The Hobbit
Dec. 19th, 2012 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_lucy21I have just come from seeing The Hobbit with my best friend and one of his friends and it was good. I'm still a little meh about the idea of a trilogy (the book is not that long, Mr. Jackson), but I can now see where they're going with it, so it's slightly more forgiveable.
- The opening was a little shaky- having it open on the day of Bilbo's 111th birthday party is a little head-scratchy, since, um, he'd finished the book at the opening of LOTR. So, clearly, he did not start writing it that day. Unless we're meant to think that he started it well before that point, but neither I nor the two guys I was with thought that was the case, since we all commented on the weirdness there.
- The dwarf history lesson was good. It's stuff your casual viewer isn't going to know, and honestly, stuff your basic geek viewer might not have known. I remembered some of it, but I'm the sort of person who reads footnotes and appendices (they aren't in The Hobbit, I don't think. I'm pretty sure they're in LOTR. But my dad is a super mega Tolkien geek who has the histories and all that, too, so I may have read them at some point or another and just don't remember).
- The dwarf gathering at Bag End was great. Pretty much just as I would have pictured it.
- The side plots are a little...I don't know about how I feel about the side plots. Without them, they could have definitely told the entire story of The Hobbit in three hours. But I can see where they are also serving as foreshadowing for the LOTR trilogy. If you can call something foreshadowing that involves something you've already seen.
- Speaking of foreshadowing and LOTR, there were nice little call-backs throughout the movie that tie the two stories together, visually and musically. They used the same "ring music", the same Shire music, etc. and the visuals of the two movies are very similar. And of course, the same actors play some of the key roles (not the case with Bilbo, but the actor who played Bilbo in the LOTR appeared in the beginning and Martin Freedman looks similar enough to be a younger Bilbo without too much squinting).
- Martin Freedman did an excellent job. He makes a great Bilbo Baggins.
- The actor playing Thorin also was excellent. Actually, all of the acting is excellent.
- I could have done without the handful of fat jokes, but I can always do without those.
- And it's possible that one has been reading too many anti-racism/feminism/anti-LGBT discrimination blogs when the first phrase that pops into one's head when Bilbo is confronted by Bifur (I think) about sneaking away and he points out that the dwarves don't have a home, is "check your privilege, Bilbo".
[I am feeling...well, better is a little too strong, but I was able to be actually looking forward to this, which has not been the case for anything else lately. And I'm also a little more reactive, even though most of it is being teary, but that's better than numb. Placebo effect for the win, such as it is]
- The opening was a little shaky- having it open on the day of Bilbo's 111th birthday party is a little head-scratchy, since, um, he'd finished the book at the opening of LOTR. So, clearly, he did not start writing it that day. Unless we're meant to think that he started it well before that point, but neither I nor the two guys I was with thought that was the case, since we all commented on the weirdness there.
- The dwarf history lesson was good. It's stuff your casual viewer isn't going to know, and honestly, stuff your basic geek viewer might not have known. I remembered some of it, but I'm the sort of person who reads footnotes and appendices (they aren't in The Hobbit, I don't think. I'm pretty sure they're in LOTR. But my dad is a super mega Tolkien geek who has the histories and all that, too, so I may have read them at some point or another and just don't remember).
- The dwarf gathering at Bag End was great. Pretty much just as I would have pictured it.
- The side plots are a little...I don't know about how I feel about the side plots. Without them, they could have definitely told the entire story of The Hobbit in three hours. But I can see where they are also serving as foreshadowing for the LOTR trilogy. If you can call something foreshadowing that involves something you've already seen.
- Speaking of foreshadowing and LOTR, there were nice little call-backs throughout the movie that tie the two stories together, visually and musically. They used the same "ring music", the same Shire music, etc. and the visuals of the two movies are very similar. And of course, the same actors play some of the key roles (not the case with Bilbo, but the actor who played Bilbo in the LOTR appeared in the beginning and Martin Freedman looks similar enough to be a younger Bilbo without too much squinting).
- Martin Freedman did an excellent job. He makes a great Bilbo Baggins.
- The actor playing Thorin also was excellent. Actually, all of the acting is excellent.
- I could have done without the handful of fat jokes, but I can always do without those.
- And it's possible that one has been reading too many anti-racism/feminism/anti-LGBT discrimination blogs when the first phrase that pops into one's head when Bilbo is confronted by Bifur (I think) about sneaking away and he points out that the dwarves don't have a home, is "check your privilege, Bilbo".
[I am feeling...well, better is a little too strong, but I was able to be actually looking forward to this, which has not been the case for anything else lately. And I'm also a little more reactive, even though most of it is being teary, but that's better than numb. Placebo effect for the win, such as it is]