Saw The Hobbit this weekend...

[seawasp]

It was *awesome*.

Despite adding pieces here and there (most notably we see Radagast making the discovery of the Necromancer's presence in Mirkwood, and a meeting of a significant portion of the White Council following that news), Jackson stuck closer to the original than he did in the LotR movies.





His major changes were to make some events more active than they were in the book -- i.e., where things are more talked-about than done in the book, here they're more done. Perhaps the largest individual change was in the Troll sequence. In this version, Bilbo goes first to try to free the horses, can't untie Troll-made knots, and gets caught when he's trying to remove a troll-knife to cut the ropes. The Dwarves do NOT do the stupid thing of coming one at a time to get caught; once they realize that Bilbo's not coming back, they charge in en masse, and do a pretty good job; but unfortunately they're apparently not fully used to fighting things that badass yet, so they get caught and tied up. Bilbo manages to talk to them long enough to stall for time (as he notices Gandalf approaching), giving Gandalf the chance to get into position and do the "Dawn take you all!".

While this is certainly different, one of the things it does is start to establish Bilbo as having some agency, courage, and willingness to ACT. It also makes his later actions more believable and part of his development.

There's some other minor changes, some only a matter of changing the order of things. There IS one added subplot which derives from another part of the appendices, but he integrates it well.

The movie STARTS with a prologue that shows us Erebor at the height of its power, and then its fall and destruction -- without showing us more than the tiniest glimpse of the Dragon Smaug himself. This gives us a look at what the Dwarves have lost that's a LOT better than having it described to us, and also shows us (rather than tells us) the reason for the Dwarves' dislike of the Elves (and vice versa) in this particular case.

I wouldn't say I liked this *quite* as much as The Avengers, which was just filled with awesome moments from the time it started to the time it ended, but it's way up there. Highly recommended, except for the purists who can't stand anything being changed. For those, God No, don't go, and save yourself the annoyance and us the whines.





Also, we saw several previews for some potentially interesting movies, such as Jack the Giant-Slayer and Oblivion. With respect to the latter, though, Tom Cruise has either sealed a pact with the Devil for Eternal Youth, or special effects and plastic surgery have *REALLY* come farther than I thought, because he looked hardly older in the Oblivion preview than he did when he played in Top Gun!

Comments

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Wow, and my first thought at seeing the preview of "Jack the Giant Slayer" was "Wait 'til it's on cable, and then plan to be out that night."

[seawasp]

You probably hated Van Helsing too, I bet, which is one of my wife and my favorite, most-watched movies.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Hated? Nah. But I wasn't all that impressed with it either.

[ebartley.livejournal.com]

I quite liked the movie, I thought the preface was visually stunning -- but the battle in the preface made me cringe. The most basic tactics here: you don't try to shoot the dragon in the corridor where you can only fit a few of your archers and the dragon's breath can get all of them; you pull back and wait till it emerges into the inner chamber where all your archers can shoot it at once from all directions. If say hypothetically there's a chink in its armor, that maximizes the chance that someone will be shooting from the right angle to hit it.

[elainegrey.livejournal.com]

Re Tom Cruise: not sure i can distinguish plastic surgery from pact with the devil, but pretty sure pact with the devil is involved. Dunno, he's given me the creeps since Top Gun.

Re Bilbo's agency: he makes the choice to join the dwarves in the movie version, as well, whereas in the book Gandalf bustles him out in a rush -- he's pushed on his way as opposed to choosing to run off on an adventure. I know these aren't world war allegories, but i have some fondness for the swept-up-Hobbit frame as representing more the life of the common human than Hobbit-with-a-choice. How many of us run off after a fleeting and undesired opportunity? More of us get bustled off into them, i think, and the ability to rise to the occasion when it wasn't one's choice is a hopeful model.

Still, i enjoyed the change in the narrative, too. It certainly makes for a more likable Bilbo.

[seawasp]

Well, I've always liked Tom Cruise as an *actor* -- that is, playing roles of various characters. As a *person* ... well, in many cases I try NOT to learn much about the actor or actress I'm watching because I'd rather their less-than-heroic activities cast any shadow on the movie I'm watching.

Yeah, I can see what you mean, but I VASTLY prefer him making the decision on his own. Gandalf, honestly, was already enough of a colossal dick without him then basically kidnapping the poor guy.

[seawasp]

When a country's been at peace for umpteen years and is secure and perhaps arrogant in its power, sometimes that means that tactics which aren't generally expected will fade out of training and people will default to the ones they know. The tactics they were using were the right ones for "bunch of people trying to get into our warrens", since you DO NOT want them getting far enough in to have multiple corridors to choose from; you want to keep them in that choke point.

[rasmusb.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked it as well -- I respect your opinion. :D I was glad they did a good job with the singing -- I was already cringing thinking about it but it wasn't dwarf kareoke. :P Did you see the one or two glimpses of dwarf women in the desolation of the town?

