You And Five Armies

It is finished! By now it’s become traditional for me to watch Middle-earth movies at the earliest possible moment, and I have now completed the cycle with a showing at the Metreon IMAX in San Francisco. On a related note, pre-ordered tickets with assigned seating are the best thing to happen to movies since the invention of digital streaming.

I really liked the movie a lot. This shouldn’t be shocking; I’ve enjoyed all of these films, including the ones that “book fans” have lambasted due to their infidelity to the source material, and those which movie buffs have slammed due to their long running time. I love Middle-earth, and treasure every extra minute I get to spend in that world.

In some ways, The Battle of the Five Armies is an outlier among the six extant works. In particular, it has by far the fewest introductions of new locations. Every other movie has sweeping, panoramic, swelling, majestic unveilings of stunning landscapes: the Shire, Bree, Rivendell, Caradhas, Moria, Lorien, Rohan, the dead fens, the Black Gate, Mordor, Gondor, Minas Tirith, Pelennor Fields, Mount Doom, the trollshaws, the Misty Mountains, Goblintown, Mirkwood, Laketown, the Lonely Mountain. In contrast, TBotFA has a very narrow focus, almost entirely taking place in a limited area around Erebor, and virtually every location we see was previously introduced near the end of The Desolation of Smaug. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but did stand out to me.

On the other hand, the available space is used incredibly effectively, almost entirely with the eponymous battle. I haven’t confirmed how much time it takes up in the movie, but it certainly feels like more than half. I’ve heard some complaints over the length of the battle, but personally, I loved it. Frankly, I think that battle scenes are Peter Jackson’s greatest strengths. Often, when he films short skirmishes, I get disoriented and have trouble following the action. As the scale of an encounter increases, though, he seems to grow more confident and assured. Looking back over his films, I’m really impressed at how artfully and efficiently he’s able to communicate the physical space where a battle is taking place, how the forces are arrayed against one another, and follow the ebb and flow of attacks, retreats, rallies, and routs. More than a decade later, the Battle of Helm’s Deep remains an awesome sequence, and The Battle of Pelannor Fields and Battle of the Five Armies are of the same caliber.

MEGA SPOILERS

In general, the movie is very faithful to the events of the book and the appendices. Everyone who’s supposed to die does so. The White Council’s assault on Dol Goldur was explained but not described by Tolkien, and I was happy with how they portrayed it here: the arrival of the Council, their varied application of martial and magical powers, and their ultimate victory in battle that nonetheless presaged a far more hopeless war. My single favorite part was probably Cate Blachett’s stunning performance as Galadriel, recalling a fantastic scene from Fellowship of the Ring and nicely expressing some great ringlore. I was also happy with how they handled Saruman’s role at the end; I’d been a bit worried that it would be too on-the-nose, either showing his corruption or hammily predicting it. Instead, it was a wonderfully subtle thing, in which we see Saruman’s immense pride, and recognize that it will lead to his downfall even while the remaining council members fail to see it.

In contrast, I was slightly annoyed with Legolas’s ending. The whole “Oh, you should totally go check out this ranger fellow! I have the feeling you two will become GOOD FRIENDS” was too meta and jokey for my tastes. But, again, I’ve just gotten in the habit at rolling my eyes at everything Legolas does and not letting it bother me too much. He has more of those trademark ridiculous action shots here, which by this point are completely expected.

The fate I was most anxious to learn was Tauriel's. Ever since her introduction in the second part, I knew that this was going to be a tragic story: in the book, Kili falls in the battle, and I was almost certain they would keep that in the movie. Since Tauriel is an invented character, though, I was less certain about her: would she and Kili perish in one another's arms for maximum anguish? Or would Kili heroically sacrifice himself to save her? I was happy with how they wrapped up this subplot, glad to see that Tauriel survived and would make her own way in the world, independent of Thranduil and Legolas. (And, incidentally, I will not be the slightest bit surprised if she pops up in a video game in the future, a development I would certainly welcome.)

Probably the most pleasant surprise for me, though, was how faithfully the filmmakers maintained the dark overtones of the book's climax. It's true that, in general, the movie has been much darker than the original children's story. However, the book sets up a really distressing scenario near the end: the dwarves are too stubborn to pay restitution to the men who suffered for their activities; the men and elves seem greedy for the dwarves' treasure; and all of these people who we've grown to like are swept into a pointless war against one another. It's very sad, and also very evocative of what seems like a timeless truth in our world: people and nations who gain power seem to quickly lose their kindness, turning harsh and craving ever more control. And, while it's emphatically not an allegory, I can't help but wonder if Tolkien was influenced, even subconsciously, by the exceedingly pointless First World War in which he himself suffered.

