[h=5]I found "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" waiting for me in my mailbox tofay. I popped the movie in and just finished watching it. My initial reaction was, an unexpected disappointment. Tobe fair, "The Hobbit" was published before "Lord of the Rings" as a kid's novel with a fairly trite and light story. Tolkien rewrote "The Hobbit" after he released the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy to better tie it to LotR. Still, The Hobbit was completely overshadowed in scope, maturity, and depth. LotR was definitely not a kids' book series.
The introduction to the universe takes many liberties to tie this movie in to the LotR movies. The whole scene with Frodo and "old" Bilbo is completely manufactured by the screen writers. I will overlook the fact that according LotR Bilbo was supposed to look precicely the same at 111 as he did at 51 (his age in "The Hobbit"). Still, the movie follows the book (close enough, anyway). However, since the book was shorter than each of the three LotR books, a lot of additional story detail and some scenes had to be manufactured by the screen writers. The whole thing with Radagast was not really in the original story.
I guess my biggest problems was the "quest". It was nowhere near as engaging or all-encompassing as LotR. This is not the fault of the screen writers. It is what happens in the book, but still a big let-down from what I was used to.
The motivation for Bilbo to tag along, or for Gandalf to seek him out in the first place was really glossed over in the movie. You never really felt the sense of adventure that Bilbo he had as a youngster. And you are left wondering the same thing one of the characters keeps saying, "why is he even here?" This adds to the overall feel of the movie where everyone was just going through the paces.
There were several depictions of passages in the book that were cartoonish. I have to reread the book to see if it was really this stupid. The whole "dish" scene was eye-rolling and just childish. Then there were the cringe-inducing "comic relief" scenes including the trolls discussing dinner over the campfire. Not quite as bad as the "row your boat rondo" in Star Trek V, but still awful and a total distraction.
On the bright side, the whole scene where Bilbo and Gollum/Smeagol meet for the first time had the spark of "Lord of the Rings".
I guess my biggest problem with this movie is that I really didn't like the quest, and that is not the fault of the movie. But the part that is the screen writer's fault is the schizophrenic nature of the movie. Sometimes it had the feel and dialog of a kiddie show, and other times it was incredibly violent and graphic. It couldn't make up its mind if it wanted to be another Narnia movie or another LotR movie.
I will have to digest this over time, but I think Peter Jackson should have quit while he was ahead.[/h]
The introduction to the universe takes many liberties to tie this movie in to the LotR movies. The whole scene with Frodo and "old" Bilbo is completely manufactured by the screen writers. I will overlook the fact that according LotR Bilbo was supposed to look precicely the same at 111 as he did at 51 (his age in "The Hobbit"). Still, the movie follows the book (close enough, anyway). However, since the book was shorter than each of the three LotR books, a lot of additional story detail and some scenes had to be manufactured by the screen writers. The whole thing with Radagast was not really in the original story.
I guess my biggest problems was the "quest". It was nowhere near as engaging or all-encompassing as LotR. This is not the fault of the screen writers. It is what happens in the book, but still a big let-down from what I was used to.
The motivation for Bilbo to tag along, or for Gandalf to seek him out in the first place was really glossed over in the movie. You never really felt the sense of adventure that Bilbo he had as a youngster. And you are left wondering the same thing one of the characters keeps saying, "why is he even here?" This adds to the overall feel of the movie where everyone was just going through the paces.
There were several depictions of passages in the book that were cartoonish. I have to reread the book to see if it was really this stupid. The whole "dish" scene was eye-rolling and just childish. Then there were the cringe-inducing "comic relief" scenes including the trolls discussing dinner over the campfire. Not quite as bad as the "row your boat rondo" in Star Trek V, but still awful and a total distraction.
On the bright side, the whole scene where Bilbo and Gollum/Smeagol meet for the first time had the spark of "Lord of the Rings".
I guess my biggest problem with this movie is that I really didn't like the quest, and that is not the fault of the movie. But the part that is the screen writer's fault is the schizophrenic nature of the movie. Sometimes it had the feel and dialog of a kiddie show, and other times it was incredibly violent and graphic. It couldn't make up its mind if it wanted to be another Narnia movie or another LotR movie.
I will have to digest this over time, but I think Peter Jackson should have quit while he was ahead.[/h]
