The Hobbit (2012)
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Ok, so I make no pretenses that The Hobbit has ever been my FAVORITE book. I enjoyed The Lord of the Rings movies as much as the next gal, but would never reread the books (too long, involved, and BORING), although I have rewatched the films several times. This is definitely one of those rare cases when the film versions are WAY better than the books.

I am not even sure The Hobbit really NEEDED to be a movie at all, although I guess it is neat to see the Bilbo/Gollum riddle game over the One Ring and the fabulously-named dragon Smaug lying on his  enormous dragon hoard. Other than that, though, the epic quest of Bilbo and his dwarf friends is sort of boring to me and frankly, the end scene with the men of Dale and the War at the Mountain of the Five Armies or Nine Armies or Twelve Armies or whatever seems anticlimactic somehow and just unsatisfying and WRONG after all that questing.

Still, my tenth graders are reading (and some even enjoying) this book for my choice novel unit, so I totally had to see the film to check out that they weren’t just watching it to avoid their reading. The hubby and little kiddos really wanted to see it too, AND it’s not like I had anything ELSE to do last Friday night other than pick up the manchild and his girlfriend from their movie date so…

Ok, so we didn’t actually see it in IMAX, but it was in 3D (which I hate as it always makes my eyes hurt).

My main reactions to this film went something like this:

  • What do you mean this is a trilogy? It’s just one book. One average-sized book! I just do not understand this trend of stretching books out into multiple movie parcels just to make the series drag out longer…BAH! Waste of my time and NO WAY am I watching two more installments of this STUPID movie.
  • WHY is this short book that is inexplicably morphed into several movies STILL SO DAMN LONG??? We have been sitting here almost THREE HOURS. That is just all sorts of unnecessary.
  • Why the heck is this Radagast the Brown fellow even IN this movie? He’s just filler they added to stretch the book into more parts…he’s not even IN The Hobbit. He only gets the tiniest mention by Gandalf to Beorn who isn’t even in this PART of the movie! And excuse me, but did that bird just shit on his head?
  • Why does Thorin have this archenemy Orc guy after him? I mean, I know there have been wars, but did we need to add another superfluous subplot? …oh, wait…THREE movies…yeah, I guess we NEEDED more random and useless backstory dragged in from The Silmarillion to kill any fun that was left in this tale (or at least I assume the backstory comes from there, because Lord knows there is enough crap in that thing to fill TEN boring movies, but I’m sure as hell not reading it again to find out…). Oh, hey, that prosthetic arm-stick thing on that Orc leader is actually pretty cool. Score one for CGI.
  • Wow, that is one fat-chinned, boil-faced Goblin King. Maybe I do like CGI for things that do not exist in real life (NOT CHILDREN played by real actors, though. Do you hear me? Damn you, Breaking Dawn 2!).
  •  Can we go now? The kids are asleep, this sucks, and these 3D glasses are making my head hurt. I think we can get some Sweet Frog before we have to pick up the teenagers if we leave now…
  • I don’t even care if my students watch this instead of read the book. Although I would totally know, because NOTHING in this movie happens the way it should, they totally deserve an A on reading quizzes if they use their limited disposable income to sit through this craptastic film…

 

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