The Hobbit Trilogy - a reflection
I've now seen all three films that make up the Hobbit trilogy. After some reflection, I'd have to say that the last one was my least favourite. That may be because battles, on the whole, bore me, they certainly did in the Lord of the Rings. It may also be because my absolutely favourite character was far better used in the first two films, which is sad since the book and the film is ostensibly supposed to be about his journey.
Yes, I adore Bilbo, helped greatly by my love of his actor Martin Freeman is has to be admitted, but for me Bilbo is the absolute centre of the Hobbit and the films worked best for me when they focused on him. The Gollum/Bilbo encounter in the caves remains my favourite scene, followed by the Bilbo/Smaug scene while the best scene in the third film was probably when Thorin and Bilbo were talking about the acorn Bilbo had taken from Beorn's garden. The affectionate, delighted smile on Thorin's face as he listened to Bilbo explaining what he intended to do with it was a pleasure to observe and a lovely respite from the heavy, scenery pounding gravitas of Thorin's descent into gold madness. I also thoroughly enjoyed the scene at Bilbo's house with Gandalf, the dwarves, the meal, signing the contract and the singing! I had no sympathy with those who moaned about how slow and boring it was. It was a wonderful introduction to the characters we were about to journey with.
I have on the whole enjoyed Sir Peter Jackon's adaptation of The Hobbit, it has been well written, well cast, well acted and beautifully filmed. However I have a few grumbles, for instance while I applaud introducing a strong female character such as Tauriel into a very male focused book, why oh why did she have to tread the very boringly stereotypical route of falling for a main male character, plus the romantic scenes made me wince they were so bloody trite. Then Legolas, why did we have to have quite so much of him? And while I'm muttering, I adore Billy Connolly but I'm not entirely sure that he quite fitted into the film, but what we got of him was fun.