The Hobbit a la Peter Jackson - SPOILERS
Watched the movie three weeks ago and disliked it with a passion (with the exception of the Misty Mountain Song, which was lovely). Here is what I remember of it (in no particular order):
The book is charming and witty. The movie is hectic, loud, full of unnecessary action scenes and creatures that reminded me of other movies (for example, Jabba the Hut made an appearance, complete with cackling sidekick creature, in the form of the goblin king; or the white orc who looked like a cross between the creator-dude in Prometheus and the coughing skeletor-like general in one of the Star Wars prequels; or the trolls, which looked like bigger versions of Kreacher in Harry Potter).
My brother, after watching LotR, complained that the "Reisegefühl" of the books - the sense of travelling - got totally lost in the movie.
It is much, much worse in Peter Jackson's Hobbit. One second Bilbo catches up with the dwarves, the next they're battling trolls, the next
they're in Rivendell. More time is spent on an idiotic underground battle with goblins (which looks like a combination of the Mines of
Moria and the CGI swoop through Saruman's forge in LotR) than on the journey from Hobbiton to Rivendell.
Speaking of travel: In the book, the dwarves leave Bag End in a mess and Bilbo spends several hours cleaning and washing up and having a leisurely breakfast, glad that they're gone, and then Gandalf shows up and shoos him out the door. This scene is completely missing in the movie, so people unfamiliar with the book cannot possibly understand why Bilbo decides to follow Thorin & Co.
Don't get me started on the character of Radagast and the subplot involving him. CGI slapstick. Other major eye-roll-inducing moments include the dying hedgehog, the sequence when the goblin king gets killed ("Oh, well, that'll do it.") and way too many scenes in which the characters would have been killed or at least injured, yet they get up and walk away without a scratch. Way too cartoonish.
The riddle scene with Gollum (the most convincing CGI creature in the whole movie and - with the exception of Gandalf - the most accomplished and convincing actor) was fairly well done, albeit unnecessarily humorized ("I wasn't talking to you, was I?").
Overall the movie overloads Bilbo's tale with too much background story in its attempt to connect it to LotR. This is not The Hobbit, it's The Hollywobbit.
Not impressed.
The book is charming and witty. The movie is hectic, loud, full of unnecessary action scenes and creatures that reminded me of other movies (for example, Jabba the Hut made an appearance, complete with cackling sidekick creature, in the form of the goblin king; or the white orc who looked like a cross between the creator-dude in Prometheus and the coughing skeletor-like general in one of the Star Wars prequels; or the trolls, which looked like bigger versions of Kreacher in Harry Potter).
My brother, after watching LotR, complained that the "Reisegefühl" of the books - the sense of travelling - got totally lost in the movie.
It is much, much worse in Peter Jackson's Hobbit. One second Bilbo catches up with the dwarves, the next they're battling trolls, the next
they're in Rivendell. More time is spent on an idiotic underground battle with goblins (which looks like a combination of the Mines of
Moria and the CGI swoop through Saruman's forge in LotR) than on the journey from Hobbiton to Rivendell.
Speaking of travel: In the book, the dwarves leave Bag End in a mess and Bilbo spends several hours cleaning and washing up and having a leisurely breakfast, glad that they're gone, and then Gandalf shows up and shoos him out the door. This scene is completely missing in the movie, so people unfamiliar with the book cannot possibly understand why Bilbo decides to follow Thorin & Co.
Don't get me started on the character of Radagast and the subplot involving him. CGI slapstick. Other major eye-roll-inducing moments include the dying hedgehog, the sequence when the goblin king gets killed ("Oh, well, that'll do it.") and way too many scenes in which the characters would have been killed or at least injured, yet they get up and walk away without a scratch. Way too cartoonish.
The riddle scene with Gollum (the most convincing CGI creature in the whole movie and - with the exception of Gandalf - the most accomplished and convincing actor) was fairly well done, albeit unnecessarily humorized ("I wasn't talking to you, was I?").
Overall the movie overloads Bilbo's tale with too much background story in its attempt to connect it to LotR. This is not The Hobbit, it's The Hollywobbit.
Not impressed.