Ten years ago, an epic film trilogy was released that won seventeen Academy Awards and was highly praised by many critics. It is still the tenth highest grossing film series of all time. It is the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
December 14th the first movie in a prequel trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, based off of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit, premiered. The trilogy follows Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), on his journey to help thirteen dwarves reclaim their homeland from a dragon named Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch).
A number of actors and crew members reprise their roles in The Hobbit. Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Frodo (Elijah Wood), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Saruman (Christopher Lee), Gollum (Andy Serkis), and elderly Bilbo (Ian Holm) are the seven Hobbit characters who were in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Peter Jackson, the director of The Hobbit, directed the three Lord of the Rings movies. Seeing old characters again gives the film a sense of nostalgia. Audience members who remember the first series will appreciate Jackson’s inclusion of old characters. The movie includes background knowledge about Middle Earth, so no knowledge of the novels or even of the previous series is necessary to enjoy this film.
One of the most noticeable differences between this film and the previous trilogy is that the atmosphere of this film is much lighter than in The Lord of the Rings. Some critics have criticized Jackson for this, but I think it is a positive change. One of the turn-offs of The Lord of the Rings was that it was very dark and gloomy. The Hobbit contains playful bantering and jokes that the Lord of the Rings trilogy rarely had. The only joke I disliked was an unnecessary joke that the Great Goblin says as he is about to die. There is a place and a time for humor, and that’s not when someone, even an enemy, is dying. The action sequence before the death was intense and serious, so the joke felt out of place.
The best scene in the film is the scene where Bilbo finds the ring. Gollum’s movements and facial features are beautifully designed and he looks creepier than in The Lord of the Rings. The scene is almost exactly the same as in the novel, and Jackson did a brilliant job adapting it to film. It was the first scene that was filmed, but Freeman quickly learned Bilbo’s mannerisms and viewers will not be able to tell that it was Freeman’s first time portraying Bilbo.
Another outstanding scene is the first scene of the film. It is the scene before the first scene with Frodo and Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings. Bilbo is preparing for his 111th birthday party and Frodo leaves to go meet Gandalf before the party. Wood has aged since he last played Frodo, and, even with the wig and makeup, he looks visibly more like an adult than he did in The Lord of the Rings. This was unavoidable, and it is no fault of Jackson or Wood. “Older Bilbo” looks no different than he did in the previous series, and if scenes from the first Lord of the Rings movie and the first Hobbit movie were cut together, they would appear to have been filmed at the same time.
There are thirteen dwarves in The Hobbit, and they do an amazing job of differentiating between themselves and making each of their characters unique. Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), the leader of the dwarves and the king of Erebor, is a strong character whom viewers will grow to love. The other dwarves mainly distinguish themselves with their beards, whether they are strange shapes like Bombur’s beard (Stephen Hunter), split like Nori’s beard (Jed Brophy), or practically non-existent like Fili’s and Kili’s beards (Dean O’Gorman and Aidan Turner).
Old fans of the Lord of the Rings movies and Tolkien novels and new viewers who know nothing about Middle Earth will all enjoy The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I am giving it nine out of ten stars. It is just as good as The Lord of the Rings, but it is lighter and more humorous, like the book it is based off of.
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