Escape to the Movies: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

[freakonaleash]

That is why I have been trying to avoid as much of the Lord of the Rings as possible this year. I have been trying not to go into it with the wrong expectations. I want to see Peter Jackson adaptation of the Hobbit rather than the prequel to the Lord of the Rings if that makes sense.

Some critics have also complained about the heavier use of CGI and lack of practical effects. Is it as much of a problem as some people say?

This might be too late because you might have gone and seen it, but I heard those complaints about the CGI and it did not bother me one bit since the CGI is pretty decent.

 

[The_State]

-snip-

This is a discussion I would like to have, and I wish more of my friends were as into Tolkien lore as I was.

...one you didn't touch on that really bugged me. Why did Gandalf seem to understand the importance of the ring? When Bilbo is about to pull it out, Gandalf gets his "concerned face" on and changes the subject suddenly. Now, I haven't read the book in a while (yeeears!), but I don't recall that bit at all. I recall Gandalf assuming that it was one of the minor rings forged as a sort of practice in the craft taught by Annatar. I understand why the movie had to recognize the importance of the ring, but why did Gandalf?

Ok I'll bite.

This scene makes perfect sense.

1) As Gandalf implies in the Lord of the Rings - all magic rings, even the ones with minor cantrips invested in them, are all the works of the Noldori and Sauron, and so fairly significant artifacts in their own right.

2) One of Gandalf's abilities was to detect a person lying. When Bilbo compulsively inaccurately related the story about how he acquired the ring, for no real reason, Gandalf's spider-sense alarm bells started ringing.

3) The above is reconfirmed in the Prologue to Fellowship which has Tolkien state that Gandalf "disbelieved Bilbo's story..." and that he "continued to be very curious about the ring..."

4) This makes even more sense when you realise Gandalf was starting to become more deeply enmeshed in ringlore with every passing month, as Saruman was pushing this issue constantly at Council, and the possibility the Nazgul had re-arisen in Dol Guldur was raised, and so forth.

And never forget Gandalf himself was a Ringbearer...

Very good points, all, actually. And they all make sense in retrospect. In that brief moment, however, I don't think Bilbo even shows the actual ring. He fumbles in his pocket for a second, then Gandalf interrupts. Now, if he is detecting deception and feels that Bilbo should keep whatever secret he has, that's fine and I'll leave it there.

And I'm not sure if Gandalf counts as a Ringbearer ringbearer, since he never possessed The One. He has Narya, one of The Three, which was not made by Sauron but by Celebrimbor alone.

 

[Furbyz]

So, I was pleasantly surprised that there were...musical numbers. I didn't expect that and thought it was completely awesome. I haven't read much of either the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings (I just can't stand Tolkien's writing style), I do recall that at times they did sing, which is something I never expected to see in the movies.

Now I want to see full on Broadway versions of LOTR...Sondheim get on it.

 

[Daemonate]

-snip-

And I'm not sure if Gandalf counts as a Ringbearer ringbearer, since he never possessed The One. He has Narya, one of The Three, which was not made by Sauron but by Celebrimbor alone.

Well, what I mean is he knows the burden that goes with bearing a Ring of Power, it's bound to make you have a more than passing curiosity in magic rings.

But in the book, I don't believe Gandalf ever saw the ring, but he figured out where Bilbo got his sudden stealth skills out in very short order. The film makes the scene little more ambiguous, doesn't it?

 

[Nfritzappa]

Finally a moviebob review I completely agree with.

 

[Chris Mosher]

I hope you don't mean Les Miserables was too damn long, Bob. I think a two and a half hour musical is perfectly fine, especially if you're a theatre watcher like me.

I've got a sinking feeling that Bob won't do Les Mis justice... maybe I'm being unfair but he doesn't strike me as the sort who enjoys musicals much :-/

OT: Just saw the Hobbit this afternoon, absolutely awesome film, highly recommended. It's definitely got a more humorous feel than Rings and really managed to get going after an admittedly slow first half-an-hour.

Given that Django Unchained is 8 minutes longer then Les Mis, I have the sneaking suspicion that he may talking about that one instead of Les Mis. Also I think that QT making a boring movie would be much more disappointing to Bob.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Well it was an entertaining romp and I'll probably be seeing part 2 on or at least near opening weekend.. but yeah, it wasn't really anything that totally grabbed me. The lack of comparitive depth is pretty glaring, even if expected. I did enjoy Bilbo more than I thought I would though. They totally pulled off the funny and lovable aspects without verging into annoying at all.

