The Hobbit - An Unsolicited Review.

Hrm. New year. So far, not impressed.

Moved to a new place, and still recovering from that.

Got a new phone. They it's "smart". A new order of intelligence.

*stares at phone, waiting for it to annihilate the world and spawn evil robots to take over what's left*

Not that smart, I guess. But I'll be keeping an eye on you...


Also saw the Hobbit, the other night.

Sadly, I wasn't impressed.

Seemed to be missing the "magic" that made the Lord of the Rings trilogy so spiffy. I liked that the Dwarves were all given their own personality/defining characteristics (which aren't really elaborated on in the book) - but overall felt that the Hobbit suffered from "prequelitis".

Much of the drama and tension is lost when I know Gandalf and Bilbo aren't in any real danger. After all, they make it through the later films. As for the Dwarves, I didn't really care too much for them. I wanted to - but there were too many of them to really keep track of, and they seemed more tweaked to be comic relief.

I also found it rather redonkulous that with all the shit that went down in the film, not a single 1 of the 13 dwarves died. That sort of defied credibility. But I can't remember if if that's how it went down in the book.

Also found it strange that the goblins, orcs, and wargs all looked different from the prior films. So much so that I was actually kind of taken out of the film. They looked cool, and were done pretty well - but the change was drastic enough that I was distracted when they were onscreen. I understand that the look of them should be updated with the newer technology that's come in the intervening years between the previous films, but it seems more like they were redesigned rather than updated. The discontinuity bothered me.

Lastly, I felt the film lacked scope. I suppose that's understandable. Lord of the Rings was a sweeping, epic tale about the possible end of the world - while the Hobbit is more a small-scale (pardon the pun) adventure.

Overall, I'm not chomping at the bit to see the other films that come out. And to be clear, I love me my Tolkien. But all the above issues combined with the Hobbit (a single book) being spliced into 3 films. I smell another studio plot to milk the fans. I don't see how this couldn't have been just 1, 4-hour film - like the extended cuts. I also feel that the Hobbit is rendered largely redundant by having the Lord of the Rings trilogy precede it.

Might own these someday, but I can certainly wait.

I have the unabridged audiobooks to tide me over...