Sure it’s overdone and really should have been only two films, but I can’t help but get a little excited:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbOEknbi4gQ]If you liked this post, follow me at:
    My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed |
Archive for J. R. R. Tolkien
Title: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Director/Stars: Ian McKellen (Actor), Peter Jackson (Director)
Genre: Fantasy
Watched: December 15, 2012
Summary: More is more!
On a technical note: I saw The Hobbit at one of LA’s leading theaters in a digital 3D projection (with active glasses) using the new High Frame Rate (HFR) 48 fps recording and with Dolby Atmos sound. This was all pretty damn impressive, and let’s take them apart. I didn’t see it in IMAX, but I find that projecting a normal 35mm image on the IMAX screen results in annoying distortion. I bought my reserved seats 6 weeks in advance and so we were perfectly positioned in the middle of the stadium theatre.
I’m not normally a huge fan of 3D, as it drops the brightness and clarity too much. Not so here. The projection was plenty bright and the image so sharp you could almost count the pores. So sharp that it approached a kind of hyper reality. There was more depth than usual to the 3D, and presumably it was all shot with 3D cameras. Basically it looked great.
The HFR gave everything a flicker-free quality like my 240hz HDTV. As with the TV, this takes some getting used to and initially, while it looks smoother, actually appears slightly fake or cheesy. I’ve been “training” with my TV for 6 months and I’m still only about 50% over a lifetime of conditioning.
According to the Dolby engineer who spoke in front of our performance, Dolby Atmos has 60 speakers! Not that I counted, but it sure sounded good. Even in a loud film like there wasn’t a problem understanding the dialogue and goblin hoots came from everywhich direction.
It was certainly the best looking and sounding film I’ve seen to date, even if the overall effect of the clarity, 3D, and HFR lended a hyperreal quality.
Now, how about the film!
The Hobbit is unusual in so many ways. It’s one of the grand classics of fantasy. Many of us read it at an early age as it’s more approachable than LOTR for elementary schoolers. It’s faster paced and more compact. Then we have this unprecedented production. Not only does Peter Jackson and team truly love the material, not only is no expense spared, but he was even allowed to convert a 95,000 word novel into three very long films, totaling 8-9 hours of screen time! This is totally unprecedented. I myself, in starting to adapt my 75k novel Untimed for the screen, have concluded that I’ll have to cut at least 40%.
Peter Jackson didn’t cut The Hobbit. He added to it.
Borrowing from LOTR, The Silmarillion, and who knows what else, the first third of The Hobbit pads out background on the dwarves, the arrival of Smaug at Lonely Mountain, the orc/dwarf wars, and the rising evil in Middle Earth. This defies every precept of modern screenplay construction.
And it works.
Current practice insists that everything not crucial to the central forward narrative be dropped or left off screen. Backstory, many argue, has no place in a film (or even, possibly, a novel). But so beloved is the world of Middle Earth that this sin of excess can be forgiven, even, perhaps, praised.
The Hobbit is a much smaller story than LOTR. Sure it crosses great distance and includes grand adventure, but the trilogy chronicles the near destruction of the world. But since Hollywood, and even Peter Jackson, like to top their previous works, there is considerable effort made to expand the scope and feel to fully epic scale. A new major villain, the white orc, is added and tied into Thorin’s history and used to drive things forward. The scope of encounters is also significantly beefed up from the source material. This mostly works, although it left me with a slight sense that they were trying too hard.
Like the novel, the story takes its time. We revel for a good half an hour in the destruction of Bilbo’s pantry by the dwarves. Still, this is actually pretty funny, and I spent the time oogling the crispness of the onscreen imagery (see technical notes above). The dwarves have an amusing look about them, with their crazy braided hair styles. This isn’t a Hollywood friendly cast of characters. We have 13 heavily bearded men. The production does its best to differentiate them with age, hair color, style, hats, and the like, but few in the audience will be able to connect names with faces. This contrasts with the varied composition and ease of identification of the LOTR fellowship.
It’s also worth noting the near total absence of women in the film. As far as I remember, Galadriel is the only female cast member to speak a word (it’s possible that a random hobbit villager might have). And even the elven sorceress is added material not found in the books. This is a story about a band of brothers. Emphasis on the brothers. Like much of Tolkien’s work, there is an influence from his service during WWI. War isn’t (or at least wasn’t) a women’s gig.
Considerable effort is made to integrate the story more with LOTR. Added scenes reference the building evil. Along with Galadriel, Elrond, Frodo, and Saruman make appearances. Christopher Lee is creepy as usual as the ancient wizard. I did observe (like in Hugo), that he doesn’t walk on screen. He is 90 years old after all!
