Posted on 12/02/2012 10:56:54 AM PST by Eurotwit
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- There’s only one real wizard in Middle Earth - and it’s director Peter Jackson.
The auteur from Down Under unveiled “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” - the first installment of his prequel trilogy to his “Lord of the Rings” series - in his native New Zealand Wednesday.
It was an eye-popping night, from the celebrity-filled red carpet to, more important, the action on screen.
Based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 children’s tale which set the stage for the author’s much darker and heavier later books, Jackson’s “The Hobbit” harkens back to a more innocent time when men were men and gold-hoarding dragons were the biggest evils plaguing the land.
Martin Freeman stars as the titular reluctant hero, who’s tricked by the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) into accompanying 13 dwarves — led by Thorin (a square-jawed Richard Armitage) — on a quest to reclaim their ancient homeland from the worst of those dragons.
The movie offers technological wizardry, thanks to a 48 frames-per-second format, twice the industry standard. Critics who saw a trailer earlier this year were unimpressed, but after a minute or two of adjusting, the higher resolution is eye-popping, similar to discovering HD television for the first time.
Gollum, voiced by Andy Serkis, makes a cameo in Peter Jackson's 'The Hobbit.'
Alas, the higher resolution has one downside: it really makes you wince when you see the obscenely corpulent Goblin King in such crystal clarity.
Lighter and funnier than its “Lord of the Rings” predecessors, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” remains faithful to the fantasy world last seen in the 2003 Academy Award-winning “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.”
The connections abound through the two-hour-forty-minute epic, including important cameos from Andy Serkis’ Gollum and Elijah Wood’s Frodo.
The result runs rings around most special-effects driven blockbusters.
The movie opens Dec. 14 on this side of the Pacific.
You make Faramir sound less comfortable with a sword and comfortable with a Swiffer and an apron.
I know when they do movies, because they have timetables, deadlines, and budgets, they will start with mockups of costumes and characters to see if what is in the book will work on screen. They generally only make changes when it’s not coming across well. I know for a fact that Peter Jackson told the actors that they had to play the parts straight and there would be no room for any sardonic attitudes, if the parts called for being emotionally vulnerable to each other.
His main characteristic was incorruptibility and I thought they captured it. He held the ring and had no temptation to put it on. They probably changed his personality to account for the fact that he was a warrior-prince and wasn’t his habit to cry into his souffle. :P
If you think of it this way, Peter Jackson and New Line laying everything on the line to get this film made. They spent upwards of a billion dollars to make it, with the risk that it could very well fail, because most fantasy movies are not particularly big office draw.
The last thing they would want to do is produce a movie that would piss off fanboys. Everything they field in these movies was with intent to strike a balance between the fanboys, but keep it attractive enough to also draw in the general movie audience, especially women.
I think overall, because there is usually no way, outside of using cardboard cutouts with balloons drawn with exact dialogue, they succeeded.
bttt
Well, OK. Tetralogy.
Didn't see any pukel-men in the movie.
“His main characteristic was incorruptibility and I thought they captured it. He held the ring and had no temptation to put it on.”
He tried to bring it back to his father (as Boromir had), rather than see it for the danger that it was. In the book he didn’t waver, and that distinction was important. He was supposed to be of the race of men who hadn’t yet been “lessened”.
this bit of gay(pedophile?) friendly, PC tripe that celebrated 1930 metrosexual sissies and feminist fervor was NOT the King Kong I grew up with. A true shame....I would love for someone with a pair, to get all the raw footage and remake this turkey into a film with a strong adventure story line to compliment the visually brilliant cinematography that Jackson made.
I saw it on Friday. There are some great scenes. The opening scenes all the way to the Ettenmoors is probably the uniformly best part of the film. The Riddle and Bilbo’s escape from the Misty Mountains is also well-handled.
But Jackson again takes liberties to unnecessarily invent; juxtaposes jarring, modern vernacular phrasing with Tolkien’s measured and careful prose; and turns every 30 second scene in another film into a bloated, extended sequence in this.
From the time the party of Dwarves (and Bilbo) leave Rivendell, it’s almost one extended fight/chase through the mountains until they are rescued by the Eagles.
It’s like a short stack of pancakes smothered with a full bottle of maple syrup. syrup.
Jackson's movie reminded me how much the old Rankin-Bass cartoon managed to fit into just 77 minutes. And how very well it did it, too.
I loved the scene where Kong slides across the lake in Central Park without breaking the ice. (Of course, Kong's dainty frame would never have broken it!)
McKellan’s Gandalf and Bernard Hill’s King Theoden rose head and shoulders above the material they were given in the film.
Theoden’s speech to the Rohirrim before the Battle of Pellenor fields was made all the better for an idea Hill pitched to Jackson months before it was filmed: as he gave the speech, riding down the line of troopers, he touches his spear to all the other Riders of the front rank. THAT was a kingly gesture. Viggo’s speech to the Men of the West didn’t come close. But I forgive him because he had such a hard act to follow.
From an interview with Bernard Hill:
“...Two main areas. One was the ‘tkatkatkatka’ [extends his arm as if holding a sword and makes the sound of the sword touching each of the Rohirrim’s weapons]. That was all my idea - which terrified me. That came out of a visit to the Weta workshop in the first week. I saw all the spears and weapons and stuff like that; and for some reason I thought of Pelennor Fields y’know, like you do [chuckles] and I thought of a kid going down the railings with a stick hmmm the king touching everybody’s spear it might be a Rohan tradition that kind of thing. I was thinking in those kind of terms; that the king gives his spirit and sword to them, that he goes into their spirit somehow through the spear, and we’re all in this together. This is it, we’re all going to die, but you’ve got the king’s spirit in you. That kind of stuff...”
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