The Hobbit
An Unexpected movie review!

Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! AAAOOOOGAH! AAAOOOOGAH!!
Turn back now if you don’t want any flick deets!
You’ve been warned!

This post is designed as a discussion for those who have already seen the movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, drop what you’re doing and go now then come back! (laughs) If you have seen it, by all means, let me know what you think!

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Okay, this movie was nothing like the book… but it kicked butt anyway. The only thing I really saw that was similar to J.R.R. Tolkien’s 330 page paperback (across which they made three full sized, 2+ hour movies) was the names of the dwarves, Gollum and the Ring, and the fact that there are orcs in it. I’m sure there are other similarities that I just don’t remember.

I am discovering Peter Jackson’s knack for organizing Tolkien’s words and making them into a more streamlined and easier to understand adventure. I gotta be honest, I almost didn’t make it through Tolkien’s four Ring books because they were (to me) extraordinarily scattered. I may be alone in that. I have a friend who reads the entire Ring novel set every year without fail.

The movies, however, were linear and easy to entertain. The Hobbit (first movie) is no exception. Even the opening title shot is dead on similar to the original trilogy! Again: Spoiler alert! Do not read further if you want to be surprised!! I won’t say who’s in it, but I will say this… Gandalf isn’t the only one from the original trilogy who is coming back. That’s what I really loved about what Jackson did with this. He fit it into the full series perfectly as if they were all filmed together.

Now, that said, nothing in this movie was new and would knock your socks off. I mean, at least Star Wars, Eps 1-3 had original creatures in it. This one didn’t… you’ve seen ’em all before. But, for a prequel that ties up loose ends from the LOTR movies (that we all wanted to see tied) it works.

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The Hobbits 2 and 3

Wait. I don’t even remember the second movie. There was a dragon, I think. And um… Hm.

Okay, here’s the deal folks. I wrote the first review above after I saw the first Hobbit in theaters back in 2012. I saw the second Hobbit movie and was so disgruntled by the change of pace from the first movie, that I came home and took a nap instead of review it. Bilbo doesn’t change his monotone pace of dialogue at all, or the way he presents his character in expression. Everything he says, and I mean everything, is delivered with a quick look of surprise before giving a “if it’s what I can do for you, I’ll do it” sort of speech, after which everyone smiles or looks at him gratefully. That’s pretty much it. There are lots of action sequences that I’m certain will make awesome rides, especially a crazy barrel ride down a stream in the middle of a fight with those relentless orcs.

Oh! And an elf girl who wasn’t even in the book is having a game of footsies with Kili the movie’s dwarvish eye-candy. This was one of the most shallow Hollywood romances I’ve ever been spoonfed. I think I would have enjoyed this romance more if it’d been Bombur, the fat, goofy dwarf who would have had to put down what he’s eating first before saying something swoonworthy to Tauriel’s gleaming elf eyes. Then, at least, I’d have gotten a laugh out of it.

I didn’t even want to see the third one by the time the credits rolled. See, in the LOTR movies, the creatures we saw were all pretty much archetypically original. The Nazgul, the balrog… even Sauron’s minions had some originality to them. The creatures, antagonists, all had a history. The Nazgul, nine kings of men given the rings of Sauron. The balrog, a creature of ancient earth-forming origin who had been “awoken” in the deep by greedy dwarves. History means originality and originality means movie tickets bought! I enjoyed all these creatures as antagonists that the movie’s heroes had to deal with in the LOTR movies.

Not one of The Hobbit’s antagonists were original. Not one. Giant man-eating spiders… saw a better one in Return of the King and she had a name and a history behind her. Cave trolls… saw it in The Fellowship, and Boromir made a joke about it. Big dragon… saw it in Reign of Fire. Wait, that wasn’t a Tolkien flick. Oh well, it’s been done already. If you’re gonna give me a big dragon that plays games with the Hobbit, at least make it worth my time. Don’t just give me ten minutes of dialogue between the two and call it good. Strip out some of that romance time and put more dragon/Hobbit time in there. The entire trilogy built up to that one moment! But no.

Even Laketown’s Master (a mayor or whatever he was) had a Wormtongue-esque 2nd in command who was a weasel and followed him around murmuring things to change power and make the Master change his mind about how policy should be run. Seen it before in Rohan! Come on, Peter! Some originality would be good here!

So the third one comes out and I surprise everyone I know and don’t go see it. I Red Boxed it and frankly, I’m glad I did. More of Bilbo’s surprised-expressions, more relentless orcs, more sweeping scenes of thunderous armies marching toward something. The third movie carried some halfway decent fight scenes, but most of them were so outlandish they made even the Fast and Furious fight scenes look like reality. And again, the dragon… the one antagonist for which the entire journey to the Lonely Mountain was started, gets way too little screen time.

And where were the songs in the second two movies?? There were two pretty cool songs the dwarves all sang in the first one… one was a catchy little ditty they all danced to while washing Bilbo’s dishes and the second one was one they all crooned while enjoying their evening smoke! Awesome!!

The second two movies… nothing. No songs. None! What the hell?

All in all, The Hobbit as a trilogy is a very poor offspring from its wonderful predecessor trilogy and doesn’t live up to it at all. My wife wants to keep all of them on the shelf so we have the full collection, but when I asked her if she even liked the Hobbit movies, she shrugged. “Naw.”

By the way, I have The Hobbit 1 and 2 dvds for sale if anyone would like to buy them.