Jet Lag Sucks. Also, My Thoughts on The Hobbit

[azriona]

Andrew slept until the ridiculous hour of 10am this morning. Which, had it been Sunday morning in most places, wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but it being the UL, the week runs on a Sunday-Thursday schedule, so today was a school day. School opens at 8.15

Comments

[azriona]

What I didn't say above (mostly because I forgot) is that we had that impression after having seen it - the movie is really more set up for the serious Tolkien fan than the casual one. It's exactly the movie someone who loves the books would want to see - every last detail portrayed on film, preserved in all its cinematic glory.

And there's nothing wrong with that - heck, there's books I'd love to see done with that sort of care and effort. But if you're trying to reach a general audience, to draw people into the world and create additional fans for the series, this sort of treatment isn't likely to succeed. There's different kinds of storytelling, and not all of them are conducive to all kinds of media. They don't always translate from one to the other very well.

My favorite HP book is Azkaban. And as it turns out, it's my favorite of the movies as well. But I think most everyone can agree that the movie version differs in some key ways from the book. Now, if someone were to go along and do a pitch-perfect movie that adheres to the book by the letter, I'd be all for it. But one of the reasons I love the movie as Cuaron made it is because it differs from the book - it was those changes that make the book digestible in cinematic form, and still understandable. Yeah, he dropped a lot of information and backstory about Harry's parents (and the Marauders were My Thing, in the fandom, so they're quite dear to me), but the movie worked as a movie without them.

I don't want to fault Jackson for not doing the same with The Hobbit, nor would I want to deny the book fans the experience of seeing their beloved scenes on the screen...but I would have liked to have seen that movie, the accessible movie, because he did such a marvelous job with LOTR, in making those books accessible and beautiful and inviting. I think I was hoping to see the same with the Hobbit, because I trusted he could do it (and a damn good job of it, too) and I didn't quite get that. That's pretty much all I'm saying.

[azriona]

The problem with balancing the second and third films of the series so that they are more accessible to the non-Tolkien fan is that those same non-Tolkien fans won't have seen the first movie. So they're far less likely to see the second or third, unless they watch the first at home on DVD.

(Which I admit is likely.)

I do plan to see the next two movies, but I think I'd like to go with an actual Tolkien fan, assuming I can find one, and afterwards have them explain to me all the bits I missed. (Bill's already said he doesn't want to go if there aren't Oompa Loompas.)