Unexpected Journey Review

WARNING SPOILERS **

 

There has been many reviews on this film so far. Sadly I was not able to see it at the 48 frames per second as I had hoped. The moment was a little odd seeing as have been waiting for this film for so long. I had been waiting so long that it felt unreal that I was going to see it. Even if I saw everyone with their special Hobbit 3D glasses and coke cups.

The movie starts off in the shire with Bilbo at his desk, writing his book. And Frodo is running around the house getting things ready for Bilbo's 111th birthday. It starts on the day Biblo plan to leave the Shire to go see the lonely mountain again. Which makes sense for him to re-live the memories of that adventure.

As the story begins it's amazing to step back into Middle Earth, as if 10 years had not gone by. This film had moments that made me re-live the Fellowship of the Ring.At least you'll feel that way by the end when you realise it'll be another 365 days until we see part II.

The beginning shows the fall of Erebor. Which was really well done. I always made the great hall so small when I read the books, but seeing the grand scale of the Dwarvish kingdom was great. There's little of Smaug. We see a tail, an eye..but they're keeping him in the shadows until part two, the Desolation of Smaug.

There is allot of one liners and jokes in this film. Tolkien had started off writing it as a children's story so the movies reflects that. Gandalf isn't as serious in this film. Which was great for Ian McKellen who really prefers Gandalf the grey over Gandalf the white. I do believe the movies will get darker as the series continues. The book sure did.

Radagast (the Brown Wizard) is great in this. Played by former Dr Who actor Sylvestor Mccoy, we get to see Gandalf and him interact. Radagast is very odd since he lived most of his life, 2000 years of it, alone in the woods with his animals. I enjoyed this character allot. He had bird poo in his hair and a chariot of rabbits who can outrun Wargs.

Azog has a bigger role in this movie than I thought he would. There's bad blood between Thorin and Azog. Since that Ocr killed Thorins grandfather, and in the movie Thorin chops off Azog's arm (but fails to kill him) this was a unique addition to the film. In the books, Dain Iron foot kills Azaog. So it'll be interesting to see which road PJ took with this. This was a bit strange. I'm sure purist, more than me I mean, will be blogging about this. Dain will be played by Billy Connolly.

The songs Tolkien wrote for the  Hobbit were kept. There's the famous 'That's what Bilbo Baggins hates' sung by the dwarves while cleaning the kitchen and the Goblin king sing the famous 'grind their bones' song in the gobling cave. This was really cool. I was wondering if they would keep them.

The riddle in the dark chapter was really well done. Gollum looks amazing in 3D. Simply on of the best computer generated character in film history to date. This very famous chapter was really well done and Tolkien would of been proud. The Eagles that save the company from harm, the chapter Out of the frying pan and into the fire, was really sharp. I got goose bumps thinking are we going to see the king of the Eagles talk? but sadly the winged heroes didn't feel much like talking it would seem.

The sound track....I was paying close attention to what Howard Shore had come up with. There was allot of themes from the Lord of the Rings that made it into the Hobbit. The songs have been re-worked and changed a bit, bit the ring still has it's theme.The Shire, Rivendel all seem familiar because the the themes work hand in hand with the visuals of the film. It's like we never left.


I, like millions of others, will go see this movie several more times in the theatre before the end. Peter Jackson and the Weta team did it again. I hope it breaks Box office records, and I can`t wait until the Extended DVD`s to come out.

The start of the next film should be when they find Beorn's house. I'm excited to see that.

I'd like to thank you all for reading this Blog. I'm now approaching 10,000 views !! cheers, and Merry Christmas.

Production video blog #9

I was worried that we wouldn't see another blog by the film crew until after the release of  An Unexpected Journey.
But thankfully, PJ released this just in time. With only 5 day's until the world premier in New Zealand and 2 1/2 weeks for the rest of the world, the movie is making plenty of Internet buzz. And fans are getting ready to enter Middle Earth in 3D !

There are allot of sweet shots in the blog that makes me even more excited to see the finished film.

The Troll Shaw sequence, and the Goblin caves look fantastic. One can only speculate as to what the rest of the movie looks like.

