[Movie] The Hobbit Trilogy - Page 21

Pluses

1. The casting was pretty good again. Martin Freeman is pretty spot-on for me as bilbo, the dwarves all seemed fine, but I have to say Thorin doesn't really seem that charismatic to me. I'm not sure if it's the actor or the way they've done the character. Perhaps I'll warm more to him later. Someone was saying Bilbo acts too surprised by everything but this kind of to be expected in the situation he's thrown into- he is pretty much a comic character in the early stages of the book as well and his transition to hero is slow but that's what makes it satisfying.

2. The riddle-game scene was pretty perfectly done IMO. Andy Serkis just does Gollum with the right mix of comedy and menace, and they didn't try to mess with the scene too much which was great- pretty much exactly how I would have imagined it. Also for me the troll scene was pretty good, I haven't read the book for a while, so I can't remember the exact details of it but it seemed to capture the main thrust of it reasonably well.

3. The songs were handled well. I honestly was squirming when they started the first song because even in the books they can seem pretty corny, and I was hoping they would leave them out of the movie, but the way they were done, in the end seemed quite naturalistic and didn't seem too out of place at all. The deep-voiced dwarf song around the fireplace actually gave me chills and you could see how it could work on Bilbo's imagination and inspire him.

4. Costumes and sets were great. I think a lot of us take this stuff for granted but for me the wargs, orcs and trolls and the clothing of the hobbits, dwarves and elves were all spot-on to how they should be (much like in LOTR).

5. Like in LOTR, music was good too.

Minuses

1. OK I have to echo Nyvone- WTF was up with Radagast. I actually didn't mind the idea at first that they were going to bulk it up to 3 movies if they could include some interesting stuff from the Silmarillion. But that Radagast stuff was just silly filler. If they didn't have enough good material or three movies they should have just kept it at two!

2. Some of the action scenes were just too over-the-top and 'car-chasey' for me. It felt like Tintin (don't get me started on how horrible that was) all over again when Radagast was racing through the forest on his rabbit-sleigh. Why does this kind of thing have to be in every movie these days? I think though you can't necessarily blame Peter Jackson for this- I wouldn't be surprised if he's under pressure from the studio to 'Hollywoodize' the movies up more.

3. I didn't really like the way the movie started with back-story. To me part of the charm of the Hobbit book is that when Gandalf and the dwarves first turn up at Bag End the reader knows as little as Bilbo about what is going on. Showing where the dwarves came from basically spoiled the surprise of why they were there.

4. The whole intro with Frodo was dumb and unnecessary. The viewer familiar with LOTR can figure out who Bilbo is without such sign-posting and for those who aren't it's meaningless. It kind of feels insulting when movies do this.

5. The movie never really made clear the path they were traveling. Maybe it's a bit of a tired trope but I would have liked a map to show their progress across the landscape or at least some better explanation. The fact that they had to cross the Misty Mountain range to me always seemed a big thing in the book but in the movie it was not really even mentioned- they just kind of turned up there, and there was no mention of when they left the boundary of the Shire. In a book where the whole process of journey is such a big thing you need to give people more of a sense of the geography.

What was up with Gandalf slicing the belly of the Goblinking? I don't know what I think of that scene, just that something felt strange. I almost expected something along the lines of when Indy Jones shoot that sword-guy instead of having a sword fight, but instead he punch him and slice his belly. Did you like that scene?