Posted on 12/02/2012 10:56:54 AM PST by Eurotwit
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- There’s only one real wizard in Middle Earth - and it’s director Peter Jackson.
The auteur from Down Under unveiled “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” - the first installment of his prequel trilogy to his “Lord of the Rings” series - in his native New Zealand Wednesday.
It was an eye-popping night, from the celebrity-filled red carpet to, more important, the action on screen.
Based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 children’s tale which set the stage for the author’s much darker and heavier later books, Jackson’s “The Hobbit” harkens back to a more innocent time when men were men and gold-hoarding dragons were the biggest evils plaguing the land.
Martin Freeman stars as the titular reluctant hero, who’s tricked by the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) into accompanying 13 dwarves — led by Thorin (a square-jawed Richard Armitage) — on a quest to reclaim their ancient homeland from the worst of those dragons.
The movie offers technological wizardry, thanks to a 48 frames-per-second format, twice the industry standard. Critics who saw a trailer earlier this year were unimpressed, but after a minute or two of adjusting, the higher resolution is eye-popping, similar to discovering HD television for the first time.
Gollum, voiced by Andy Serkis, makes a cameo in Peter Jackson's 'The Hobbit.'
Alas, the higher resolution has one downside: it really makes you wince when you see the obscenely corpulent Goblin King in such crystal clarity.
Lighter and funnier than its “Lord of the Rings” predecessors, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” remains faithful to the fantasy world last seen in the 2003 Academy Award-winning “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”
The connections abound through the two-hour-forty-minute epic, including important cameos from Andy Serkis’ Gollum and Elijah Wood’s Frodo.
The result runs rings around most special-effects driven blockbusters.
The movie opens Dec. 14 on this side of the Pacific.
I disagree. I thought Faramir was portrayed quite well. It depends how you interpret his actions onscreen. I didn’t see his actions as one of ambition when he held the ring, but one of, “This is what people are after?”
Sorry to go full nerd.
“Based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 children’s tale which set the stage for the author’s much darker and heavier later books, Jackson’s “The Hobbit” harkens back to a more innocent time when men were men and gold-hoarding dragons were the biggest evils plaguing the land.”
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, fake, wrong.
This person obviously hasn’t read the books. The way I read this paragraph is that The Hobbit is set in more innocent times than the LOTR. That’s the only way it can be read since the subject is unchanged.
Going by memory the LOTR saga occurs 70 or so years after the events in The Hobbit. Gandalf reveals in the LOTR that he was actually on an intelligence gathering mission, amongst other things, during the events of The Hobbit. In fact in The Hobbit Gandalf is missing for a period of time during which he is penetrating the lair of the Necromancer. In the LOTR he reveals that the Necromancer was in fact Sauron, gathering his power.
It is still in living memory of the characters of the book, not a different era as this author suggests. It is really just a continuation of The Hobbit.
And I’ll never watch the movie. I’ve had the books in my head for 25 or so years...I don’t need no moving pictures messing with my Tolkien reality.
After typing all this out it sounds incredibly nerdy...but the books really are fantastic and pose many interesting philosophical questions along with a great message.
So looking forward to this. Going to see it in 3-D IMAX. Wife and I an our boys are taking the day off from work and calling our daughter in sick from school. This one is worthy of making a family event out of.
"The Hobbit" is a single book, 310 pages in length.
"The Lord of the Rings" is three books, running 531 pages, 416 pages, and 624 pages.
Yet Peter Jackson adapted BOTH works in movie trilogies running over 8 hours. He clearly had to pad "The Hobbit" story MUCH more to give it the same length as LOTR. I'm optimistic about the movies getting the themes right but I'm worried into going to drag on forever with a ton of excess subplots that weren't in the books. For example, Frodo from LOTR is in the movie adaptation of "The Hobbit" when the character hadn't even been invented yet when the book version was written.
Sympathize but disagree.
I've probably read (all) the books 40x or more, but greatly enjoyed the movies, though I had a major disorientation moment every time the movie diverged from the book story I knew so well.
I have now found that the movies (which I've now also watched many times) and books blend together into a confusing mish-mash in my mind. Have to concentrate to remember which is which.
Disappointing moments in the movies for me, mainly because it didn't match the picture in my head.
Gandalf facing the Balrog. G was great, the Balrog didn't do it for me.
