The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey review

Came back from watching it. Peter Jackson did it again. This film can stand next to the Lord of The Rings trilogy as a worthy prequel. Its epic, its beautiful, is awesome, its the best movie of the year IMO. We glee at the return of old favorite characters (Frodo, Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Gollum) and we welcome new characters like the dwarves (I had a problem remembering who is called what since there are 12 of them and all their names sound alike) and the king of the orcs. Its almost three hours length were hardly noticed by me since I enjoyed every single minute of it. While Bilbo Baggins is the central character, the real hero is Thorin, the king of the dwarves, whose heroics are on par with those of Aragorn & Kili is a sort of a dwarf Legolas, master archer. My favorite sequences: the arrival at Rivendell, we get to see more of everyones favorite elven city which it has an incomparable majestic beauty; the chase of the orcs in those wolves-like creauture in the plainfield which even though you know our heroes will eventually survive this seemingly hopless ambush, Jackson is effective in creating the mood of tension and threat which keeps you on the edge of your seat. The other great action sequence (even though a little too far fetched) was the battle in the goblins caves, it was like a rollercoaster ride, awesome! I can see Tolkien purists having a hard time with this film and maybe for non-fans it will feel too long and too talkie, but if you liked the previous films, you'lllove this one. I'm sorry for the ladies, but there is not a single hunk here they can salivate like they did for Legolas & Aragorn, unless they don't mind the bearded dwarf, Thorin. Great film. Can't wait for another year for the next one! 9/10

 

Of course you would love this...:wack:




But who am I to talk...I like the Lord Of The Rings movies.....but still you are a FAG....:eye:

 

Why the uncalled name calling? and if you haven't bothered to watch the film yet then refrain from commenting here or it is that you have a crush on me?

 

It was nice to see 90 year old Christopher Lee reprise his role of Saruman.

 

Do you need to be a Tolkien fan to appreciate this?

8 years ago, I started to watch the DVD of 'Lord Of The Rings - The Fellowship' and lasted 60 minutes before being utterly bored by it. I mean, not just bored but literally yawning...
I turned it off and havent attempted to watch anything since.

 

Stay away from this one.

 

Didn't you found entertaining the introduction tale of how the dwarf kingdom rose and fall? I'll give you that the dinner at Bilbo Baggins kind of drag too long, but then so it did in the book. Jackson indeed is taking a gamble in expanding to three films a book that had just 300 pages. Thus the reason of adding situations and characters not from that book. Also the book itself, The Hobbit, is mainly a children's book and not as dark as the LOTR. Jackson had to add stuff and change the tone so the continuity will not be broken from the other films.

I avoided the 3D version and watched the digital version which looked crystal clear. 3D gives me headaches.

 

The film grossed $37 million on Friday which is a new December record. It will most likely surpass the All Time December weekend record which was set by I Am Legend with $77 million.

 

The first LOTR was one the worst movies I've seen. Refused to watch the last two and won't be watching this.

 

the first LOTR was pretty crappy though...the 2nd one was much better

 

These films are not for everybody. You either love them or hate them.

 

^ not true...i think they are 'ok'

 

The first Lord of the Rings was the only film in the trilogy I've been able to see multilple viewings of. The other two I saw in the theaters and never once sat through complete viewings of them again. I'm not sure I'll ever watch the Hobbit. The girlfriend wants to skip this (surprising seeing as it comes in 3D) and for the most part, so do I.

 

I had no interest in LOTR as I've never been interested in Tolkien at all (my little sister adores those books, as did my father) but I enjoyed the LOTR films... I wouldn't watch them again probably, but I found them enjoyable

 

I found them enjoyable too as I watched them. I even thought I'd rewatch the other two again but it just never happend. I always felt it'd be more a waste of time to sit through them and I just was never that motivated to do so.

 

I am a huge LOTR fan, grew up reading the books and I thought the movies were excellent representations of the books and was thoroughly entertained.

I also, was not as big a fan of The Hobbit book. So i wasn't all that excited for this movie to begin with, I believe it is a travesty that they are stretching this out into 3 films. This would have been an excellent two-film saga, as it is the material is stretched too thin, imo.

I liked the backstory of the Dwarves, and they fill in some parts of the movie with backstories from the Silmarillion (as they did with parts of the LOTR trilogy). But in general I thought the movie was just ok.

I think Bilbo was excellent, and the Riddles in the Dark scene with Gollum was excellent. However I the dwarves were nothing special and oddly enough neither was Gandalf.

Also a big problem with the film for me - i thought the soundtrack was underwhelming, and in fact it was piss poor compared to the soundtrack of the first 3 films.

 

I enjoyed the film, but it bothers me to wait for three films to get to the end. This is a short book, like half of "The Fellowship..." so at least give us two hours of footage, not two and a half. I loved watching Christopher Lee again. He's still a powerful actor at such an advanced age. I wonder how much different this film would've been with Guillermo del Toro at the helm, since he would've relied more on puppets and animatronics to give life to the characters.

 

True, and they re-used some of the LOTR soundtrack numbers in some parts.

 

You mean the orcs and such? I thought it looked like all the orcs were computer generated in The Hobbit, and it was also a downgrade from the LOTR movies with the actual people in costumes./

 

Exactly my thoughts. Guillermo del Toro LOVES costumes and animatronics. His CG use is minimal. I've heard rumors that he left the project because He wanted to do it a two film thing while using less CG, and Peter Jackson wanted a trilogy with more CG to save time and money.

 

It wasn't like that at all. Del Toro left because the project was taking too long to materialize and he had other projects lined up and he didn't want to wait years for that. After Peter Jackson took over and started filming it was going to be only two films: the first one based entirely on the Hobbit book, and a second one an original linking the Hobbit to LOTR. When Jackson started filming he realized he & Del Toro build so much in the preproduction (storywise and sketches etc) that it was enough to make not two but THREE films. Jackson presented this to the studio and they were more than happy to green light another trilogy.

 

Well I can tell you this much - IMO it should have been two movies and less CG

 

And I agree with you, sir.

 

This is interesting. IMO there isn't enough material even stretching it out with Silmarillion tales and background to make 3 films (especially not 2 hr 45 mins each). Certainly not if you take into account where they left off in the first one.

**SPOILER from the book:

You basically have Mirkwood, Laketown/Lonely Mtn and the Battle of the 5 Armies and that finishes the novel and logically the second film. So I'm a little more than intrigued to see how they link the Hobbit to LOTR at the end of the third movie.

On a sidenote, milking the box office crowd notwithstanding, I think making The Hobbit a trilogy somehow makes a statement that it is equal to or on the same level as LOTR and I really can't agree with that. There's a reason LOTR took 3 whole books to tell the tale and The Hobbit was just one shorter novel on its own. The Hobbit is an important story, as it sets the table for the LOTR epic and everything that happens, but that's all it is... backstory, the prelude, a random tale of a battle for Dwarves where a hobbit just happened upon the most important magical item in Middle Earth.

 

IMO it should have been one single epic three and a half hours film for the Hobbit book. It could had stand on its own, please the Tolkien fans and a helluva of a movie. While I loved this one, the decision to make three films was not an artistic one, but pure commercial, unlike the first trilogy.

Now if some Hollywood suit will greenlight a movie project based on The Dark Elf trilogy, of Forgotten Realms by R.A. Salvatore about Drizzt Do'Urden, the drow or dark elf, audiences will forever forget the Tolkien films.

 

What was the last 3 1/3 hours film that hit the theaters? IMO two 2 1/2 hours films would've done the trick.