As for Star Trek 2... meh. It may or may not be a decent movie, but it doesn't feel anything at all like Trek. Not even a little.

Man of Steel looked like something I could sit through and that's saying a lot considering I have what could be considered negative interest in Superman.

 

[Tyler Trahan]

I definitely enjoyed the movie since I knew going in that it was not going to be as "epic" as Lord of the Rings. I loved the Dwarves and Bilbo, I liked Radaghast even though I felt like they made him needlessly silly with the bird excrement on his face but in general I liked his cookiness. However... I really, really miss the non-CG orcs that were seen in Lord of the Rings: Gothmog and Lurtz are far more intimidating than the Goblin King and Azog. I loved how in Lord of the Rings the line between CG and real were blurred, while here you almost always know when there is CG even if it is very well done.

As for the length, I did not feel the length of the movie at all. Actually my friend and I looked at eachother at the end and went "Wheres the rest?!" and truly didnt want it to end. It began slow, but fellowship started off quite slow as well. I was also extremely please with how Thorin came out and how they showed his backstory... I wasn't expecting it throughout the film and I thought it was very well done.

Basically the worst part about this movie is that it ISNT Lord of the Rings. There were one or two times when the film tried to be overly dramatic and slow-mo was used for a few seconds too long as well as music/camera angles/scenes that harkened back to the LotR films that couldnt help but remind you that it ISNT Lord of the Rings. I loved The Hobbit, but there were just a couple points that I thought could have easily been better.

 

[Mosstromo]

I usually agree 99% with Mr. Movie Bob, strangely that it would be on this film that I would find myself diminished to around 45% agreement ratio with great geek elucidator Bob.
I think that the best evaluation and wordless review an adventure film can get is wether it excited your senses and/or intellect. The Hobbit did neither for me.
It is padded. And it does show.
I was truly shocked to found myself bored during a large chunk of the film. And things did not get better near the end. I just could not accept that it was my most honest reaction to what I was seeing.

So that is it.

I have no trouble with the tone being silly... REALLY silly, nor with the technology, the major contrivances of the story to force arcs and goals, nor even the supposed miscast (which I don't think is the case), but if a film this active is this non-exciting as Michael Bay has tought us that it is possible, it can't be great storytelling. Maybe just good(ish) storytelling.

 

[HBaskerville]

Saw the movie this weekend. Lots of thoughts.

The one sentence review would be : This isn't the Hobbit, its Peter Jackson's Tolkien fanfic.

Long swaths of this movie are boring. If you know anything about the book and all the supplementary sources, you see the padding. You see where Jackson is stuffing in bits to make his three movie deal. The padding could be tolerable if it wasn't so dull.

So many scenes are there just to fill space. The pacing is terrible. All the Radagast stuff in his cabin could be cut and you would lose nothing. And when did Radagast meet with Bilbo and the dwarves? He didn't. Oooooh, wouldn't it be COOL is Radagast met Bilbo! Give me a break.

Thorin, Kili and Fili don't look like dwarves. They look like men. All the other dwarves look like dwarves. Thorin especially does not have a dwarven look about him. My opinion is that he's the "star" and Jackson was afraid to make him look like the others. The other dwarves look wonderful.

Azog, aside from not being the right character - but hey, who cares as long as we're make three movies and stuffing it full of crap lets not bother to get the names right - looks pretty terrible. I saw it in 2d and the cgi sticks out like a sore thumb. The goblin king looks pretty bad, too. Where are the great looking make up effects from the orcs and uruk-hai in LotR?

On the plus, the dwarves singing about their lost home may be the best part of the whole movie. That scene is so affecting and well done. I was humming that song most of the day.

 

[MrBaskerville]

I kind of liked it, but i think it´s pretty damn flawed to say the least. If you look at the first Lord of the Rings movie, it´s really well put together, the action scenes are all there for a reason, in service of the plot. But in the Hobbit the action isn´t really contributing anything to the overall story, it´s action for the sake of action and not much else. And at the same time, it´s just soo over the top, i thought a lot of it was kind of silly and unnecessary.

I liked a lot of stuff, like the opening with the dwarf party at Bilbos, and Bilbos meeting with Gollum, Gandalfs meeting at rivendale and stuff like that. But then there´s also all the fluff, like, what did the figthing giants accomplish? It didn´t add anything to the story? But the thing i liked the least was that the action scenes went too far, reminded me too much of movies like Indiana Jones 4 and Tintin.

So yeah i was mostly dissapointed, but i did enjoy some parts of the movie, just wished it was shorter because damn... it gets boring at times, it´s never a good sign when you space out during intense action scenes.

