Finished up shit-shoveling. Had to take time and admire the engine compartment of J’s ’69 Le Mans: He just got the engine back in and running after scouring almost 45 years’ worth of grease out from under the hood and re-painting, and he’s very pleased with himself. I used to wrench in dealerships, and I never really shook that off: Working on cars for any reason whatsoever is not my idea of fun. I don’t know what you’d have to do to convince me to embark on a bumper-to-bumper “just because” restoration of any car, even a ’60’s sorta muscle car, but J’s doing a nice job and anyway that’s not what I wanted to talk about.
Just as I was leaving, J stopped me and asked of I’d seen the Lord of the Rings movies. I said, yeah, I’ve seen all of them but not the Hobbit.
“Ah! Yes, well, The Hobbit’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Want to see it?”
Yeah, I guess so. It’s free. And so I brought the DVD to the Lair.
Hours later… more than two and a half hours later! – when I was wondering how on earth our heroes would find time to even shake hands with Smaug and introduce themselves, let alone end his antics, because they’d spent all their time and more besides walkingwalkingwalking and meeting pointless characters who’ll never be seen again and dropping Bilbo off to do the Gollum thing and having other incidental misadventures – the movie ended. I’d completely forgotten it’s a two-parter. (Three-parter. Claire’s quite right and I didn’t know that.)
It’s … you know, it’s not a bad movie. It’s got Peter Jackson and all the money and landscape of New Zealand behind it so it can’t really be bad. It’s just a very long movie in which nothing very interesting happens, except periodically there’s a huge CGI battle scene that sets us up for another 45 minutes of walking. When you increase the number of your “fellowship” to 15 characters it’s impossible to flesh them all out, so I spent the whole film waiting to see which die first, as if it were a Predator sequel. That – and the fact that they were in the novel so they have to be in the movie – would have been the only actual reason for most of these characters to be there at all. But of course nobody dies except huge numbers of CGI orcs, because after two hours and forty minutes we haven’t even gotten to the main conflict.
He’s Peter Jackson. He did Lord of the Rings, and I know that he knows how to cut big chunks out of Tolkien fiction, and when to do it, because a movie is not a novel. But he doesn’t seem to have spent much effort doing it for this slow, bloated slug of a film. I got the impression he wasn’t going to let this stop until we’d all seen every single possible Enzed landscape, at least once. If that takes a very long time, well, he’s sure we’ll find it worthwhile in the end.
I didn’t read the LOTR novels until I was an adult with a teenager of my own, because I read The Hobbit in high school and found it rather boring. In that sense, the movie truly and faithfully catches the spirit of the book.
Joel, I hate to break it to you. But after expanding it to a two-parter, Jackson eventually made it a three-partner.
I watched it for the first time a couple of days ago and I still haven’t gotten over my disappointment. (Disappointment, but not surprise; Jackson went to this same sort of excess with his endless, overwrought version of King Kong and the reviews of The Hobbit told a cautionary tale.)
My god, the parts that weren’t pure BLOAT (endless, pointless battles with wargs, orcs, etc. etc.) were even worse than bloat. They were Jackson copying Jackson, Jackson picking bits and pieces from Tolkein without understanding where they fit in real storytelling, and Jackson egregiously attempting to work in every, single, bloody character from LOTR (Galadriel! Frodo! Saruman!) whether appropriate or not.
I found parts of it downright embarrassing.
And all this wreckage made from a simple, charming, unassuming story.
The only plusses: Martin Freeman as Bilbo (perfect, wonderful, charming) and the single scene that Jackson didn’t feel the need to embellish to death (the riddling scene with Bilbo and Gollum).
Yuch. Definitely won’t be bothering with parts two, three, ad infinitum ad nauseum.
The actor who played Bilbo was fantastic – and the character was very well written in the screenplay.
The rest – yeah. What you said.
As you know, I don’t get much out of movies and much prefer the books. I’ve had most of the Hobbit and LOTR books at one time or another, but I keep giving them to grandchildren and they never make it back. I’m going to buy a set and keep them hidden, just for me. I love to reread those things. 🙂
And this one I’ll get in paper… To go with my C.S. Lewis, Kipling, and other classics.
Mama, well, FWIW, I think the LOTR movies are actually (heresy, I know) better than their source material.
Definitely there are elements in the movies that raise my hackles — places where Jackson & Co. were trying to create fake drama where it was neither needed nor attuned to Tolkein. (For those who give a damn: Faramir as a thug still rankles, even though the extended edition DVD goes a long way toward mitigating that; Aragorn “falling” — just plain stupid when two other characters either have gone or are going to go through the same “false death” thing.) But re-reading the books after seeing the films multiple times I found the books stiff — brilliant, but stiff.
The Hobbit, though … yeah. Stick with the book.
I did see the LOTR movies, and enjoyed them. I didn’t spend any time trying to compare them to the books, however. Most enjoyed the part with the “Ents” and the young (very Irish) hobbits in that forest, I must say… the scenery was wonderful throughout, and the dungeon scenes with Gandalf hair raising to say the least. Most puzzled by the elf lords and ladies, actually, but they were indeed beautiful.
None of it can replace the books in my estimation, however. I could not understand much of what was said in the movie (due to my deafness) and I suspect that I would not have gotten much out of it at all if I had not been thoroughly familiar with the story from the books. I suspect that would be even more true of the “Hobbit” movies, so I will not bother with them.
The nice part is that I can recall the scenes from the LOTR movies – if I wish – whenever I read the books now. 🙂 How I would love to visit New Zealand!
The movie version of Faramir doesn’t bother me as much as Aragorn. In the films, Aragorn has to be dragged into leadership kicking and screaming. In the books he’s quite a lot less reluctant. He virtually conspires (with Gandalf) against Denethor for the throne of Gondor. Elrond makes Aragorn’s becoming king a precondition for getting his permission to marry Arwen, not that Aragorn seems to need more incentive.
Personally I found that character change more jarring than the one with Faramir. The movie screenwriters made a good point concerning Faramir: He’s not very interesting in the book, with no character arc at all. Granted that he came across as an indecisive thug at best in the theatrical release, in the extended version the character is quite winning.
I went and re-read the book after seeing the movie. Radagast gets one mention in the book. As does the necromancer. One mention each. It’s eye candy designed to gross money. And it works. But true to the book? Not so much.
The real reason he’s been made to do 3 films is he’s still paying the studios back for King Kong.
You’re absolutely right about this project being too long. There was an animated version of The Hobbit back in the 70s that manages to hit all the high points of the book in about 90 minutes. When all 3 films have been released onto DVD, just watch – somebody will cut them together into 2 kick-ass films.
Didn’t see the movie, bored by the book and I can honestly say the only thing I enjoy about Hobbitville is the second breakfast. I enjoy breakfast so much that I often enjoy a Hobbit breakfast.