THE HOBBIT MOVIE

. . . mmmmh, not quiet sure if those were mithril figures, Master P.J and Master Hannah are looking at . . .

[imgz url=http://mmp.faerylands.eu/uploads/32_bild_18.png]http://mmp.faerylands.eu/uploads/thumbs/32_bild_18.png[/imgz]

After all, it is a very long time passing without any news at all concern part 3. (is there a part 3 anyhow ?)
Therefore we can enjoy watching, how WETA did the amazing Laketown. For me, absolutely overfantastic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkPRX_eiKv8

PS: and the proof, taht not only german people do speak like a emotionless robot . . .

Thank you, Master Turambar. Those shots really are fantastic.

Further to the link above there is an interview with Richard Armitage about the EE DVD (I haven’t watched it yet) and it sounds from viewer comments as if Bombur and the stag scene will be included…..

…. he could also in director’s cut, “cut off” the golden dwarf scene… and movie will be magnificent…

I decided, in the end, that the Hobbit films are a filming of someone’s Dungeons and Dragons campaign version of the Hobbit, complete with silly voices, weird side quests, peculiar stunt sequences which push the boundaries of the rules.

I appreciate the work done creating the world. I less appreciate the sheer amount of CGI. At this point, the movies are a spectrum from the groundbreaking, tight piece of cinematic storytelling (Fellowship of the Ring) to the somewhat flabby, over CGI’d Return of the King to the “theme park filmmaking” of the middle Hobbit film.

I rather foolishly, in Christmas 2012, not having seen the first film yet, and celebrating my first exam results, purchased the GW “Escape from Goblin Town” set.

It arrived after Christmas. It arrived, after seeing the film. I found the Goblin Town sequence a bit weird, though I did enjoy Dame Edna’s turn as a villainous oversized goblin-thing. But on opening the set when it arrived, suddenly a lot of thoughts coalesced. These goblin designs were horrible. Not “oh no, bad guy creatures horrible” but grotesque and cartoonish in a way I didn’t appreciate. The Goblin King’s throne? It’s an actual toilet. With a bucket of droppings beneath it. Granted I’ve now painted all the blasted things, having left them in their box for over a year. Still haven’t touched the, uh, throne though. Buying the GW “Goblin Paint Set” made the job a lot easier.

It’s interesting: Fellowship and to a lesser extent, the Two Towers are the gold standard for fantasy films. The Hobbit films took all that acquired technical genius and sort of…made something that’s vaguely related to, but in no way as good as, the original. I’ll gleefully re-watch Fellowship on a rainy afternoon. Well, a hypothetical rainy afternoon when there isn’t a paper due. I wouldn’t do the same for a Hobbit film.

But I digress. It’s clear that Jackson can make these humane, grounded, even gitty – and yet sweeping, epic films like Fellowship. It’s also clear he wants to make grotesque, comedic films replete with toilet humour and visual gags.

I was thinking, the other day, about the current craze for Nordic noir crime dramas, things like The Killing or the Bridge. They are hailed as ground breaking, though in reality they are slightly slicker takes on British crime dramas such as Morse or Prime Suspect. I think there’s a visual and cultural vocabulary that artists in Northern Europe/British Isles have. We see that again in, especially, the “North” sequences in Game of Thrones. It’s thus interesting to me how the Mithril range partakes of some of that vocabulary to render Middle-earth.

And how far from that vocabulary the Hobbit movies are.