my Movie

Movie Details

Title:   The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Director:   Peter Jackson
Year:   2012
Genre:   Fantasy
Times Seen:   1
Last Seen:   01.06.13

Other Movies Seen By This Director (8)
- The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
- The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
- King Kong
- The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
- The Lovely Bones
- They Shall Not Grow Old

Notes History
Date Viewed Venue Note
01.06.13Galaxy at the Trails Considering the mixed reaction I've been hearing from the movie and especially the high frame rate experiment I figured I should really see this theatrically because the next two may not have so many viewing options.

Right off the bat I'll say I didn't mind the HFR thing at all. It was really only evident for me during the action scenes and I guess I've played enough video games (which generally run at a higher framerate because of my kickass gaming rig bro) that it didn't seem wrong or foreign to me at all. What did bother me was the 3D. It was too dim and the 3D didn't track to the periphery of the screen and the shifts in depth of field gave me occasional moments of vertigo. I'd very much like to see a 48fps 2D version of the next movie although then maybe the framerate would bother me more because I wouldn't have glitchy 3D to take my attention. Really though, this movie will live on in plain ol' blu-ray or DVD in normal framerate and two dimensions so who cares. If the higher frame rates were trending like 3D was when Avatar came out I might be a little more dubious but really I didn't notice it much... certainly wasn't bothered by it (I appreciated the added clarity) and thought it was fine.

The movie also wasn't as bad as I'd heard. I mean it's definitely the extended edition and I don't remember a lot of the stuff from when I read the book (which was a long time ago, admittedly), but you know... it's the same Lord of the Rings world. Why not endulge and live and breathe in the spaces a bit. Although I don't remember Gandalf being in the book beyond his visit to Bag End at the very beginning, I really appreciated his scenes and getting a better sense of who Gandalf the Gray is as compared to Gandalf the White. I also liked the greenwood/murkwood thing and the hints at the Necromancer (which I'm not familiar with at all but I'm sure they got from some appendix or footnote somewhere). Broadly, it seems like they're grafting a Lord of the Rings Rise-of-Sauron prequel onto the plot of The Hobbit, but I have no problem with that.

So It doesn't have the driving plot of the first trilogy, but still I think this is a pleasant warm blanket of a journey back to the world and we'll see what else they feel like including on their way to Lake Town and the showdown with Smaug. I liked it.