A Long-Expected Hobbit Movie Thread

[RickZarber]

So, I just got back from the midnight showing of the Hobbit (in HFR 3D) and I want to get some reactions down before they fade, but it's also like 4am so I need to sleep soon. So I guess excuse any incoherent ramblings.

Short version: I really liked it. While there are quite a few changes from the book, I didn't find any of them to be nearly as objectionable as the changes made to the Lord of the Rings. There are book moments here and there that I missed, but on the whole it was a very good adaptation.

It does drag a bit here and there, and there are certainly excessive and unnecessary scenes, but none of them are any worse than extended footage from the LOTR films. I'd say the more overall problem is that it doesn't feel nearly as much as a complete film as any of the LOTR movies. (And rightly so.) It most definitely feels like part of a story. And I could do without belching dwarves or a snot gag. At least we didn't have any dwarf flatulence jokes. (Gimli already took that bullet in ROTK EE.)

That said, I was never bored, and there was plenty of stuff where I was left wanting more. (And we'll probably end up with Extended Editions of these films as well, as there were multiple scenes from the trailers--Bilbo going shopping, Bilbo scoping the shards of Narsil in Rivendell, some Goblintown stuff--that didn't end up in the movie.)

The acting was uniformly great. Gandalf quickly establishes himself as the bedrock of this film. Thorin is great, even if it's not how I ever really imagined him. Bilbo is also fairly different from the book, but Freeman quickly owns the role. Some of the Dwarves were a little shortchanged on dialogue (I don't think poor Bombur had a single line!), but there are two more films to flesh them out. Radagast definitely felt the most extraneous character, and honestly I wish some of his scenes had been trimmed a bit. But the upside of the excess is all these great references to Tolkien's mythology that never made it to LOTR. Referring to the spiders as spawns of Ungoliant, for instance.

Riddles in the Dark was by far the high point; I was really impressed with just how scary they managed to make Gollum. His intro is changed from the book, but they manage to make him an immediate threat, and that informs the rest of the scene wonderfully. It brings him away from the Gollum we know from LOTR and makes him this dark, dangerous thing. And I was impressed with how many riddles they worked in. I was expecting like three at the most.

Music-wise, I was surprised they worked in "Chip the Glasses and Crack the Plates", but I would've cut it entirely in favor of more verses to "Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold" (we only get what's in the trailer plus those two lines they left out of the first verse). But I may be alone in wanting like 10 mins of the movie devoted to a song. :P We don't get any flighty elf songs, though. But though the elves are never as "silly" as they are in the books, we certainly get to see them seem that way to the dwarves, which was nice. And we do get one Goblin song, though not any of the ones from the book.

As I said, I saw the HFR 3D version. I can heartily recommend the 3D, at least. I've probably only seen a half dozen 3D films ever, but given the choice, I'd take a 3D version of this one every time. Those New Zealand landscapes just look incredible. Not to mention locations like Erebor or Goblintown. The high frame rate too me a while to get used to. I think it wasn't until nearly the half-hour mark that it stopped throwing me off. The problem I has was that my brain was interpreting those extra frames as faster movement, so everything looked unnaturally sped-up. But as soon as I got used to it, it was pretty sweet. (My roommate says it only took his eyes like a minute to adjust.) And the best thing is that it really does alleviate some of the eye strain of watching a 3D film. If you're susceptible to motion sickness, though, I might recommend some Dramamine or something; I found some of that flying, spinning camerawork was making me mildly nauseous--moreso for being so smooth. Bottom line, if it's playing in 48fps in your area, I suggest at least giving it a try. I'll want to see the movie in 24fps just to compare, but I had no major complaints of the kind I've read online (ie, everything looks fake, the lighting is too bright/bleeds everywhere, more eyestrain, etc).

I want to say more, talk about spoilerish changes and stuff, but it's really damn late and I must away ere break of day, because I work tomorrow, so maybe I'll let others have their say before hopping back in with my other comments. Now I've just gotta fall asleep somehow...