The movie does a great job at capturing this dynamic, focusing much of its attention on Thorin's slide from noble striver to despot. What's so great, and so tragic, about the conflict is that you can see how each faction can believe itself to be in the right. The dwarves were driven from their homes, and simply wish to reclaim what is theirs. The men have lost everything, and simply wish fair repayment for their losses in supporting the dwarves. And Thranduil just wants the gems that he paid for hundreds of years ago.

And yet, the dwarves harbor an eternal grudge against the elves for failing to defend them from Smaug. The elves and men blame the dwarves for inadvertently luring the dragon there in the first place. One can easily imagine a reasonable resolution to the disagreement, with modest payments made and the dwarves still maintaining a ridiculously large sum of wealth; yet extremism has set in, and once Thorin begins denouncing others, it becomes increasingly difficult to back down from his position. And so a war that absolutely should not happen lurches towards its inception.

I had a theory which I developed in junior high, about how the only thing that can convince groups of people to stop fighting and work together is to unite against a common foe. In my favored example, Wales was filled with various tribes, who found against one another until they were threatened by England, at which point they united together. England and Wales shared animosity, until Great Britain started to fight against France and other powers, at which point the two countries became more or less integrated. England and France were famously antagonistic, until World War 2 forces them into an alliance, which definitively ended a near-millennium of periodic wars between them. They formed the basis for an alliance against the Soviet Bloc, including nations such as East Germany. After the Soviet Union fell, the threat of a dominant United States encouraged England, France and Germany to join together to form an economic community. And so on.

All that to say, it's very believable that, while these three factions of the Free Peoples were ready and willing to shed one another's blood, the thing that finally pulled them back together was a foe common to all of them: an army of goblins, which in the movie is explicitly linked to a major push by Sauron to seize territory in the North and open up a route between his southern orcs and those of Gundabad. Once the goblins arrive on the scene, the belligerents instantly realize that their priorities have been wrong, and begin working together against their common enemy.

In an odd way, I think my very favorite scene from this third movie might be Thorin's final duel with Azog: not because it's exciting or climactic (it is), but because of how thoroughly and subtly it unifies characterization, plot arc, and theme. The scene which probably got the biggest reaction from the audience in my theater was when Thorin grabbed the flail's end, then tossed it back to Azog; Azog catches it, there's a beat, and then the ice floe he's standing on slowly tips over and he falls into the water. It got a big laugh because it's so well shot, perfectly timed, and was so unexpected while in retrospect making perfect sense. But I especially love it because of how, with no dialogue, it shows Thorin evolving past his earlier inexorable greed. Thorin was holding on to something that was damaging him. By giving it up, he can save himself.

I would have been happy if Azog had died there. Unfortunately, without significantly altering the ending of the book they had no choice but to kill off Thorin, and so Azog makes a nasty, brutal return to the fight. Here, too, there's no speech, but Thorin's final actions convey so much meaning. He struggles for so long, even though the struggle is hopeless and only brings him pain. In the end, though, he surrenders, ceasing his struggle; and, in doing so, he's finally able to eliminate the source of his trouble. Thorin dies, but at least he dies a good dwarf, completely redeemed from his earlier mistakes.

Final comment: As I seem to constantly insist on noting, Tolkien's stories are not allegories. If they were, they would be so much less. However, since they are written so well and seem to get at eternal truths, they appear endlessly applicable to contemporary situations. Because of the time in which I live and the time in which these movies have come out, I've always been drawn towards seeing in them a reflection of America's military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of 2001. That analogy hit me particularly hard in this movie, as I suddenly had a near-epiphany: "Oh my gosh, the United States is exactly like the elves of Mirkwood!" As shown in the movie, the elves are a large, strong, powerful force; however, Thranduil is obsessed with protecting his own borders, and reluctant to extend himself abroad. He goes forth in a military adventure initially motivated by economic concerns; allies eventually persuade him to help defend others against a savage foe; but once his own soldiers begin to fall, he immediately loses his nerve, and prepares to fall back to his own land, leaving others to continue fighting in the battle.

Again, Thranduil is not a villain, and his motivations do make sense: he's one of the few to have experienced a true World War, and has no taste for such conflicts. Likewise, the United States has tried to follow a course it believes in, striking a balance between the good it thinks it can achieve and the cost it is willing to bear. And none of this was at all on Tolkien's mind when he wrote his books, and I'm not sure if it was even on Peter Jackson's mind when writing this script, but it affected me much more than any film specifically about the recent wars has.