As to Tom Cruise -- I agree with your pact thought -- in the 4th Mission Impossible -- he looked younger than Jeremy Renner. :D

[rasmusb.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- the hobbit handling is an issue Gandalf has to work on. :D

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

I loved the Hobbit movie and have seen it twice now.

Re Tom Cruise. I like him as an actor but you're right about the pact with the Devil or the picture in the attic. i saw rain man the other day on TV, however, and he did look young. I think he still easily passes for thirty-something, but he was definitely looking twenty-something in Rain Man (which is right as he was 26 at the time). So he is aging, but slowly. Considering he's 50 now, looking thirtysomething is a pretty neat trick.

There are some interesting movies coming up. Hansel and Gretel looks as though it might be OK. I haven't seen the trailer for Oblivion of Jack the Giant Slayer yet. We're going to see Life of Pi on Wednesday and probably Les Mis the Wednesday after.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I still wanted my Bowie Goblin King... sigh...

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

I liked The Hobbit ... but, I actually felt like it deviated from the book MORE than LOTR did. For some of the various reasons being discussed here.

* Major B plot that not only isn't in the book, it's a direct contradiction of other Tolkien material (the one armed Orc)
* Bilbo choosing to go (and Bilbo being more assertive in general)
* The course of things with the Trolls
* We (the viewers/readers) actually see Radagast
* ... and so does the company of Dwarves
* The presence in the story of the investigation of the Necromancer's fortress
* The presence in the story of the council discussing the above

Don't get me wrong, all of those were actually GOOD changes, in my opinion ... but I think they depart a lot further from the book-as-written than LOTR did. By adding them into the movie, we have a lot fewer things that the reader/viewer just doesn't know, or would have to go look up. I think it was a good decision to add a lot of the material.

Except for ol' one arm. That B plot, while I like it, is just pure "we need a long term antagonist, lets go down to walmart and buy one." I don't think that makes it a better telling of the Hobbit... I think it just makes it a more hollywood-ed up movie.

[seawasp]

You already had that in Labyrinth. Wrong Goblinses for Bowiedom.

[seawasp]

Eh, sort of. OTOH, I didn't hit something in the Hobbit that gave me the same "WTF??" reaction as, oh, Denethor's characterization, which simply didn't WORK.

The fact that we actually SEE stuff that's just referred to off-camera I don't see as changing the book. It's letting us see stuff that we know happened, and which I, at least, really WISHED we'd been shown, and that's in-canon actual events.

If *I* were gonna Hollywood-up The Hobbit, the FIRST thing I'd do is cut the number of Dwarves in half. You can't remember all their names, and only some of them actually DO anything significant even in the original book (other than providing more amusement and targets for being grabbed/barreled/webbed) from any moviemaker's point of view. Jackson went to great lengths to individualize them all, which I appreciate, but that's still -- from a Hollywood perspective -- wasted effort unless you're gonna DO something with all those Dwarves.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

one can dream...

[seawasp]

Look on the bright side; if they HAD cast him, you'd have had to watch Jareth the Goblin King getting punked by a bunch of dwarves.

[melchar.livejournal.com]

About Tom Cruise - I'd never liked him as an actor until I saw him in 'Collateral' and then I was -very- much impressed. [Went back, saw a few of his other movies with less disliking of him - and enjoyed most of the movies more.] I've made a point of checking out movies since then and have liked him a -lot-. And yes, he looks like he's GOT to have a portrait hidden away somewhere, aging in his stead.

But I don't mind. ^_^

As for 'The Hobbit'? I was expecting to have a 'meh' reaction and I really just loved the heck out of it. It felt like the movie lasted -maybe- an hour to my inner-child/movie-viewing mind. Snacky dwarves? Eek! And so very much the 'aloofness of the elves' was shown - and not to their benefit.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

he would have run away to Mordor to plot his revenge..

[muirecan.livejournal.com]

I like Van Helsing actually. Though the plushy couch of doom always gets a laugh out of me.

[muirecan.livejournal.com]

I quite enjoyed The Hobbit. Yes it isn't the book but as noted the changes generally make sense and don't break the book in any serious way. Mainly they are showing us events that happened in the books timeline but off screen and for this story particularly combined with the Lord of The Rings movies we need these off screen bits brought back on screen.

[rasmusb.livejournal.com]

I always get stuck how the actor who is the Friar is Faramir. :D He's my fav -- & props to Kate to running & fighting in heels & corset. :)

[full-metal-ox.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on Radagast's characterization--and particularly his distinctive mode of transportation, which seems to be a fan-polarizing bit of business.

(Mine? I'll be severely disappointed if that chase scene fails to yield at least one fanvid apiece to "Yakety Sax" and "Wipeout".)

[seawasp]

Well, given that my usual description of Radagast is "... and this guy decided to go all Disney Nature-Boy on us instead of keep to the program", Radagast pretty much worked for me. He showed he had quite impressive power when he chose to use it, but mostly was Dr. Doolittle. I could've done without the bird's nest in his hair, but overall it wasn't far from what I'd have expected.