So I Finally Saw The Hobbit
Dec. 26th, 2012 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bloodyrosemccoyIn 2D, of course. I'd have gone that way no matter what, since 3D always gives me issues. I am assured it was the right decision.
Anyway, first thoughts:
-While I do think a lot of the character arcs in Lord of the Rings worked better in the movies, I can definitely say that Bilbo's character is Better In The Book. A lot of the reasons for this are understandable, considering the constraints of cinema, but there are a few things I definitely prefer in their original version. For one thing, I like that he didn't really consciously DECIDE to go on an adventure in the book--instead of appealing to his adventurous spirit, Gandalf pretty much flusters him into going ("You're late! If you run you can catch them!") and uses his own petty pride against him. I missed that petty pride. The noble thoughts it was replaced with were fine enough, but it's the way that little moment of "I'll show those Dwarves!" gets everyone caught by trolls, and how that contrasts with his later usefulness, that gets me. (Although the way the script took off with the fine points of Trollish cooking amused me.)
Plus, there wasn't nearly enough hobbity bitching. It's funny to realize how important it is that Bilbo piss and moan the whole way to the Lonely Mountain.
Martin Freeman did well with the script, though. I really liked some of his Ian Holm-y mannerisms.
-Even with the changes, gotta love moviemakers who are so enamored of the source material, down to the weird details. I especially liked the Stone Giants and their five minutes of fame. I always wanted to see more of them after the brief mention in the book, which was rather along the lines of, "Hey, look at those stone giants tossing boulders at each other. Don't see that every day. Pass the ketchup." I liked them as part of the action. And of course the addition of Radagast can't go wrong. (In other book-nods, I liked that Elrond commented that it was quite handy that the day and phase of the moon were perfectly aligned to show the Moon Runes, because in the book that always seemed awfully convenient.)
-Gollum was a perfect combination of lonely, hungry, tragic, childlike, and creepy as FUCK. I loved how very torn he was between eating Bilbo and actually interacting with another being after four hundred-odd years of feral goblin-chewing. I kept hearing that the Riddles in the Dark scene was pulled off well, and was DYING to see how. I was not disappointed there. Andy Serkis: finest unseen actor of our age.
-Could not stop laughing at Galadriel's rotating stand. Kept picturing her slowly spinning throughout the entire meeting with Saruman & Co. "I fear a dark time is--hang on, I'm coming back around, gimme a minute." Do they put her up in the middle of the room and hang tinsel on her at Yuletide?
It must be really annoying having her at a council meeting, too, if she just randomly drowns out the PowerPoint presentation with telepathy. GALADRIEL IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY, SAY IT TO THE GROUP.
-I guess one of the things about the characters is that, when you don't have an inner monologue/narrator, the motivations have to come out. But even then, these movies always wax wordy. I liked the sentiment of Bilbo's little Get Back To Where You Once Belonged speech. But my favorite version of the I Will Come With You exchange is undoubtedly the one in Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, when Kira summons landstriders to get to the Skeksis Palace:
KIRA: They'll take us!
JEN: But--Kira, you don't have to go!
KIRA: I know.
And then they go.
I think that's another reason the Riddles scene worked so well--Gollum didn't blurt out every bit of his backstory, and Bilbo didn't carry on about how Pity Is Totally Staying My Hand Right Now, Bro. Trust the audience.
But then, if the characters quit making speeches, the movie would be over far too soon. And it was too darn fun to end. So dammit, let's have the next one! I want to see the Mirkwood spiders.
-WHAT'S THE NAME OF THE DWARVES' KINGDOM? I DON'T THINK I HEARD IT THE FIRST EIGHTY TIMES, MOVIE. SAY IT AGAIN.
Anyway, first thoughts:
-While I do think a lot of the character arcs in Lord of the Rings worked better in the movies, I can definitely say that Bilbo's character is Better In The Book. A lot of the reasons for this are understandable, considering the constraints of cinema, but there are a few things I definitely prefer in their original version. For one thing, I like that he didn't really consciously DECIDE to go on an adventure in the book--instead of appealing to his adventurous spirit, Gandalf pretty much flusters him into going ("You're late! If you run you can catch them!") and uses his own petty pride against him. I missed that petty pride. The noble thoughts it was replaced with were fine enough, but it's the way that little moment of "I'll show those Dwarves!" gets everyone caught by trolls, and how that contrasts with his later usefulness, that gets me. (Although the way the script took off with the fine points of Trollish cooking amused me.)
