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prunesquallormdJust got a couple of little things to get on Amazon (fingers crossed that they get here on time!) and then I'm all done with my Christmas shopping. Yay, go me! (Most of the people I get things for have Amazon wishlists which makes life soooo much easier. However did we cope before Amazon wishlists? Ah yes, we wandered around in the horrifying Christmas crowds getting more and more stressed and, generally, wound up wanting to curl up in a small, dark room and never wanting to deal with anyone ever again).
Of course town this afternoon was like a vision of Hell, and it wasn't helped by the fact that I woke up with an horrendous headache that even my beloved codeine struggled to deal with (I like codeine far too much; sometimes it's quite worrying, but I have so many sinus issues that sometimes I really just want to take a nice little pill and have them all go away) but I soldiered on and the fresh air was at least nice.
As usual all my efforts were focused around Waterstones, HMV and Lush so at least there was less wear on the (fake-)shoe leather than there could have been. It being Christmas, Lush has lots of new staff in and I didn't have the heart/energy to rebuff the very helpful person who was giving me lots of advice on their products and what to get my sister-in-law, though it kind of made me want to scream (because honestly, it's not like I shop there ridiculously regularly or anything /sarcasm).
Thursday was Hobbit day, which I've been looking forward to for aaaaages, so I booked tickets to make sure I could see it on the first night. I almost didn't make it, mind. I left work at 4.30, giving myself plenty of time to eat and have a bath and relax for a bit. Except that, at about 10 to 5 I hit a jam on the motorway, but hey, no problem. Still got loads of time left. But no. A lorry had overturned meaning they had to close the road. Urrrrrgh.
I got home at quarter to 8 (3 and a quarter hours! When it's usually about 45 minutes) bolted food in about 3 minutes, failed to find any of the at least 3 pairs of 3D glasses that I know I have lying around somewhere and got to the cinema with exactly no minutes to spare. We sat down about a minute before the film started (so ok then. If I'm going to be entirely accurate we got there with 1 minute to spare). My head was hurting and 3D films never help that (especially as wearing the glasses over another pair of glasses isn't exactly comfortable) but it subsided through the film thankfully, so it wasn't too unbearable.
After the stress involved in just getting there, what about the film? Well, first off: why do they bother with 3D? Really, just why? Except in the case of Avatar where it turned an ok film into an incredible cinematic experience, I've never seen a 3D film where the 3D added anything at all. It won't make a bad film any better and a good film doesn't suffer for the lack of it. It's also hard on the eyes and anyone with a tendency to suffer from headaches is taking the risk of leaving the cinema feeling like they've been kicked repeatedly in the temple every single time they see one of the bloody things. Grrrrr.
Erm, yeah, that's not a comment on this film, just my judgment on 3D in general. Here's my thoughts on the film then:
Everything that was wrong with it can be largely pinned down to the artistically indefensible decision to take a book that's less than 300 pages long and turn it into a 3 film, near-8 hour epic. Honestly, is there any reason that anyone can give to do that that doesn't similar boil down to the desire to give New Line another nice little (AKA hugely profitable) franchise?
The virtue of The Hobbit over The Lord of the Rings is that it's a very simple, unpretentious, quest story. Start at point A, wander for a bit in the wilds, have a some adventures on the way, arrive at point B, big denouement, home in time for tea. That's it, really. It's not a huge, panoramic, multi-POV, world spanning epic, and in turning it into one (or trying to) the thing that suffers is pace, excitement and narrative drive.
I'm probably not the best person to comment on how exciting it was because I'm so familiar with the story, but they certainly did their damnedest to give it that extra little something. It was also a much 'fuller' experience than the book, I'd say (mostly because they made explicit every little allusion and passing mention from the text). We'll see if the additions in the other two films will strengthen the story rather than diluting it so much that any sort of narrative tension is just washed away. I'm keeping an open mind, and I hope very much that I won't be disappointed.
But for all that, I did enjoy it. It looked fabulous (of course. That's commonplace these days); Martin Freeman was very good as Bilbo and it was nice to see the dwarfs actually being given some sort of personality (in the book, other than Thorin (and to a much lesser extent Balin and Bombur) they really have none whatsoever; they're just names on a page); and obviously Ian McKellen's Gandalf is always fun to watch.
Final verdict then: enjoyable enough and pretty but not outstanding, by any stretch of the imagination. I'd like to hear Peter Jackson give his reasons for padding it out so much, because there's simply no excuse for it whatsoever that I can see. The next two films will have to be pretty damn incredible to save them from any charges of cynical money grabbing, that's all I'm saying.
