billion-dollar budget to squander, he couldn't get past Chapter Six either!" My wife liked getting out of the routine of daily life for a few hours, though, and so appreciated the escapism of the film, even though the guy eating popcorn in the seat behind her reminded her of mice raiding the pantry. When I told her that Ian Holm (as the 111-year-old Bilbo the Older, with nothing meaningful to do or say) looked to me like a 50-year-old with either a face-lift or a post-production Photoshop version of one, she told me that, from her female point of view, she thought Cate Blanchett looked like Sharon Stone in Basic Instict 2. "And she didn't even cross her legs, either!" I added.

And Elijah Wood as Frodo going to the mailbox? Why?

Even I could do the arithmetic and divide The Hobbit's 19 slim chapters by three movies and get 6+ chapters per movie, so I knew going in that the eagles would again do their ornithological interpretation of Deus Ex Machina and swoop down to save the day -- again -- just in the nick of time. I didn't, however, count on Peter Jackson taking the "hanging over the edge of the abyss" cliché to the point where not just Bilbo Baggins (in one scene) but the entire company found themselves literally hanging over the edge of yet another cliff clinging to the branches of a single tree. Naturally, no one really fell to their deaths; yet even if they had, Gandalf would have just passed his hand over their closed eyes -- like he did with Thorin Oakenshield after a warg chewed him up and spit him out -- and their lovely bones would magically rejoin the living in a heartbeat.

What unadulterated crap. Not just the unnecessary and pointless Radaghast the Brown, but practically everyone in this film wound up with bird-droppings in their beards -- even the ones who didn't have beards. In their defense, though, Bilbo (the younger) and Gollum did have a few moments together towards the end where something approaching characterization with dialogue happened. Even there, however, Peter Jackson couldn't help having Gollum look -- again -- at his own reflection in the water (Return of the King scene rip-off! Check!) and Gollum's truly gratuitous bludgeoning of an injured goblin (who actually had suffered from a dizzying fall) seemed excessively tasteless to me even for Peter Jackson.

I could go on for hours deconstructing this farce, but the film just doesn't hold enough interest for me to bother. A few barely passable lines of dialogue here and there do not rescue or redeem this over-extended spoiler prologue to -- wait for it! -- a glimpse of the entire dragon (not just his foot or tail or eyeball) -- which might occur either one or two years from now. Really: a two-hour-and-forty-minute teaser trailer which basically boils down to this: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey never has any adventure or does anything unexpected.

As the stomach turns ...