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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

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Edgy MD Dec 29 2012 07:20 AM

You get 13 dwarves, a few trolls, a wizard, a sniveling imp, and a southearted furry-footed guy who likes to eat. Anybody see this yet?

Edgy MD Jan 01 2013 04:46 PM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

I guess that means me. I'm going to vote three stars, allowing myself the possible option to upgrade on reflection to 3 1/2. But this really gets lost tone-wise. Adapted as it is from a young adulty novel with a lot of silly elements, it can't really allow Bilbo to slowly stumble out of his innocence, as the viewer has already seen the far darker story that unfolds from it. They give a long prologue --- voiced by Ian Holm as Bilbo, flashing back from the morning of the birthday party that started LotR, explaining the history of the dwarves under the mountain and the mountain's eventual loss, bloody and vicious and horrible and hateful. So when he gets to reciting the opening lines of the book --- "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." --- it's silly. We all know about Hobbit holes, we know about the fantastic world of Middle Earth beyond Hobbit holes, and the story can never unfold for us as it's meant to --- with Bilbo's stumble from his innocent world of comfort and food to the dangerous world beyond. Even if there's single viewer who hasn't seen the LotR trilogy, director Peter Jackson makes clear that he hardly cares to maintain that pacing. Innocence is lost before Gandalf ever visits bag end. We know all about what's up the beanstalk before we ever know Jack. Jackson, as game as he is to create some impressive set pieces, is not game for doing the hard work of the imagination that it would take to restore that innocence. Pity. And when he does try --- restoring some of Tolkien's songs to the narratives --- it seems an embarrassing departure from what Jackson really wants to do, which is enter into darkenss, and cut some shit up with some awesome extreme fighting moves out of the Jedi handbook. Half the dwarves lack anything resembling the stout and foreshortened body type (and a few lack full beards) characteristic of the race. They made a commitment clearly to give Thorin Oakenshield the role of brooding swordsman that Aragorn ably fills in the LotR trilogy, but you know, he's a dwarf, and the traits that we find in his compatriots --- randy, stout, stouthearted, good in a tight spot, but awkward in a world full of taller creatures --- are absent in him. The dwarves really are pretty hapless in the first half of the novel, getting captured again and again before getting bailed our by Gandalf, or eventually Bilbo as he grows in his resources. One thing that really does work, and to some length is in the spirit of the book, is, ironically, material that's not from the book at all. We spend some time with Gandalf's brother wizard Radagast the Brown, who is briefly alluded to in the book but never appears, and only briefly appears in passing in the Lord of the Rings books. Taking from background on him in the Simarillion, and doing some liberal construction of their own, they create a figure that's part Green Man, part St. Francis, part St. Nicholas, and a little bit of the (also absent from the films) Tom Bombadil. Drawn through the woods on a sled pulled by Rhosgobel rabbits, with birds nesting (and pooping) in his hair, Radagast is a holy fool, tasked (apparently by the ancients) with looking after the flora and fauna of the forest, acutely sensitive to shadows and suffering in nature, and first to realize that something evil is afoot in Middle Earth. Bully to them for creating him, but it speaks to the inability to live of to the challenges of adaptation that the best thing they did is extra-canonical. As the dwarves pass through Rivendell, we re-meet some the timeless characters of the LotR trilogy, as Gandalf confers with Elrond, Galadriel, and Sarumon, but we already know the fates of these three, on the page and in film. How pointless it suddenly seems to care about them. Even Bilbo, who in the books falls in love with Rivendell's pleasures and keeps them in his heart until he returns in his aged years, seems to reflect the audience's been there done that attitude. I don't know how you go back to The Hobbit after The Lord of the Rings, but Jackson --- torn between the challenges to take us to an earlier, more innocent story line, and on the other hand improve on the cinematic spectacle of a decade ago --- doesn't really pull it off to my satisfaction. Maybe future generations blessed with the opportunity to see these films chronologically will feel differently.

The Second Spitter Jan 01 2013 05:00 PM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

I haven't seen the LoTR trilogy since they were in the cinemas and only have scant recollection of them. Is it better to leave it that way before i watch the Hobbit or should i rewatch them first?

Edgy MD Jan 01 2013 05:27 PM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

As I kinda suggest in my last sentence, absolutely.

Frayed Knot Jan 01 2013 06:31 PM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

It would be quite unexpected if I were to journey to the theater to see this movie.

