At three hours the furry-footed first installment of Peter Jackson’s upcoming Hobbit trilogy is either a.) a treat for J. R. R. Tolkienites eager to explore new Middle Earth territory or b.) a butt-numbing experience ripe with baffling lore about Orc-cleavers, wizards and a slimy little creature with a split personality.
The prequel to the immensely popular “Lord of the Rings” films is a coming of age story for Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), a stay-at-home hobbit from Bag End, in Hobbiton in the Shire. He’s content with his quiet life until Gandalf (Ian McKellen), a wizard, recruits him to help a group of thirteen Dwarves (led by their king Thorin Oakenshield, played by Richard Armitage) in their quest to reclaim their former home, the Lonely Mountain, and its treasure from the dragon Smaug. It’s on this peril filled journey that Baggins matures, battles trolls, goblins and meets the creature that will shape his fate—Gollum (once again played by Andy Serkis).
As much as the story and performances, people will be talking about the presentation of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.” Shot and projected at 48 frames a second—twice the industry standard—the picture is so vivid, so pristine, it doesn’t really look like a movie. Combine that with the 3D and it’s like watching mega high-definition. Every goblin wart and troll blemish distinct enough to give dermatologists everywhere nightmares.
It’s cutting edge stuff, as much an advancement as colour in the age of black-and-white. Perhaps it’s like the difference between vinyl or CD. I prefer the warm sound of old school vinyl to the hard digital preproduction of CD. The pops and skips are part of the experience, just as film blur and grain are a part of watching 35 mm projected on the big screen.
Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I’m not sure the material is best served by the technique. Trolls, goblins Orcs and the like are the stuff of fantasy and maybe aren’t meant to be hyper-real.
Having said that Gollum is awesome at 48 frames a second. The extended scene, (for the record, most of the scenes in the film could be called extended), in which Bilbo and Gollum meet and trade riddles is one of the highlights of the film thanks to Serkis’s astounding motion capture performance. Gollum is two, two characters in one. He’s Gollum the ancient ring bearer, a nasty character corrupted by greed whose personality dominates his other persona, the sweet natured Sméagol.
Serkis switches back and forth between the two, subtly signaling the change with his posture and eye movements in what is surely one of the most fully realized performances in the film, despite the fact that most of what we see on screen is computer generated.
At one point Gandalf says about the dwarf-kind, “They’re quite a merry gathering once you get used to them,” and the same can be said about the film. Once your eyes adjust to the high-octane visuals you’ll see an epic special effects driven movie that doesn’t feel like a special effects driven movie.
Sure, this must have cost a fortune and there isn’t likely a shot that hasn’t been run through a computer to be found but director Peter Jackson wisely keeps the attention on the characters, building the story around their journey and the basic concepts that make them interesting—the primal need to belong somewhere, to be accepted, the use of power and the battle against evil.
It’s simple stuff in a movie filled with details but for the uninitiated all this talk of fairy forest realms and precious rings may make your head spin. But fans of the series will revel at the chance of revisiting the characters—even Bilbo (as played by Ian Holm) and Elijah Wood’s Frodo make an appearance in an extended (is there any other kind of scene in this movie?) prologue. “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” is lighter in tone that its predecessors, but is a good companion piece to the Jackson’s other films.
In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, British actor Richard Armitage plays Thorin Oakenshield, exiled dwarf king. He’s a newcomer to the Peter Jackson vision of Middle Earth — which began with the three Lord of the Rings films, and continues with a new Hobbit trilogy — but no stranger to the world of author J.R.R. Tolkien.
“I am one of those people who have loved the book,” he says. “I remember being read The Hobbit by a teacher in primary school who did amazing voices, God bless her. I picked up the book myself and started reading it, which was kind of rare because normally I would have to be forced to read.”
He missed the chance to audition for the first set of films, but when The Hobbit came around he jumped at the chance.
“I had no idea how I would fit into that story because the idea of playing a dwarf just wasn’t on my radar. I’m six foot three and a half, so why on earth would I play a dwarf?”
It wasn’t the first time he was excited to bring the fantasy of Middle Earth to life.
“I was in a stage production of The Hobbit when I was 13,” he says, “which I leapt at. It’s weird how you have that reaction when someone says they’re doing a stage production, at 13 to go, ‘I’ve read that book. I love it. Let me be in it.’ I had the same feeling when they were making this movie.”
He says thoughts of that long ago play are “filled with strange memories.”
“I remember wearing a knitted smock, which had been sprayed silver to look like chain mail but it was made of wool. I was an elf. I was pretty tall for 13 years old. Gollum was made of paper and they didn’t have enough money for a dragon, so it was a red light, a puff of smoke and a man off stage with a microphone. I remember running around in circles eating grapes because we were doing a scene in the forest where the Elves are tempting the dwarves to come to their feast.”
He draws a straight line between his early love of Tolkien and his current profession.
