De avonturen in Maastricht en Valkenburg

Sorry it's taken me nearly a week to get around to writing this up. It's partly that I've been really busy since I came back, what with work, two trips to the cinema (more on the latter in my next post), helping the Chivers decorate their Christmas tree, Lard Club Christmas at Pepe's, Chinese food, and my work Christmas do at Pasta Bar, followed by a pub crawl up Ecclesall Road. It's also partly my reluctance to grapple with LJ's annoying new(ish) photo upload system. (Who'd have thought something on LJ would be less intuitive and easy to use than it's Facebook equivalent?)

Anywaaaay, ( here's what we got up to on holiday. )

All in all it was a great few days away. It was a shame so many people dropped out of the trip, but it was nice to spend time with the Chivers. The goblin and I got through a few more chapters of Harry Potter and a couple of games of Chrononauts. The bug merrily waved "See you later" to anyone he'd see, and then I taught him jazz hands... We fairly thoroughly explored two beautiful towns, I ticked another country that I've been too. Oh, and we had quite a bit of cake :o)


Click for photos

A Mostly-Expected Journey

So, The Hobbit film...

It's mostly good. It's more of the same, so lots of sweeping vistas, epic battles, and the occasional gory silliness. I think I want to like it more than I actually did.

The main problem is that it tries to be too much like Lord of the Rings, too grandiose and portentous. Some of the charm and character of Tolkien's book gets lost in all that, although Martin Freeman's Bilbo is spot on and helps lighten things up a bit.

Also, someone really needs to beat Peter Jackson over the head until he remembers about pacing and editing. Most of the time there's enough things going on, but overall you could probably chop at least an hour out and it'd be a better film for it.

The first six chapters (I've engaged smugness mode for having correctly guessed where they'd split the films ;o) ) of the book have been padded out a lot. I'd hoped that'd mean more time to develop the characters of the individual dwarves (something a bit lacking in the book), but no. Instead we get unnecessary cameos from the previous trilogy and lots of foreshadowing, plus the usual obsession with spending too long showing off the scenery. Most of the added bits I could easily do without, although Sylvester McCoy's appearance as Radagast the Brown is well worth it and is one of the most fun elements of the film.

That aside, the best bits are those translated direct from the book. The "Good morning" conversation and of course, "Riddles in the dark" being particular highlights. Several of the songs from the book have made their way in, which was surprising, but they work. There is, however, wrongness at the end. I don't object in principle to the film diverging from the book, but the turning point which causes the dwarves to change their opinion of their 'burglar' is very different, and much lamer and shallower by comparison.

All in all, it's worth seeing but you're better off reading the book. Which you can actually do in less time than it takes to sit through the film.