An Unexpected Journey, or the morning after

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Of course I could not have resisted and, after all, read the posts on this thread anyway before going to sleep.

My comment, and concern, is only one.

Am I the one who liked the movie the most from the people who have posted on this thread? (Or, on about the same wavelength as Lalwendë.)

That is probably the scariest thing that has happened to me for some time.

[davem]

I think most people (even the most hard line fan of the books) will find a lot to like in the film. Its fun for the most part, captures much of the mood of the story & expands the (movie) universe nicely. I suppose the question is would you rather have these films or no films? Would you have missed out on the whole movie experience (not just the films & the tie-ins, but the whole community experience which they have fostered) would this site & its community even exist if not for the films?

So, certainly annoying in parts but to actually see Bag End, Moria, Minas Tirith, Erebor.... to encounter those characters in the (digital) flesh, well..... I think you'd have to be very churlish & ungrateful to wish they hadn't happened at all. There are some very annoying things, some points where Jackson seems to have let the technology run wild & also to have failed to rein in his imagination. I agree that the stone giants episode went too far - a glimpse would have been more powerfully evocative. Plus it was yet another point at which the characters, if real physical beings, would have simply died. Jackson seems to have no understanding of the effect of physical force (or fire!) on bodies. I don't care that Dwarves are physically stronger than humans, they wouldn't have survived that - & certainly Bilbo wouldn't.

Of course the book moves from childish innocence & silliness to adult, worldly-wise, seriousness, but Tolkien doesn't jerk back & forth between the two, & that's a major issue for me with the film which jumps from Tom & Jerry to The Silmarillion & back without any warning. When it works its brilliant, when it doesn't work it really, really doesn't.

Again, I think we''ll have to reserve full judgement till we can watch the whole thing.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by davem

So, certainly annoying in parts but to actually see Bag End, Moria, Minas Tirith, Erebor.... to encounter those characters in the (digital) flesh, well..... I think you'd have to be very churlish & ungrateful to wish they hadn't happened at all.

Actually, that is about the last thing I like about the movies. I did not need to see a portrayal of Bag End or Moria which are fundamentally different from how I imagine them and thus disrupt my imagination of them. I am a very "landscape-visual-type" person. In fact, I would possibly say that I would have preferred not to see a movie adaptation, if we put the stress on the word "adaptation". But it is a nice movie. I would be equally happy to watch any other movie which I would find likeable. However, I guess here comes the dimension of, perhaps, curiosity, or evaluation from the point of view of a fan, who can say "okay, this was handled well" and "okay, this was handled interestingly" (and, of course, "this was screwed up"). And as for the dimension of introducing new fans, of course, that's no debate.

There are some very annoying things, some points where Jackson seems to have let the technology run wild & also to have failed to rein in his imagination. I agree that the stone giants episode went too far - a glimpse would have been more powerfully evocative. Plus it was yet another point at which the characters, if real physical beings, would have simply died. Jackson seems to have no understanding of the effect of physical force (or fire!) on bodies. I don't care that Dwarves are physically stronger than humans, they wouldn't have survived that - & certainly Bilbo wouldn't.

Absolutely. That is what basically annoyed me the most especially this time (in LotR, it was present too, but I think less - the one thing I can think of was the "balancing on falling stairs" part in Moria, aside from Legolas stunts etc.).

Again, I think we''ll have to reserve full judgement till we can watch the whole thing.

When returning from the cinema, we met a guy who asked us about the movie and asked if it isn't annoying to have to wait for the following movies. That's when I realised: I don't care. For me, the movie is finished, and how I rate the rest, is a different thing. For the moment. Of course, once all the movies are out, I can rate them all together. But I can also rate them separately, and evaluate them separately, and have no problem with that. For example, I am able to tell you that Two Towers was easily one of the worst movies ever, while Fellowship was still quite nice.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Legate

Absolutely. That is what basically annoyed me the most especially this time (in LotR, it was present too, but I think less - the one thing I can think of was the "balancing on falling stairs" part in Moria, aside from Legolas stunts etc.).

