Hobbitses!!

[yakalskovich]

Because movies open on Thursdays and sometimes Wednesdays in Germany, the Nazgul and I went and saw 'The Hobbit' today.

• We saw it in 3D. It works, better than (say) the last HP movie, but it's not as essential as it's for 'Hugo Cabret', for example.
• At first,it was mainly eye candy and revisiting familiar happy-making people and places. They 'had' me when the dwarves actually did the songs -- my favourite song from way, way back, the washing up one! From then on, I beamed at the screen like a seven-year-old at Christmas, and was just happy.
• PJ brought back the acronym elf played by that singer/comedian, and he's got a name now -- he's Lindir, an elf mentioned in the LotR book version! And he has even some words of dialogue.
• Anvilicious moment of 'Bilbo consciously decides to not kill Gollum and thus makes the entire future possible' is anvilicious.
• I predict slash fans will ship Bilbo with Thorin. I do not. I still find shipping with hobbits rather squicky. But they get a great emotional hugging scene which slashers will grab and run with.
• Now I go and buy the OST for the sake of the songs. The other dwarf song (the serious one) was the end title song as well, and it's simply lovely.
• Also, it's great to see more of Tolkienian dwarf culture. Thorin, Kili and Fili are very handsome and noble -- the rest are funny and gruff and over-the-top the way Gimli is in LotR.
• I still wonder how the Arkenstone is not Maedhros' Silmaril. PJ seems to think so as well (at least a bit), because it seems to slightly smoke in Thror's hand when he takes it to safety -- the narration had supplied that the greed for treasure had somehow marred his heart, so he probably is no longer worthy of touching a Silmaril? We will see where it goes in the next two movies.
• Also, seeing the way he expands that world, I do want him to go on making these movies for a while. There's oodles of them in The Silmarillion. We have no hobbits to identify with, but we do have humans. Having nothing but elves is a bit strenuous and high-falutin and a level of tone not easily held up for long. Even the White Council was a bit much after five minutes.
• Can it be December 2013 now?
  

Also, I can has iPhone! Which means tweeting from anywhere, from now on.

Comments

[jjprobert]

*bounces*

I have just got back in from seeing it!!!

The SONG! :DDDD


I really liked the way they showed the dwarves history, as expanded in the appendix of LOTR, rather than just leaving it. Although, it was the only way they were going to manage to pad it out that far.

Also, OakenShield! He really does earn that name.


I am a bit sad that they left so many riddles out, though :( (Four, by my count).


And, yes, December 2013, why can't you be sooner?

[yakalskovich]

Which song -- 'Blunt The Knives' or the Lonely Mountain Song? Blunt The Knives had me grinning like a maniac, because I had loved that since actual childhood, and remember singing it with my sister (to our own tune) while washing up as kids. And the serious one was every bit as haunting as it is meant to be, especially when sung by the actual actors. Who sing amazingly well!!

[jjprobert]

Both of them!

Blunt the knives was brilliant. Especially with the choreography. That really added to it.

Although, the second one (at least, the version sung at the very end, over the credits), isn't the version Tolkien wrote, by my memory of the book. I'm willing to be wrong, but I think it's a slight adaptation.

[yakalskovich]

You are quite right; it wasn't the same text but something of an extrapolation. The a capella version during the movie itself was parts of Tolkien's text.

[ask_the_right_questions]

I thought so! *is happy he got his geek moment right*

P.s. Coming from the pup journal, because. Also, appropriate icon is appropriate.

[yakalskovich]

Yep, there are lines in the end credits version that I feel Tolkien wouldn't have written like that in the 1930s.

[ask_the_right_questions]

Yeah, it's not necessarily wrong for the films, coming as they are in the 2010s, but I agree, there's a twist to the lyrics, and the rhythm, that I don't think Tolkien would have written in any decade. Not for dwarves, at any rate.


Incidentally, because I just remembered this:
Necromancer == Slenderman?

Y/Y?

[yakalskovich]

He looks very much like the Slenderman, yes. A tall, shadowy figure seen only as a silhouette in passing. Well, we probably shouldn't see more of him as it is. After all, it is known who the Necromancer really is.

[ask_the_right_questions]

This is true. There was just that blurred shot, with him in 'that' pose, and all I could think of, was "that's slenderman image fodder"

[yakalskovich]

Now, how well is PJ wired into popular culture? Depending on that, it might be intentional or accidental. If it was Joss Whedon, not Peter Jackson, I'd be positive it was intentional...

On the other hand, he knows fandom well enough to bring back the acronym elf and give him something to do.

[ask_the_right_questions]

This, I don't know, and ah ha ha, yes, that Elf. (And he's brought him back twice, now)

[yakalskovich]

This time, he had dialogue and a name and things to do, even!

[alas_a_llama]

I squeed a little internally at the mention of Thror's greed - a kind of mad greed for gold is one of the effects of the seven dwarven rings, which we know Thror was a bearer of.

I think the film was definitely trying to imply that the Arkenstone is a Silmaril. Which makes sense, tbh, because otherwise it's just A Glowy Stone of Glow.

[yakalskovich]

I had suspected for decades that the Arkenstone was either Maedhros' Silmaril (in-world), or some sort of proto-Silmaril object which Tolkien later denied because it didn't fit in his mythology as he went on to build it. There are a few elements in The Hobbit that are a bit different or lots less scary/important/high-falutin than they are in LotR or The Silmarillion, let alone stacks and stacks of posthumously published fragments. There's the ring, which Bilbo just uses casually and that serves as an important plot device only insofar as it makes him invisible; the drunken Wood-Elves who are totally a hoot and nothing near as high and mighty and airy-fairily impressive as they are later; and the Arkenstone, which is sort of important because it's famous and a Glowy Stone of Glow, as you so nicely put it, but doesn't carry all the enormous weight of a Silmaril. Also, if it was a Silmaril, Thrain would sooner or later have had a polite visit from Galadriel (introduced by Thranduil, most likely), who would have made polite conversation, eyed the thing where it was on display, and would then have hurried back to the rest of the White Council, going 'People, we have a situation!', only more high-flowing and elvish. Actually, he would have had that visit anyway, even if it then turned out not to be a Silmaril, because the news of 'Glowy Stone of Glow found in the very depths of a dead volcano' positively shouts 'Simaril!!' to anybody who was around in the First Age, or indeed had done their history homework. Because there were three, and we know where they ended up: as the evening star, in the sea, and in a volcano. Maedhros' body would have burned away immediately, but a Silmaril of Feanor, containing the light of the Two Trees, would probably have survived, so whoever found the Arkenstone never saw a trace of dead elf.

I'm really looking forward to seeing, in the next two movies, how Peter Jackson handles the Silmaril question, and how the Arkenstone will behave -- because like the One Ring, a Silmaril is an object with something of a magical will of its own. If it does behave in any way (just as it was smoking slightly in Thror's hand), that's a point in favour of it being a Silmaril.

Also, if it is meant to be a Silmaril, Peter Jackson has some sort of anchor point to spin off Silmarillion movies from.