The Phantom Menace of Middle-Earth?

I don't remember The Hobbit (the book) as well as I do The Lord of the Rings. I have read it only once, several years ago, and at a breakneck pace (as filler, almost) during my first reading of The Silmarillion. LOTR and the overall Tolkein lore I have read/ mined a lot over time... Perhaps this is why I was able to watch Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey not as an adaptation, but as a prequel to the magnificent LOTR trilogy. And it works!

I loved it, with one or two reservations. I will absolutely watch it again in HFR, having seen it in IMAX 3D. Next week then? Any takers?

"The Phantom Menace" of the LOTR movies this is most definitely NOT. Although... The Phantom Menace would've been an excellent name for this movie, given its attention to Mirkwood :)

Yes, yes.... there are many departures from the book. Many throwaway references from the Appendices to LOTR or from the Silmarillion have been expanded into full on characters and plot-lines. That said, if you're not a purist and didn't mind Arwen's expanded role in the Fellowship of the Ring (FotR), you wouldn't mind anything in this one. I can see why said "purists" will hate this movie, for sure. This is not The Hobbit your mommy read to you at bed-time...

Me? Honestly? Through the first hour of the movie, and through the sequence in Rivendell, I was just delighted to be back in Middle Earth again and grinning at all the little nods to the (inevitable, this comparison to Star Wars, isn't it?) the Original Trilogy! There are few such rich worlds that get executed for the screen with so much love and care and attention to detail.

My only criticism is that the pacing was off in parts, and although I wasn't bored for a moment, this didn't need to be a 2 hour 45 minute movie. The repeated cycles of exposition/ build-up, peril, and flight do age quickly though and may irritate on repeat viewings. The plot feels stretched thin... like butter, spread over too much bread :D

That said, if PJ keeps the pacing and the tendency to mine Tolkein's lore, and given that we're only about a third of the way into the book by my reckoning, there's certainly plenty of story left to tell. (Beorn! We want Beorn!) I get why there are three movies, is what I'm saying. I don't get how they run for 9 - 10 hours in toto, is all.

But I absolutely LOVED (and avoiding spoilers here), Riddles in the Dark, which totally steals the show. Pitch perfect, thanks PJ!. Loved the scene with the trolls, the way the movie starts (first half hour or so), the structural nods to FotR, the casting (spot on with Thorin and Balin in particular), and cameos by certain places and weapons. AHEM.

Right...

I'm done being spoiler-free. Now here there be spoilers

SPOILERS EYE BLEEDING SPOILERS

NO, REALLY,

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON.

SPOILERS! YOU WILL BECOME A RINGWRAITH SPOILERS!

DESPITE IT BEING A DECADES OLD BOOK

MEEP

Right, I only added spoilers to this post because I wanted to rave about a couple of things...

Radagast the Brown - Oh my! They got this one perfect. We never meet Radagast "on screen" in the books. There's just a throwaway reference to him (and the two Blues) in an essay about the Istari (Wizards) and a bit more in Unfinished Tales. I thought Sylvester McCoy was a delight to watch, and using Radagast to  explore Dol Guldur was a master-stroke.

The Pale Orc - was very well done indeed. I loved that he used Emyn Muil as a field operations base during his chase of the Dwarves. However - though it is obvious that he will now show up at the Battle of the Five Armies - I had really hoped he would die as the leader of the Uruk Hai did at the end of Fellowship. To make Thorin more palatable and heroic, they needed a villain, a foil, I get that. This however, doesn't much work.

The Morgul Blade - The whole short scene with Radagast at Dol Guldur was fascinating. I loved how the Morgul blade is likely the same one that will eventually be used by the Witch King to stab Frodo (how did it leave Rivendell then?)

Smaug - Well, his eye, was awesome. I like how they've kept Smaug a secret (sort of like how they'd kept Gollum a secret through Fellowship). Cannot wait for The Desolation of Smaug now!

Structure - This is one that I have mixed feelings on. They've very clearly played up the structural similarities  between the quests (Historical/ contextual prologue, a company forms, runs into trouble, gets pulled into mines, runs into elves, picks up Elven weapons/ favors, runs into more trouble, tangles with Orcs, and movie ends with a sight of the final destination). By that measure then, Smaug's demise will be the equivalent of Helm's Deep, and the Battle of the Five Armies will be the Battle for Minas Tirith...

Which is fine. Except nothing in The Hobbit (the book now) is anywhere near as epic as the War of the Ring. I wonder... will it hold our fancy through six more hours?