Went with Boyfriend to finally see the new Hobbit movie. I should preface this with some background information; Boyfriend was reared on The Hobbit from the age of approximately five years old. He loves it. Love is probably not a strong enough word, even. So when he heard they were not only making it into a movie, but into THREE movies. he was overjoyed. I, on the other hand, was less enthusiastic.
I read The Hobbit. I tried several times and finally managed to get through the whole thing when I was 13. (I then continued on to read all three of the Lord of the Rings novels in quick succession, after which I swore off reading Tolkien for the rest of my life.) It isn’t a long book. Not really. Being a Tolkien novel it’s obviously jam-packed full of details, and, compared to the LotR novels, it’s much more to-the-point. Making it into 2 movies, I could see fairly easily. Even making it into 3 shorter movies (it is a children’s book, after all) isn’t unreasonable; what’s the average children’s film, an hour and a half? Sure, that’s fine, totally do-able. But three almost-three-hour movies? There’s no way they could possibly get enough material to fill this time, I said to myself. No freakin’ way.
How they were going to fill the time became apparent once I saw the first film: they were going to make shit up. Especially after conferring with Tolkien-pedia (aka Boyfriend) in the next seat, there were large stretches of that film that were completely made up. Yes, they pulled in some bits from The Silmarillion, that’s okay I guess. I’ll allow it. But a 5-minute scene with Radagast on a sled pulled by bunnies? I’m pretty sure Tolkien would not approve.
But this second movie… Ugh. I’m just going to make a list. A list of my serious issues with this movie.
- Casting
Usually I’m pretty good at identifying actors when they pop up on screen. It’s something my best friend was always able to do really well and living with her for three years gave me plenty of time to practice. But it still took me until seeing names roll across the credit screen to be 100% sure that the lady elf in this movie wasn’t really just Liv Tyler with a really bad dyejob. I mean seriously.
Evangeline Lilly is a decent actress and smokin’ hot, but really, couldn’t they have chosen an actress who looked just a little less like Liv Tyler?
And then at least, couldn’t they have covered up her roots?
I mean seriously, this is just plain sad.
Especially because since it clearly isn’t all her hair, this was intentional. This took me out of the movie every single time she popped up on screen. I know it’s because I’m a little OCD, but… ::twitch::
It should also be noted that Tauriel (henceforth to be referred to as Arwen 2.0) exists nowhere in Middle Earth ever. - EditingDuring my tenure in film school there was one point emphasized above all others: editing is KEY. Part of the beauty of the original Lord of the Rings movie cycle was that they managed to take three immensely long novels that are, in large part, filled with superfluous and irrelevant details about the world around the characters and pull out all of the nuggets that were really relevant to the story, thereby making it much easier for the average human being to consume. Even beyond the writers’ room this was the case thanks to skillful editing. Then, with the release of the director’s cut, the superfankids were able to see much of the cut material and we were all happy, while the rest of the world was also content with the shorter version.
The opposite is the case with The Desolation of Smaug. Part of the problem with this movie was that it’s 2 hours and 40 minutes felt like 6 hours because everything just dragged ON. Did we really need 5 minutes of dwarves smashing spiders with tiny swords? No, we didn’t. 1 minute of this would have been sufficient. Did we need 15-20 minutes of Legolas & Arwen 2.0 hopping from hobbit to hobbit shooting orcs on the riverbank (a scene that was purely synthesized for the movie, I might add)? No, we absolutely did not. 3-4 minutes would’ve been fine. I’d even take 5, because the bit with the fat dwarf rolling in the barrel, while unnecessary, was pretty amusing.
Unlike the majority of my favorite books that Hollywood has seen fit to slaughter in recent years, The Hobbit films aren’t suffering from missing storylines or simply the fact that most 500-page stories don’t fit in well to a 2.5 hour timespace; rather, it’s the opposite that rings true. They are so desperate to fill the absurd amount of time they’ve decided this story warrants that they are… - MAKING. SHIT. UP.If Tolkien were alive, these movies would never have been permitted to be made. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tolkiens weren’t planning another lawsuit. A good two thirds of this movie was completely synthesized by the writers and has nothing (if not less) to do with the book. There is no big scene by the riverbank. Legolas isn’t even IN the book Legolas’ ladylove Arwen 2.0 was never anywhere in any of the books. Most importantly, Thorin & the dwarves NEVER enter the mountain. That whole bit with the forge and gold at the end? Totally fake. Not to mention completely stupid. Thorin & Smaug don’t ever talk and while Smaug does burst out of the mountain and head for Laketown, he does it to follow Bilbo, not to spite our pint-sized heroes.
Considering the world in which these movies are set is probably one of the most richly described fantasy lands ever, the fact that they felt the needed to make anything up at all is nothing short of insulting. The rational person is then lead to ask, “Sweet Jesus, why would anyone DO such a thing?” - The Producing Team in Hollywood is Just a Bunch of Money-Grubbing AssholesSeriously. This is the root of all their problems. This is the case with just about all major motion pictures that have come out in the past 15 or so years. I mean, for goodness’ sake, in Episode 1 the whole podracing bit was obviously meant to be turned straight into a video game (which it was, a game which I purchased for $5 at Walmart shortly after its release, played for 2 hours, and never touched again) and pretty much all of the Gungan fighting storyline was clearly meant to be turned straight into toys.This is something that modern culture has come to accept, and by and large I include myself in this statement. I liked Star Wars: Episode 1 and as a non-fangirl I don’t mind Jar Jar Binks or the podracing storyline. But what they’ve done to The Hobbit has just hit too close to home. I remember hearing originally they were planning on making 2 movies, and that would’ve been totally fine. There is more than enough richness to this story that 5-5.5 hours of combined screen time seems perfectly acceptable to me.
The third movie is where they lost me completely. It is such an obvious play to drag out the series into another trilogy and line their pockets a third time that it makes me nauseous. The over-commercialization of the film industry I find to be despicable and it’s one of the main factors that lead me to switch out of film school way back when. And it’s something I’m largely able to ignore; I don’t go to a lot of movies and I don’t have kids. But whenever they manage to destroy something I love, it brings up all my feelings of disgust again.
I think what depresses me most about this movie, the entire situation, and the movie industry at large is that film is supposed to be an art form. As is writing. And by dragging out this franchise until it’s dead, I feel like the art has been lost and replaced by commercialism and green. Like a favorite pet who is alive and licking your face when you leave for summer camp and stuffed next to the fireplace when you come back.
So go see this movie if you must. Just don’t say I didn’t bitch about it enough to have warned you.
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