END SPOILERS

Well, this is it! We've had six enjoyable adaptations of Tolkien's books, which is six more than I thought I'd see in my lifetime. The Hobbit has certainly had a rougher path than the Lord of the Rings - due to the differing tone of source material and film, heightened expectations, and significant pushback from fans and the movie industry - but I think it's a remarkable achievement. It has started to bring some of Tolkien's deeper lore out to an audience that has not encountered it before, and given us some wonderful visual realizations of the beautiful worlds Tolkien created with his words.

The most controversial aspect of The Hobbit remains its additions to the source material. Some of these have worked well, some have not, but I think it's something that we'll be seeing more and more of in the future. After all, sooner or later the books' copyrights will expire, and, assuming they're still popular in the future, we might see an explosion of adaptations, not unlike the myriad versions we have of various fairy tales and medieval legends. Time will tell how well these films stand up, but from my perspective, they are destined to become stone-cold classics.

Desolation

I realize that I am squarely in the center of the target audience for "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug." I grew up on Tolkien, and credit the book The Hobbit with sparking a lifelong love of reading. I love fantasy, love adventure, love Tolkien, love magic and elves and gorgeous vistas and battle scenes and lore. I'm the kind of person who grows baffled when people complain about how long the Hobbit movies are - who would not want to spend more time in Middle-earth? In the words of Ice T, I don't understand why Peter Jackson made these movies three hours long when they could easily have been nine hours each.

I missed out on the midnight screening of The Hobbit this year, but compensated with a pretty nice back-to-back marathon instead: the extended edition of An Unexpected Journey (thanks to an awesome Christmas present from my brother), followed by a trip to the theater to see The Desolation of Smaug (once again in 3D HFR).

MINI SPOILERS for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Extended Edition)

The extended scenes in AUJ feel less significant than those in the LotR trilogy, but were still really nice additions. For the most part they add more humor and song back into the story; in particular, the stay in Rivendell lasts quite a bit longer, with more sight-seeing, more dialogue, and some fun singing and comedy. It also restores another song that the Goblin King sings in Goblin Town.

The other additions are more minor, and seem to primarily flesh out the lore a bit more: some of these add connections to or foreshadowings of the main plot in LotR, others given some more background, particularly on the feud between dwarves and elves.

END SPOILERS

I'd deliberately avoided all reviews and articles about The Desolation of Smaug, so I went into the movie with no expectations other than those set by the book and the previous movie. And, unsurprisingly, I loved it. The story turns even more serious than the already-somewhat-dark first section, seeming to lose all of the singing and much of the comedy. But it's also more focused, with the quest in full swing, despite a division in the plot (reminiscent of the trifurcation of plot threads after the breaking of the Fellowship in LotR). The story itself is exciting, and at the same time it's sowing some seeds that will pay off explosively in the third movie.

I don't think I can do justice to the beauty of these films. They're absolutely stunning. Even when re-watching AUJ at home, my breath was taken away by the gorgeous sunset lighting that fills the frames at Rivendell and at the climax. Similar beauty surrounds the action in TDoS as the party travels through Mirkwood en route to Erebor. Individual locations are deliberately ugly - Mirkwood has a sinister sheen, and Laketown feels desperately insular - but even these are intricately designed, and help establish the contrast with the heart-wrenchingly exquisite landscapes we see adjacent to them.

While I'm not a musical person, I've steeped myself in these movies enough to have an autonomic response to the major themes written by Howard Shore. I love how he can incredibly subtly drop in a sly reference to the Ring Theme in the scenes where Bilbo is using his ring - it isn't as fully developed here as it will be in the future after its power is revealed, but the insinuations send shivers up my spine. Other old friends return as well, like the sweet Hobbit theme that crops up whenever Gandalf marvels at the courage and resilience of these tiny Englishmen. And, of course, tons of new music has been composed for the new films as well. The Lonely Mountain theme remains my favorite of the new crop, but there are also some cool new pieces set around Dol Goldur and Thranduil's Court.

MINI SPOILERS for The Desolation of Smaug

In no particular order, here are some opinions!

Tauriel is a terrific character. I'm not a huge fan of Evangeline Lilly, but I loved her portrayal of this character, and was really impressed in general by the addition. I should probably note that I have a fairly catholic approach towards Tolkien fandom: the books are my first love, and I'm generally happiest when they're adhered to, but I really enjoy other artists' interpretations of the stories; I tend to tolerate differences from the source material so long as they don't make things actively worse than the original (as in the re-interpretation of Faramir's character). I think that Tauriel is a case study in the right way to adapt a work: she serves a particular purpose, and while she isn't present in the initial lore, she doesn't contradict the rest of the lore.

