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tiamatschild) wrote2013-01-06 04:07 pm
tiamatschild) wrote2013-01-06 04:07 pm
Entry tags:
The Hobbit
So I saw the movie yesterday, and realized within the first five minutes or so that I have a serious Hobbit problem.
I have this book memorized.
No, really! I didn't reread before going to the film, because I frequently find Jackson's attempts at matching Tolkien's tone unsatifying, so the last time I read The Hobbit was... ... ...Eight months ago? Nine? Something like that, anyway.
Didn't help. Still knew it backwards and forwards.
I enjoyed myself anyway! Mom and I agreed right while we were watching that even if the rest of the movie were to suck, it'd have been worth price of admission for the washing up song. That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!
inside the Lonely Mountain when Smaug turned up. It's fairly typical of Jackson, actually, and demonstrates part of the reason I don't really - - I am not actually all that big a fan. In the book Thorin survives completely by chance. He just happens to be out on a hunting expedition that day. He doesn't confront Smaug at all - He just gets back too late, after his world is already gone. The only people who make it out of the mountain are Thror and Thrain, because of the hidden side entrance (which is the first clue what the key is for - Thror and Thrain turn up smelling of smoke and bruised and when Thorin asks questions, they won't answer).
It's just. The change bothers me. I am not entirely sure why. Maybe it's just that that incident, and the way Thorin relates it to Bilbo and Gandalf decades later was kind of formative for me.
That and the horrible sequence with the pine trees, where the goblins light them on fire with the intent to burn the party alive.
Which. Gets cut out of the film too? And I cannot figure out why? I mean, it's the most bone chilling thing in the entire book.
Actually, Jackson cuts down on a lot of the really horrible stuff that the book treats matter of factly. The ponies don't actually get eaten by orcs for absolutely certain, a significantly higher number of Erebor's people make it out when Smaug attacks, the company is not, in fact, nearly immolated, the long sequences of helplessness are heavily cut down and interspersed with heroic moments the book glides over pretty quickly (I am reasonably certain that Bilbo spends a lot more time wandering around in the dark with no idea where he's going or if he's ever going to get out instead of staying lost until he dies of thirst in the book. The movie gives him some chance of orienting himself more or less right away) which makes for a kind of different tone? I'm not sure what to make of it.
Also, man, the writing team is just not good at writing bickering.
Andy Serkis remains a god, though. Omigosh his Gollum. Omigosh.
I have this book memorized.
No, really! I didn't reread before going to the film, because I frequently find Jackson's attempts at matching Tolkien's tone unsatifying, so the last time I read The Hobbit was... ... ...Eight months ago? Nine? Something like that, anyway.
Didn't help. Still knew it backwards and forwards.
I enjoyed myself anyway! Mom and I agreed right while we were watching that even if the rest of the movie were to suck, it'd have been worth price of admission for the washing up song. That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!
inside the Lonely Mountain when Smaug turned up. It's fairly typical of Jackson, actually, and demonstrates part of the reason I don't really - - I am not actually all that big a fan. In the book Thorin survives completely by chance. He just happens to be out on a hunting expedition that day. He doesn't confront Smaug at all - He just gets back too late, after his world is already gone. The only people who make it out of the mountain are Thror and Thrain, because of the hidden side entrance (which is the first clue what the key is for - Thror and Thrain turn up smelling of smoke and bruised and when Thorin asks questions, they won't answer).
It's just. The change bothers me. I am not entirely sure why. Maybe it's just that that incident, and the way Thorin relates it to Bilbo and Gandalf decades later was kind of formative for me.
That and the horrible sequence with the pine trees, where the goblins light them on fire with the intent to burn the party alive.
Which. Gets cut out of the film too? And I cannot figure out why? I mean, it's the most bone chilling thing in the entire book.
Actually, Jackson cuts down on a lot of the really horrible stuff that the book treats matter of factly. The ponies don't actually get eaten by orcs for absolutely certain, a significantly higher number of Erebor's people make it out when Smaug attacks, the company is not, in fact, nearly immolated, the long sequences of helplessness are heavily cut down and interspersed with heroic moments the book glides over pretty quickly (I am reasonably certain that Bilbo spends a lot more time wandering around in the dark with no idea where he's going or if he's ever going to get out instead of staying lost until he dies of thirst in the book. The movie gives him some chance of orienting himself more or less right away) which makes for a kind of different tone? I'm not sure what to make of it.
Also, man, the writing team is just not good at writing bickering.
Andy Serkis remains a god, though. Omigosh his Gollum. Omigosh.
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The Three Hunters sequences in The Two Towers is a pretty good example. For The Hobbit I think the best one is really the way Radagast and the whole There's Something Evil In Dol Guldur side plot is portrayed - Instead of being a thing Gandalf has been intending to check out for some time, and when Thorin asks him to come along on the Steal Back My Grandfather's Stuff quest, Gandalf sees an opportunity to get out that direction without raising any serious alarm bells, and neither the dwarves nor Bilbo ever really get major information or about it or seem to realize how serious the whole thing actually was... well. Uh. Yeah. (I'm also bemused at the fact that the key remains a plot point, and the "Your father gave me these," is also a plot point but "He was slowly dying and not very lucid anymore, because of all the torture, and also I don't really want to talk about how I got in there and out again," thing gets cut. Weeeeeird. Weeeeeeird.)
There's also the serious discomfort with the picaresque. Which is another of the genres the Hobbit partakes in. It doesn't have consistent villains who pursue the company all over Middle Earth, partly because they just aren't that important until the possession of Erebor and its wealth becomes an open question with Smaug's (not at all premeditated) death. It's like Jackson thinks there needs to be a driving through thread in the form of a villian, which the Hobbit really really does not have (although Fellowship, at least, does. Once the Nazgul turn up).
*hands*