The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Dec. 31st, 2013 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI really, really want to see The Lego Movie, because I giggled all the way through the trailer. Please don’t let it be one of those movies where all the good ideas and jokes are in the trailer.
2014 looks like it’s going to be Chris Pratt’s year. I am in no way opposed to that.
Ach, the ending. To Be Continued...in a year’s time. For some reason, that’s not how I thought it would end. Which is unutterably stupid.
I’ve been tangled up in Appendix 7 of the first Hobbit movie these past few days, so I was in a weird place, headspace wise, when it came to watching this. I could put faces to the names of the crew memebers coming up.
By the way, I adore Richard Taylor and his way of setting things forward.
AND I snorted quite loudly about the film getting Jackson's cameo in so early.
I am finding Martin Freeman’s Bilbo so spot-on, the little comic touches, the touching bravery and the way he’s fighting the Ring. (The Family Member I went to see the film with made good points about how Bilbo has more courage than Frodo – he has no Sam and does, in the end, relinquish the Ring). I love how we are watching Bilbo, er, grow in stature.
I came out with a huge crush on Luke Evans’s Bard. Letting him keep his accent as he faced off men with English accents, led by the plumy Master, had a heap of unintended association, but I do hope he’ll be allowed to talk tidy like in some future big ‘Ollywood production. All right?
Ask me if you want to know which scene I think will be Euroscpetics' favourite.
Otherwise, the man has a beard, a coat, principles and cute children. I liked his conflict with Thorin and the Master (and the contrasts with Thranduil) about what leadership means.
I very much liked the handling of Beorn (the bees!!!) and the iconic escape by barrel. I will always welcome Legolas and his elf-ninja skills. I did like the sense of wildness about him and the sense that that will be tempered by the time he turns up in LOTR.
But Tauriel, the cause of forehead-slapping when she popped up in the trailer (no, Fran and Phillippa, the answer isn’t really to drop in one more made-up female character, the answer is to get a movie where mainly women have adventures get made) – I liked her capability and I liked Lilly’s performance a lot, but the triangle? Oy. I was mainly unconvinced by the Legolas/Tauriel claims; I could almost convince myself that it was all in Thranduil’s head and that Legolas just didn’t like her interest in one Dwarf because Kili was a Dwarf rather than a rival. I also really didn’t like the whole ‘not a good enough type of Elf for my son’ stuff. I mean, REALLY? When higher-born Elves fell for Men (usually descended from Kings, but whatever.)
It's just as fail-y as what they did with Arwen, where the beefed-up role managed to take her agency from her.
And yes, Aiden Turner is hot, but...ech. There’s a scene in the extended edition of the first movie where an Elf in Rivendell catches his eye and it’s a guy and everyone laughs at him, ha, ha, moving on, which turned out to be foreshadowing. But it’s partly going over ground covered by Gimli’s devotion to Galadriel, which worked better as a representation of Dwarf-Elf relations, especially as he was becoming a brother-in-arms to Legolas. I didn’t mind an Elf having a connection to a Dwarf, mainly because someone needed to get Legolas/the Mirkwood Elves to get over Thranduil’s isolationism, so Legolas could fight more Orcs and the Elves would turn up and help in the coming war, but it would have been better if it hadn’t been an explicitly romantic connection.
Also, that wasn’t a scale double for the hand-brushing, which jarred.
At least the made-up stuff with Gandalf was extrapolation. (Though if Galadriel comes to save him on an eagle in the third movie, I may hate that.) So – the Necromancer is Sauron and that was fairly well-handled. I loved the image of the pupil turning into the figure of Sauron, but the fact that this is all about building up to the LoTR’s final battle works against this adaptation film, really, because they’re bigging the source material up into something it isn't, but it’s the other trilogy that’s the crux of the fight for the future of Middle Earth. And musically, this film suffered more than its fore-runner because of it
Another theme was madness (with the effect of the Arkenstone related to the power of the Ring) and although he was mainly shot in heroic slo-mo, I liked that they showed Thorin’s distinctly unheroic moments. The Dwarves were somewhat shunted aside (I started getting worried for them, because I know some of them will die in the next film and I don’t entirely recall who lives by the end of the book) by all the additional strands. Their action scenes were fine although I didn’t know what the Big Plan was in Erebor and I was starting to get tired because oy, the film was long, and this has been a huge problem with all the blockbusters this year. I’m too exhausted to take in the big climactic fight, so there’s no point saving massive stunts and dragging it on and on.
I enjoyed Lee Pace as Thranduil and I did enjoy Bilbo’s encounter with Smaug, even if it had nowhere near the power of the encounter with Gollum. I liked what they did with Cumberbatch’s voice. I was glad Bard’s son had some time, seeing as they cut the Gondorian boy in RoTK.
It’s the morning after, and I’m still not sure that I can give a critical appraisal of the film, because I’m invested (although I’ve gone and forgotten plenty of the book) in these adaptations and how they link to the LoTR adaptations. And really, as the middle part of a trilogy, that will leave you huffing in disappointment until the day you have all the extended editions on DVD and a free weekend (or week) to watch them, that’s the way you’re expected to engage with it. (I came across someone who had been to see this film without realising it was a sequel. I gaped at them and politely suggested they read the book.)
