"Radagast's Red Velvet Puppies"????? I'm a bit lost on that one. Because he loves animals?
Let's think of some more Hobbit-y (or LOTR-sy) menu items for them:
Frodo's Fragrant Mushroom Fricasee
Bilbo's Seedcake, Sausage and Tea
Lord of the Eagles Roasted Rabbit
Gollum's Sushi
Beorn's Continental Breakfast: Bread, Clotted Cream and Honey
Apparently there's a cafe in Texas that does something similar.
I was thinking Smaug's Smoked Lamb Chops.
Found it: http://www.myhobbitcafe.com/index.php
Their menu is very clever! They had the same idea, with the Smaug's Delight, smoked turkey sandwich.
Can't forget 'taters! Boiled, mashed, or in a stew....
Ah, yes. Sam's Coney Stew with Wild-Harvested Ithilien Herbs
Or, almost here in the US. My dd is going to a midnight show tomorrow. We might see it Sunday.
So, is anyone else going to a midnight show?
Heh! The thread was started on 09/09/09, and today is 12/12/12.
DD is concerned that Rotten Tomatoes rated it at 70-something when KIng Kong was rated at 80-something. Can't recall the exact numbers. Doesn't bode well.
She has asked for a ride to the theatre tonight. Not a problem. I'm less thrilled with the thought of having to pick her up in the wee small hours. DH flew out on Monday on a business trip. I had to be up at 4 a.m to drive him to the airport. I often have insomnia and disruptions to my sleep cycles tend to linger. Last night I finally had a good night's sleep. After tonight, it may be another few days before I get a good rest. If I seem a little cranky, there's a good reason.
Saw it last night with Dad. Consider this post spoilery.
All in all, I was disappointed - except not, because I had low expectations. It was very patchy, and clunky, and overlong.
*******
Cons:
-Like I suspected, the tone was unsure. PJ was obviously trying to make the film "match" LOTR, down to adding scenes from the day of Bilbo's party (which didn't really work - Bilbo looked facelifted, and while Elijah Wood is pretty darned ageless, he had a slight moustache shadow.) So the film was mostly very dark and epic. But then there were some lighter, almost kiddie moments, such as the dwarves' dishwashing scene - which was pretty neat, it just felt out of place.
-The opening. Boring. Shouldn't have been. I think it should have just started in the Shire, with flashbacks to the downfall of Erebor later if need be - but I'm not convinced they were needed at all. If PJ had been forced to keep the film at a reasonable length (ie, not 9 hours to tell a straightforward story!), he would have left it out and nobody would have missed it.
-I hadn't realised how similar LOTR and The Hobbit are, in terms of plot. The Eagles saving the day... Rivendell and the Shire... giant spiders... wargs... orcs... It's fine in the book, but it felt very rehashed in the movie. Partly because of Howard Shore's leitmotif thing. Weird, because I LOVE his LOTR score, but it seemed too obvious here. "Oh, that music, the Eagles must be coming" - "Oh, Elves must be about to show up" - "Oh, the Lorien theme, Galadriel must be around". The dwarven theme was lovely, though.
-Too many cheesy speeches. Fellowship's "What to do with the time that is given to you" speech - good. Sam's patriotic speech at the end of TTT - cheesy and vaguely anachronistic. The Hobbit's "theme" speeches reminded me of the latter. They came across as very staged - "we're going to have a moment now in which someone wise says something wise that sums up the movie, k?" Annoying.
-Galadriel looked stunning, but too iconic, if that makes sense, with her dress wrapped around her ankles as she turned. It looked like the shot was designed for a trading card. It was too perfect.
-I didn't like the "sexy dwarf king" thing. Thorin didn't look like a Dwarf. The proportions were all wrong, and he just wasn't believable. Good actor and all, just not Dwarf-y. And in general, the dwarves didn't "match" - some were buffoony, almost cartoony, some looked like slightly short men of Gondor, some were halfway between. They didn't seem to come from the same universe.
-3D sucks. I knew this. Not the movie's fault. I won 3D tickets. But still, it's worth saying. Why do people make stuff in 3D again?
-The escape from the Goblin King's lair was way too Indiana Jones. No way they should have survived that. Spectacle over storytelling. Bah humbug.
-Radagast... what? Just what?
Pros:
-The "Riddles in the Dark" scene was very good.
-Martin Freeman. Perfect casting. Although in the first scene with Gandalf, he played a more obvious Bilbo - blustering, fussy, dignified - and after that he just kind of played a regular Martin Freeman character. Which fits in with Bilbo pretty well, so it was fine, mostly...