But if the beginning takes its time, the second half of the film is pretty intense. The goblin sequence alone is worth the price of admission. Jackson brilliantly intercuts the dwarves’ grand escape and battle with Bilbo’s first encounter with Gollum. The battle itself is both comic and breathless. I particularly liked the Goblin King, played by drag queen Dame Edna (Barry Humphries)! The twisting chase sequence is stylistically related to my favorite sequence in LOTR, the part in Moria between the dropping of the armor in the well and the fall of Gandalf. It takes the visuals to a whole new level and even borrows heavily from Jackson’s knack for creative mayhem, first employed in Dead Alive. Bilbo with Gollum is great too. As usual, Andy Serkis steals the show with Gollum/Smeagol’s split personality.
The effects are seamless, and present in every frame. How much is model, how much costume, how much latex, how much CG? I have no idea. Somehow it feels a little less fully green screened than some recent films. Perhaps because New Zealand, with its vast and breathtaking landscapes also stars in the film.
Overall, The Hobbit isn’t flawless, but it is totally captivating and left me burning for more.
For more Film reviews, click here.
Or discover my own fantasy novels.
| If you liked this post, follow me at:
My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed |
I ran across this extremely interesting and totally meta article on fantasy magic by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve had my own version of this kind of theory since the early 80s but he really spells it out.
He breaks magic systems down into how “hard” or “soft” they are. Meaning, how defined are their rules.
If you’re a writer working on your fantasy magic systems, I suggest that you decide what kind of feel you want for your magic. Do you like the techno-magic like you find in my books, or in books by L.E. Modesitt Jr. and Melanie Rawn? Do you like the hybrids like you find in someone more like David Eddings or J.K. Rowling? Or, do you prefer your magic to be more vague and mysterious, like you see in Tolkien or the George R. R. Martin books? I like to read works by all of these authors, but when I write, I prefer to have rules, costs, and laws to work with in my magic, and that makes it more fun for me.
By hard or techno-magic he means books like his own, or comic books, or video games (like WOW or Diablo), where the magic is a well defined tool. On the soft side are books like Tolkien with a more mythic feel. But what is particularly interesting is his insights into the narrative impact of magic.
Resist the urge to use magic to solve problems unless you’ve already explained and shown that aspect of how the magic works. Don’t give the heroes a new power whenever they need one, and be very careful about writing laws into your system just so that you can use them in a single particular situation. (This can make your magic seem flimsy and convenient, even if you HAVE outlined its abilities earlier.)
Very good advice. If your magic is soft enough that major new developments occur every time it is used, then you better NOT use it to solve problems. Or:
If you’re writing a soft magic system, ask yourself “How can they solve this without magic?” or even better, “How can using the magic to TRY to solve the problem here really just make things worse.” (An example of this: The fellowship relies on Gandalf to save them from the Balrog. Result: Gandalf is gone for the rest of that book.)
Semi-consciously, this is what I did in The Darkening Dream which has multiple complex magic systems that are not fully explained, and is hence a kind of middle-soft magic universe. The characters do use magic, but it rarely helps or pans out the way they want, and when it does, I’m generally using a power that I clearly set up before. The villains make heavier use of magic, and their systems are better defined. Still, things often go poorly. In this book I really wanted to give the magic a sense of weight. To make it clear that it was never free or easy and required years of study, practice, and consequences often far outweighing the long term benefits.
My second novel, Untimed, is in many ways closer to a hard magic system in that the time travel has very rigid rules. This (and the related villains) are the only “supernatural” element. I try to maintain my sense of mystery in a number of ways despite this increased definition. 1) The characters are young and alone and don’t know all the rules. 2) They find them out as they go and by trial and error (emphasis on the error). This is also useful to avoid bombarding the reader with too much infodump. 3) I keep the “how” this all came to be and the “why” the villains do what they do hidden throughout the first book.
To me, this balance of the feel of the mystical world is absolutely essential to fantasy writing. How much I like a story is heavily influenced by it, even if I am a fan of tales across the hard/soft spectrum. Like everything, execution is key.
Find Brandon Sanderson’s entire article here.
A detailed write up on the basis of the magic I used for The Darkening Dream is here.
Nerdgasm update. If you can’t wait for December 14, they’ve released a second Hobbit trailer:
I can see them trying to squeeze every last bit of “bigness” out of what’s in the book. The Hobbit — brilliant that it is — was written before everything had to be designed for the trailer!
And if you missed the first, more serious one:
The feeling of the prequel going second is interesting. It looks great, but it also feels slightly anticlimactic (for those of us who know the stories in detail) following on Return of the King. But still, it might actually be a more fun film(s) — the book is a little better paced than the masterpiece — which brilliant as it is, is a bit odd in the structural department. Don’t get me wrong though, I have read them half a dozen times. 🙂 Even the Silmarillion, which is actually one of my favorites. Although I can’t say I’ve read all of those extra lost tales whatever books Christopher Tolkien pushed on us (a few though).
Also check out this silly Hobbit themed Air New Zealand flight video.
| If you liked this post, follow me at:
My novels: The Darkening Dream and Untimed |
