Category: Lord of the Rings / Hobbit

Though … I'm trying to remember why so many people have an angry on about the first film, An Unexpected Journey. This isn't the first review that's felt H2 > H1, and, honestly, I don't see it.

Spoilery spoilers.

Reshared post from +Doyce Testerman

Because +Dave Hill asked – a look at the ending of the Desolation of Smaug. Spoilers and dwarf fanboy love abound.

I'll note that, though disappointed, I didn't hate the movie. Far from it. I just didn't love it, which I was hoping to. So this is me:

'Is it perfect? Certainly not, but it is good, both as a series of movies in its own right and as a (by my lights) faithful retelling of the story as a part of Middle Earth, with the perspective granted by time, and the ability to make it mesh with what is, in literary terms, the greater of the two pieces of work. I think that is the reason you see so many people talking about how they disapproved of the stuff that was changed or added, but concluding with “I still really liked it, though I don’t know why, and I guess I’ll just have to wait until next Christmas to see if the whole thing pays off.”'

Reshared post from +Doyce Testerman

It doesn't matter what I titled this post, because not hating the movie is going to draw the maximum amount of vitriol without any other factors considered.

[SPOILERS, SWEETIE]
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[Even Hobbits fail their Stealth role when walking on piles of gold. Who knew?]
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Well, let' start out with what went right.  Jackson and his team have built a world with a consistent, expected texture and presence that not only works, but which gives him a firm foundation upon which to tell his stories.  And where he's working with the source material, he does a marvelous job embellishing and enriching it. Beorn, the Spiders, the Wood King's hall (and the Wood King himself), Lake Town, the secret door, Bilbo's encounter with Smaug, even the escape by barrel all are stirring renditions given added depth and, even when pushed far beyond the original, were something I enjoyed.

As soon as Jackson deviates from the story, though, things start to go off the rails. I understand and appreciate that the dwarves in the original are largely passive, slogging characters, even Thorin.  They march, they get captured by goblins, they're sprung by Gandalf, they run, they get trapped by goblins, they're rescued by eagles, they march, they get captured by spiders, they get sprung by Bilbo, they get captured by wood elves, they get sprung by Bilbo, they march up to Erebor, they send in Bilbo, then they stand by while Smaug heads off to level Lake Town.

So it's okay that the dwarves are actually doughty fighters, that they mix it up some with the orcs, even that they mix it up with Smaug a bit themselves.  But that latter big set piece felt .. way too goofy. I mean, big, impressive, cinematically wild and crazy, but plot-wise just zany (and in-movie-technically highly implausible).

Also, I understand the sense that (Galadriel aside), this is an all-male cast leading to the introduction of Tauriel. Three cheers and all that.  But her story line and sudden besottednes is just wretchedly executed; Evangeline Lily is fine, but her story arc is enough to make me wish that we hadn't had a specific token female character.

Also, I understand wanting to up the stakes and tension by having this orcish search-and-destroy team in pursuit of Thorin & Co., but not only is it a huge number of orcs to the purpose (for all the ones who get gacked at each step along the way), but it's one more distracting plot element amongst so many others, all to introduce yet another Big Bad Orc (since Azog is busy elsewhere) and someone for Legolas to fight with later on. (Plus, um, how the hell did Bolg have a Warg parked by the front gate to Lake Town?).  It all just feels like random conflict to throw at the audience to keep the action going.

Also, I understand that the Wood Elves and the Dwarves need to have a big conflict going on.  That's just canonical Tolkien.  But this gets dicey in two aspects: Legolas acting like a racist jerk (in a way that's difficult to understand how he'll turn into a much milder jerk in LotR), and Tauriel getting all dewy-eyed over Kili (for reasons that would be difficult to understand under normal circumstances, but seem downright railroaded given that whole elf/dwarf thing).

One potential conflict between the current tale and the later "Lord of the Rings" is handling the Ring.  In "The Hobbit" (the book), it's simply a convenient Ring of Invisibility, but that can't be the case here, especially since the Necromancer / Sauron is on the rise.  To some degree that aspect is played well here (flashes of Sauron-eye and the like cropping up for poor Bilbo), but not in a consistent fashion, and Bilbo ends up using the Ring a lot less when confronting Smaug (or all the other shenanigans  later on with Smaug and the Dwarves) than it feels he should — not so much because it makes sense character- or story-wise (indeed, in the original book he spends most of this time in Smaug's chamber wearing the ring), but because one gets the impression that Jackson didn't want all the Bilbo scenes in Ring-o-Vision.

(On the other hand, Bilbo's first taste of Ring Obsession vs. the Spiders is very nicely done.)

That raises the last of the "invented" bits, all the goings-on down at Dol Guldur.  There's some of this that's canonical (in various appendices and other locations in Tolkien's writings), but the particulars are, I believe, pretty much invented by Jackson et al. for this film … and, frankly, they just don't work.  Gandalf pokes his nose in and gets in deeper trouble than he can handle … Aaaagain.  While some of the Necromancer/Sauron FX are nice (the Eye/Figure-in-the-Eye are nicely designed), unless Gandalf has some master plan in mind, his stepping into what he knows as a trap feels like manipulative writing rather than a grand plot by the Big Bad.

(Plus, it's the one time ever that people ignore Gandalf — "meet me there and don't go in!" — where it turns out … that ignoring him was the right thing to do.)

Worse, aside from being a big set piece (Big! Spikey! Castle!), there's not much to the whole thing.  We get next to zero personality or character from the episode, just a lot of Gandalf grunting and Big FX. What should be an amazing and noteworthy exercise of power feels cramped and manipulative.

The final big misstep was the ending. Frankly, the movie didn't feel long at that point, and the action was clearly rising to the big confrontation between Smaug and Bard at Lake Town.  But the cut-off, as presented, was premature.  Dramatic structure requires some level of victory, only to having things turn into defeat (or, at least, a recognition that the biggest struggle is yet to come).  Luke & Co. have escaped from the trap on Bespin, but the Empire remains and Han needs to be rescued.  Helms Deep has been won, but a far greater challenge lies ahead against the forces of Mordor.  Hobbit 2 has had no such victory / respite; driving off Bolg hardly counts, and there's no sense of victory in having survived (or even "driven off") Smaug, since the (gooftastic) giant gold statue plan was a bust.  As a result, after frenetic action and desperate measures, things just …

… end.

Now, with all that, remarkably, I didn't dislike this movie. There's a lot here to recommend it in texture and concept, and a lot of individual moments, visuals, speech, facial expression music. And, fergoshsakes, it's a HOBBIT MOVIE. It would have to be truly wretched for me to reject the whole thing.

But …

… there are some significant missteps here that definitely get in the way of unalloyed enjoyment for me.  I can understanding wanting to expand the book to two movies — and even the desire to go to three. But the material that was made up from whole cloth to do that extension simply doesn't cut it. And that's a darned shame.