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ellenmillionIn the middle of Fairbanks, was a theater where the Hobbit played.
It is, perhaps, a bit of a stretch to say the middle of Fairbanks, since it is the mostly historical district by the river that is generally agreed to be downtown, but the road with the theater was one of the most traveled in Fairbanks, with a vast selection of fast food across the four lanes of traffic (eight, if one counts the two frontage roads). It wasn't the nicest theater, either - with its noisy arcade and sticky floors, and its concession counter with lines that were staggeringly slow. Once you had finally shuffled to the front of the line (peeling your shoes off the floor at each step), they charged $11.25 for a small soda and a bag full of popcorn that was so caustic with salt it felt like pepper on dry lips.
It was, however, the only theater in town, unless you count the bar with the room that converts to a theater with a few dozen airline seats and half-rate sound. (The food at the latter is vastly better and cheaper, and the addition of beer to the menu recommends it greatly.)
At the theater in the middle of Fairbanks... what is the Hobbit? I suppose this movie needs a little explanation, since it so little resembles the book, having already been stretched from a single book into three lengthy dramas, with the movie as presented for review being the second. There is a Bilbo, and a motley crew of dwarves of copious facial hair (though rather less than I had always imagined, particularly in the case of the youngest of them) on a Quest that does slightly resemble the original tome. And there is a dragon, who makes it into the title of this installment of video entertainment, but he does not make an appearance until nearly the end of the movie, and the actors manage to make his name into several syllables rather than keeping it to a word like the air quality of China, as this reader had always imagined it.
But, it was a good movie. And spoilers do follow, as they usually do in such reviews.
### (Actual review)
My biggest beef with this interpretation of the book is the passage of time. The dwarves go into Mirkwood, wander around for a few minutes, go crazy, get trussed up by spiders, promptly get rescued and then captured by elves, where they spend too short a time to require a bathroom break before being crammed in barrels - OPEN barrels - and shot down a waterpark-waiting-to-happen. The whole journey from start of Mirkwood to the Lonely Mountain appears to take about forty-eight hours. I liked the bits in the novel where they trudged through Mirkwood and lost heart. I liked the part where Bilbo is actually a thief and has to dodge the elves for a week or two. I get that you have to keep things hopping to keep the attention of a modern movie audience, but I also feel like there could have been some nod to the fact that SOME time was passing. I kept wondering where the caffeine drip was, since obviously they never stopped to sleep after their night at Beorn's.
Oh, and the orcs. I can just picture the writer's meeting:
EXEC: Add orcs.
WRITERS: This scene is pretty exciting already, it doesn't actually need orcs.
EXEC: MORE ORCS.
WRITERS (dryly): Okay, how about we have an elf leap onto dwarf heads and fire arrows into orcs while rushing downstream in bobbing barrels.
EXEC: YES! DO THAT!
WRITERS: *facepalm*
EXEC: Also, we want you to add a romantic sub-plot.
WRITERS: We'll have to add a woman to the cast, unless you want to be really progressive...
EXEC: We're not that progressive. Add a woman! A really bendy woman!
I did like Tauriel. And I agree that the whole movie does set up the Lord of the Rings trilogy much better than the book did. Smaaaauuuuuug was absolutely GORGEOUS, and they definitely did a marvelous job with the CGI.
I was able to suspend my disbelief in the physics of things... except for the gold. Here we go again with the passage of time, because - how long do you think it would take to melt that much gold? Enough gold to not only coat Smaaaauuuuuuug with, but actually fill a hall and flood OVER him into a smooth puddle? Not the few minutes it took our heroes to set the whole thing up, I don't care if you've got a forge lit by dragonfire or not. If it was hot enough to do that, it would have lit the air itself on fire and suffocated everyone in the keep. It takes time to transfer heat, people, and they made a big point about how it started out stone cold*.
I will admit, that gold-plated Smaaaaauuuuuug was certainly pretty. And I'm glad they didn't, at least, pretend it would stick.
In all, a lovely movie. Despite the fact that I desperately had to pee by about hour two and one of my legs had a wicked, wretched cramp that I had no chance of stretching out, and I occasionally wanted to cry foul on the topic of how long it takes to do things, I was riveted to the screen the whole time. I will see the last one on the big screen as well... though I may choose the slightly smaller big screen of the Blue Loon and have a beer and sweet potato fries for considerably less than the soda and popcorn that stripped my wallet.
