Like the Star Wars vs. Star Trek fandoms, there is a divide between LOTR and Star Wars fans, mainly due to the opinion that one or the other can be identified as 'The Trilogy'. And while the fact that there are three films each franchise (as many Star Wars faithful insist) isn't the only thing that these two series hold in common, there are many a difference as well. As of last year, one of those things was that Star Wars has a prequel trilogy to go along with the original three that may have lessened the quality of the originals by association. The release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in December 2012 changed all that.
If you're not getting that I wasn't a fan, it's okay because that will become more apparent as I go on. I'll start off by saying that in the aformentioned debate, I have and probably always will back Star Wars as the better of the two franchises, prequels notwithstanding. So yeah, I went into this mess of a film with some bias. That's not to say I didn't enjoy some of the original LOTR trilogy, or that I won't give credit where it's due. I was happy that Peter Jackson's final entry, Return of the King, won all of the Oscars. It showed that even the most serious of business in film can acknowledge Fantasy as a legitimate part of the industry. Also, The Two Towers was bad ass in a similar way to Empire Strikes Back. But the LOTR movies don't hold up for me. Any time I'm put in a position to watch one of them, it feels like a chore. An exhausting one. Not to mention all of the digs about the films being about people walking for 3 hours a piece cannot be unseen, and the series features pretty much every Fantasy trope ever. Yeah, I know that the original books might have been the start of most of these cliches, but Christ, every time I watch them half way through I'm expecting a princess to be locked in a tower somewhere.
So then it was announced that The Hobbit, a single book released as a prequel to the Lord of the Rings books, would not only be adapted to film, but be divided into three goddam films. While the announcement didn't surprise me, I was confused as to how they were going to manage splitting the book up so much without it getting ridiculous. It turns out they couldn't, and that the new series is going to be as ridiculous as the concept. The responsibility of all this ridiculousness I feel should be
Before I get too down on this film, I'll get the good stuff out of the way. For what Jackson does, he does it well. The film is very nice to look at. Everything was done in the same vein as the original three films, for better or worse, so I can see most of the LOTR fanpeople getting on my case about an overpoweringly bad review. Anything you liked about LOTR, you'll like in The Hobbit, and vise versa. If there is a difference, it can be seen in the look of the various creatures or baddies featured, in that it looks like they've used influences from Guillermo 'Better Than Jackson' Del Toro. Some of these guys looked straight up out of Hellboy or Pan's Labyrinth. They looked great, but also led to me comparing The Hobbit with Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth, and yeah, it doesn't hold up. Ian McKellen does his thing as Gandalf, the only returning major character in the lineup. By the way, I still don't get why people think he's so powerful. I have yet to be impressed by anything a wizard with Gandalf's notoriety has done. Make his staff glow, ask a moth to go fetch some giant birds, scare the shit out of an elderly midget. I once had a level 1 wizard who could summon a badger and throw down some burning hands. What up?
Gandalf aside, the characters were pretty weak and entirely too underdeveloped. I was disappointed in Martin Freeman's performance as Bilbo, mainly due to the fact that I'm usually a big fan of his work. He usually has his own signature on roles in the way he behaves in them, and I thought that if this was implemented in the role of Bilbo, then the film might be more bearable. Alas, it wasn't, and there were a couple of times throughout the film that I forgot he was even there. The introduction of Thorin was pretty effective in establishing him as the miniature Aragorn of this series. But there is a huge problem if, in a film that features more than a goddam dozen dwarves as protagonists, I can only name one after seeing the movie twice. I could not name more than two of the thirteen dwarves to save my life. I know that one of them is fat, one of them has hair that looks like a starfish, and one looks like Chad Kroeger from Nickelback. As such, I refered to them as 'fat dwarf', 'starfish head', and 'Chad Kroeger from Nickelback'.
I didn't have much of a problem with the plot of the film, since it was pretty par for the course for LOTR. A band of adventurers must walk from point A to point B, with some serious shit happening on the way. Whatever. What I have a problem with was the pacing of the film. It's my opinion that when you're making a 3-hour long epic fantasy film, you absolutely, and I cannot stress this enough, need TO HAVE SHIT HAPPEN. This is why I'm so pissed that this is one book split into three films. It really doesn't need to be and the pacing of the film shows it. The first hour of film features one fight scene in a flashback, a completely unnecessary flash forward featuring old Bilbo and Elijah fucking Wood for some reason, and a couple of musical numbers from the dwarves. You are doing it wrong. If Jackson had put all of the pertinent information and interesting scenes of the film together, some good editing would have given us a pretty decent film. What we have is credits, an hour of not much, the troll scene (which I am told they managed to fuck up), another 45 mins of not much, a chase through the woods again leading to not much, some mountains beating the shit out of each other (what.), getting trapped by goblins, the riddle scene, more not much, an attack from orcs, credits. It's even worse considering the riddle scene with Gollum and Bilbo was AMAZING. The scene was total money and shows a lot of the strengths of the series, and totally didn't fit in with the rest of the film. It was like the interrogation scene in The Dark Knight, only if the rest of TDK was mediocre at best. It wasn't, it was in fact awesome, so the scene doesn't stick out as much. This is the difference between a great moment and a great film. The only other subplot I had any interest in was that involving the Caucasian Orc or whatever, and I'm told that the whole thing wasn't even in the damn book, and nothing really happened with it throughout the entirety of the movie. It was just unnecessarily tacked on because THREE MOVIES! YOU'RE KILLING ME, JACKSON!
In summary, LOTR wants so much to be like Star Wars that they had to have an Episode I, and I feel that this fits the bill. There are a lot of instances where they really kidded up the franchise with the songs about dishwashing and the goofy wizard with shit on his head and LOL FAT DWARF FALL DOWN and it doesn't feel like I'm watching a film in any way related to one that features Ned Stark get pulverized by arrows in slow motion. And then they turn coat and have stuff like Thorin's flashback scene and the riddle scene and shit gets dark again and I'm not sure kids should be seeing this or should understand what's happening. Is this ringing a bell for anyone? Something about trade embargos and treaty negotiations going to stepping in alien camel shit and 'Yousa follow me now okeday!' with an awesome race scene and the best lightsaber fight ever mingled in. Is The Hobbit flat out as bad as Episode I? No, but the fact that I'm reminded of one by the other is not a good god damn sign. I can't even go Twilight on LOTR's ass because there are things I genuinely like in the series, so I will finish these unnecessary three films up, cringing my way through them, and if Jackson decides to surprise me then congratufuckinglations.
I swear to God though, if Jackson tries to pull something out of his ass for an answer to Episode VII, no amount of mithryl will save him from the full extent of my wrath.
Knight Owl
