The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Dec. 14th, 2012 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI was one of the last people to get a ticket for the (2D) showing that I wanted last night – and I turned up about an hour and three quarters before it started, so the cinema was chock-a-block, including people who were carrying baskets of flower, for whatever reason. I was also so excited that I nearly left my drinks on the counter after paying for it.
So, I was charmed. I mean, not to the point that I’ve lost all my critical faculties – I’m wondering if Jackson will have anything left to add into an extended version, given the pace. I thought there was a battle too many, although I could understand the reason for many of the additions: bringing in Bilbo as we’d known him to link us to the LOTR trilogy plus bonus Ian Holm voiceover; even Radagast and all his specialness worked. Certainly the Necromancer and the Council of the Wise worked better than I’d thought it did, with the tension between the sekrit mental conversation (but not including Elrond? How rude) and Saruman’s attitude (and did Gandalf have his ring by this point?) I had been lowering my expectations since hearing there was going to be a trilogy and rereading the book.
There were a lot of beheadings. Someone should have stopped Jackson at some point. I would suggest the golf joke (yes, I know FAN SERVICE, plus funny) as one that could go, seeing as we had a superserious and sad beheading within five minutes.
I know the movie isn’t about him, but THORIN OAKENSHIELD. I may eat a chocolate for every hero shot he got the next time I go and see it. I’m not complaining, I hope Richard Armitage gets loads of good film parts on the back of this, obviously. AND HELLO bass rumble. Knowing what happens to the character, I came out vowing to rewatch North and South, because angsty, heroic, pig-stubborn Thorin needed to meet the dwarvish equivalent of Margaret Hale IMNSHO. I know. And that time Gandalf called him out on being pig-stubborn and his relationship were lovely, but, you know.
I also thought the whole good king was foreshadowing for Aragorn – influenced by my very recent ROTK rewatch. There were perhaps too many callbacks (callforwards?) to the other films – especially around Gandalf’s behaviour and the music cues (although granted I’ve listened to the soundtrack a lot over the years.)
But for all that, the heart of the film is Bilbo. And Martin Freeman aced it, OF CORUSE. He was funny and hobbity and darling, and though I saw Tim from the Office and Arthur Dent and John Watson, I saw other stuff (and shades of all four LOTR hobbits.)
The dwarves worked better than I’d thought they might having read the book – I was a bit tense during the first song, although I could still gen up on linking faces and names. James Nesbitt’s was funny and more organic than I thought he’d be (although I wanted to burn his hat). My heart soared when I saw the similarities between Gloin and Gimli. And Kili continued the hot young thing that’s good with an arrow tradition. Apart from my eyebrows raising at the real-world inferences from the emphasis on the dwarves as stateless wanderers, contrasted with Bilbo and the Shire, his home – and I loved how they showed us him falling for Rivendell, retirement home for hobbits, all there on his face – and using that as his motivation worked.
The encounter with Gollum was a real highlight – I liked how they dealt with most of the set pieces from the book – part of the film’s charm. (I think Fran and Phillippa would do better than hoiking Galadriel in by trying to make an adventure film about female characters, although if they hadn’t hoiked her in, that would have been no named female character talking.) I also missed mankind – I know they’ll turn up later, and we got a glimpse of them in the prologue, but they have a stake in all this (I felt this particularly during the Council of the Wise).
But it flowed, there were laughs, thrills and yes FEELS. It didn’t wholly convince that it needed equal attention to that given to LOTR – which probably deserved more time and space, because having rewatched the EE, I still feel that they junked too much. Still, I enjoyed it – much of the fanservice, the chance to visit nooks of Middle Earth the trilogy hadn’t before.
So, I was charmed. I mean, not to the point that I’ve lost all my critical faculties – I’m wondering if Jackson will have anything left to add into an extended version, given the pace. I thought there was a battle too many, although I could understand the reason for many of the additions: bringing in Bilbo as we’d known him to link us to the LOTR trilogy plus bonus Ian Holm voiceover; even Radagast and all his specialness worked. Certainly the Necromancer and the Council of the Wise worked better than I’d thought it did, with the tension between the sekrit mental conversation (but not including Elrond? How rude) and Saruman’s attitude (and did Gandalf have his ring by this point?) I had been lowering my expectations since hearing there was going to be a trilogy and rereading the book.
There were a lot of beheadings. Someone should have stopped Jackson at some point. I would suggest the golf joke (yes, I know FAN SERVICE, plus funny) as one that could go, seeing as we had a superserious and sad beheading within five minutes.
I know the movie isn’t about him, but THORIN OAKENSHIELD. I may eat a chocolate for every hero shot he got the next time I go and see it. I’m not complaining, I hope Richard Armitage gets loads of good film parts on the back of this, obviously. AND HELLO bass rumble. Knowing what happens to the character, I came out vowing to rewatch North and South, because angsty, heroic, pig-stubborn Thorin needed to meet the dwarvish equivalent of Margaret Hale IMNSHO. I know. And that time Gandalf called him out on being pig-stubborn and his relationship were lovely, but, you know.
I also thought the whole good king was foreshadowing for Aragorn – influenced by my very recent ROTK rewatch. There were perhaps too many callbacks (callforwards?) to the other films – especially around Gandalf’s behaviour and the music cues (although granted I’ve listened to the soundtrack a lot over the years.)
But for all that, the heart of the film is Bilbo. And Martin Freeman aced it, OF CORUSE. He was funny and hobbity and darling, and though I saw Tim from the Office and Arthur Dent and John Watson, I saw other stuff (and shades of all four LOTR hobbits.)
The dwarves worked better than I’d thought they might having read the book – I was a bit tense during the first song, although I could still gen up on linking faces and names. James Nesbitt’s was funny and more organic than I thought he’d be (although I wanted to burn his hat). My heart soared when I saw the similarities between Gloin and Gimli. And Kili continued the hot young thing that’s good with an arrow tradition. Apart from my eyebrows raising at the real-world inferences from the emphasis on the dwarves as stateless wanderers, contrasted with Bilbo and the Shire, his home – and I loved how they showed us him falling for Rivendell, retirement home for hobbits, all there on his face – and using that as his motivation worked.
The encounter with Gollum was a real highlight – I liked how they dealt with most of the set pieces from the book – part of the film’s charm. (I think Fran and Phillippa would do better than hoiking Galadriel in by trying to make an adventure film about female characters, although if they hadn’t hoiked her in, that would have been no named female character talking.) I also missed mankind – I know they’ll turn up later, and we got a glimpse of them in the prologue, but they have a stake in all this (I felt this particularly during the Council of the Wise).
But it flowed, there were laughs, thrills and yes FEELS. It didn’t wholly convince that it needed equal attention to that given to LOTR – which probably deserved more time and space, because having rewatched the EE, I still feel that they junked too much. Still, I enjoyed it – much of the fanservice, the chance to visit nooks of Middle Earth the trilogy hadn’t before.