-It was nice to see Elrond doing something vaguely active.
-The dwarves' humour didn't bug me as much as I expected. It wasn't too juvenile. I quite liked the meal at Rivendell, in which the Elves came across as a little bit sappy and la-dee-dah.
-The stuff about the Necromancer annoyed me less than I expected. And the Ring wasn't the focus of the film, thankfully. Nor, I am happy to say, did Legolas, Arwen or Aragorn show up at any point.
-Some stunning scenery
-Bilbo's running after the dwarves and joining up on the adventure was done very nicely - one of the few moments that felt like an accurate representation of the book, to me, and didn't annoy me in some way!
-I liked the finding of Sting, Orcrist and Glamdring
******
So... yeah. I'll have to see it again at some point, but it's not something I'm dying to do. I'm glad I'm not in huge-obsessive-Tolkien-fan mode, or I'd be a lot more peeved - I have enough distance now to say calmly "Well, that could have been better".
I was surprised by how far through the story we got. I kept expecting it to end, and it didn't. Does this mean Film 2 will finish the Hobbit story, and film 3 will be the fanfictiony "transitional" film PJ threatened awhile back? Or will there just be a ton of fluff in Films 2 and 3? Bleh.
My father, who hasn't read The Hobbit for 30+ years and was enchanted by the free food we got with the tickets, apparently enjoyed the film very much. So there's that. I can't wait to talk to my little sister about it - she's 14 and just recently discovered the LOTR movies, and loves them. She saw The Hobbit at midnight and sent me an email saying it was "interesting" and she wanted to talk to me about it. I hope she wasn't horribly disappointed... although I hope she wasn't thrilled either. Good taste is important in a sibling. :p
I will not read Smokering's post. I will not read Smokering's post. I will not read Smokering's post.
I will not read Smokering's post. I will not read Smokering's post. I will not read Smokering's post.
DD loved it. Before I mention a few of her comments, here's a warning about the 3D. When the movie started, the 3D wasn't synced up. The audience almost rioted. They were shouting "fix it!' "FIX IT". There was a sudden, painful flash on the screen - she described her eyes burning (but DD is kinda dramatic) - and then the 3D was fine. So beware if the 3D isn't working and look away from the screen before that correction happens.
DD doesn't like 3D - it can give her headaches, although not so much since she worked with a developmental optometrist for convergence issues (uncovered by previous 3D viewing, btw). So if anyone is really bothered by 3D, it may be worth getting it checked out because these issues can affect reading. It explained DD's fatigue with extended reading.
Not sure what is spoiler-y (I don't think any of it is) but she said:
- it helped to remember that this was NOT a LOTR film and to expect differences
- Martin Freeman was perfect
- she liked the use of Tolkein's songs, particularly when Thorin Oakenshield sang, and she liked the score, particularly the dwarves' theme
- she recognized some of the New Zealand scenery from the LOTR films - gorgeous, of course
I care not about spoilers, as I'm not expecting anything, so I read your post. :)
I have to comment on a couple things.
This is about where I'm at, but I'm a bit concerned that you still said you were disappointed. I hope that was a "disappointed, because I'd hoped my expectations were wrong", not a "disappointed, because it didn't even live up to my low expectations". .
*******
Cons:
-The opening. Boring. Shouldn't have been. I think it should have just started in the Shire, with flashbacks to the downfall of Erebor later if need be - but I'm not convinced they were needed at all. If PJ had been forced to keep the film at a reasonable length (ie, not 9 hours to tell a straightforward story!), he would have left it out and nobody would have missed it.
I'm a little worred about this, overall. Even considering that he's adding in background from other material, nine hours for The Hobbit is nuts.
-I didn't like the "sexy dwarf king" thing. Thorin didn't look like a Dwarf. The proportions were all wrong, and he just wasn't believable. Good actor and all, just not Dwarf-y. And in general, the dwarves didn't "match" - some were buffoony, almost cartoony, some looked like slightly short men of Gondor, some were halfway between. They didn't seem to come from the same universe.
I've had this feeling from the trailers. I keep looking at various dwarves and thinking "wait - those are dwarves? What?". They just don't look or feel right in the trailers.
-3D sucks. I knew this. Not the movie's fault. I won 3D tickets. But still, it's worth saying. Why do people make stuff in 3D again?
I'm sorry. I hate 3D. It gives me a headache (I don't have depth perception and watching a movie in 3D seems to do weird things to my brain, but if I take the glasses off, it looks even worse. I also think movies are suffering, because too many scenes are being filmed so they'll look good in 3D, not so they look good, in general. (Harry's final "duel" with Voldemort in Deathly Hallows was a perfect example, imo.) I've gotten stuck with 3D a few times, and I hate it.
