Hobbitses!

[sholio]

We just got back from the late-night show of some movie with hobbits in it, which you may have heard of. *g*

It was very ... explodey. XD

I am still not sure how I feel about it. It was completely gorgeous, as I'd expected -- like the previous movies, a visual feast, well worth seeing in 3D and on the big screen. The casting and the acting was a ton of fun. I enjoyed it and I don't regret going.

But it wasn't the beloved Hobbit of my childhood. I didn't really get that feeling from the previous movies, which I unabashedly loved. The changes from the books didn't bother me there; I'm really not a purist, not steeped in Tolkein lore, and I reveled in seeing them brought to the big screen. But the thing about the LOTR trilogy is that it's epic in scope, and the addition of bigger, more Hollywoodish elements to the movies just enhanced that epic feeling -- bigger battles and more explosions made it feel more like LOTR to me, not less.

But Hobbit is the other way around -- it's a quiet, personal sort of book, about a group of intrepid, bumbling little heroes adventuring in the big world. It's not about epic, world-shaking effects (though it intersects them tangentially in places); it's about a very personal quest, and the sometimes funny, sometimes exciting, very personal and small-scale things that happen along the way. I related to it very strongly as a child on that level. The Hobbit was my favorite, over LOTR, for precisely that reason, and when I reread LOTR as a kid I used to mostly read the Sam and Frodo parts, skipping over the battles and kings and whatnot.

And the movie blowing this small, personal journey up to a nonstop thrill ride with battles involving casts of (computer-generated) thousands just ... didn't work for me, even though it was lovely to look at. I wouldn't say I was disappointed, because I knew what it was going to be. But, having seen the movie, I think I'll retreat quietly to the book, and continue to enjoy that, without thinking about the movie very much. The visuals from the movie, for the most part, aren't my book-visuals. (Well, except the opening scenes in the valley and that final shot of the Lonely Mountain, which made me "eeee!" in a way that most of the movie didn't manage to do.)

Comments

[veleda_k]

All this is pretty much why I don't intend to see the movie. I'm sure it's gorgeous, and I'd enjoy it, but the very fact that they decided this adaptation needed three full length movies is proof that it's not going to be The Hobbit that I loved.

I lose so many geek points for not being a LOTR fan, but I loved The Hobbit, and I think trying to turn it into a LOTR style epic would take away just what I enjoyed.

But I don't mean to sound so crabby! I'm glad you had fun, and it does sound like a great ride.

[sholio]

No, I think you're absolutely right, and made a good choice! After I made last night's post, I read some chunks of the book to get myself in a proper mood for bed, and it made me even less kindly disposed towards the movie -- actually, going back and rereading the book is taking some of my ambiguous feelings towards the movie and turning them into outright dislike. I was basically okay with most of the changes that were made for the LOTR movies, actually really liked a lot of them, but I flat-out dislike most of the changes that were made for the Hobbit, not just making it more actiony but also changing the characters as well, turning them into LOTR-style action heroes rather than the quietly, humorously heroic characters that I loved. I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to be watching the other movies, at least not on the big screen, because it's really not Hobbit to me, it's this other action movie that happens to share some trappings and character names with it.

[sholio]

Oh, and I also think it's a really interesting example of how a directing style that was (I believe) completely appropriate to one movie can be absolutely wrong for another. It's not that I think Peter Jackson is the Worst Thing That Ever Happened To Tolkein (TM), but I think he was the right person to adapt LOTR and its epicness, and entirely the wrong person to adapt The Hobbit and its quiet, low-key style.