First, the purpose: clearly the reason Tauriel exists is to add a female protagonist to The Hobbit. That is, frankly, something that's rather sorely needed: if AUJ hadn't had a scene with the White Council including Galadriel (which was also an addition from the book), it would have had absolutely no speaking female roles at all, which is a particular kind of Bechdel hell. Why doesn't The Hobbit have any female characters? Well, one very likely reason is that Tolkien had his three sons in mind when he was writing it: he would tell them stories, and if you're telling a story to a young boy, you'll probably have a young boy as a protagonist. His daughter Priscilla was only three years old when he finished work on The Hobbit. Years later, when working on The Lord of the Rings, Priscilla was a teenager and complained about how the boys had all the fun in the book; so Tolkien, the good father and good writer, created the character of Eowyn, an intelligent and brave young woman who rules wisely and slays the Witch-King of Angmar, greatest of the nine Nazgul. If The Hobbit had been written a decade later, would we have gotten more female characters? I like to think that we would have. (And maybe finally gotten a straight answer as to the identity of dwarven women.)

Anyways: all that to say, I think there are great reasons to add female characters to the movie. It makes the story more interesting, provides a more-relatable role model, and hopefully will make the movie more attractive to potential female fans. Importantly, the idea of a strong female warrior is consonant with other writings in Tolkien's legendarium. Besides Eowyn, Haleth was a famous amazonian warrior chieftess who led one of the tribes of men back in the First Age. In other writings specifically about elves, Tolkien noted that:
In all such things, not concerned with the bringing forth of children, the neri and nissi (that is, the men and women) of the Eldar are equal... There are, however, no matters which among the Eldar only a ner can think or do, or others with which only a nis is concerned.
This isn't to say that it would be wrong to create an awesome female warrior elf if Tolkien didn't have a precedent, but I think it smooths the way considerably.

As you can probably tell just by the number of words I'm writing, this is the sort of thing that creates big controversy among Tolkien fans. Many devotees cringe at any deviation from the canonical text, and tampering with Tolkien's work is often seen as disrespect for the man's great work. So, I think it was not only good, but smart, of the writers to pay so much attention to the lore in crafting the dialogue of her scenes. There are just a couple of sentences exchanged between her and Thranduil, briefly referencing the distinction between the sindarin and the silvan elves; it isn't particularly important for the story, and will certainly fly right over the heads of people who aren't steeped in the lore, but for those of us who have devoured the Silmarillion and pored over pages of charts of geneologies, it's an immediate, soothing reminder that the creators of this movie are also fans, and also know the lore, and are crafting a component that will slip into place, not carelessly ripping apart the story for their own whims.

While book fans appear divided on the issue, it looks like Tauriel is striking a chord among movie and fantasy fans, judging from the excellent fan art and cosplay I've seen. She might end up becoming one of the best legacies of these movies.

Similarly, I was fine with the addition of Legolas. It's well-established that Legolas is the son of Thranduil, and he would almost certainly have been in Mirkwood at the time of The Hobbit. He isn't named in the book, but almost no elves apart from Thranduil are, so it's totally reasonable to imagine that he was present. (The best counter-argument is probably that he would have mentioned in TLotR if he was; but I can certainly imagine why a proud sindar lord would not want to notify his noldor hosts that he failed to prevent the escape of a company of dwarves.)

Legolas's action scenes were as ridiculous as always. It no longer irritates me. By now I'm just willing to accept that that's what he does.

Speaking of which, though, the choreography for the fights in TDoU were incredible. That escape from Thranduil's Court was particularly exciting: almost entirely invented, of course (the barrels leave uneventfully in the books), but it was a really fresh twist on the chase scene trope, and also included some of the most comical sequences in the movie.

Not everything was reinvented, though. For example, the Beorn section played out pretty much exactly like it did in the book. They also did a really good job at developing certain themes, such as the tension between elves and dwarves; while not using the exact same techniques as the books, I feel like they landed in the exact right emotional spot in conveying the mutual bad blood between the two groups, the dwarves driven by greed, the elves by pride, and both by stubbornness. Scenes like the confrontation between Thorin and Thranduil were really well done: you can see how each of them, believes that they are right and just, and neither has sufficient empathy to consider the others' desires. (I hate to keep riding this hobby horse, but it's stuff like this that makes me baffled whenever people describe Tolkien's universe as morally black-and-white. Granted, Eru is perfectly good, and Morgoth is perfectly evil, but everyone else is drawn in varying shades of gray, from the greatest of elves to the lowliest of men.)

The casting for the movie seemed really solid. Martin Freeman continues to impress me, and further solidifies his position as the best hobbit, ever. Beorn looks a bit different from how I imagined, but his character's affect was perfect, all suppressed menace. Evangeline Lilly disappeared inside her role and let the fantastic character shine through. Thranduil's role from the first part was greatly fleshed out, and is arguably even a deeper portrayal than the character shown in the book: he isn't just a capricious meany, but a dedicated isolationist (and one we can sympathize with, too, as he's one of the few creatures alive to know first-hand the terrible tolls of war).