Plus, there wasn't nearly enough hobbity bitching. It's funny to realize how important it is that Bilbo piss and moan the whole way to the Lonely Mountain.
Martin Freeman did well with the script, though. I really liked some of his Ian Holm-y mannerisms.
-Even with the changes, gotta love moviemakers who are so enamored of the source material, down to the weird details. I especially liked the Stone Giants and their five minutes of fame. I always wanted to see more of them after the brief mention in the book, which was rather along the lines of, "Hey, look at those stone giants tossing boulders at each other. Don't see that every day. Pass the ketchup." I liked them as part of the action. And of course the addition of Radagast can't go wrong. (In other book-nods, I liked that Elrond commented that it was quite handy that the day and phase of the moon were perfectly aligned to show the Moon Runes, because in the book that always seemed awfully convenient.)
-Gollum was a perfect combination of lonely, hungry, tragic, childlike, and creepy as FUCK. I loved how very torn he was between eating Bilbo and actually interacting with another being after four hundred-odd years of feral goblin-chewing. I kept hearing that the Riddles in the Dark scene was pulled off well, and was DYING to see how. I was not disappointed there. Andy Serkis: finest unseen actor of our age.
-Could not stop laughing at Galadriel's rotating stand. Kept picturing her slowly spinning throughout the entire meeting with Saruman & Co. "I fear a dark time is--hang on, I'm coming back around, gimme a minute." Do they put her up in the middle of the room and hang tinsel on her at Yuletide?
It must be really annoying having her at a council meeting, too, if she just randomly drowns out the PowerPoint presentation with telepathy. GALADRIEL IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY, SAY IT TO THE GROUP.
-I guess one of the things about the characters is that, when you don't have an inner monologue/narrator, the motivations have to come out. But even then, these movies always wax wordy. I liked the sentiment of Bilbo's little Get Back To Where You Once Belonged speech. But my favorite version of the I Will Come With You exchange is undoubtedly the one in Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, when Kira summons landstriders to get to the Skeksis Palace:
KIRA: They'll take us!
JEN: But--Kira, you don't have to go!
KIRA: I know.
And then they go.
I think that's another reason the Riddles scene worked so well--Gollum didn't blurt out every bit of his backstory, and Bilbo didn't carry on about how Pity Is Totally Staying My Hand Right Now, Bro. Trust the audience.
But then, if the characters quit making speeches, the movie would be over far too soon. And it was too darn fun to end. So dammit, let's have the next one! I want to see the Mirkwood spiders.
-WHAT'S THE NAME OF THE DWARVES' KINGDOM? I DON'T THINK I HEARD IT THE FIRST EIGHTY TIMES, MOVIE. SAY IT AGAIN.
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Date: 2012-12-27 05:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 05:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 05:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 10:29 am (UTC)Looking forward to the riddle scene, too! I wonder if they'll use the standard Dutch translation for the captions, or if they had a new translation done. I did my bachelor's thesis on the riddles, and found that while the existing translation was not wrong, per se, it was getting to be a bit old-fashioned. So I wonder if they've spruced it up a little.
Ugh, 3D. Why's everything have to be 3D these days, and worse, why do they make me wait until I can go see it in 2D?
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Date: 2012-12-27 03:32 pm (UTC)I also miss whiny bitchy Bilbo. Taking that stuff out makes it "The Hot Dwarves and their Epic Quest (as told by a Hobbit)" and not "The Hobbit".
I think the movie worked well as a fantasy novel but poorly as an adaptation of The Hobbit. (Though I also loved the Riddles in the Dark sequence and have wanted to have Andy Serkis' little actor-babies for years now.)