*Likewise, if it were magical really-fast-heating gold, it would have the same rate of cooling, and would have been completely solidified by the time it got to Smaaaauuuuuggg, such that it would have just hit him with a bunch of lumpy chunks of warm metal, not that pretty, pretty, very liquid gold.
It is, perhaps, a bit of a stretch to say the middle of Fairbanks, since it is the mostly historical district by the river that is generally agreed to be downtown, but the road with the theater was one of the most traveled in Fairbanks, with a vast selection of fast food across the four lanes of traffic (eight, if one counts the two frontage roads). It wasn't the nicest theater, either - with its noisy arcade and sticky floors, and its concession counter with lines that were staggeringly slow. Once you had finally shuffled to the front of the line (peeling your shoes off the floor at each step), they charged $11.25 for a small soda and a bag full of popcorn that was so caustic with salt it felt like pepper on dry lips.
It was, however, the only theater in town, unless you count the bar with the room that converts to a theater with a few dozen airline seats and half-rate sound. (The food at the latter is vastly better and cheaper, and the addition of beer to the menu recommends it greatly.)
At the theater in the middle of Fairbanks... what is the Hobbit? I suppose this movie needs a little explanation, since it so little resembles the book, having already been stretched from a single book into three lengthy dramas, with the movie as presented for review being the second. There is a Bilbo, and a motley crew of dwarves of copious facial hair (though rather less than I had always imagined, particularly in the case of the youngest of them) on a Quest that does slightly resemble the original tome. And there is a dragon, who makes it into the title of this installment of video entertainment, but he does not make an appearance until nearly the end of the movie, and the actors manage to make his name into several syllables rather than keeping it to a word like the air quality of China, as this reader had always imagined it.
But, it was a good movie. And spoilers do follow, as they usually do in such reviews.
### (Actual review)
My biggest beef with this interpretation of the book is the passage of time. The dwarves go into Mirkwood, wander around for a few minutes, go crazy, get trussed up by spiders, promptly get rescued and then captured by elves, where they spend too short a time to require a bathroom break before being crammed in barrels - OPEN barrels - and shot down a waterpark-waiting-to-happen. The whole journey from start of Mirkwood to the Lonely Mountain appears to take about forty-eight hours. I liked the bits in the novel where they trudged through Mirkwood and lost heart. I liked the part where Bilbo is actually a thief and has to dodge the elves for a week or two. I get that you have to keep things hopping to keep the attention of a modern movie audience, but I also feel like there could have been some nod to the fact that SOME time was passing. I kept wondering where the caffeine drip was, since obviously they never stopped to sleep after their night at Beorn's.
Oh, and the orcs. I can just picture the writer's meeting:
EXEC: Add orcs.
WRITERS: This scene is pretty exciting already, it doesn't actually need orcs.
EXEC: MORE ORCS.
WRITERS (dryly): Okay, how about we have an elf leap onto dwarf heads and fire arrows into orcs while rushing downstream in bobbing barrels.
EXEC: YES! DO THAT!
WRITERS: *facepalm*
EXEC: Also, we want you to add a romantic sub-plot.
WRITERS: We'll have to add a woman to the cast, unless you want to be really progressive...
EXEC: We're not that progressive. Add a woman! A really bendy woman!
I did like Tauriel. And I agree that the whole movie does set up the Lord of the Rings trilogy much better than the book did. Smaaaauuuuuug was absolutely GORGEOUS, and they definitely did a marvelous job with the CGI.
I was able to suspend my disbelief in the physics of things... except for the gold. Here we go again with the passage of time, because - how long do you think it would take to melt that much gold? Enough gold to not only coat Smaaaauuuuuuug with, but actually fill a hall and flood OVER him into a smooth puddle? Not the few minutes it took our heroes to set the whole thing up, I don't care if you've got a forge lit by dragonfire or not. If it was hot enough to do that, it would have lit the air itself on fire and suffocated everyone in the keep. It takes time to transfer heat, people, and they made a big point about how it started out stone cold*.
I will admit, that gold-plated Smaaaaauuuuuug was certainly pretty. And I'm glad they didn't, at least, pretend it would stick.
