Dec 26, 2012 ... tions that have to be let go of and the journey to the. West...all right, never mind
about all that. The Hobbit is the prequel to The Lord of the Rings.
22 ENTERTAINMENT
The Epoch Times DECEMBER 20 – 26, 2012
‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ ‘Lord of the Rings’ redux. Director: Peter Ramsey Cast: Hugh Jackman, Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Isla Fisher, Jude Law Running time: 97 min Rating: PG
Matthew Rodgers The Lord of the Rings trilogy won an astounding 17 Oscars. It’s one of the top best-selling book series ever written. It forced the genre of fantasy to be taken seriously in Hollywood. Why? It’s one of the most powerful tales of spiritual enlightenment ever told. See, the ring signifies addictions that have to be let go of and the journey to the West...all right, never mind about all that. The Hobbit is the prequel to The Lord of the Rings (LOTR). It used to be that people read The Hobbit and then eventually got around to the darker LOTR series. Now, director Peter Jackson has possibly caused The Hobbit to forever be the side dish to the main course. However, this is just the first installment. There will be two more. We’ll have to reserve judgment for now on whether the full story adds up to a lesser product. So the tale goes like this: Back in the days of yore, the thuggish dragon Smaug descended on the dwarf lords in their halls of stone, smashed and routed them, pulled all their gold trinkets into a vast dwarf-loot pile and jumped in it. And gloated for far too long. This was a beyondhorrible situation for the dwarves, as dwarves are very, very, very attached to their stuff. As we meet them, they’re fixing to go back and snatch at least a little bit of it. But they need a professional burglar. They enlist Gandalf the Grey, a small-time wizard, to recruit the burglar. He picks Bilbo Baggins, a rich, complacent, fastidious, high-society hobbit, completely unsuited to the task. Gandalf is betting that Bilbo has some hidden inner grit. And so the 13 dwarves, hobbit and wizard set off over hill and dale to reclaim dwarfish gold. They encounter trolls, some elves, rock giants, many goblins, wolves and Gollum. The LOTR films have
WARNER BROS. PICTURES & MGM/ TODD EYRE
Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) meet in the fantasy adventure ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’.
become so iconic and the production so undeniably definitive that there’s often the sense in The Hobbit that it’s slightly anticlimactic to hear these grand characters (Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Saruman) saying new sentences in new settings.
The film suffers slightly from a sort of greatest-hits, medley-like quality. It feels like there’s some fan-base pandering going on.
It suffers slightly from a sort of greatest-hits, medley-like quality. It feels like there’s some fan-base pandering going on. “Oh look, they brought Frodo back and there’s Galadriel again, and oh yay! It’s Gollum!” Speaking of Gollum, his smallish role almost steals the entire movie. The main challenge is that LOTR, like all things having to do with enlightenment, is solemn. It was written for adults. The Hobbit is a children’s book and is much lighter, humorous and whimsical in tone. How to sync them up stylistically, retain the serious
tone of the former, while being true to the essence of the latter? When viewed with this in mind, Mr Jackson does a bang-up job. Both films feature magical things. LOTR had very little that rankled in terms of challenging the believability factor. Even something as fantastical as Treebeard (a walking, talking tree, basically), didn’t stand out as blatantly impossible. In The Hobbit, the wizard Radagast’s bunnydrawn earth-sled that tears around like a Formula 1 racecar, however, is pushing
it. Perhaps it’s because Radagast is portrayed as a buffoon. He was cooler in the book. In the same vein, Hobbit scholars will miss various bits of magic that got left out. Perhaps they might think things like: “Where’s the troll’s talking wallet that rats Bilbo out to its owner when Bilbo pickpockets it?” The LOTR books were written in such exquisite detail that all the imagery came ready-made, appearing on-screen exactly as we’d all seen it in our mind’s eye. The breezier Hobbit
leaves more room for interpretation and some of the back-story scenes somehow slightly miss the mark. The bona fide Hobbit scenes, however, are consistent bull’s-eyes and the warriorlike dwarves are perfect. But ultimately, as Mr Jackson says in the press notes, what it boils down to is the fact that The Hobbit is simply a “cracking great yarn”. Now, the new 3-D may cause a bit of motion sickness for the sensitive on the wilder swooping camera shots and the effect of the new 48-frames-per-second
What it boils down to is the fact that The Hobbit is simply a ‘cracking great yarn’.
technology is negligible. But for sheer entertainment value, it’s quite a ride.
WARNER BROS. PICTURES & MGM/ TODD EYRE
Hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) with his sword, Sting, finds a small ring in Gollum’s cave in the fantasy adventure ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’.