Things get really fun in Laketown, which is the first part in the movie where we've had a large cast of Men (as opposed to males). I haven't seen the guy who plays Bard in anything else, and at first I thought it was Kit Harrington (Jon Snow in Game of Thrones). I had heard about Stephen Fry playing the Master of Laketown, and loved him in that role. He's an interesting character, kind of an affably, menially corrupt charlatan. Even the minor characters in Laketown were a lot of fun; the gatekeeper reminded me a lot of Tony Robinson, and the Master's stooge recalled Blackadder in a particularly sniveling role. (Also a nice bit about Laketown: we finally see some people of color! Yet another thing that's been pretty lacking in the films, and that also meshes nicely with the lore. Laketown has active river trade with the Rhun area, and therefore more traffic with the Easterlings, in contrast with the more isolated northerners west of the Misty Mountains.)

Oh, but Smaug... wow! Everyone's been waiting to see him, and it's about five hours into the series before we get our first look at him. He's fantastic. Great and terrible, indeed. I'd been particularly excited to see him ever since I heard that Guillermo del Toro did the creature design for him, since del Toro is almost certainly the best monster-maker of the last two decades. I'd been curious if he would come up with a particularly crazy concept, but it turned out to be an extremely well-conceived take on the traditional idea of a dragon. You've got your serpentine neck, your wings, your talons, your fire, your scales. But... the look of it is awe-inspiring, and grows impossibly more overwhelming as you see more of him in action. They did an incredible job at conveying the scale of the beast, which is incredibly hard: how can you make a mind grasp how much bigger this beast is than the hobbit?

Of course, the voice is responsible for much of the effect, and the terrific Benedict Cumberbatch brings his A-Game; the voice is digitally manipulated to be even deeper than usual, but his precise diction and haughtiness still radiate out from every syllable. I haven't re-read The Hobbit lately, but I'm pretty sure that much of Smaug's dialogue with Bilbo is lifted wholesale from the book, and their exchange really captures all the fraught contradictions of the scene: Smaug is so much more powerful than Bilbo that it isn't even funny, but his vanity and pride urge him to put on a show for his victim. Bilbo's in constant danger, frantically drawing on all his reserves of courage, flattery, guile, and magic in order to survive.

Also on the topic of Benedict Comberbatch: he also did the voice for the Necromancer / Sauron. The scene that showed Gandalf's confrontation with Sauron was fascinating. Sauron has no physical form at this point in history, and is merely a disembodied evil spirit. How does one portray that? Well, the way the movie does is darn impressive, offering a pretty convincing idea of what "darkness incarnate" might look like. Likewise, kudos for being able to portray a struggle against evil, when there is nothing physical to struggle against.

END SPOILERS

My biggest complaint with the movie is that - get ready! - it isn't long enough. Or, more specifically, I'm a bit curious why they cut it at the point they did. Assuming that the movies continue to follow the main plot of the book, an excellent climax would have come up in the next couple of scenes. As it is, I'm wondering how the pacing of the third movie is going to feel. I can already imagine how all the critics who complained that the first movie took too long to get going will soon be complaining about how the third movie has too much action.

Be that is it may, middle entries in trilogies are notoriously difficult to manage, and I did enjoy the set piece that the film ends on, even if it ends in a shockingly bald cliffhanger. I'm just not entirely sure why they felt the need to have one. Do they seriously think that we won't be back next year for the third?

The Blobbit: Blere and Black Again

So much to write! Let's start off with The Hobbit. I have a happy history of midnight openings for Lord of the Rings - the first two movies came out while I was still in college, and the third right after I graduated, so I was at my peak in terms of staying up late to enjoy something cool. I just love the ad-hoc communities that pop up around events like this. Any genre franchise movie opening attracts friendly-yet-hard-core fans eager to out-geek one another and show the level of their devotion.

The Hobbit isn't just famous as Peter Jackson's return to Middle-earth settings; it's also been getting a lot of press for its technological advances. Peter Jackson has used this opportunity to champion a switch to a new format for film, dubbed 48 fps. For almost a century, film has been projected at a speed of 24 frames per second; this is a little slower than the human eye can detect, so there is a sort of falseness built into the movie-watching experience; it's what makes something look like a movie and not like reality. Video is shot at a higher frame rate of 30 frames-per-second, which results in a smoother picture. Amusingly enough, people often react to video by claiming that it looks more "fake" than film. Actually, the opposite is true, but in a revealing sort of way: it looks more like reality, and the reality is that those are actors, using props, on a stage, and not characters using items in the world.

