fajrdrako | The Hobbit... (Reply)

maaseru, Pim and I had planned to go to see The Hobbit as soon as it opened, because, after all, The Lord of the Rings is among our very favourite books and movies and we feel a deep gratitude, love and loyalty to J.R.R. Tolkien and to Peter Jackson.

But when the time came, we hesitated, said "Let's go see Skyfall again instead," and did.

When I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was fourteen, full of a deep and endless passion for that book, I then turned to The Hobbit, hoping for more of the same. I was devastated to discover that it was too cute, too dull, too shallow - that it lacked everything I had loved about The Lord of the Rings and contained everything I hadn't loved about The Lord of the Rings.

I read it again about ten years ago, and thought it wasn't as bad as I remembered. I liked "Riddles in the Dark" and the "Conversation with Smaug". But Lord of the Rings it isn't.

So. Courage in hand, I went to see The Hobbit today, with Tasia, StarWolf, and Chrystine. It got off to a bad start: the first ten minutes of the movie were badly out of focus, with or without the 3D glasses. I couldn't tell what was going on, and was starting to feel queasy from trying. They sorted that out about the time Gandalf got to Bag End, so that was all right.

In the end, I thought the movie was 95% boring and 5% brilliant, and the intense brilliance of a few choice moments made the rest of it worthwhile.

The great moments? They were:

The last minute of the movie. The treasure hoard. Smaug. Smaug's eye.
The wonderful, wonderful moment when Bilbo takes his sword and fights the goblins on behalf of Thorin. How I loved Bilbo in that moment.

More generally:

Unlike The Lord of the Rings, it didn't seem real to me. A little too bright, a little too cartoony. Seeing it in 3D didn't help, because 3D movies never look real to me. It kept reminding me of Disney movies, the kind they made in the 1970s. Radagast seemed rather to like Disney's Merlin.
I loved seeing Elrond again, and Rivendell. When they first said the word "Imladris" I felt a momentary thrill of anticpation. And yet... compared to the scenes at Rivendell in The Lord of the Rings, which were all so full of meaning and feeling, they seemed oddly empty here. It was fun to see Elrond, Gandalf, and Galadriel talking, but it didn't seem to matter.
Galadriel was beautiful. I loved her scenes.
I want to see Mirkwood. Or perhaps I should say, more of Mirkwood? I'm not sure what we have seen of it, if anything, so far.
Too many ugly Orcs, ugly Goblins, ugly creatures. Ugh.
Martin Freeman is absolutely wonderful as Bilbo. I never liked Bilbo before - not in the books, not in the movies - though he does have his moments. But in this movie, as soon as Martin Freeman appeared, I loved him. He was just as Bilbo ought to be, and better.
The fight of the living mountains didn't make much sense to me.
The actual logic of the plot seems thin. Why don't any of those brave warrior Dwarves teach Bilbo to use his sword, rather than complain that he doesn't know how? Why does Gandalf use fancy wizardry to save them sometimes, but not at other times?
Bombur was too much like Volstagg or Obelix. Something of a cliché.
Too much falling and tobogganing. Too many scenes of people falling off cliffs and being grabbed by people on top of the cliffs.
They really did manage to make me feel love and concern and pity for the Dwarves. I really liked Thorin Oakenshield and pretty Kili - I loved it that he was an archer. The other Dwarves seemed interchangeable, and too much comic relief.
I loved the theme of Bilbo needing to go on adventures for his own good, and, after his initial sensible refusal, giving in to the temptation to do so.
The ghosts, ghouls and goblins seemed more silly than scary. I found myself wondering what age group the movie was really aimed at: too silly and thin for adults; too creepy, violent and scary for the very young.
In The Lord of the Rings, the fact that most of the characters were male didn't bother me in the least. In The Hobbit, I began to feel a little uncomfortable about a world in which the only speaking female was Galadriel.
I didn't remember the part about Thorin Oakenshield fighting the Warg Rider in the book. I didn't much like it. It might have fit the theme, but it wasn't strong enough to be a rivalry or vendetta I cared about much.
I was pleased to see that Andy Serkis directed part of it. Way to go, Andy. His Gollum was masterful. And yet... and yet... I didn't like "Riddles in the Dark" nearly as much as I did in the book.
There was a lot of action too fast for me to follow, and swooping and falling and dizzying motion. I'm liking that less and less.
Mostly, this movie whetted my appetite for seeing The Lord of the Rings again on New Year's Day.