Monday, September 7, 2015
Or rather, I finally finished watching The Hobbit. I started two days ago.
I waited for so long because I expected to want to sit down and pay fairly close attention. I really enjoyed The Lord of the Rings, so I figured this was a no-brainer.
In the end, I needed three days because they are bloody long movies (1st two almost 3 hours, last one almost 2 1/2 hours) - and I found myself needing to pause the DVD and take a break periodically. And I mean a long break, not just a "pop off to the kitchen" type of thing. Took me most of a day to finally get around to watching each one.
There were definitely things I liked about the movies, but overall - it was too much of almost everything. This should have been one long movie (maybe just under 3 hours) or two short ones (90 min or so each.) Too much added material. Too many huge sweeping shots to show us how amazing this world they've created is (and yes, I do want to get to New Zealand someday.) Too many battles that went on and on and on. Too much tying everything into being a precursor to The Lord of the Rings. It seems like the filmmakers looked at all the cool stuff they managed to do in the previous movies and decided that everything had to be 10 times as amazing for this one... and instead a lot of it just ended up seeming over-the-top instead.
I'm not surprised that where each of the LOTR movies made more than its predecessor, each of these made less. And I'm really glad I waited to watch them at home, instead of going to the cinema... sitting through these in a movie theater would have been torture.
With The Lord of the Rings, I found the extended editions to be better than the theatrical - there was a little more room for some character development and for things to breathe a bit. In this case... I think it's going to be a good while before I watch the extended editions - and I'll probably see them separately, rather than back-to-back.
Oh, well. If I have the time and ability to grumble about a movie trilogy, I've got it pretty good. Especially since it's back to work tomorrow, with school starting for real on Thursday.
JMH