(As a tangent: a lot of different concepts get conflated together. High-definition is independent from film speed; the amount of detail you see in a 24 fps version of The Hobbit will be the same as the detail visible in a 48 fps version. Also, the film speed Peter Jackson shot in is different from technologies like "motion smoothing" and "de-jittering" that are built into many new HDTVs. Those technologies actually are awful: they essentially invent fake composite images that get inserted between the actual images, which can, for example, convert from 30 fps to 60 fps. That leads to something that's truly fake.)

The 48 fps Jackson shot in is even higher than the 30 fps of video, and closer to the maximum that our eye can perceive. I decided that I wanted to try watching the movie in its full-on, no-holds-barred form: 48 fps, in 3D, on a huge screen. I initially considered the Metreon IMAX in San Francisco, but since BART shuts down a bit after midnight and I wouldn't be getting out until around 3AM, I opted for the Century Tanforan closer to home. It has a "Cinemark XD", which isn't as large as an IMAX but it still a very big screen, and an awesome theater with large, comfy leather seats.

I pre-ordered my ticket a few days before, but that turned out to not be too necessary. I'm not sure what other theaters were like, but I was fifth in line even though I just showed up a bit more than two hours before midnight. There was a pretty good turnout, but the theater was probably less than a quarter full. (That said, they were doing the midnight showing on three screens, which must have brought down the density. Not that I'm complaining!)

Now, in the past, when I've occasionally gone to sneak-peeks (like for Serenity) or other special events, the pre-movie experience has been great: typically just one or two trailers attached to the movie, and nothing else. Sadly, that wasn't the case here… there was the standard assortment of ads for video games, television shows, beverages, and so on, followed by a long series of trailers. (The reboot of the Lone Ranger looks WEIRD. Most of the sci-fi movies looked grim but interesting.) My theater didn't get the nine-minute Star Trek opening that IMAX got, but we did get to see the new trailer. I'd seen it on Apple's trailers site the week before, and… yeah, definitely looks even better on the big screen.

While the movie trailers were 2D, the DVD trailers before then were in 3D, and the 3D picture looked great. I've enjoyed a couple of 3D movies in the past, particularly Coraline, but I sometimes get the impression that I don't detect 3D as strongly as other people do… I do perceive depth in the image, but I don't get a very strong sense of dimensionality. This time, though, the 3D really "popped" in a way that it hasn't before. I have no idea if that's due to the higher frame rate, or the enormous screen, or what, but it was very impressive.

Ah, but then the movie started. The opening logos for all the film studios (Warner Brothers, New Line, and MGM) were all animated in 3D, and looked amazing. The still images that were shown looked great, with lots of depth and detail. Any time that the camera panned, though, or a lot of action was on the screen, it looked bizarrely awful. There was a kind of streaking effect, so motion was kind of smeared across the screen.

I saw a couple of other people lifting their glasses off and back on, and one or two people left the theater. The rest of us sat quietly and hoped that the movie got better. It really felt like a case of The Emperor's New Clothes - each of us saw that something was wrong, but nobody wanted to be the first to speak up. I think this was partly because of all the controversy around the new format - we all had heard criticism of how 48 fps looked "bad," and were wondering, "Well, is this what they were talking about?"

Of course, it turned out that it was actually a problem with the projector. They softly brought up the lights after about five or ten minutes, and the theater manager (a VERY young guy!) came in and apologized to everyone. He said that they had tested the movie earlier in the day, and everything had looked fine then, but something was going wrong now. His specific words were: "It isn't supposed to look that bad." I just love the use of "that" in that sentence, which seems to imply, "Yeah, sure, it's supposed to look bad.... just not THAT bad!"

They said that they would try to fix the projector and restart the movie. They apologized profusely and offered everyone vouchers for another free movie. Fortunately, we geeks are an amiable lot, and a little punchy when this low on sleep, so folks mostly reacted by laughing and napping. Come on... we had already stayed up until nearly 1AM, there was no way we would call it quits now!

After about ten minutes the movie restarted, and, thank Eru, everything was fixed. The movie began from the very beginning, so I got to re-see all those scenes that had been so painful to watch. Everything was now incredibly lifelike, epic, grand, eminently watchable.

So, whenever people ask me what I think of the new 48 fps format, I have to say that I think it looks great, but I also need to warn them that I'd been perfectly primed to think it was great - after the incredibly awful first showing, and then re-watching in glorious 48 fps, it looked particularly wonderful in comparison!