“My imagination was totally stimulated by Tolkien’s world and I think once you’ve had your imagination stimulated in that way, every book you ever read you dramatize in your head. You hear character’s voices and visualize that world.”
SYNOPSIS: The prequel to the immensely popular “Lord of the Rings” films is a coming of age story for Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), a stay-at-home hobbit from Bag End, in Hobbiton in the Shire. He’s content with his quiet life until Gandalf (Ian McKellen), a wizard, recruits him to help a group of thirteen Dwarves (led by their king Thorin Oakenshield, played by Richard Armitage) in their quest to reclaim their former home, the Lonely Mountain, and its treasure from the dragon Smaug. It’s on this peril filled journey that Baggins matures, battles trolls, goblins and meets the creature that will shape his fate—Gollum (once again played by Andy Serkis).
Star ratings:
Richard: 3 ½ Stars
Ned: 3 Stars
Richard: Ned, as much as the story and performances, people will be talking about the presentation of the movie. Shot and projected at 48 frames a second—twice the industry standard—the picture is so vivid, so pristine, it doesn’t really look like a movie. Combine that with the 3D and it’s like watching mega high-definition. Every goblin wart and troll blemish distinct enough to give dermatologists everywhere nightmares. What did you think of the mega-super-hi-definition look of the movie?
Ned: I have to say, the 48 frames per second was a problem for me. It often looked somewhere between a super-high definition 1980s BBC miniseries and a video game, and it just felt utterly un-cinematic. Saying that it doesn’t really look like a movie hits the nail on the head. Christopher Nolan has harped on in the past about film having a “warmth” that video can’t replicate, and I think I see what he means here. But the biggest crime, I think, is that the sweeping shots of the gorgeous New Zealand landscape looked fake.
RC: Perhaps it’s like the difference between vinyl or CD. I prefer the warm sound of old school vinyl to the hard digital preproduction of CD. The pops and skips are part of the experience, just as film blur and grain are a part of watching 35 mm projected on the big screen. Having said that, Gollum is awesome at 48 frames a second. The extended scene, (for the record, most of the scenes in the film could be called extended), in which Bilbo and Gollum meet and trade riddles is one of the highlights of the film thanks to Serkis’s astounding motion capture performance.
NE: That scene is the true highlight of the film, and it coincidentally is where Martin Freeman, as the younger Bilbo, really shines as well. But even with this standout, Peter Jackson and company manage to spoil it (for me at least) by overdoing Gollum’s last line to beat the viewer over the head with another reminder that all this leads to “the Lord of the Rings.” It’s a bad habit running through the film that grows tedious. Elijah Wood’s cameo is particularly clumsy in this regard, with him basically describing what he’s going to do in his first scene in “Fellowship of the Ring” and then running off to do it.
RC: It may be clumsy, but I think fans of the series will revel at the chance of revisiting the characters!
NE: Well, they’ll have plenty of chances. If you like this one, the good news is it’s just the first of three movies.
It would be tempting to think the words sequel and prequel are the creation of Hollywood marketers looking for new ways to describe old ideas. But the notion of a prequel, a movie that provides the backstory of an existing story, like this weekend’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, is not a Tinsel Town contrivance.
The first prequel appeared in the late 7th century BCE. The Cypria, an epic of ancient Greek literature, is the story of the origins of the Trojan War and serves as an introduction to the Iliad even though it was written after the Homer epic was already in print.
The word prequel first appeared in 1958 in an article in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction but didn’t catch on until it was used to describe Butch and Sundance: The Early Days in 1979.
The Star Wars New Hope trilogy are the most famous movie prequels, but Hollywood has been looking back to extend the lives of their franchises for decades.
The 1966 Clint Eastwood spaghetti western The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, the final film of the Man With No Name trilogy, is a prequel to A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More.
It wasn’t billed as such, but by the time Eastwood assembles his iconic poncho outfit (which he wore in all three movies without replacement or cleaning) it’s obvious we are at the beginning of his journey, not the end.
The title of another movie was more obvious about its origins.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is the story of the roots of Leatherface, the human-skin-mask- wearing baddie of the original film. There’s all the cannibalism and murder you expect from a Texas Chainsaw movie, but the grisly birth scene kicks it up to another level.
Escape from the Planet of the Apes, the third of five films in the original Apes series, came after the Earth was destroyed by a nuclear blast in the second movie. To keep the franchise alive, a story was created that saw apes travelling back in time which sounds forced but Variety called it “an excellent film, almost as good as the original Planet of the Apes.”
The Godfather Part II manages to be both a prequel and a sequel at the same time. Flipping between the past and present, it’s a powerful story of one family’s descent into corruption.
At three hours the furry-footed first installment of Peter Jackson’s upcoming Hobbit trilogy is either a.) a treat for J. R. R. Tolkienites eager to explore new Middle Earth territory or b.) a butt-numbing experience ripe with baffling lore about Orc-cleavers, wizards and a slimy little creature with a split personality.
