The Hobbit Reaction Post
Jan. 1st, 2013 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
author_by_nightSo I saw the first part of The Hobbit today.
First let me say that I'm not a LOTR expert, and that I last read The Hobbit years ago. So I speak carefully of inaccuracies.
I definitely feel this movie was not one for people who love the books and want a faithful adaptation. It's very much for people who were fans of the LOTR movies - maybe alone, or maybe as companion pieces. (I eventually resigned myself to being a fan of the HP movies as companion pieces myself.) Frodo is in the prologue, and an older, wiser Bilbo is the narrator. It does serve a purpose to people who might not really recall Bilbo, as he wasn't really in the movies. For someone like me who was introduced to the books through TH, however, it was a little jarring. Still, I understood why they did it. Other liberties were taken. We're given backstories that were never mentioned, at least in The Hobbit, but I've never read The Simillarion (nor has the LOTR fan I went with) so perhaps we're missing something there. And Galadriel... did we even hear of her in the first book? I don't think they hurt the movie, but they didn't add much to it either. And the Saruman part would have had more of a punch had we not been hinted towards his future evil.
Martin Freeman did not disappoint as Bilbo; he definitely was not a Frodo 1.0, from what I could tell, and I liked that. His character development rang true for me. Also, the guy who played Kili? Yummy. And I no longer picture him as female. (When I read the book all those years ago, I somehow thought Fili and Kili were women at first. Then they were called men and I was all "wait, huh?")
I may actually re-read the book, because I'd like to go back to the original story.
First let me say that I'm not a LOTR expert, and that I last read The Hobbit years ago. So I speak carefully of inaccuracies.
I definitely feel this movie was not one for people who love the books and want a faithful adaptation. It's very much for people who were fans of the LOTR movies - maybe alone, or maybe as companion pieces. (I eventually resigned myself to being a fan of the HP movies as companion pieces myself.) Frodo is in the prologue, and an older, wiser Bilbo is the narrator. It does serve a purpose to people who might not really recall Bilbo, as he wasn't really in the movies. For someone like me who was introduced to the books through TH, however, it was a little jarring. Still, I understood why they did it. Other liberties were taken. We're given backstories that were never mentioned, at least in The Hobbit, but I've never read The Simillarion (nor has the LOTR fan I went with) so perhaps we're missing something there. And Galadriel... did we even hear of her in the first book? I don't think they hurt the movie, but they didn't add much to it either. And the Saruman part would have had more of a punch had we not been hinted towards his future evil.
Martin Freeman did not disappoint as Bilbo; he definitely was not a Frodo 1.0, from what I could tell, and I liked that. His character development rang true for me. Also, the guy who played Kili? Yummy. And I no longer picture him as female. (When I read the book all those years ago, I somehow thought Fili and Kili were women at first. Then they were called men and I was all "wait, huh?")
I may actually re-read the book, because I'd like to go back to the original story.
no subject
Date: 2013-01-02 02:21 am (UTC)The only things added that drove me nuts was the one-handed orc out for revenge. That wasn't from anything and it felt tacked on to me :/
Radagast too was far expanded, but IMHO it worked better.
Overall though, I was delighted with the movie, my main complaint was in a few areas I felt it dragged