Aww, poor Sci. I did think it was rather more scary than the book.
I'm violently susceptible to motion sickness, but the only time the camera work bothered me was during the brief Warg-cam sequence near the end. (Which you missed.) When I went to see Beasts of the Southern Wild, which is all hand-held camera, I had to flee the theater to barf in the bathroom halfway through. Now I have to check moviehurl.com regularly.
Thanks for the Warg-cam warning. I've never heard of moviehurl but will bookmark asap as I had to leave to barf during the Russian chase scene in Bourne 2.
This is the first fannish review I've read that's given me hope I'll enjoy the movie in spite of a few disagreements with Jackson's choices. Thanks you.
I just saw the movie today! I vastly enjoyed it, even though I reread the book recently enough that most of the plot changes were very glaringly obvious to me, and sometimes detracted from my enjoyment unintentionally. (For example, in the scene where Thorin faces Azog and Bilbo goes to rescue him, I kept on waiting for the Eagles to fly in and they didn't for the LONGEST time.) I feel like I understood the reason Jackon made every change that he did, but while I was watching, I couldn't help but catalogue the changes and hypothesize why he was doing so, and doing that while watching the movie meant I was distracting myself.
My favorite bits were definitely the songs/music, though!
the thing with the 'too much action' critique about the hobbit is that Tolkien wrote the hobbit for his sons... who were about 10 at the time. 10 year old boys love adventure. somewhat by audience definition, there's not going to be a whole lot of characterization or quiet moments or whimsey going on there, because in general, 10 year old boys like adventure. :-p
i agree with the rest of your breakdown and analysis, though. i didn't like the goblin king so much; he wasn't as i thought of him when i read the book. (one of my friends, otoh, said *his* imagination had painted something real close to what's on the screen.)
i think the problem with Bilbo, in general, is that as far as characters go, he's a bit of an ass. I suspect the whole Bilbo-helps-Thorin thing was to help in making him a sympathetic character who's in the process of finding his honor, honesty, and courage.
Boys like adventure, but several of those action scenes didn't exist in the original text, or were passed over very quickly. What Tolkein didn't do was spend page after page describing the battle with the mountain-goblins as the Dwarves fled through the caves. Even the Battle of Five Armies mostly took place "offscreen". So I don't agree that the movie is consistent with the source.
Being inconsistent with the source is not the crime, however: it's that the battle scenes are endless, meaningless, and drag the narrative down.
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I'm violently susceptible to motion sickness, but the only time the camera work bothered me was during the brief Warg-cam sequence near the end. (Which you missed.) When I went to see Beasts of the Southern Wild, which is all hand-held camera, I had to flee the theater to barf in the bathroom halfway through. Now I have to check moviehurl.com regularly.
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My favorite bits were definitely the songs/music, though!
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i agree with the rest of your breakdown and analysis, though. i didn't like the goblin king so much; he wasn't as i thought of him when i read the book. (one of my friends, otoh, said *his* imagination had painted something real close to what's on the screen.)
i think the problem with Bilbo, in general, is that as far as characters go, he's a bit of an ass. I suspect the whole Bilbo-helps-Thorin thing was to help in making him a sympathetic character who's in the process of finding his honor, honesty, and courage.
-bs
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Being inconsistent with the source is not the crime, however: it's that the battle scenes are endless, meaningless, and drag the narrative down.
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