The Hobbit (2012)
Dec. 30th, 2012 10:41![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyThe Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Dir. Peter Jackson, 2012.
Having now seen this movie twice, in HFR 3D and in 2D, obviously, I quite enjoyed it. I deliberately didn't re-read the book before seeing the movie, but I don't have to do so to realize that the principal thing PJ has done, in bringing The Hobbit fully into the ambit of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, is all but obliterated the whimsical quality that The Hobbit shares with Tolkien's other early works--Letters from Father Christmas comes readily to mind--but not his later ones. I liked that whimsy, once I learned to appreciate it; but at the same time, it's good to go back to Middle-Earth. I haven't realized, but it's been nearly ten years since The Return of the King, and I've missed it powerfully.
The first of the Hobbit movies covers approximately the first third of the book plus a good chunk of back matter from the Appendices. I know where PJ is playing fast and loose with the time scales of various parts, but almost all of it is canonical. (EXCEPT THAT DAMNED RABBIT SLEDGE, WTFFFFFFF.) The Appendices have always been some of my favorite parts--IF PJ DOESN'T DO THAT THING WITH GANDALF AND THE SMOKE RINGS AND SARUMAN AT THE LAST MEETING OF THE WHITE COUNCIL I'M GOING TO FLIP OUT SO HARD--and I loved seeing this stuff on the screen, not least because Galadriel is my absolute favorite and bringing in the Appendices stuff puts her back on the screen, and gives the movie its only female character with a speaking part. I could watch the bearers of the Three Rings chum it up in Rivendell forever, not gonna lie, though Christopher Lee totally nailed the Sarumansplaining.
I liked the dwarves! I liked them more than I thought I would, and I was suitably impressed by Richard Armitage as Thorin, though I am bored by his not-quite-canonical dwarfpain and really really really wonder whether PJ is going to work in Thrain's canonical fate or not--I hope so! It also struck me that PJ is really playing up the Hobbit/LotR::Thorin/Aragorn parallels, which is somewhat tiresome but was also well done, at least in this movie, which plays the once-per-trilogy deus ex eagle card to great effect. (Sidenote: Aragorn is fairly low manpain, isn't he? I like that about him, and resent that Arwen's plotline was basically sacrificed to give him angsty backstory.)
I feel like Peter Jackson is really imitating George Lucas in these movies--making the prequel trilogy after the first trilogy--and the cinematic hobbyhorse that PJ is riding is shooting at high frame rate, specifically 48 fps (as compared to the standard 30 fps).epershand and I shelled out extra cash to see the film in HFR 3D, and it was wildly disorienting. The HFR image is very oversaturated, which actually (because modern 3D is done with polarization rather than color-splitting of the light) really flattens the 3D effects. Because the HFR is so hyper-real, however, it has the paradoxical effect of looking really cheap, like a K-drama or an old BBC show, and also of making Middle-Earth seem really real, like the filmmakers just went out and cast a random dragon and some trolls in these parts. It was really, really disorienting, and particularly at the beginning of the film, it makes the cinematography look like total crap, which it isn't. I got used to the effect partly, but never totally--every so often there would be a shot that would jar me out of my acclimitization, and I'd be left thinking again that it was so weird.
My sister and I saw it in 2D on Christmas night, and she actually reported a lot of the same impressions I had even at standard frame rate and without the 3D. To me, the 2D seemed pleasantly normal, though with rather too much detail of everyone's pores for true comfort. Movies are not life! Cinema is artificial, and I like it that way! And it's not like I can't go to Middle-Earth already--the Green Dragon has a Facebook page, FFS--so while I enjoyed the hyperrealism, I don't actually need ti. PJ: let the HFR go.
On Christmas night we did not see it with our fellow geeks and nerds, and the people in front of us actually turned around and glared at me when I laughed at Bilbo's last line. Don't look at me if you haven't read the book, fools! It's funny if you've read the book, and I refuse to apologize for having read the book.