I think cleolinda said it best when she talked about the film suffering from 'tonal dissonance' - it zigzagged back and forth from epic brooding to comedy troll-snot so much it made me dizzy. Now, there are and should be moments of lightness in an epic or everyone just gets depressed. But when you go back to the main thread you then up the stakes so that the weight of the plot is that much stronger by contrast. But endless shots of The Seventh Doctor with bird crap in his hair and a magical sleigh with eight
tiny reindeerhuge rabbits and a whole lot of running just got distracting. And the Great Goblin wasn't scary at all.I had said from the outset that this is exactly what I was afraid would happen - that PJ was 'getting his fanboy on' and putting in everything just because he could without being able to step away and see if it actually served the story. 'King Kong' was just like that - an gorgeous love letter to the story but it would have been a better and tighter film if it were 20 minutes shorter. I'm normally a huge fan of 'extended editions' but in a lot of these cases more was not necessarily beter.
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Date: 2012-12-27 03:52 pm (UTC)I had said from the outset that this is exactly what I was afraid would happen - that PJ was 'getting his fanboy on' and putting in everything just because he could without being able to step away and see if it actually served the story. 'King Kong' was just like that - an gorgeous love letter to the story but it would have been a better and tighter film if it were 20 minutes shorter. I'm normally a huge fan of 'extended editions' but in a lot of these cases more was not necessarily beter.
Exactly this. It reminded me so much of King Kong - "oh here's another five minute stampede of dinos, and here, let's throw in some giant bugs". By the end of The Hobbit, I groaned and slid a little lower in my seat every time I heard the action music begin: "oh great, time for PJ to do his helicopter shots again and for the brass and drum sections of the orchestra to do their thing". There was no *heart* in it.
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Date: 2012-12-27 04:03 pm (UTC)I would have bought extending it into two films, working the parallel stories of the White Council and the Necromancer alongside Bilbo and the Dwarves. But when I heard it had ballooned to three, this is exactly what I thought was going to happen.
On my own blog I commented "With Gandalf shouting RUN!!! all the time, It got to feeling like an episode of Doctor Who - only beadier"
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Date: 2012-12-27 04:05 pm (UTC)Maybe he should've done a buddy system.
And yeah, someone should've told PJ "just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD".
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Date: 2012-12-28 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-28 06:48 am (UTC)I think there's a relative scale here, though. The LotR movies had more emotional connection than the books because the books got a little too grandiose. There are still a few scenes that bust me up in the books--The Choices of Master Samwise and his subsequent one-hobbit assault on Cirith Ungol always make me a bit misty. But with The Hobbit, the book is ALL heart--which is why I was more invested in it in the first place. It's tougher to live up to.
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Date: 2012-12-28 06:57 am (UTC)I don't think the movie scenes will crowd in on my head's version of the story like the LotR movies do. But it was really fun to see this interpretation.
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Date: 2012-12-27 08:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-27 11:10 pm (UTC)I'm going to see the film again someday soon, with my mama this time, and I can't wait! It wasn't perfect, but I was grinning pretty much all the way through it, and when I first saw it I wanted to re-watch it immediately, at three in the morning, and that's not something that happens too often. (Although it kind of happened again today, when I saw Rise of the Guardians, but nowhere near as strongly.)
And I want parts two and three NOW! With the spiders and Mikael Persbrandt as Beorn (though it could be that all Swedes just laugh helplessly whenever he's on screen) and Cumberbatch x2 with SMAUG and the Necromancer and I can't remember how the attack on Dol Guldur went - was it the White Council + an army or will it be Gandalf, Elrond, Saruman, and Galadriel pulling Sweet Ninja Moves on Sauron and the Nazgûls? Because that would be AWESOME! And I may be evil but I can't wait to hear the anguished cries of all the Thorin/Fíli/Kíli fangirls who haven't read the book when they see the last film. >:D
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Date: 2012-12-28 06:50 am (UTC)Yeah, waiting with cackly glee for the final movie when all the sexy Dwarves go down fighting. BWAHAHA.
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Date: 2012-12-29 12:52 am (UTC)(Also, I bought a Hobbit calendar yesterday. My mama, who hasn't seen the film yet, took one look at Kíli and said "now HE'S hot!" ...Crikey.)