Territorial Hobbitses

[bloodyrosemccoy]

I really loved the Lord of the Rings movies--I even think some of the character arcs were better in them--but I can totally understand Christopher Tolkien's issues with them. If I'd spent my entire life in my dad's world and all sorts of other people started barging into it and crashing around, I'd be a bit territorial, too.

This also made me realize that I am far more worried about The Hobbit than I was about LotR, because I am far more invested in Bilbo as a character. He's a brilliant character, possibly the most relatable hero I've ever come across. And he's very hard to get right--I adored the hell out of There and Back Again, Pat Murphy's awesomely insane space opera remix of The Hobbit, but Bailey Beldon is no Bilbo. And I don't know if Martin Freeman could be, either--though if there were somebody I'd want to play him, Freeman's at the top of the list. Right under a magically age-reduced Sir Ian Holm, really. But even with Freeman playing him, it's a question of whether it'll work. We'll just have to see.

Comments

[westrider.livejournal.com]

In The Hobbit, to a certain extent, certainly. Gimli is pretty much just a stone badass in TLotR, tho, because Merry and Pippin were around to supply all needed comic relief.

I'm worried that, given how Gimli was treated, it's going to be taken way over the top here.

I must admit to a significant bias here, tho. Just as you call yourself a very tall Hobbit, I often refer to myself as the tallest Dwarf in America. Dwarven characters in fantasy have always resonated very strongly with me, as serious, solid characters, not goofy. Funny Dwarves can still be done, but it needs to be handled well, and I'm afraid that adjectives like goofy, zany, whacky, and madcap are going to be more appropriate here.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I can totally understand. I would have liked Gimli to be a bit less goofy. (Although sometimes his snarkier comments made me laugh AND made him a badass. "He's TWITCHING because he's got MY AXE EMBEDDED IN HIS NERVOUS SYSTEM!" Totally action hero.)

I'm rather hoping part of the crazy Dwarf hair and makeup is an attempt to differentiate them from each other (since, with a few exceptions, they were sort of a conglomerate in the book). Although to me the most comical-looking are Fili and Kili--for very different reasons than the others' outright silly styles. Sexy Dwarves? REALLY?

[westrider.livejournal.com]

There were moments when it was done well. But there were also the Dwarf-tossing bits, and I seem to recall a number of points where the "humour" basically boiled down to "Look! Gimli's short/slow/otherwise having physical trouble that his description in the book was entirely counter to!" :P

Hopefully it's just for differentiation. Even so, Nori's hair frightens me.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the dwarf-tossing had the feel of "that thing that happened in a roleplaying session at 2 AM that everybody who was there thought was hilarious, but whenever they try to tell anybody it falls flat."