Postscript: Andy Serkis as Gollum = still amazeballs. SOMEBODY GIVE THAT MAN AN OSCAR ALREADY, FFS.
Bonus postscript: If you haven't read Sarah Rees Brennan's Hobbit parody of hilarity, do so.
Having now seen this movie twice, in HFR 3D and in 2D, obviously, I quite enjoyed it. I deliberately didn't re-read the book before seeing the movie, but I don't have to do so to realize that the principal thing PJ has done, in bringing The Hobbit fully into the ambit of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, is all but obliterated the whimsical quality that The Hobbit shares with Tolkien's other early works--Letters from Father Christmas comes readily to mind--but not his later ones. I liked that whimsy, once I learned to appreciate it; but at the same time, it's good to go back to Middle-Earth. I haven't realized, but it's been nearly ten years since The Return of the King, and I've missed it powerfully.
The first of the Hobbit movies covers approximately the first third of the book plus a good chunk of back matter from the Appendices. I know where PJ is playing fast and loose with the time scales of various parts, but almost all of it is canonical. (EXCEPT THAT DAMNED RABBIT SLEDGE, WTFFFFFFF.) The Appendices have always been some of my favorite parts--IF PJ DOESN'T DO THAT THING WITH GANDALF AND THE SMOKE RINGS AND SARUMAN AT THE LAST MEETING OF THE WHITE COUNCIL I'M GOING TO FLIP OUT SO HARD--and I loved seeing this stuff on the screen, not least because Galadriel is my absolute favorite and bringing in the Appendices stuff puts her back on the screen, and gives the movie its only female character with a speaking part. I could watch the bearers of the Three Rings chum it up in Rivendell forever, not gonna lie, though Christopher Lee totally nailed the Sarumansplaining.
I liked the dwarves! I liked them more than I thought I would, and I was suitably impressed by Richard Armitage as Thorin, though I am bored by his not-quite-canonical dwarfpain and really really really wonder whether PJ is going to work in Thrain's canonical fate or not--I hope so! It also struck me that PJ is really playing up the Hobbit/LotR::Thorin/Aragorn parallels, which is somewhat tiresome but was also well done, at least in this movie, which plays the once-per-trilogy deus ex eagle card to great effect. (Sidenote: Aragorn is fairly low manpain, isn't he? I like that about him, and resent that Arwen's plotline was basically sacrificed to give him angsty backstory.)
I feel like Peter Jackson is really imitating George Lucas in these movies--making the prequel trilogy after the first trilogy--and the cinematic hobbyhorse that PJ is riding is shooting at high frame rate, specifically 48 fps (as compared to the standard 30 fps).
epershand and I shelled out extra cash to see the film in HFR 3D, and it was wildly disorienting. The HFR image is very oversaturated, which actually (because modern 3D is done with polarization rather than color-splitting of the light) really flattens the 3D effects. Because the HFR is so hyper-real, however, it has the paradoxical effect of looking really cheap, like a K-drama or an old BBC show, and also of making Middle-Earth seem really real, like the filmmakers just went out and cast a random dragon and some trolls in these parts. It was really, really disorienting, and particularly at the beginning of the film, it makes the cinematography look like total crap, which it isn't. I got used to the effect partly, but never totally--every so often there would be a shot that would jar me out of my acclimitization, and I'd be left thinking again that it was so weird. My sister and I saw it in 2D on Christmas night, and she actually reported a lot of the same impressions I had even at standard frame rate and without the 3D. To me, the 2D seemed pleasantly normal, though with rather too much detail of everyone's pores for true comfort. Movies are not life! Cinema is artificial, and I like it that way! And it's not like I can't go to Middle-Earth already--the Green Dragon has a Facebook page, FFS--so while I enjoyed the hyperrealism, I don't actually need ti. PJ: let the HFR go.
On Christmas night we did not see it with our fellow geeks and nerds, and the people in front of us actually turned around and glared at me when I laughed at Bilbo's last line. Don't look at me if you haven't read the book, fools! It's funny if you've read the book, and I refuse to apologize for having read the book.
