The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I think it's complete BS that they're taking one not-too-terribly-long book and making it into three movies. That being said, I've loved all three of the LOTR movies (though one of them, the second or third, messed with the story a bit and irritated me some), so I have faith in Peter Jackson. When I heard he was taking the movie over, I was pleased. And you've got Sir Ian McKellen returning as Gandalf, and that's awesome. I'm definitely going to see this, but I'm not sure when exactly, as I'm very busy this weekend. I've seen good reviews, though, so I'm pretty excited.

 

I just got back from seeing it. And I'll preface this by saying that though I've read the book a couple of times, I haven't done so recently, so I can't really remember much detail about what happened in it, particularly in the middle of the book.

I thought it was a really good movie. Peter Jackson is the only one allowed to do anything Tolkien-related, ever, because his vision is perfect. I loved how it incorporated so much LOTR feel into it- the intro with Old!Bilbo and Frodo and the references to the birthday party, the returning cast members like Sir Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Ian Holm, Elijah Wood, Christopher Lee, and Andy Serkis; just the whole world, from the people to the locations to the battles to the music.

Martin Freeman was a perfect young Bilbo, and he turned into a badass there in some parts, which I liked to see. And speaking of badasses, Thorin was pretty awesome, too, and Gandalf is all, "yeah, I've got a sword and a staff, what up? " I couldn't really remember the names of any of the other dwarfs (though of course I found a lot of them pretty interchangeable in the book, too), but for the most part they had differing personalities and I liked them as traveling companions.

While I honestly can't think of anything in the movie that should have been cut, or that wasn't really needed, I still call bullshit on the three movies thing. Two I can kind of understand after seeing this first one, though I do think it would have been possible to do the book in one, but I dunno about three. But we'll see.

The only thing I didn't like about the movie was Radagast the Brown. I don't remember him from the book (I'm pretty sure we never even met him in it, that Gandalf had just mentioned him in passing), but his quirkiness, for lack of a better term, seemed ill-suited to the rest of the movie, and I'm sorry, it's cool to love nature and all that, but did he really need to walk around with birdshit in his hair/beard (or what I'm assuming is birdshit, because what else would it be)? That grossed me out something fierce, and took me out of the movie.

But anyhow, 2 hours and 45 minutes and I never once left the theater to use the restroom, so top marks.

 

Yeah, and I like that they're going into the appendices and incorporating all of that backstory, because it's all there already, and I remember wanting to know more about what Gandalf was up to when he wasn't with Bilbo and the dwarves. But still, three movies? I appreciate the symmetry of the three Hobbit movies and the three LOTR movies, but I still worry that there's going to end up being padding thrown in, particularly in the second movie. And it still seems like a cash grab. But I'm sure the movies will be enjoyable anyway.

I liked him when I read about him in the books (in the appendices, I suppose, unless he also appeared in some of the companion books Tolkien wrote; I can't remember), and I know he was supposed to be a little odd, but he still just sort of frustrated me in the movie. If he had been in the movie any longer, I would have hated him.

I suppose his inclusion could have been a little love letter to the fans, but he never actually appeared in the LOTR books, either, if I remember correctly. I think he's been mentioned a few times, by Gandalf and Aragorn and maybe a few others, but he was never written about in a way that it would have made sense to cast and film him, or so I think. *shrugs* But I've always been happy with the liberties that Jackson took with the series, because the movies still captured the heart and feel of the novels so well, excepting some change of character on Faramir's part and accompanying events.

I suppose one last thing to comment on, and it's not bad, necessarily, is that there seemed to be much more use of CGI in this movie. Like, it seemed like all of the orcs/trolls/etc were computer generated and looked it, whereas the orcs in the LOTR movies, at least as I remember, looked like actors in make up and I thought they looked more realistic.

 

Well, if you've never read them, they're certainly worth a read. But I'll admit that I found them a bit difficult to get through- in my opinion they tend to get bogged down in descriptions that I found uninteresting, though if you can get through that, the interesting stuff is really interesting. But for nothing else, it's worth it to just get the feel of this whole world Tolkien created. I really can't imagine the amount of time he put into just developing the languages alone, not to mention all of the mythologies and backstories.

I'm sure the diehard Tolkien fans would rage, but for the most part I prefer the movies. So I really am glad that Jackson is taking so much care with the franchise.

Did anyone who's seen the movie see it in the 48fps version? I saw it in the regular old 24 fps 2D format and loved it, but I understand from reviews and such that the people who saw it in the new format found it jarring and it took away from their enjoyment of the movie.