To be honest, I'm not a huge film buff. I used to go to the movies somewhat often, but for the past few years I see maybe four a year in the theater, and not a whole lot more at home. It seems to be the most enthusiastic theater-goers who are most upset about the format shift, and I cheerfully concede that they probably are picking up on things that I'm not. I will say, though, that I thought The Hobbit was the best-looking movie I've ever seen. It's hard to say how much of that is the 3D, how much the frame rate, and how much seeing it on a huge screen, but it was simply incredible. The epic landscape scenes were jaw-droppingly detailed and gorgeous. You could see an entire forest that seemed to stretch for dozens of miles, and if you wanted to, you could focus on one particular tree and see individual branches, even though it seemed very far away. The actors all looked great as well. I remember being disconcerted when watching movies like Gladiator, that had enormous close-ups that made peoples' faces look freaky. Either I'm used to it now, or Jackson is doing it better than Scott, or there's some improvement from the new technology, since this time around the big screen seemed to enhance and not detract from the close-ups.

The one thing I had trouble with was the battle scenes. They felt exhilarating, but I had a really hard time tracking the action. Unlike, say, the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, where I felt like I always had a clear idea of where the various forces were and what each major character was doing, the fights here felt overwhelming and I couldn't always tell what was going on. Again, though, I'm not sure how much of that feeling was due to the technology, and how much is due to how it was shot or edited.

The music in the movie is really, really good. There is a LOT of music that's reprised from Lord of the Rings, generally to good effect - familiar themes for Hobbiton, and the Ring theme, and Rivendell and so on. The new music is excellent, though, and particularly the main "Lonely Mountain" theme. We get to hear that song in a few variations throughout the movie - it is introduced in an acapella vocal arrangement, and returns in more instrumental versions as the movie goes on. It's absolutely haunting, and mesmerizing.

With technical considerations out of the way, let us move on to discussing some

MINI SPOILERS (book and movie)

First things first: Martin Freeman is incredible as Bilbo Baggins. He's the best Hobbit from any of the four movies so far. I did really enjoy Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd from the Lord of the Rings movies, but Freeman blows them all away. He just perfectly embodies Bilbo's character, and the subtle yet crucial qualities that make someone a Hobbit. Bilbo is ultimately someone who is very put-upon, but who bears up under the stress and follows through. He's upset by changes to his routine, and never actually comes around to enjoying his new life, but accepts his lot and does the best he can. Well... that's a perfect description of the roles Freeman has played, as Tim in The Office and as Watson in Sherlock. Freeman perfectly nails that delicate balance of aggrievement and stoicism that the character requires. Even if the rest of the movie was awful, it would be worth watching for his performance alone.

Fortunately, the rest of the movie is quite good as well! Several characters reprise their roles from the earlier movies, in canon-friendly ways. Gandalf is obviously a major character, and it's interesting to see McKellan back in the Grey mode instead of the White. We also see the other members of the White Council: Elrond, Galadriel, Saruman. Along with the 48 fps issue, this is probably the other major controversy around the movie: how Peter Jackson has filled out what's a relatively slight children's novel to a sprawling three-movie epic (and, at just under 3 hours long, each entry in that trilogy is quite substantial already). Some of this extension comes from simple decisions, like some extended takes and a general decision to let the story breathe instead of rushing from plot point to plot point (much like he did in the Extended versions of Lord of the Rings). The bulk of it, though, and the source of the controversy, is his decision to include other events that Tolkien described as having occurred during the time of The Hobbit, but that weren't actually included within the book.

The most obvious is the plot of the Necromancer, which is briefly mentioned within The Hobbit, and later expanded upon within The Lord of the Rings (particularly in the Appendices to Return of the King). Within the context of The Hobbit, the Necromancer is an evil wizard who lives in Dol Guldur, at the southern edges of Mirkwood. Ultimately, he is revealed to be a disguised but re-emerging Sauron. In the books, Gandalf just disappears to deal with him, and reappears at plot-opportune times. In the movie, we actually see what this entails: the meetings of the White Council, their deliberations over the scope of the threat and how to respond.

For the most part, what has impressed me most about Jackson's adaptations is how faithful he has been to Tolkien's work. Yes, there are exceptions, most egregiously his reshaping of the character of Faramir. However, I've been regularly impressed by just how much of the original texts carries forward into the films: whole lines of dialog, visits to particular sites, and so on help to ground the movies within Tolkien's mythos. In contrast, while the stuff Jackson is doing with "The Hobbit" does have a textual basis derived from Tolkien, he's completely on his own when it comes to deriving dialog and fleshing out the details of events.