2014 looks like it’s going to be Chris Pratt’s year. I am in no way opposed to that.
Ach, the ending. To Be Continued...in a year’s time. For some reason, that’s not how I thought it would end. Which is unutterably stupid.
I’ve been tangled up in Appendix 7 of the first Hobbit movie these past few days, so I was in a weird place, headspace wise, when it came to watching this. I could put faces to the names of the crew memebers coming up.
By the way, I adore Richard Taylor and his way of setting things forward.
AND I snorted quite loudly about the film getting Jackson's cameo in so early.
I am finding Martin Freeman’s Bilbo so spot-on, the little comic touches, the touching bravery and the way he’s fighting the Ring. (The Family Member I went to see the film with made good points about how Bilbo has more courage than Frodo – he has no Sam and does, in the end, relinquish the Ring). I love how we are watching Bilbo, er, grow in stature.
I came out with a huge crush on Luke Evans’s Bard. Letting him keep his accent as he faced off men with English accents, led by the plumy Master, had a heap of unintended association, but I do hope he’ll be allowed to talk tidy like in some future big ‘Ollywood production. All right?
Ask me if you want to know which scene I think will be Euroscpetics' favourite.
Otherwise, the man has a beard, a coat, principles and cute children. I liked his conflict with Thorin and the Master (and the contrasts with Thranduil) about what leadership means.
I very much liked the handling of Beorn (the bees!!!) and the iconic escape by barrel. I will always welcome Legolas and his elf-ninja skills. I did like the sense of wildness about him and the sense that that will be tempered by the time he turns up in LOTR.
But Tauriel, the cause of forehead-slapping when she popped up in the trailer (no, Fran and Phillippa, the answer isn’t really to drop in one more made-up female character, the answer is to get a movie where mainly women have adventures get made) – I liked her capability and I liked Lilly’s performance a lot, but the triangle? Oy. I was mainly unconvinced by the Legolas/Tauriel claims; I could almost convince myself that it was all in Thranduil’s head and that Legolas just didn’t like her interest in one Dwarf because Kili was a Dwarf rather than a rival. I also really didn’t like the whole ‘not a good enough type of Elf for my son’ stuff. I mean, REALLY? When higher-born Elves fell for Men (usually descended from Kings, but whatever.)
It's just as fail-y as what they did with Arwen, where the beefed-up role managed to take her agency from her.
And yes, Aiden Turner is hot, but...ech. There’s a scene in the extended edition of the first movie where an Elf in Rivendell catches his eye and it’s a guy and everyone laughs at him, ha, ha, moving on, which turned out to be foreshadowing. But it’s partly going over ground covered by Gimli’s devotion to Galadriel, which worked better as a representation of Dwarf-Elf relations, especially as he was becoming a brother-in-arms to Legolas. I didn’t mind an Elf having a connection to a Dwarf, mainly because someone needed to get Legolas/the Mirkwood Elves to get over Thranduil’s isolationism, so Legolas could fight more Orcs and the Elves would turn up and help in the coming war, but it would have been better if it hadn’t been an explicitly romantic connection.
Also, that wasn’t a scale double for the hand-brushing, which jarred.
At least the made-up stuff with Gandalf was extrapolation. (Though if Galadriel comes to save him on an eagle in the third movie, I may hate that.) So – the Necromancer is Sauron and that was fairly well-handled. I loved the image of the pupil turning into the figure of Sauron, but the fact that this is all about building up to the LoTR’s final battle works against this adaptation film, really, because they’re bigging the source material up into something it isn't, but it’s the other trilogy that’s the crux of the fight for the future of Middle Earth. And musically, this film suffered more than its fore-runner because of it
Another theme was madness (with the effect of the Arkenstone related to the power of the Ring) and although he was mainly shot in heroic slo-mo, I liked that they showed Thorin’s distinctly unheroic moments. The Dwarves were somewhat shunted aside (I started getting worried for them, because I know some of them will die in the next film and I don’t entirely recall who lives by the end of the book) by all the additional strands. Their action scenes were fine although I didn’t know what the Big Plan was in Erebor and I was starting to get tired because oy, the film was long, and this has been a huge problem with all the blockbusters this year. I’m too exhausted to take in the big climactic fight, so there’s no point saving massive stunts and dragging it on and on.
I enjoyed Lee Pace as Thranduil and I did enjoy Bilbo’s encounter with Smaug, even if it had nowhere near the power of the encounter with Gollum. I liked what they did with Cumberbatch’s voice. I was glad Bard’s son had some time, seeing as they cut the Gondorian boy in RoTK.
It’s the morning after, and I’m still not sure that I can give a critical appraisal of the film, because I’m invested (although I’ve gone and forgotten plenty of the book) in these adaptations and how they link to the LoTR adaptations. And really, as the middle part of a trilogy, that will leave you huffing in disappointment until the day you have all the extended editions on DVD and a free weekend (or week) to watch them, that’s the way you’re expected to engage with it. (I came across someone who had been to see this film without realising it was a sequel. I gaped at them and politely suggested they read the book.)