Eowyn vs. the King of the Nazgul. Loved that part of the book, and it just didn't work as well for me in the movie. Possibly because I don't think the actress was quite right for the role.
Sam vs Shelob. Can't quite put my finger on it, but it just didn't match the epic nature of my mental vision.
I also really disliked the movie showing Frodo turning on Sam, which is not a trace of in the book. Showed Frodo's mental deterioration under the stress of the Ring well, but p*ssed me off.
As earlier mentioned, the denigration of Faramir and the absence of the Scouring.
Can live with pretty much all the changes. A direct book to movie transfer would probably be 30 hours or more.
Hmmm. I could live with that. :)
That is pathetic. They are just looking at the money to stretch that into 3 movies
As I understand it, Frodo is making an appearance, but only in the sense of allowing Bilbo to reminisce of those events from 70 years earlier. Frodo is not really in the movie in any real sense.
Jackson is drawing material from other Tolkien books. Hes not simply adding anything that wasn’t written by Tolkien’s hand.
I read LOTR first in around 1965 (?) and loved them so much I learned runes, re-read many times, etc.
I loathed the Aragorn in the movie. Whispering, prancing, head case. Not the least bit kingly. Even his love for Arwen did not seem authentic. I still think overall the movies were pretty good. But Vigil or whatever his name is really stuck in my craw, especially when I learned what a leftist schmuck he is.
OTOH Gimli and Theoden were excellent. Theoden could not have been better. Now he was a king!
Quite agree. The Hobbit was written very much from the perspective of a naive hobbit, who stumbled through immense events without really understanding what was going on.
As I understand it, PJ has simply expanded the story beyond what Bilbo witnessed. I’m looking forward to it.
I wonder if they’ll have Aragorn make an appearance. He should be about 30 years old. Though perhaps he was off serving the King of Rohan and the Steward of Gondor. Hadn’t yet become engaged to Arwen.
Sauron, as a sorcerer, will be interesting.
I find that hard to believe, because Jackson's LOTR trilogy (which again, needed FAR less "supplemental" material to bring it up to nine hours) had several major elements that were made up for films and not based on material from Tolkien's books. For example, the half-elf Arwen Undómiel is change from a minor character to a major character and the movies invent all sorts of new scenes and actions for her that weren't in the books versions of LOTR or The Hobbit. Second, Jackson does NOT have the rights to the other books set in Middle Earth (The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin, etc.) so he couldn't even use material from the posthumous Tolkien books without Christopher Tolkien suing. Christopher Tolkien
I find that hard to believe, because Jackson's LOTR trilogy (which again, needed FAR less "supplemental" material to bring it up to nine hours) had several major elements that were made up for films and NOT based on material from Tolkien's books. For example, the half-elf Arwen Undómiel is change from a minor character to a major character and the movies invent all sorts of new scenes and actions for her that weren't in the books versions of LOTR or The Hobbit. Second, Jackson does NOT have the rights to the other books set in Middle Earth (The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin, etc.) so he couldn't even use material from the posthumous Tolkien books without Christopher Tolkien suing.
Actually, in one of Tolkien’s supplemental books, he wrote a fairly substantial poem laying out Aragorn’s and Arwen’s love for each other, so it’s not really an insubstantial part of the LOTR world.
It was also done for the most practical reasons. If he hasn’t done it, it wouldn’t have attracted half the box office it did, and there would be no three hobbit movies to enjoy.
How the heck do they turn a one volume children’s book into a trilogy?
I realized that I was not the only person to whom Return of the King seemed interminable when...about the time Bilbo was setting for Gray Havens..a young man off to my right shouted “End Already!”
Das Rheingold
Die Valkure
Siegfried
Gotterdammerung
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B2LPxggvqY
Lord Of The Rings explained;
Adult language warning;
My daughter and I have tickets for 9 am on the 14th. I’m so excited.... :)
There aren't many scenes invented for Arwen. What PJ mostly did was transfer the actions of others to her, notably Glorfindel, who otherwise is a total McGuffin.
Also to pick an elven nit, Arwen was 3/4 elf. Her mother was Celebrian, the daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn.
Her father was Elrond the Half-Elven.
Faramir initially tries to bring them back to Gondor in the movie, but in the book he doesn’t do that; he doesn’t want the ring, and helps them on their way. The distinction is important, as it shows that he (like Aragorn) still retain some of the purity of the men from long ago.
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