Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | People's Critic: Film Reviews - seattlepi.com
Seattle Post Intelligencer (blog) - 1 hour ago
Nine years after The Return of the King, the long awaited wait for Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is over. The Hobbit is a ...
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Nine years after The Return of the King, the long awaited wait for Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is over.
The Hobbit is a return to Middle-earth that takes place 60 years before The Fellowship of the Ring to tell the story of a hobbit named Bilbo (Martin Freeman), how he came to possess the ring, and his journey to help the dwarf kingdom of Erebor – a once glorious kingdom that’s been taken over by a dragon named Smaug.
After being displaced by Smaug, the Dwarves wandered Middle-earth looking for a place to call home. Years later, Bilbo is approached by a wizard named Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) who ask him to join Dwarf Lord Thorin (Richard Armitage) and the rest of a Dwarves on a journey to reclaim their home. Along the way Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin, and crew fight giant Trolls, wolves, and a pale Orc in search of revenge.
Peter Jackson’s decision to show The Hobbit in 3D and 48fps is a gift and a curse.
The Curse: It’s hard to adjust your eyes to the 48fps made during first 50 minutes. It’s hard to put the difference in words, but I heard someone describe it as a “high quality made for TV miniseries”. As strange as it sounds, that’s a pretty accurate description. To make matters worse, Bilbo’s story takes a while to take off. The gathering of the Dwarves, Bilbo preparing to quest and the stop in Rivendell feel long and drawn out. The slow start combined with visual adjustment makes for rocky start.
The Gift: Once the group heads into the mountain, Peter Jackson’s choice of 48fps and 3D starts to payoff. The3D adds texture and depth to each scene while the increased speed of the film gives each character fluid lifelike movement. It’s a masterful use of CGI, 3D, and live action. I’m not sure how it will look in other films, but in The Hobbit the two are a perfect match.
Fans of LOTR and The Hobbit will love what Jackson’s added to the world the books exist in. They’ll be able to appreciate the details of a carefully designed Middle-earth that includes and look at the Dwarves home/Smaug attack during the film’s opening. What fans will enjoy most is the famous game of riddles played by Bilbo and Gollum (Andy Serkis) – the scene does not disappoint.
There was a lot at stake with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey being the first of three installments that includes The Desolation of Smaug and There and Back Again. It took nine years, but it looks like Jackson and his team got it right.
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Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey | People's Critic: Film Reviews - seattlepi.com
I first read "The Hobbit" likely sometime between 1966 when I first entered college and studied "Computer Data Processing and computer programming" and 1972 when I was Studying Psychology. I remember how I also liked reading about Tom Bombadil which I believe is in one of Tolkien's other books. "The Hobbit" and the "Lord of the Rings" series were very popular with college students who were a part of the "Back to the Land" movement of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s here in the U.S.
Another series I found very helpful in my life and philosophy search for meaning from 18 to 25 were all the books by Herman Hesse. Herman Hesse was a student and patient of Carl Jung the famous Psychologist who I believe also coined the term Subconscious and was a student and associate of Sigmund Freud. I started reading "Siddhartha" which is a fictionalized account of a Buddha like experience which is really very good. I also read Narcisus and Goldmund, Demian, Majester Ludi, and tried to read Steppenwolf which the rock group was named after. The one I found hardest to read was "Steppenwolf" because I could identify with it internally at the time because of all my anger and angst in those times. But by 25 I had calmed down a lot enough to get married, settle down and have a son by 26. I never did finish reading Steppenwolf. But all the other books especially "Siddhartha" influenced me greatly. I think I wound up studying with Tibetan Buddhist Lamas in my 30s in California, Oregon, India and Nepal partly from reading "Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse about 10 years before.
Here is something I found about Tom Bombadil from Wikipedia:
Tom Bombadil is a supporting character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He appears in Tolkien's high fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings, published in 1954 and 1955. In the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo Baggins and company meet Bombadil in the Old Forest. He appears in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, a book of verse first published in 1962, purporting to be a selection of Hobbit poems, two of which concern Bombadil.
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Appearances
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
Tolkien invented Tom Bombadil in memory of his children's Dutch doll, and wrote light-hearted children's poems about him, imagining him as a nature-spirit evocative of the English countryside, which in Tolkien's time had begun to disappear.Tolkien's 1934 poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" depicts Bombadil as a "merry fellow" living in a small valley close to the Withywindle river, where he wanders and explores nature at his leisure. Several of the valley's mysterious residents, including the River-spirit Goldberry (also known as the "River-woman's daughter"), the malevolent tree-spirit Old Man Willow, the Badger-folk and a Barrow-wight all attempt to capture Bombadil for their own ends, but quail at the power of Tom's voice, which defeats their enchantments and commands them to return to their natural existence. At the end of the poem, Bombadil captures and marries Goldberry. Throughout the poem, Bombadil is unconcerned by the attempts to capture him and brushes them off with an inherent power in his words.
The later poem "Bombadil Goes Boating" anchors Bombadil in Middle-earth, featuring a journey down the Withywindle to the Brandywine river, where hobbits ("Little Folk I know there") live at Hays-End. Bombadil is challenged by various river-residents on his journey, including birds, otters, and hobbits, but charms them all with his voice, ending his journey at the farm of Farmer Maggot, where he drinks ale and dances with the family. At the end of the poem, the charmed birds and otters work together to bring Bombadil's boat home. The poem includes a reference to the Norse lay of Ótr, when Bombadil threatens to give the hide of a disrespectful otter to the Barrow-wights, who he says will cover it with gold apart from a single whisker. The poem mentions a number of Middle-earth locations, including Hays-End, Bree and the Tower Hills, and hints at the events of the end of the Third Age, speaking of "Tall Watchers by the Ford, Shadows on the Marches".
The poems were published in the collections The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and later in Tales from the Perilous Realm.
