Moe Lane

I’m down with this argument in defense of the Hobbit movie.

…if you want your children to imbibe the aesthetic feel of Tolkien and embrace his theology of mystery and grace, then read Tolkien to them, for crying out loud. If you want to watch a bunch of orcs get their heads handed to them, on the other hand, then go see the movie. There’s no need to constrain one with the other.

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You want to be really careful when you watch this. YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT TO BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU WATCH THIS.

Recommendations/Observations:

• Don’t watch more than five seconds of this at any given time.  You WILL lose SAN if you ignore this rule.
• Yes, there is a man in a suit who randomly pops in to provide (presumably) exposition in Russian.  You are not imagining things.
• Yes, those are orcs, and they are doing a ballet while singing.  You are not imagining things.
• Yes, that spider is in fact molesting that dwarf.  If you want to take comfort in insanity at this point I can’t stop you, nor much want to.
• I don’t know what’s freakier about the scene where Thorin meets the people of Esgaroth; the interpretive dance from the latter, the way that they shrunk the film of the actors playing the dwarves* down to one-third size and superimposed it on the film of the regular-sized actors, or the way that the director actually did care enough to try to get the color of the dwarves’ cloaks and hoods right.
• And, lastly…

• That’s the most goram chipper Smaug I’ve ever goram seen.  I keep expecting him to make a deal with the dwarves; 15% of the cut in exchange for guard duty privileges and a new armor upgrade.

Moe Lane

PS: Oh.  Right.  Music video.  Sorry, folks, after that I got nothing.  Besides, you’ve all figured out by now that it’s mostly an excuse to tos up those Amazon.com links, anyway.

…not that we know each other, or anything.

Alyssa Rosenberg – who is, by the way, far too smart and sensible about SF/fantasy material to be on ThinkProgress* – asks the question Should there have been any women at all in the Hobbit? - and her answer is doubly surprising.  First, because her answer was “No;” second, because I don’t entirely agree with her.

The first part is easily-enough understood; Ms. Rosenberg takes the reasonable view that there’s nothing inherently wrong, per se, about a movie that has what she calls “[a]ll-male spaces and social circles” as its background**. And if there’s a movie out there that would have an excuse to do that, it’d be The Hobbit, which is of course based on a 1930s child adventure story written by an English academic who had probably never really considered the issue in the first place***.  And that’s fine, and most people would agree that that’s fine. (more…)

I know that this somewhat snarky Slate review of the Hobbit was probably meant to infuriate me:

…a moment when the dwarves, gathered around the fire on the eve of their departure, spontaneously burst into a ballad of longing for their lost homeland. Truth be told, I kind of enjoyed the solemn melancholy of that dwarf ballad, but did it need to contain so many stanzas?

Fortunately, I can chuckle about it.  Largely because Peter Jackson made this movie for me, me, ME! – and it’s already brought in $123M domestic in eight days*; so go chew some cram, haters.  Don’t worry if you don’t know what cram is; Peter will be happy to show you.  And make jokes about it that will have me rolling in the aisle, at least.

Moe Lane

PS: For the record, the poem in question was drastically cut down in length for the film. And, yeah, I was disappointed by that.

*Translation: “He’s going to get away with it.”

At least, if you’re someone like me.  Peter Jackson made this movie for people like me, because at this point in his career he can.  My wife felt that it could have been cut down about a half hour – which is true, but IRRELEVANT – but she did appreciate that Peter put in a nice five minute walking sequence in the middle so that she could run to the bathroom and not miss anything.  I didn’t see it in 3D (or whatever the format is), and I don’t really care whether I do or not; so I can’t attest to the technical issues that some people were having with that version of the film.  Also: Andy Serkis is in fact ‘stuck’ with being remembered primarily for his role as Gollum.  He would probably be touched by your commiseration, if only he could hear it over the sound of all that MONEY.

All in all, no worries.

Moe Lane

PS: Shockingly, there is a moment in this flick that reminded me powerfully of, of all things, Mass Effect.  Trust me: if you’ve played the original, you’ll know it when you see it.

:Calmly looking around:

:studiously nonchalant:

:tick:
:tick:
:tick:

OHDEARGODITSFOURMOREDAYSUNTILICANSEETHEHOBBITMOVIE
DONTLETITSUCKGODOHPLEASEDONTLETITSUCK

:pause:

:slight cough:

I mentioned Space Eldritch a couple of days ago, and I’ve since read it.  It’s very nice, very nice: not explicitly HP Lovecraft, mostly – but it does combine cosmic terror with cosmic vistas (that’s Pretentious for ‘horror in space’) pretty well, and the writers are all pretty good.  I liked Howard Tayler’s story best… but only by a bit; and he has a bit of of an unfair advantage, given that Howard’s the guy who does Schlock Mercenary.  It’s only on the Kindle; check it out.

And so, good-bye to The Hobbit DEAR GOD WHEN WILL THE MOVIE COME OUT I CANNOT WAIT FOR MUCH LONGER IT IS MY PRECCCCCCIOUUUUSSSSSSSS

Just started my kids on the The Hobbit; the youngest is ignoring, and the eldest was trying to… but I caught him being a little interested in it tonight. Just a bit.

A somewhat short tenure for The Last Days of Pompeii: Decadence, Apocalypse, Resurrection, but I suspect that Victoria will forgive me.

I mean, obviously “Peter Jackson Opens Up About His Personal Hobbit Friends In Beginnings Of Genius Marketing Campaign Or Full-On Mental Breakdown” is an Onion article and thus not real, but hey: it’s not like the man was being portrayed as being dangerous, or anything.  Besides, isn’t Peter Jackson rolling in enough dough now that all of this would simply have been redefined as an amusing set of eccentricities, instead of schizophrenia?

Besides, the filming’s mostly done by now anyway.

Please, God, do not let it suck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEoAP1sg1cU

Of course, if the rest of the song is as good as that, then it’s looking good for not-sucking. Easily my favorite bit of poetry from The Hobbit.

I kind of agree with this sentiment about the Dwarven song from the Hobbit movie:

…it should sound pretty much just like this:

The only problem is that the above comment was actually from a spambot.

Guess it just shows that even spambotters have opinions about the Hobbit movie…

Via @IMAO_.

Please, God, don’t let it suck.

Moe Lane

PS: It’s not out until December 2012.  Dammit.