The section where they show the audio portion of making a film is quite unique. Foley, is the art of audio for everything a person does on film. And I got a kick out of watching that. It's crazy, because I always assumed that some of what we hear in the film, was the audio filmed on that specific day that made in into the movie. I was obviously wrong.

Steven Colbert is a Massive Tolkien Geek

I've watched Steven Colberts show a few times. The Colberts Report is really intellectually funny.
But I never really knew how big of a geek Steven was until lately when MSN and many other news sources were sharing his rival on air with James Franco.

The two men are massive Tolkien geeks and were trying to quiz one another, who would wear the crown?....looked like Steven won.

Recently Colberts has been in the head lines as he visited New Zealand and the film set of the Hobbit. The rumours that he might have a cameo has sparked some nasty Internet banter from fans. Personally I would like to see him in a cameo.

He is a fan after all and has shown, on his show, his collection of collectibles. Aragorn's sword and even going as far as Using Lord of the Rings figurines to explain to the audience the Debt crisis in America. Now that's funny.

Peter Jackson said " I have never met a bigger Tolkien geek in my life. Philippa Boyens is our resident Tolkien expert, and when Stephen came down to visit the set, we put him head to head with Philippa on a Tolkien quiz - and Stephen triumphed. I have to say, his encyclopedic knowledge of Tolkien is spectacular, and points to a deprived childhood in some respects."

That is saying allot. Seeing as Philippa is a massive Tolkien geek, who in her own respect knows way too much on Middle- Earth to begin with.

As for this Blogger, I hope to see Steven somewhere in the film. He has earned it.

Who is Peter Jackson ? Part 2

Peter married Fran Walsh. They met in the mid 80's and have been working together on Peter's movie scripts ever since. Fran wrote for television shows and they wrote the script to Heavenly Creatures  (1994) They both got Oscar nomination's for the screenplay. The co-wrote allot of scripts but it wasn't until they were ready to start the screen play for The Lord of The rings that Philippa Boyens would be added to the team and form a power trio.

They would go on to write together for King Kong, The Lovely Bones, and now the Hobbit.

Peter is possibly breaking some rules and making history with the Hobbit trilogy. First he is using RED camera's and filming at 5K and 48FPS (frames per second) which is not common.
The human eye can see at 62FPS so this would make the 3D experience all that much more "real"like.

Peter, in one of the hobbit blogs goes on to say that some people said it was like having the screen cut out, and what lied beyond was real.

There has been so much negative responses to this in the media and plenty of Internet trolls making stupid remarks. But PJ knows what he's doing. The blu ray's will look amazing playing at 1080p and the increase frame rate can only help make it that much more visually stunning.

What must be noted here is that Peter is trying to help out the movie industry. He made comments on several interviews that the times are changing and Hollywood is trying to figure out how to make it work for them. The age of downloading and people getting lazy and not attending theatre box offices as much as they once did. The introduction of Netflix and rogers on demand and Home theatres being of great quality, Hollywood is hurting. Movies cost as much and pay less.

My hat's off to anyone who step up and says something.

Originally Guillermo Del Toro was set to direct the hobbit. But to to legality's and the amount of time it took to clear, he had to step down. The fan's had mixed feelings about having someone else take on Tolkien's Middle Earth. But this blogger believes Del Toro would of done a great job.
Jackson, Walsh, Boyens and Del Toro worked on the original script. His name might still be on the credits at the end of the films.

Because Del Toro back down, fan's were wondering if Jackson would resume the roll of Director for the Hobbit. It was announced that he would.

The films have been 11 years in the making. Many road blocks along the way. When all was green lit and the word Go had been given, the unexpected happened (pun intended) an actors strike in New Zealand. This was a great stress amongst the film makers and producers. Some serious thought had been given to shoot the movies in another country. Canada was considered ! yay Canada (it is rather a Tolkien Country)

But politics and New Zealand pulled together and the strike was lifted and allowed the actors to work.

Though the movies are now 2 months away from being released there is still another year of post production to do on films 2 and 3.

I've never met PJ, but I can honestly say that he's been one of my role models for the last 12 years. If you read this blog and enjoyed it, please leave me a comment.

                                                           There and back again......