 

[6SteW6]

Too damn long is 'This is 40' Right Bob, Riiiighhhttt??

 

[Markunator]

The movie is awesome. I don't really understand the critics who don't like it.

While I agree that this is no Fellowship, I have no problem saying that this is actually better than Fellowship. Why? I'll tell you.

Now both movies are similarly built. One might say that they are almost like carbon copies of each other. This actually comes from 3 things.

First, it's intentional. Since Jackson made them all you are reminded of that throughout the movie. For example there is a "Gandalf gets angry" and "grows in size" sequence in both Hobbit and Felloship.

Second, it's accidental. Again all movies were filmed in New Zealand and every time we get to enjoy the nature scenery, you can't help but to recall a similar scene from one of the Rings films. The barren fields sequence where dwarves escape the wargs was clearly filmed in the same location where they filmed wargs ambushing the people of Rohan on their way to Hornburg in Two Towers.

Third, it's Tolkien. It seems Tolkien intentionally mirrored the beginning of Fellowship with Hobbit. You have the Shire, setting out on the journey, meeting new people (though Frodo met them in Rivendell, all the dwarves are introduced in Bag End), and finally visiting Rivendell.

None of this is a bad thing, though you might get a feeling "we've been here, done this".

Now why is it better.

One word: PACING.

The movie starts slow, but once they are out of Shire, it really takes off and the pace does not stop until at the very end.

Fellowship had one huge fault - the climax was in the middle of (well 3/5 into) the movie. I'm talking about the Balin's tomb/The Bridge of Khazad-dum/Balrog sequence. As far as I'm concerned this was the best 20 minute action sequence ever made, but the problem was the anti-climatic Lothlorien that followed it. For me it just took the "oomf" out of the movie. The movie tried to regain the speed after that, and it did manage to do that (to a degree).

However, there is no such problem with Hobbit. Action FLOWS. It really does.

Spoiler

You have the trolls. Then you have The White Council (which is brief compared to the never ending visit to Lothlorien in FotR). Then rock giants. Then you have Goblin Town (frying pan) and finally the trees sequence (and into the fire). Riddles in the dark fit comfortably right between the last two.

There is also a much better sense of "this is an ending sequence for the movie" than there was in FotR.

So, to me this was better than FotR and Towers, but not as grand as RotK. But there is nothing wrong with that since this was just one out of three. The pacing really is impeccable.

If you can quickly accustom yourself to 48fps (which I did) you'll enjoy the movie much more from a get go.

The Hobbit is not well-paced. At all.

 

[Beautiful Tragedy]

I can't freakin wait to see this! I LOVED this book as a little kid.

 

[Nikolaz72]

This movie was amazing, one of the major points I liked was...

Bilbo was fighting. No, he wasn't covering behind Gandalf. He didn't have a long talk about the afterlife with Gandalf. He went right in there and started fighting.

Brave Hobbit that.

Spoiler: Spoiler

Stabbing a warg right in the friggin face, three in fact.

 

[Levitas1234]

Very glad it's in 3 movies, now if only the lord of the rings was made into 9

 

[greyseven]

The embellishments and additions that Peter Jackson put into this movie take away from the heart of the story and make it into a cluttered mess. When he stayed on the book, it was a great movie, when he added to it, the movie became a Hollywood-All-Accessable-Light-Show.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I'll see your "movie running too long", and raise you The Thin Red Line.

There literally was no contribution to the story from before George Clooney's 30-second appearance that still somehow earned him title billing.

What movie were you watching? Either you don't consider thematically multidimensional exposition as "contribution to the story" or you weren't paying attention.

 

[TheSchaef]

What movie were you watching? Either you don't consider thematically multidimensional exposition as "contribution to the story" or you weren't paying attention.

Isn't the last 20 minutes of the movie, after all the characters have exited the film, a little late for thematically multidimensional exposition?

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

What movie were you watching? Either you don't consider thematically multidimensional exposition as "contribution to the story" or you weren't paying attention.

Isn't the last 20 minutes of the movie, after all the characters have exited the film, a little late for thematically multidimensional exposition?

Why last 20 minutes? What about the first 20, where we meet a central character and significant themes are introduced which run through the whole movie right up until the end?

On Topic: The Hobbit. What the hell are the critics going on about? It's an excellent film. Rousing, beautiful and touching. There were parts I didn't like but I won't judge them yet because I am sure they are setting up the next films. And unlike everyone else, I thought the weakest part of the film was Gollum's scene.

And compared to LOTR, it was far less hammy. Mainly because the actors were in another class. The action was much better too.