i got hobbitized
Jan. 3rd, 2013 05:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twoeleven...but y'all should wait for the DVD.¹
i think the critics called this one: the movie has pacing problems, SF/X problems, writing/directing problems, and is Just Too Long. my objections aren't as strong as critics, but they're fundamentally the same. i think the core problem is that peter jackson wanted to make lord of the rings: parts -2 thru 0² but the hobbit isn't actually a prequel. it's a stand-alone novel, written earlier, with a different tone and style. where LotR is sweeping and grand, the hobbit is simple and intimate.
the pacing (and length) could have been fixed up by reducing the fan service and ditching the attempt to make thorin into aragorn jr... that would have allowed mr. jackson to get further into the story, and put more of the actual action (mirkwood, say) on screen.
i did find it odd that the faster frame rate sometimes worked for me and sometimes didn't. bag end appeared to be a real place, as did gollum's cave, and the whole sequence of scenes with the trolls. but rivendell was just a set -- my thought on seeing it was "ah, the beeb paid for some better sets this time!" (too much dr. who in my misspent youth) -- and erebor is simply the lost dwarven CGI. and something failed with the beautiful landscape shots: they're very interesting, but they're new zealand not middle earth.
...which i think is a problem of the writing and directing. the whole movie seemed to a sense of "once more, with feeling" about it: it's just covering old ground again, with none of the sense of exploration or creativity of the original. even the music had a sense of being half-hearted. the score for LotR is tightly synchronized with the action; every tiny edit peter jackson made sent howard shore scurrying back to his desk, and required the london philharmonic to re-record snippets to make it work. the hobbit lacks that (other than the singing, of course) and the music sometimes doesn't even seem to fit the mood of the scene.
the actors did try hard, though, but other than andy serkis, they were burdened by their lines. according to the IMDB trivia file, christopher lee and ian holm called in their parts. (ok, they shot them in london and were composited into their scenes, but still.) if true, that does explain why those scenes seemed a little disjointed: the actors were responding to random cues, not other actors' lines.
so, yeah, see it on DVD, possibly with an itchy finger on the fast-forward button. i went to the theater despite my better judgment, because of favorable reviews from my friends... and because i really did want this to work in spite of the dire warnings during the shooting. but it just doesn't, and given how much money it's already raked in, i don't expect its flaws to be corrected in the next two.
1: i don't like starred reviews, because that implies a numerical ranking where there isn't one. my model for movie's value goes like this:
* see it in the theater
* see it in the theater cheaply (matinee, 2nd run)
* see it on DVD
* see it on a friend's DVD (the movie meets the minimal ebert criterion, but isn't worth paying for)
* don't see it
(and also "destroy all copies" and "hunt down and kill the writers, director, and producer" in extreme cases.)
2: one of the critics referred to this movie as "the unnecessary journey". it has a certain ring to it, so i'll probably refer to others as "the desolation of the plot" and "the battle of five ideas for the ending" (or ...)
3: is it just me, or did the some of the fragments from the trailers get lost on the cutting room floor (the bits with gandalf poking around dol guldur and bilbo looking at the shards of narsil)? it's possible i just spaced out during the movie, but i don't think so.
i think the critics called this one: the movie has pacing problems, SF/X problems, writing/directing problems, and is Just Too Long. my objections aren't as strong as critics, but they're fundamentally the same. i think the core problem is that peter jackson wanted to make lord of the rings: parts -2 thru 0² but the hobbit isn't actually a prequel. it's a stand-alone novel, written earlier, with a different tone and style. where LotR is sweeping and grand, the hobbit is simple and intimate.
the pacing (and length) could have been fixed up by reducing the fan service and ditching the attempt to make thorin into aragorn jr... that would have allowed mr. jackson to get further into the story, and put more of the actual action (mirkwood, say) on screen.
i did find it odd that the faster frame rate sometimes worked for me and sometimes didn't. bag end appeared to be a real place, as did gollum's cave, and the whole sequence of scenes with the trolls. but rivendell was just a set -- my thought on seeing it was "ah, the beeb paid for some better sets this time!" (too much dr. who in my misspent youth) -- and erebor is simply the lost dwarven CGI. and something failed with the beautiful landscape shots: they're very interesting, but they're new zealand not middle earth.
...which i think is a problem of the writing and directing. the whole movie seemed to a sense of "once more, with feeling" about it: it's just covering old ground again, with none of the sense of exploration or creativity of the original. even the music had a sense of being half-hearted. the score for LotR is tightly synchronized with the action; every tiny edit peter jackson made sent howard shore scurrying back to his desk, and required the london philharmonic to re-record snippets to make it work. the hobbit lacks that (other than the singing, of course) and the music sometimes doesn't even seem to fit the mood of the scene.
the actors did try hard, though, but other than andy serkis, they were burdened by their lines. according to the IMDB trivia file, christopher lee and ian holm called in their parts. (ok, they shot them in london and were composited into their scenes, but still.) if true, that does explain why those scenes seemed a little disjointed: the actors were responding to random cues, not other actors' lines.
so, yeah, see it on DVD, possibly with an itchy finger on the fast-forward button. i went to the theater despite my better judgment, because of favorable reviews from my friends... and because i really did want this to work in spite of the dire warnings during the shooting. but it just doesn't, and given how much money it's already raked in, i don't expect its flaws to be corrected in the next two.
1: i don't like starred reviews, because that implies a numerical ranking where there isn't one. my model for movie's value goes like this:
* see it in the theater
* see it in the theater cheaply (matinee, 2nd run)
* see it on DVD
* see it on a friend's DVD (the movie meets the minimal ebert criterion, but isn't worth paying for)
* don't see it
(and also "destroy all copies" and "hunt down and kill the writers, director, and producer" in extreme cases.)
2: one of the critics referred to this movie as "the unnecessary journey". it has a certain ring to it, so i'll probably refer to others as "the desolation of the plot" and "the battle of five ideas for the ending" (or ...)
3: is it just me, or did the some of the fragments from the trailers get lost on the cutting room floor (the bits with gandalf poking around dol guldur and bilbo looking at the shards of narsil)? it's possible i just spaced out during the movie, but i don't think so.