firecat: red panda, winking (Default)
[personal profile] firecat
I saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey today.


I was entertained, and I think it's pretty cool when people can get zillions of dollars to make fanfic movies set in Middle Earth.

I think I recognized some of the plot of Tolkien's book The Hobbit in between the chase and battle scenes. And it works for me that Jackson seems to be setting this up as a prequel to his LOTR films, by putting it in a larger context of Evil Stirring™.

Back a while ago, I went to see Fellowship of the Ring with my girlfriend. When the troll scene in Moria started, she went to the bathroom, which involved walking to the other end of the theater complex. When she came back, the troll scene was still going.

She could have gone to the bathroom about ten times during this movie.

It was very distracting to have Aidan Turner in the movie. (My reaction every time: "Here are a bunch of dwarves, and a hobbit. And Aidan Turner!") If he had had a beard, as Tolkien's dwarves are supposed to, then it wouldn't have been so distracting.

I quite liked the addition of Radagast the Brown as an important character. It almost makes up for Tom Bombadil being cut from the Lord of the Rings movies.

The scene between Bilbo and Gollum was very well done.

Date: 21 Dec 2012 07:22 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] flarenut
It would have made a really nice two-hour movie. Are we being set up for the video games, where you get points for bouncing off more levels of the Definitely Not A Fantasy Version of an Exploding Bond Villain Set?

I also really loved the scene between Bilbo and Gollum, although I was pissed at the whole homily thing about how swords are important for whom you don't slay with them.

Did you like Radagast? He annoyed the crud out of me with his twittering, which seemed to not really go with his status as a Great Wizard. (And the references to him during the Meeting At Lothlorien. Grr.)

In some ways, I think the movie suffered from being a prequel rather than the first of a series. Particularly Lothlorien/Rivendell seemed wrong to me -- Although I can see the justification for rendering the place along Crouching Tiger lines in LOTR, in the Hobbit it was plain old Rivendell, and my impression was that the elves were much more celtic/saxon, at least in Bilbo's understanding. Anybody else?

Date: 21 Dec 2012 10:16 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] flarenut
OK, I can understand that.

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