I can think of a few points in LotR - Boromir hurled a good 20 feet across the Chamber of Mazarbul into a stone wall & then getting up & shaking his head & getting straight back into the fight, Frodo falling the equivalent of 20 feet from the the Seat of Seeing onto his back & not even being winded, Aragorn's fall over the cliff & Denethor's infamous 3 mile human torch sprint ... I don't think Jackson gets that if you do that with your characters you can't then suddenly switch to giving them normal physical vulnerability in the next scene & expect the audience to believe it. When Thorin was beaten unconscious at the end I was convinced, after all he'd been through without even being fazed, that he was faking it - & that actually spoiled the impact of the scene as I was expecting him to jump up & behead Azog any second.


.

For example, I am able to tell you that Two Towers was easily one of the worst movies ever, while Fellowship was still quite nice.

I can watch Fellowship as a stand alone film, but not either of the others, but I can (only done this once btw) watch all of them back to back - I suspect this is because Fellowship provides the necessary momentum....

John D Rateliff (author of History of the Hobbit) gives his thoughts http://sacnoths.blogspot.co.uk/ I pretty much agree with his points when it comes to his likes.

As to the 3D - again, I just didn't see the point of it. It was well done but I don't think it would have been missed. I read recently that Jackson has decided against converting LotR into 3D. I'd like to see it again in 2D now I know what's coming. I'll save my review proper for then.

[Rikae]

Well, I thought the Goblin King and the battle with the goblins were so awful, so cheesy and over-the-top, that they overshadowed everything I did enjoy: the look of Goblin town and Erebor, the portrayals of Bilbo and the dwarves (and of course Gollum and Gandalf), the dwarves' song, in fact, pretty much the whole thing up to that point. I thought I was watching King Kong for a second there.
What it boils down to: if you are Peter Jackson and you feel something needs more "humor" or "action", you should handcuff yourself to the nearest wall.

[Boromir88]

I had a good laugh from this:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/i...lm.single.html

Two Slate employees, who had not seen the LOTR movies, nor read any of Tolkien's books, give their Hobbit review

[Lalwendë]

Yes, the stunts were unbelievable. However, they didn't detract from it for me because I've become more or less immune to them after years and years of watching TV and films with equally unbelievable stunts. I blame The Matrix!

A thought strikes me that films such as The Hobbit will always be at a disadvantage with obsessed fans like us. This is because the original text is so overwhelmingly powerful at creating strong inner visuals, and even Tolkien admitted that for each reader, this visual would be different. In On Fairy Stories he says that each reader, when they encounter say the word 'tree' then what they see is his or her own picture of a 'tree', on an almost elemental level. So when a film director (or indeed an artist) shows us his or her 'tree' then the odds are stacked against it being like what we have seen.

Bearing that in mind, I have been to see each and every one of Jackson's films with an open heart and mind, realising that his vision will be different to my own. His landscapes are the most wildly different for me. Much of Middle-earth looks a bit like Lancashire or Scotland to me!

I have to throw in another point that I didn't cover yesterday fully. The acting was totally superb. The Dwarves often have little individual personaility to me in the text but the film really did bring them out, some in particular. James Nesbit wasn't an actor I especially liked but he steals several scenes in The Hobbit as Bofur, and I want his hat. Ken Stott's turn as Balin was touching. Graham McTavish as Dwalin was frightening, like a proper nutter. Mark Hadlow as Dori was great - I liked his scene with the camomile tea/red wine. Loved Adam Brown as Ori (playing him as the Much the Miller's Son of the group). Aidan Turner and Dean O'Gorman are not at all like Legolas and played the parts of young laddish Dwarves very well. You don't need me to say just how good Richard Armitage was as Thorin - he owned the role.

Martin Freeman was as perfect for Bilbo as I knew he would be.

I need to see it all again in 2D and enjoy it more rather than be distracted by bits of gubbins flying at me from out of the screen while I fiddle with plastic shades...

[MCRmyGirl4eva]

I'm going on a double date tonight to see it. SO. FREAKING. EXCITED!!!!

I'm just hoping that it won't differ from the book too much, like LOTR did.