In all, a lovely movie. Despite the fact that I desperately had to pee by about hour two and one of my legs had a wicked, wretched cramp that I had no chance of stretching out, and I occasionally wanted to cry foul on the topic of how long it takes to do things, I was riveted to the screen the whole time. I will see the last one on the big screen as well... though I may choose the slightly smaller big screen of the Blue Loon and have a beer and sweet potato fries for considerably less than the soda and popcorn that stripped my wallet.
*Likewise, if it were magical really-fast-heating gold, it would have the same rate of cooling, and would have been completely solidified by the time it got to Smaaaauuuuuggg, such that it would have just hit him with a bunch of lumpy chunks of warm metal, not that pretty, pretty, very liquid gold.
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no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 07:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 08:09 am (UTC)I admit I gasped when Legs was standing on the Dwarves' heads, just because I thought one was Bifur, and he's got ENOUGH head trauma to cope with already without some goddamn Elf stomping that axe further into his frontal lobe. But I think I was wrong.
I did like that Bilbo went face-to-face with Smaug, though. But his glorious spidermurder moment was rushed through way too fast. You would think, with a movie that appears to last several decades, they would find enough time to show off Bilbo vs. spiders, not to mention time to at least suggest that they've been lingering in Mirkwood and then have spent a week or two with the Elves. Basically, my conclusion was: NEEDS MORE HOBBIT.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 08:16 am (UTC)I'm okay with Smaug getting turned into "Smawhg," because accents whatever.
I'm particularly okay with Tauriel, because I'm seeing tons of little girls being really in to her character, and any tough kick ass all out of bubblegum female warriors that little girls can use as their role models are a-okay by me.
I'm even okay with the rapid weather changes and shifts in seasons between Mirkwood and Lake Town.
What got me the most was that they really toned down Beorn's hospitality to his guests and his ferociousness to his enemies. Beorn was far more amiable in the book, at least to the Company, and was an absolute TERROR to the Goblins and Wargs. The lack of him taking them out to show them the skins he'd collected during the night really struck a weird chord with me. Like, you're going to put all these extra fiddly bits from who knows which book over there in the series, and you're going to take out Beorn being super proud of the fact that he seriously fucked up the goblins? Buh?
I will say: Richard Armitage's portrayal of Thorin's creeping madness really sent a chill up my spine.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 09:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 11:24 am (UTC)The only other way I would have thought to pronouce it would be as in the first part of the word 'smorgasbord', providing you guys say it the way we guys do...
B Cumberbatch has a cool voice. Excellent choice for Smauuuuuug :)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-09 12:07 am (UTC)I'm sure it'l randomly pop into my head at 3am some time
no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 01:20 am (UTC)On the whole, I'm okay with expanding the story with material from the appendices. It really shows how the story ties in with the larger world of the Lord of the Rings. So Gandalf's confrontation with the "Necromancer" was a welcome addition. Tauriel's awesomeness made up for her being completely invented. The love triangle was... strained... but I can see why a movie maker might have thought it necessary. Also, Thranduil was completely creepy, alien and crazy. I loved him.
The movie glossed over the slow-moving bits of the story and expanded the action scenes. (To the point of being ridiculous. Hellooo, bouncing barrel.) I found myself rolling my eyes more than once. The open barrels... well, they had to be that way, for the action scenes. I suppose. -_-
The expanded stuff in the Lonely Mountain... eh. I liked Smaug's discussion with Bilbo in the book (which was mostly in the movie), but it was Thinking action, not Action action... plus, in the book the dwarves spent days wondering whether or not the dragon was gone, after Smaug smashed up the (outside of the) mountain and left for Lake Town, and sitting and waiting does not a good movie make.
All the stuff with the furnaces and the gold... meh. Lots of eye rolling. Though Golden Smaug was incredibly impressive.
I'm with you on timing! The movie went from Autumn Forest to Icy Lake awfully fast. My recollection was that in the book, Bilbo spent weeks wandering through the Elvish cellars stealing food and trying to figure out where things were and how to get the dwarves out. Maybe the extended edition will make it more clear that Time Has Passed.
I was excited to see Beorn's bees, and I hope the extended edition has more about him and his hospitality. I hope the extended edition has more of Bilbo kicking spider abdomen... though the bit where Bilbo realizes the ring has an odd and disturbing hold on him was nicely done.
And I second the comment above that Richard Armitage is portraying Thorin's descent into treasure craziness was very nicely done.
Bilbo TOTALLY has the Arkenstone. Just saying.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 03:46 am (UTC)