***
It's only 10 more days to Christmas :((((
Oh if only I could go to sleep and wake up again when it's all over.
Happy *whatever festival you happen to celebrate at this time of year* everyone!
And have fun :)
<3<3<3
Of course town this afternoon was like a vision of Hell, and it wasn't helped by the fact that I woke up with an horrendous headache that even my beloved codeine struggled to deal with (I like codeine far too much; sometimes it's quite worrying, but I have so many sinus issues that sometimes I really just want to take a nice little pill and have them all go away) but I soldiered on and the fresh air was at least nice.
As usual all my efforts were focused around Waterstones, HMV and Lush so at least there was less wear on the (fake-)shoe leather than there could have been. It being Christmas, Lush has lots of new staff in and I didn't have the heart/energy to rebuff the very helpful person who was giving me lots of advice on their products and what to get my sister-in-law, though it kind of made me want to scream (because honestly, it's not like I shop there ridiculously regularly or anything /sarcasm).
Thursday was Hobbit day, which I've been looking forward to for aaaaages, so I booked tickets to make sure I could see it on the first night. I almost didn't make it, mind. I left work at 4.30, giving myself plenty of time to eat and have a bath and relax for a bit. Except that, at about 10 to 5 I hit a jam on the motorway, but hey, no problem. Still got loads of time left. But no. A lorry had overturned meaning they had to close the road. Urrrrrgh.
I got home at quarter to 8 (3 and a quarter hours! When it's usually about 45 minutes) bolted food in about 3 minutes, failed to find any of the at least 3 pairs of 3D glasses that I know I have lying around somewhere and got to the cinema with exactly no minutes to spare. We sat down about a minute before the film started (so ok then. If I'm going to be entirely accurate we got there with 1 minute to spare). My head was hurting and 3D films never help that (especially as wearing the glasses over another pair of glasses isn't exactly comfortable) but it subsided through the film thankfully, so it wasn't too unbearable.
After the stress involved in just getting there, what about the film? Well, first off: why do they bother with 3D? Really, just why? Except in the case of Avatar where it turned an ok film into an incredible cinematic experience, I've never seen a 3D film where the 3D added anything at all. It won't make a bad film any better and a good film doesn't suffer for the lack of it. It's also hard on the eyes and anyone with a tendency to suffer from headaches is taking the risk of leaving the cinema feeling like they've been kicked repeatedly in the temple every single time they see one of the bloody things. Grrrrr.
Erm, yeah, that's not a comment on this film, just my judgment on 3D in general. Here's my thoughts on the film then:
Everything that was wrong with it can be largely pinned down to the artistically indefensible decision to take a book that's less than 300 pages long and turn it into a 3 film, near-8 hour epic. Honestly, is there any reason that anyone can give to do that that doesn't similar boil down to the desire to give New Line another nice little (AKA hugely profitable) franchise?
The virtue of The Hobbit over The Lord of the Rings is that it's a very simple, unpretentious, quest story. Start at point A, wander for a bit in the wilds, have a some adventures on the way, arrive at point B, big denouement, home in time for tea. That's it, really. It's not a huge, panoramic, multi-POV, world spanning epic, and in turning it into one (or trying to) the thing that suffers is pace, excitement and narrative drive.
I'm probably not the best person to comment on how exciting it was because I'm so familiar with the story, but they certainly did their damnedest to give it that extra little something. It was also a much 'fuller' experience than the book, I'd say (mostly because they made explicit every little allusion and passing mention from the text). We'll see if the additions in the other two films will strengthen the story rather than diluting it so much that any sort of narrative tension is just washed away. I'm keeping an open mind, and I hope very much that I won't be disappointed.
But for all that, I did enjoy it. It looked fabulous (of course. That's commonplace these days); Martin Freeman was very good as Bilbo and it was nice to see the dwarfs actually being given some sort of personality (in the book, other than Thorin (and to a much lesser extent Balin and Bombur) they really have none whatsoever; they're just names on a page); and obviously Ian McKellen's Gandalf is always fun to watch.
Final verdict then: enjoyable enough and pretty but not outstanding, by any stretch of the imagination. I'd like to hear Peter Jackson give his reasons for padding it out so much, because there's simply no excuse for it whatsoever that I can see. The next two films will have to be pretty damn incredible to save them from any charges of cynical money grabbing, that's all I'm saying.
***
It's only 10 more days to Christmas :((((
Oh if only I could go to sleep and wake up again when it's all over.
Happy *whatever festival you happen to celebrate at this time of year* everyone!
And have fun :)
<3<3<3
