Declension wrote:
It's an interesting movie, but I can barely even recognise the book anymore. The main point of the movie seems to be to set up a "prequel" trilogy that can sit comfortably alongside the LotR movie trilogy. It uses the same epic music, the same epic cinematography, and so on.
The problem is that it's a very different type of story. It's smaller in scope, and there is no "end of the world" scenario. Bilbo and the dwarves are not heroes, and the movie gets into trouble by trying to pretend that they are. The dwarves are greedy and arrogant, and Bilbo is a nice enough fellow but his journey is mostly about becoming a skilled burglar and proving himself, not about being a hero.
Meh I think peter jackson is simply trying to make up for making such a hack version of LOTR, he shot the 10 hours of film in 18 months. Far to short of time to make a quality film.
I agree that they made the movie a little two epic, but atleast it's interesting. Aside from that you can't make 100 million dollar film, based on the book, you'd have to make it cartoon for it even to get begin to work.
My only complaint is that kili, looks far too human. The guy has zero features of a dwarf, he's attractive, small nosed, no long bear, has a lean body structure. In fact the only things that tell you he's a dwarf are the ears and the scaling, and that only makes him look more like a hobbit. They at the very least better make him out to be half human or something.
Anyhow I'm about 60 pages in to book 1 of lotr, it's far better to read after watching the movie.
There's some weird balance, where the hobbit is the funnest read but lacks weight, the lotr books are most in depth but are too heavy, the lotr movies are awful yet were my first introduction, and the fact the new movie is piecing it all together.