On the whole, I think he does a good job. Characters sound fairly similar in those "new" scenes to how they sound in the other movies, so it isn't terribly jarring. As an avowed Tolkien nerd, I didn't find fault with most of the expanded stuff he included; it's either taken from the appendices (such as the meeting of the White Council) or fits within a compatible framework (such as Radagast discovering a Morgul blade; I'm pretty sure that Tolkien didn't state that that happened, but it helps make the threat more concrete in a way that works nicely for a movie). The one major invention is actually tied in to the main story with Thorin and Bilbo: Jackson created a new character, a "white Orc," to serve as a grand villain for the first movie. Which is fine, but also kind of funny, since that's EXACTLY what he did for the first movie in "Lord of the Rings" as well. It might have been nice to do something else this time around, but whatever, it's fine.

I've heard a bunch of complaints about Radagast. Personally, I enjoyed him... he's definitely a comic character, and very silly, but I feel like Jackson has more license to play around with him than he does with the other major characters. It is pretty fascinating to consider him alongside Gandalf and Saruman. He doesn't attend the White Council, and I can't remember whether he does in the books, but it seems in keeping with his nature-loving ways to shun even Rivendell.

On the topic of the White Council... I was VERY glad to see Galadriel appear again, because, man, if she wasn't here, there would be NO women at all in the entire movie. I hadn't thought much about gender before, but The Hobbit is very much a boy's book. Anyways, she's wonderful, as always. The thing that had disturbed me most about the first trailer for The Hobbit was a shot that made it look like she and Gandalf might have some sort of pseudo-romantic relationship. That same shot is in the movie, but in the context of the entire scene it's much clearer that their bond is one of affection, not of love. Which, lore-wise, is a relief. I mean, this isn't Melian we're talking about here! I can't get behind a Maiar/Eldar pairing!

I had somehow missed the news that Christopher Lee would be returning for this movie, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him, and it took me a little while to realize that it actually was him and not a replacement. The man is ninety years old, it's great to see him still in action and with such gravitas! It's also interesting to see his character - this is the old Saruman the White, before he was corrupted; but, as shown in this movie, he's still a little overbearing and not as wise as he might think. I thought that was an interesting decision to make - again, since there's little direct textural reference to Saruman, Jackson could have made him very noble and admirable; I feel like, instead, he's showing the seeds of his personality that will lead to his downfall. (Which, in turn, makes me wonder what it will be like when we watch all six movies in sequence after they're all done. The arcs in LotR were already impressive, and for some characters they'll be growing even longer.)

One of the smaller things that had bugged me about Lord of the Rings is how the dwarves in general, and Gimli in particular, were played for laughs; Gimli was generally the comic relief character, and there were jokes about dwarf-tossing and such scattered throughout. Which was a bit of a shame, since in the books I'd always pictured Gimli as an incredibly brave, stoic figure. So, going into this movie I'd been a little concerned that, with thirteen dwarves, it would play as a non-stop laff riot. Fortunately, that's not the case! While some of the dwarves do have a good sense of humor, as a group they're much closer to how I'd imagined them in Tolkien's world. They're serious, and solid, and determined, and honorable, and brave, and tenacious. They're shown to be strong in battle (where Gimli was often portrayed as being lucky), and I rooted for them throughout.

END SPOILERS

Between the trailers for the movie and the pre-release publicity I'd heard, I had prepared myself for a stylistic adjustment: based on what I'd seen, I would be seeing "The Lord of the Rings Prequels," not "The Movie Version of The Hobbit." The book The Hobbit is a light-hearted, often funny, occasionally charming children's book; the books of The Lord of the Rings are epic, dramatic, occasionally bleak fantasy novels for adults. It turns out that the movie of The Hobbit is actually about midway between the tone of the book "The Hobbit" and of the movies for "The Lord of the Rings". It keeps a lot of the humor of The Hobbit and, a surprisingly large number of the songs and poems. However, the battles and the portrayal of evil feel much closer to that of the earlier movies. Looking back over the movie, it seems a bit jarring just how much the tone can shift from one end to another, but I think it's handled well within the movie itself, since it didn't strike me as odd while I was watching.

Back to the question of length: I do get why people who don't like these movies would be upset at seeing even more of them. Looking back over the almost three hours of the movie, I can picture ample opportunities to cut them down without wrecking the plot: they could pass over the prologue, which establishes the framing device of telling the story, and cut out some of the journeying, and excise some of the side-stories. But, for someone like me who loves Middle-earth, all of those things are wonderful. As long as the material is high-quality, I'll gladly take as much of it that's offered. Since I enjoy this world and these characters, every extended scene gives me more time to spend with them, and every side-plot lets me see another corner of the world. So: people who didn't like The Lord of the Rings should probably stay away, since this is largely more of the same; but people like me who did enjoy it are in for a treat, because this trip to Middle-earth is in some ways even better than the last one.