You know it is bad when even hardcore Tolkien fans not only can't be bothered to see it, but devoutly wish to avoid ever being forced to lay eyes upon it. A commenter named Rainforest Giant summarizes the problem, not only with Peter Jackson ruining The Hobbit, but with the entire edifice of Pink and Postmodern SF/F:I think that Jackson lost me at the end of the Lord Of The Rings when the Eye Of Sauron said "And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids!" No thanks. There's so much good material he leaves out, and so much junk he creates to replace it that I'm not interested.
"Jackson... ruins heroics because he cannot understand heroism. He ruins a fairy tale because his world lacks the deep magic. His villains are straight out of Scooby Doo. His special effects mere lights smoke and mirrors. His understanding of war and conflict as meaningless as Xena or Buffy. Tolkien understood war, sacrifice, magic (as a storyteller and father), heroes and villains, hope and despair. Jackson lacks a deeper soul thats why he writes bad fan fiction and cartoon action."
Monday, February 17, 2014
Why I'm not going to see the Hobbit films
Subtitle: A series of films with the same title as a novel by J.R.R. Tolkien:
Went to see the second one a couple weeks ago, and basically, it's just a plain old fashioned bad movie. The pacing is horrid, the side plots are distracting, and, for a movie called "The Hobbit," there is damned little Hobbit content. The only good thing I can say is that it was entertaining to see Sherlock and Watson talk in a different setting.
ReplyDeletewe waited for the first of the three to come out on DVD, and were sorely disappointed. i do not intend to waste time on the other two.
ReplyDeleteHaven't seen any of The Hobbit, but when I first heard it would be three films, I gave it up for lost. I had fun with the LotR movies, mostly in spite of my inner monologue- they were epic and intense, loosely based on a series of books I once read a thousand times by age 13. When it comes to Faramir, though, he blew it. With such little justification, he sacrificed a facet of the story that held such deep and abiding wisdom; not to mention doing so in a way that utterly destroyed one of the purest men in Middle Earth, destroyed him in a way the One Ring could not. I'm not really interested in him ruining amything else for me, I think I'm good.
ReplyDeleteJust to spoil "Smaug and me" for people, the dragon dies and it's really sad.
ReplyDeleteThe Scouring of the Shire. The Death of Saruman. Nuff said.
ReplyDeleteWolfman - This was my major gripe with Jackson, too. A Reader - That was my #2. And Vox's analysis of why so many (like myself) think Jackson's versions of these books suck is spot on. Jackson seems to believe that there is not so much a struggle between good and evil as an excuse for several Yakkety-Sax-fight-scenes tied loosely together by the broken and maimed remains of Tolkein's original plot.
ReplyDeleteThe first Hobbit was... OK. And yes, he made a lot of stuff up. The Necromancer and Radagast each have like one line in the book, while in the movie the one's a fairly major character and the other a lurking presence (which seems to disappear in the second movie, but that's OK, because in return you get Orcs).
ReplyDeleteAs I said elsewhere, you can start yelling "never happened" at the beginning of the second movie and you won't be wrong often.
We turned it off when an Elf who never featured in the book started jumping on barrels full of dwarves... never happened.
Won't bother seeing the third one.
Exactly. Today's Hollywood types don't understand heroism and sacrifice so when they try to direct a movie about those things it is clunky and awkward.
ReplyDeleteWell for once I am on the other side of the book /movie argument. I read the Lord of the Rings books and for the most part enjoyed the movies (at least the extended versions) more than the books. I never read the Hobbit but I am enjoying the movies.
ReplyDeleteYou all missed the point, its an advertisement for a video game. The whole barrel jumping river scene while shooting orcs is definitely a bonus level.
ReplyDelete