kayshapero

Saw the movie yesterday, in 3D.  Which was pretty well handled for 3D with the occasional "oh, look, there's a  moth flying up my nose" moment, made up for by adding depth to the scenery.  It should be just fine in 2D fwiw.  I went over to the local AMC which just recently finished remodeling into a restaurant/theater with comfy lounge chairs, trays, service at your seat etc. etc.  And $15 for the ticket, though some of that may've been the 3D.  No idea how good the food is - I just ordered popcorn and iced tea, which came to about as much as the ticket when I added in the tip.  Decent popcorn I must admit, and rather more than I could eat.

OK, as to the movie.  The following assumes you've read the book.  If you haven't, it's apt to be confusing or spoilery.  For that matter, even if you have read the book if you're especially anxious not to have advance notice of the stuff not in it, better skip the second paragraph which is mildly spoilery - I've whitened it out.


The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey takes advantage of being only 1/3 of the story to cover pretty much the same incidents as the book, along with a bit of a framing story at the start of Bilbo writing down his notes for Frodo, just before the celebrated Birthday Party in Lord of the Rings.  We then transition to the Unexpected Party (Though for some reason Bilbo doesn't ask Gandalf to tea, making the invasion of dwarves even less warranted than in the book.  You can't help wondering why he isn't out the door and off to the constable's.)  The plot continues in its familiar way until the movie ends when the Eagles deposit everybody on top of the Carrock.

Some extra stuff happens, of course We meet Radagast, who brings news of the shadow over Mirkwood, which unlike in the book has just recently happened, and also removes a bit of the coincidence involved in things like the Eagles intervention in the forest.  Also the Dol Guldur subplot mentioned but never shown in the book plays a part. There is a meeting at Rivendell involving Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel and Saruman, who you half expect to hold up a card reading "hiss the villain", even though if we're going by the books at this stage he isn't. Yet. The content of the meeting also reflects some stuff about Gandalf's involvement which you can find in the appendices of Lord of the Rings. Thorin has an old enemy turn up in pursuit with a lot of warg riders who mostly serves to provide a bit of extra action for everybody including Bilbo, who does pretty well, much to his own surprise.  .

The scenery is spectacular, not that this is going to be any surprise, and we get plenty of time to look at it in the various scenes of the party crossing through it.  I particularly liked  the thunder-battle up in the Misty Mountain peaks involving the rock giants.   Watch and you'll see what I mean.

A couple of minor quibbles - nobody bleeds, despite some scenes involving bits being hacked off or into.  One can understand why Jackson doesn't want the rating going through the roof, but it's still a mite weird.  Glamdring and Orcrist don't glow in the presense of goblins, though Sting does - in the book they all 3 did.  But I don't recall what the situation was in the LOTR movies so *shrug*.  If you must split the Hobbit into three(!) parts, it works well thus far.