Postscript: Andy Serkis as Gollum = still amazeballs. SOMEBODY GIVE THAT MAN AN OSCAR ALREADY, FFS.
Bonus postscript: If you haven't read Sarah Rees Brennan's Hobbit parody of hilarity, do so.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-30 15:49 (UTC)I saw it in 2D and loved it.
And I agree -- Serkis deserves an Oscar.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-30 16:05 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-30 19:19 (UTC)Most of it, yeah. The stuff that flat contradicts canon (as opposed to not being mentioned) would be: (a) Azog surviving the battle of Moria; (b) Thorin rather than Dain fighting Azog at the battle of Moria; (c) that Thorin's quest is about "reclaiming my homeland" rather than "regaining my gold the dragon stole" (though they gloss over the question of what 13 Dwarfs and a Hobbit could expect to accomplish in that vein); (d) the flat statement that the Witch-King was dead and buried, when they knew damned well that he could not be killed and was a Ringwraith.
Lots of minor contradictions, of course, mostly having to do with characterization: Thorin had no particular problem with Elrond, for instance; Bilbo got hustled into joining the company; Bilbo had reason to suspect the Ring was Gollum's until he'd already won the riddle game; and of course the big one of Bilbo attacking the Orcs while fully visible, which was just ludicrous.
If I were king of the world, that's the one thing I would change in the movie, because it plays merry hell with the whole reason for a Hobbit. They're not fighters, they're sneaky, and Bilbo never once goes into open combat in the book unless he's wearing the Ring. He's brave, but he's little and weak and he knows it, so he uses his skills sensibly.
PJ is really playing up the Hobbit/LotR::Thorin/Aragorn parallels
Hmm, except Thorin : Hobbit as Boromir : LotR, wouldn't you think? Unless PJ is really going to make a radical change to his characterization, Thorin's obsession with the Arkenstone and the treasure is the driving force of much of the last third of the book.
...Ooooh, I just had an idea. I was wondering why Gandalf hadn't mentioned Thrain. I wonder if what PJ is going to do is have Gandalf go to Dol Guldur, find Thrain, get the Dwarf Ring from him, return it to Thorin, and that will be what drives him into disaster. (Except it seems unlikely that Gandalf would be so foolish as to return a Dwarf Ring...)
But it seems like a really good way to tie the two trilogies together, except for the unfortunate circumstance that PJ never mentioned the Dwarf Rings in the first trilogy. Ooops.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-30 21:37 (UTC)If he does that, my screams of ARGH at Gandalf-character-assassination will be audible all over the globe . . .
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-31 03:39 (UTC)I think, again just having watched FotR, that part of the point of Boromir for PJ is how similar he and Aragorn are and aren't. So, I don't think the parallels I thought were there in this movie preclude Thorin's canonical eventual downfall. Which, to be honest, I remembered more as being due to pride than to the Arkenstone; I deliberately haven't yet reread The Hobbit. But, I think seeing parallels with Boromir based on Thorin in this movie is completely legitimate too.
I think the moment PJ decided to give this book the trilogy treatment moments like Bilbo charging the Orcs became inevitable. I agree that it's ludicrous, but frankly I think the rabbit sleigh is more ludicrous.
I need to reread the Appendices etc for what they say about the Witch-King. If memory serves they never say that he was dead in the movie, just that he was buried after Angmar fell--which may well be canonical, because part of the point of the Witch-King is that he can travel bodyless to some extent. I knew the Azog vengeance whatnot was made up for manpain, though, sigh.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-31 06:27 (UTC)Not being deeply familiar with the Appendices, I can't say how much of what I noticed during the film was drawn from them -- but the novel, when taken on its own terms, reads like a D&D campaign: the GM is rolling on the Random Encounter Table to see what happens to the PCs next. Making Azog into an ongoing antagonist gave a through-line to several of those obstacles, making them feel more like a continuous story than disconnected set-pieces.
swan_tower (OpenID isn't working right now.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-12-31 17:12 (UTC)