The Hobbit (Plus 'Meh'ness)--
For some reason, I'm having trouble posting, commenting, and feedbacking lately. I think the latter two are stopping me from doing the former, actually. I'm so far behind, I end up paralyzed every time I start a post or think about answering email/leaving comments. *sigh*
I'm also finding myself weirdly ambivalent in the wake of the new Hobbit trailer. It's possible that this is mostly because I haven't been feeling well this past week and my mood is pretty low, or because I'm in the weeds with another chapter draft, or even my conflicted emotions around New Zealand and the struggles I've been having here. Or, well, it could be a fallback to how I felt about the LotR movies before they premiered. I was so very, very used to visual adaptations of Tolkien being completely terrible (see: Rankin-Bass and Bakshi) that I was completely convinced that the new movies would be utter disasters. Since it is my favourite book, it was more economical to just be disdainful and write the movies off rather than pin my hopes on what had already been proven a failure to translate properly before. It took until the first big trailer (which I can't even find online anymore) with the rotating Ring and the blaze of fire and a lot of behind the scenes shots for me to go, "Oh, wow, maybe this will be good!"
That "Aha!" moment hasn't happened yet, not with The Hobbit. I mean, yeah, the visuals are beautiful, and it feels like stepping back into Middle-earth, and I positively shivered at seeing Galadriel again, and I'm beyond thrilled to see the returning cast (Andy was amazing in the little clips they gave us, and of course I am all over seeing the Three Keepers all together at the same time), but I'm still not sold on the Dwarves. Thorin looks great -- although I'm having trouble parsing Richard Armitage as short now that I've seen him in person -- and Fili and Kili are adorable, but I'm quite concerned that there will be too much slapstick humour, much like they made Gimli the butt of jokes a teeny bit too often. I'm also very concerned that Bombur is going to be relegated to the usual "Aren't fat people both gross and funny?" position. (I suppose I'm also a little disappointed that the bridge movie never came to fruition, and my favourites are completely missing from the returning cast.)
And even further than that, I'm terrified they're going to fuck up Smaug. I've been worried about that ever since they said that GDT was instrumental in his design, not because I don't like GDT -- in fact, I quite like his films and design aesthetic -- but because his aesthetic is so consistently surreal that it simply appears as if it belongs in another world. What I love best about LotR is how Tolkien, and then PJ and Co. approached the tale of Middle-earth as if it was a historical record. I'm afraid that whatever they're doing with Smaug won't work out correctly, and he'll end up looking strange and out of step with the rest of Middle-earth. I'm terrified that he'll look wrong and sound wrong, and that is one heck of a deal-breaker for me, because Smaug is my proto-dragon. While other little girls were dreaming of unicorns and pegasi, of fairies and (in at least one odd instance) gargoyles, I was (and am) all about the dragons. I love Smaug an entirely unreasonable amount.
*sigh* I want to be excited. I want to be full of squee. I'm hoping this is mostly unrelated emotional crap than some bigger inability to get excited about the Hobbit films. Here's hoping that talking about it exorcises whatever it is.
I'm also finding myself weirdly ambivalent in the wake of the new Hobbit trailer. It's possible that this is mostly because I haven't been feeling well this past week and my mood is pretty low, or because I'm in the weeds with another chapter draft, or even my conflicted emotions around New Zealand and the struggles I've been having here. Or, well, it could be a fallback to how I felt about the LotR movies before they premiered. I was so very, very used to visual adaptations of Tolkien being completely terrible (see: Rankin-Bass and Bakshi) that I was completely convinced that the new movies would be utter disasters. Since it is my favourite book, it was more economical to just be disdainful and write the movies off rather than pin my hopes on what had already been proven a failure to translate properly before. It took until the first big trailer (which I can't even find online anymore) with the rotating Ring and the blaze of fire and a lot of behind the scenes shots for me to go, "Oh, wow, maybe this will be good!"
That "Aha!" moment hasn't happened yet, not with The Hobbit. I mean, yeah, the visuals are beautiful, and it feels like stepping back into Middle-earth, and I positively shivered at seeing Galadriel again, and I'm beyond thrilled to see the returning cast (Andy was amazing in the little clips they gave us, and of course I am all over seeing the Three Keepers all together at the same time), but I'm still not sold on the Dwarves. Thorin looks great -- although I'm having trouble parsing Richard Armitage as short now that I've seen him in person -- and Fili and Kili are adorable, but I'm quite concerned that there will be too much slapstick humour, much like they made Gimli the butt of jokes a teeny bit too often. I'm also very concerned that Bombur is going to be relegated to the usual "Aren't fat people both gross and funny?" position. (I suppose I'm also a little disappointed that the bridge movie never came to fruition, and my favourites are completely missing from the returning cast.)
And even further than that, I'm terrified they're going to fuck up Smaug. I've been worried about that ever since they said that GDT was instrumental in his design, not because I don't like GDT -- in fact, I quite like his films and design aesthetic -- but because his aesthetic is so consistently surreal that it simply appears as if it belongs in another world. What I love best about LotR is how Tolkien, and then PJ and Co. approached the tale of Middle-earth as if it was a historical record. I'm afraid that whatever they're doing with Smaug won't work out correctly, and he'll end up looking strange and out of step with the rest of Middle-earth. I'm terrified that he'll look wrong and sound wrong, and that is one heck of a deal-breaker for me, because Smaug is my proto-dragon. While other little girls were dreaming of unicorns and pegasi, of fairies and (in at least one odd instance) gargoyles, I was (and am) all about the dragons. I love Smaug an entirely unreasonable amount.
*sigh* I want to be excited. I want to be full of squee. I'm hoping this is mostly unrelated emotional crap than some bigger inability to get excited about the Hobbit films. Here's hoping that talking about it exorcises whatever it is.