the hobbitses
27 Dec 2012 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayoraaseiHalfway through the half hour of trailers preceding this 2 hour 50 minute long test of bladder wall elasticity movie, there was that cheeky 007 commercial that finished with the line: James Bond is GREAT Britain.
Unsurprisingly, The Hobbit is, once again, a catalogue of a fine selection of landscape photography from the geographically blessed islands of New Zealand. Or whatever it says on the back of that travel magazine.
A hilarious spoof from the always reliable Honest Trailers:
Cynicism aside, The Hobbit was a surprisingly enjoyable journey. It's a much lighter story than Lord of the Rings, than even The Fellowship of the Ring. The driving thread of the story is much simpler, of one dwarf clan's quest to reclaim their kingdom.
There are disadvantages to this set up. The simpler story, coupled with the need to fill three movies worth of plot, allows for some rather superfluous scenes: Frodo's cameo for example felt more gratuitous than contributory. There is also a great deal of exposition: FOTR already had great swathes of narration by the husky-voiced Cate Blanchett to explain how the Ring came to be, but that bears nothing against the good solid hour of flashforward and flashback and flashback yet again to explain the plight of Erebor. It's nearly an hour and a half past before the story explodes into action, and though it doesn't noticeably drag, it will make the less patientsurgeons tap their foot.
In LOTR it was much clearer why hobbits were chosen for the task of bearing the ring - the Ring affected the great, the wise and the powerful most strongly; and hence the task fell on the "ordinary" folk who nevertheless had amazing courage and companionship.
It remains to be seen why Gandalf was so adamant to drag Bilbo on this quest. That said, Martin Freeman does a remarkable job of making Bilbo likeable - considering the last we saw of him was a rather mentally imbalanced old hobbit. Frodo was a bit of a maiden in distress and was always in tears needing to be rescued (or maybe my memory hasn't done him justice). Bilbo, despite his lack of any training, rather holds his own against the brawny dwarves.
The dwarves were adorable. There's thirteen of them, and apart from their snappy prince Thorin, the rest are interchangeable. However, they make for an entertaining team, squabbling and jostling, pouring ale down their beards, juggling good food in the air and being generally obstinate loud-mouthed brats. Being generally dwarves, as dwarves are often portrayed in fantasy. Or maybe just in Ankh-Morpork. Damn those gold-loving buggers.
There are flaws to the story, Gandalf always being there to save the day one of them, and the lack of well-defined characters outside of the central three another. But take the inevitable LOTR comparisons away and it stands up well as its own movie, as long as you remember it's never meant to have the scope, the span and the intensity of the previous trilogy.
Unsurprisingly, The Hobbit is, once again, a catalogue of a fine selection of landscape photography from the geographically blessed islands of New Zealand. Or whatever it says on the back of that travel magazine.
A hilarious spoof from the always reliable Honest Trailers:
Cynicism aside, The Hobbit was a surprisingly enjoyable journey. It's a much lighter story than Lord of the Rings, than even The Fellowship of the Ring. The driving thread of the story is much simpler, of one dwarf clan's quest to reclaim their kingdom.
There are disadvantages to this set up. The simpler story, coupled with the need to fill three movies worth of plot, allows for some rather superfluous scenes: Frodo's cameo for example felt more gratuitous than contributory. There is also a great deal of exposition: FOTR already had great swathes of narration by the husky-voiced Cate Blanchett to explain how the Ring came to be, but that bears nothing against the good solid hour of flashforward and flashback and flashback yet again to explain the plight of Erebor. It's nearly an hour and a half past before the story explodes into action, and though it doesn't noticeably drag, it will make the less patient
In LOTR it was much clearer why hobbits were chosen for the task of bearing the ring - the Ring affected the great, the wise and the powerful most strongly; and hence the task fell on the "ordinary" folk who nevertheless had amazing courage and companionship.
It remains to be seen why Gandalf was so adamant to drag Bilbo on this quest. That said, Martin Freeman does a remarkable job of making Bilbo likeable - considering the last we saw of him was a rather mentally imbalanced old hobbit. Frodo was a bit of a maiden in distress and was always in tears needing to be rescued (or maybe my memory hasn't done him justice). Bilbo, despite his lack of any training, rather holds his own against the brawny dwarves.
The dwarves were adorable. There's thirteen of them, and apart from their snappy prince Thorin, the rest are interchangeable. However, they make for an entertaining team, squabbling and jostling, pouring ale down their beards, juggling good food in the air and being generally obstinate loud-mouthed brats. Being generally dwarves, as dwarves are often portrayed in fantasy. Or maybe just in Ankh-Morpork. Damn those gold-loving buggers.
There are flaws to the story, Gandalf always being there to save the day one of them, and the lack of well-defined characters outside of the central three another. But take the inevitable LOTR comparisons away and it stands up well as its own movie, as long as you remember it's never meant to have the scope, the span and the intensity of the previous trilogy.