-The escape from the Goblin King's lair was way too Indiana Jones. No way they should have survived that. Spectacle over storytelling. Bah humbug.
I think Jackson has a real problem with this, in general.
-Radagast... what? Just what?
Pros:
-It was nice to see Elrond doing something vaguely active.
I think I'm looking forward to that!
-The stuff about the Necromancer annoyed me less than I expected. And the Ring wasn't the focus of the film, thankfully. Nor, I am happy to say, did Legolas, Arwen or Aragorn show up at any point.
I'm giving it one extra point on a 1-10 scale, sight unseen, just for this.
My father, who hasn't read The Hobbit for 30+ years and was enchanted by the free food we got with the tickets, apparently enjoyed the film very much. So there's that. I can't wait to talk to my little sister about it - she's 14 and just recently discovered the LOTR movies, and loves them. She saw The Hobbit at midnight and sent me an email saying it was "interesting" and she wanted to talk to me about it. I hope she wasn't horribly disappointed... although I hope she wasn't thrilled either. Good taste is important in a sibling. :p
BWAHAHAHAHA! Well said. (My own sister has no interest in LOTR or The Hobbit, either in book form or on film. What can you do?)
No, the former. It wasn't, like, ghastly awful or anything. I just had lots of "yeah, that didn't really work, I didn't think it would" moments. And don't get me wrong - a few bits were excellent. "Riddles in the Dark" was very good.
I talked to both my little sisters about it, and they had pretty similar feelings to me. My littlest sister (the new LOTR fan) didn't like Martin Freeman, which surprised me - my other sister and I loved him. But we all agreed it could have been better, and some bits were awful, but some bits were good.
I read the IMDb user reviews and was startled to see how gushy they were. People were RAVING about it. Weird.
As much as I loved the battle scenes in the LOTR trilogy, I felt this way about parts of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. The oliphaunts were ridiculous. I know Tolkien said they were bigger than modern elephants, but I took that as meaning the size of mammoth - not something that could crush a horse under one foot. If that wall of oliphaunts had really descended on the battle lines, and if they were as big, tough and impressive as Jackson depicted them as being (sweeping aside whole horses with one easy swipe of a trunk, for example), it's extremely unlikely any of the Gondor/Rohan forces would have still been alive by the time Aragorn and the army of the dead arrives. It was absurd. (Don't even get me started on Legolas and the skateboarding at Helm's Deep...but ds1 loved it.)
Finally saw the movie last night. Off to read the rest of the conversation here...
I enjoyed it, had fun, would even see it again. But wasn't absolutely in love like after Fellowship of the Ring.
And just like in LOTR and all the Harry Potter movies, they made changes that seemed utterly pointless, changes just for the sake of changing it. None of it is egregious, it just irritates a bit.
Cons:
-I hadn't realised how similar LOTR and The Hobbit are, in terms of plot. The Eagles saving the day... Rivendell and the Shire... giant spiders... wargs... orcs... I noticed this the first time I read the Hobbit to my kid. Wow, look at that, the gathering of the Five Armies is a lot like the final battle at Pelenor Field. Bilbo has a singular job to do. Instead of drop the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, he finds the door into the dragon's lair. There's a dethroned king, Thorin and Aragorn. It's fine in the book, but it felt very rehashed in the movie. Partly because of Howard Shore's leitmotif thing. Weird, because I LOVE his LOTR score, but it seemed too obvious here. "Oh, that music, the Eagles must be coming" - "Oh, Elves must be about to show up" - "Oh, the Lorien theme, Galadriel must be around". The dwarven theme was lovely, though.
...
-Galadriel looked stunning, but too iconic, if that makes sense, with her dress wrapped around her ankles as she turned. It looked like the shot was designed for a trading card. It was too perfect.
Exactly my thought. A perfect ringlet on each side of her face. The obviously placed train to her dress.
Yes, we all said 'eww!' to the goblin king's double chin thing. I loved the character, though. Bruce the Shark from Finding Nemo was a great choice, very engaging.
Most of the time I couldn't follow the action in the fight/run to get out of the goblin cave. Just a blur of bodies.
Dh and I agreed there needed to be a snatch of Led Zeppelin at some point. Was a bit disappointed that the dwarves didn't play musical instruments after supper at Bilbo's. It would have been quite easy for Thorin to play a strain of Ramble On, Misty Mountain Hop or even Stairway to Heaven. It could have been subtle. Perhaps other fans would have been horrified. Much like the Legolas on skate board scene (which just made me 'tsk' and roll my eyes). Anyway.