Vic Sage Jan 01 2013 09:39 PM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

a major disappointment. Tolkien's HOBBIT is a relatively gentle and charming fairy tale written for children. If Jackson had made a movie similarly filled with wonder, it could have been...well... wonderful. Instead he forged this bloated oaf of a movie, pointlessly and cynically extended with extraneous material to pad the story out to make another "trilogy". Unfortunately, the trilogy it is most emulating is not the original Star Wars trilogy but its subsequent and inferior prequel. There are some good things, to be sure. Andy Sirkus is still terrific as Gollum, as is Ian McCellan as Gandalf. And the battle with the goblins is impressive (if soulless). And there are nice tie-ins to the LotR story. I particularly liked Gandalf's use of the butterfly, which we see again in LotR:Two Towers. So its not without its own virtues. But, overall, i think fans will be unhappy with it and the uninitiated will wonder what the fuss is all about.

Edgy MD Jan 02 2013 06:11 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Hey, like Sauron's bringing the dwarves and elves and men together in opposition to his treachery, Jackson has forged a pretty solid alliance between Sage and myself here.

Mets – Willets Point Jan 02 2013 08:00 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

What a bummer. I kind of expected that a Hobbit movie would have all the problems that you all are bringing up, but with all the hype and excitement about the release of the first movie, I'd got to thinking that it might actually be good.

Edgy MD Jan 02 2013 08:06 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

How is J.R.R. Tolkien like a classic rock DJ?

Mets – Willets Point Jan 02 2013 08:23 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Edgy MD wrote: How is J.R.R. Tolkien like a classic rock DJ? They quote Led Zeppelin lyrics?

Edgy MD Jan 02 2013 08:52 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

When either one is stuck for an idea, they can be counted on to go with the Eagles.

Edgy MD Jan 14 2013 09:30 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

This guy saw a different film than I did.

The Second Spitter Jan 15 2013 07:38 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Still haven't seen this yet, but was forwarded a link to this article earlier in the week. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Masterclass in Why HFR fails, and a reaffirmation of what makes cinema magical

Vic Sage Jan 15 2013 08:40 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

saw it in 2D, and it didn't much help.

Ceetar Jan 15 2013 08:43 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Still haven't seen this yet, but was forwarded a link to this article earlier in the week. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Masterclass in Why HFR fails, and a reaffirmation of what makes cinema magical Long article, and very interesting, but didn't answer one question to me. A lot of 'what makes things cinematic' is simply because it's what we're used to. Perhaps after we get more ingrained to HFR.. Are our brains conditioning to watching movies a certain way?

Edgy MD Jan 24 2013 07:44 PM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

I was wondering if, after 10 years of Peter Jackson not wanting to direct this film but it ultimately falling to him, I wondered briefly if anybody thought of Terry Gilliam as a candidate. And then I realized Gilliam already made his Hobbit 30+ years ago, but called it Time Bandits. Had Ian Holm and everything.

Vic Sage Jan 24 2013 09:30 PM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

ah, TIME BANDITS. overlooked and underrated. perversely dark ending, brilliant design. I need to think about a Gilliam filmography... unless i've done one already. i don't remember. "Heroes! What do they know about a day's work?"

Edgy MD Jan 25 2013 07:22 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

I just saw Time After Time. My wife saw the guy who played Jack the Ripper and said "That guy's evill!" And I said, "Well, yeah, he's..." "No, I mean he's Evil --- capital E! Slugs! HE created slugs! They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?" I mean, it's hard to imagine Gilliam would make a Hobbit that would be consistent enough with the universe of the LotR film trilogy, and there's always the chance that the film could get away from Gilliam, as Gilliam films do. But he'd definitely be a guy who'd go for a project as ambitious in the imagination department as Jackson was in the technical department. And maybe Jackson producing, with that studio that Jackson built, with all his team members bringing their experience from LotR --- maybe all that would protect and/or save Gilliam from the over-reach that does him in, or whatever it is that too frequently does his films in.

Vic Sage Jan 25 2013 07:48 AM Re: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Gilliam has always seemed to me the Orson Welles of modern British fantasy. Great talent and ambition, but his reach almost always exceeds his grasp, and he's as likely to wreck the ship as bring it safely to port. I don't think its coincidence that they were both lured into attempting a Don Quixote film that crashed and burned. Yet, when he's good, he's as good as anybody has ever been. sigh. and that your wife can quote David Warner from TB is a testament both to her, and to you for marrying her. actually, they marry US, don't they?