Other thoughts, need to get on with the day.
Edited to make the post smaller. It bugged me.
Still haven't managed to see it yet. We've been out of town and waaay too busy when we have been home. DH and I hope to get to the theatre next week.
19 y.o. DS saw it and really enjoyed it. He admitted to getting teary-eyed in a couple of places, which surprised me. I think the nostalgia hit him on a couple of levels - for watching the LOTR movies when he was younger and for visiting NZ and some of the film locations that he recognized when we were on a family trip there years ago. He recognizes that there are flaws in the film, but he's overlooking them for the most part.
His reaction has made me even more intrigued to see the movie.
Finally managed to see it. Mostly, I loved it. I cannot compare it with FOTR, because that movie is beyond awesome, and the thrill of seeing LOTR on the screen for the first time (non-animated) was fresh and new.
The "digressions" (or should I say "embellishments") of the Hobbit did not faze me, though I thought the council at Rivendell to be marginally clunky, though it was wonderful at the same time. Good to see Christopher Lee one last time. I was a bit surprised to se him, but of course the filming was done a while ago. Even Radagast wasn't annoying. He was a reasonable connection between the Hobbit story and the Necromancer, since Radagast lives in Mirkwood and would have seen the evil moving into the forest that was once "wholesome" (though not in that timeframe, but I can allow for theatrical necessity).
What caught me off guard was where the dialog diverged from the book. Duh, of course it would be different. But having read the book 8 times or so (3 recently to dd) I was constantly brought back to reality when it did. My eyes welled up when Bilbo began narrating from his book "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit...." I would have loved to immerse myself in the film, but my own brain kept comparing and thinking "do I like this?" and I would have enjoyed it more if I could have simply switched that off.
I found this film far less frustrating than, say, the Two Towers, where Frodo made that huge journey far away to Osgiliath, and Aragorn was missing, and the Entmoot decided to take the hobbits back, and (gag) the Elves show up at Helm's Deep which I can never forgive Peter Jackson for, if only because the music kept switching from the Elves Theme to the Fellowship Theme to the Uruk Hai Theme and back again like some Saturday Night Live sketch. (All this more noticeable when the girls watch the DVD for the bazillionth time. I try not to watch, but it's hard not to listen.)
Which brings me to my only real complaint-- I wish there was more original music in this film. I like the Hobbit's theme in there, and I love the new Dwarves theme, but the other themes were distracting to the point of annoyance. If nothing else, it kept reminding me of the LOTR and where that music was used, and I think the goal of the film maker is to keep you engrossed in the film and not analyze it while you are watching it.
I still loved the re-imagining of Thorin. I loved it in the trailer, and it stuck with me throughout the movie. Love. It. And I finally get to enjoy that actor (forgot his name) who has always seemed so stiff and theatrical to me in the past, and stiff and theatrical works perfectly for this movie and that character.
Loved the Trolls. Love the Goblin King, even that grotesque chin. Loved the Wargs and the Eagles. Loved that they created more tension with Azog. Only briefly baffled with Bilbo saving Thorin, but nicely done and since this is more than one movie, there needed to be a more dramatic and immediate turn of Thorin's opinion of Bilbo's character. And Gollum was simply astounding. It cracked me up when the Smeagol half tried answer Gollum's own question. What brilliant choices they made for this dialog! In fact, this was the one time I found myself enjoying my analyzing the movie making itself while watching the film. The animation of Gollum's skin and body were so intricate and stunning. I loved it.
Nicely done, I'll say, all-in-all.
Is there something up with Christopher Lee??
I noticed that, too. I wasn't annoyed so much as disappointed. I get it, it's an effective way to communicate to the audience a link to the trilogy. But it was simply distracting, and I think trivialized the movie a bit. Made the Hobbit a 'mini me' of the trilogy. Fresh themes would have given a little more depth.
I don't know enough about Radagast to be disappointed. And I know even less about the Necromancer.
Sexy dwarves- Richard Armitage is fine, he looks noble. But wasn't he supposed to look older? With a grey beard? Aidan Turner as Kili is pretty darned cute. I know this because 17 year old dd tells me so.
I'd heard that Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords was going to be in the Hobbit as a dwarf. No, he was an elf, and I'm guess he was the one who came and told Eldrond something. And I'm guessing he was the same elf in Fellowship and Return of the King. Very distinctive face.
Is there something up with Christopher Lee??
Mea culpa. I remember some news that he dies this past year, but I don't remember why I'm remembering that. Perhaps his obituary was published on April 1st? I swore I saw something.....
.....but apparently my mistake.
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