Last time in fandom cinematic impressions: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.
1. Let me fix you, Thorin Oakenshield. (cue the Coldplay montage)
2. Why are Thorin and Kili (and, arguably, Fili) totally legit, human-looking, attractive men, and everyone else looks like they are actually a different species?
3. Like, if you saw Thorin or Kili at a bar, you’d say “well, they’re short, but at night all cats are grey,” or some other Victorian euphemism for “10/10 would bang,” but if you saw, say, Balin, you would probably call the army.
4. Balin was my favourite when I was little, but I find it hard to enjoy my time with him because I know he’s going to die in Moria. Not that he didn’t have a great run!
5. This movie was so long.
6. Seriously, it may be the longest movie ever made.
7. I mean, the last movie was so incredibly long, and we all whined about it, so I guess I thought this might be different.
8. On account of, right, the book was just nowhere near this long, and yet they still skipped basically all of Mirkwood and glimpsing the Elf feast and so forth.
9. I had a good time.
10. Thranduil is such a colossal dick.
11. Tauriel. To recycle my Twitter commentary, if Peter Jackson wanted to appeal to women, he should have re-released Heavenly Creatures in IMAX 3D HFR and left The Hobbit intact.
12. Evangeline Lilly is Canadian, and nothing a Canadian woman does should be criticized. It’s not her fault.
13. But if you put in a made-up female Elf, maybe don’t have her sideline her ass-kicking career to literally tend the wounds of some dude with a beard because her emotions get the better of her.
14. Only Thorin is worth sidelining your ass-kicking career over. Kili doesn’t even have a sword with a NAME.
15. Where did Legolas get that horse from?
16.
17. There has never, in all the world, not even in Homeland, been a dumber plan to defeat a dragon than showering him with molten gold.
18. Speaking of which, let’s clarify something: a) Can you outrun a wall of explosive flame? and b) Does dragon-fire “melt your flesh from your bones in a heartbeat” or can you stop, drop, and roll it off, like Thorin did?
19. Benedict Cumberbatch.
20. The Arkenstone looks like something heavily pixellated you would have picked up in an early video game to put in your sack of jewels.
21. It was like a very, very long Tolkien-themed episode of Wishbone.
22. They will not remake it for another 25-50 years, so get used to it.
Tags: classic works of literature, jrr tolkien, movies, the hobbit, thorin is so hot always
I haven’t seen it yet, because I do not have five hours to watch a movie until Christmas break starts, but about Cumberbatch: does it actually sound like him? In the trailer the voice of Smaug sounded so overlaid with booming effects and raspiness and whatever else to make it sound dragonish that it could literally have been any British dude.
You can hear his voice through the effects, yes. At least I thought so. Smaug was the only thing worth the ticket price, IMO. He looks and sounds pretty great.
Not really. He kind of just sounds like a fabulous booming deity.
In all fairness, you just described Cumberbatch’s voice.
Touche.
Ooo, so they’re finally letting him use his real voice!
Ehhh, I didn’t think it sounded too much like him but I have only seen a couple films with him in it. That said, Smaug and his voice are by far the best part of the whole thing, except for maybe Thranduil.
It didn’t really sound like him, but his speech pattern still came through distinctively, if that makes sense.
I would know his voice anywhere in the world.
“I would know {him] in a thousand.” –Nicholas Nickleby
Oh god, all of this, yes. I’m feeling alone among my friends (online and IRL) for kind of not liking either of the Hobbit movies really at all. At least could we have a coherent plot besides this “hey buncha guys on a nebulous quest” thing? How about character development of any sort? Coherent scene changes? Anything, anything at all besides CGI baddies and superfluous fight scenes? I mean THROW US A BONE HERE, JACKSON.
Also, YAY another reason to love Gingerhaze.
Any time Martin Freeman is on screen, you can tell he is desperately trying to develop Bilbo’s character…so the scene with him and Smaug/Bendywhoo Cumbersnoot is terrific. But he’s not actually IN as much of the movie as you might imagine. Which is odd, given that it’s technically his adventure…
The man candy is pretty diverting, though. Hello, Lee Pace and Luke Evans!
<3 BENDYWHOO CUMBERSNOOT <3
I don’t think this story is anyone’s adventure except Peter Jackson’s at this point.
Right on.
I am so happy that The Toast is friends with Gingerhaze. <3
Also, can I say how much I love your alias? Man, I loved that story. Luuuuurved.
I tried to resist because I’m not seeing it until Saturday, but I read this anyway and I’m not sad. Reserving judgment on Tauriel (instead of deciding she’s a terrible idea out-of-hand) because my husband (who can [and frequently does] recite entire passages of Tolkien from memory) apparently thinks it’s okay that Peter Jackson added her. But I’m glad to have your perspective, because what does he know?
My dad is the same kind of Tolkien nerd and feels the same about her! I think in his mind it’s far better than changing an already-existing character.
I feel the same way. I was nearly named Galadriel (no, seriously, my dad had to talk my mom out of it) and I have a LotR tattoo. I finally decided that a) the movies are not the books and I need to accept that, this isn’t a holy relic we’re altering here and b) adding a character worked fine for my in LotR (Arwen, although I mourn Glorfindel… and Tom Bombadil) and I should give it a chance.
I saw the movie, and I liked it a lot. I thought Tauriel was actually pretty cool, running around saving Kili’s ass not once, not twice, but three fucking times. (Seriously, someone get that boy a bubble to live in.) I thought Smaug was pretty fucking awesome. I have serious issues with Gandalf vs the Necromancer that I really hope is cleared up in the next movie, but even those scenes were pretty cool.
I’ll be going to see it again. In Imax, with my mom (who will once again bemoan not naming me Galadriel, which she does nearly every time we see a Tolkien movie) and it will be glorious.
Plus…. I love Ed Sheeran’s song!
Wait, Arwen is not a real character in the books?!?! This is BLOWING MY MIND.
No, she is of course, but Jackson basically had her do some stuff a couple other characters were supposed to do and introduced the “she will die unless Sauron is defeated” storyline for reasons I still don’t understand, which annoyed some fans. Having her do the work of Glorfindel was definitely a good move though.
My guess is his reasoning was partly “I need to have another lady doing stuff in this movie just to try to balance shit out” and partly “there are already too damn many characters to keep track of, I can’t go adding yet ANOTHER new person”.
She had zero lines in the book itself – her only appearance is unattainable, from a distance, at a dinner. The Appendix has a LOT more about their relationship, so they lifted a lot of that storyline and put it into LotR.
She has slightly less of a character in the books than Gandalf’s horse. She appears, but only as a symbol/object and the appendices only build on that in a very limited way.
Oh, man, I’m sorry, but I was crying I was laughing so hard at that song. It had lyrics! And the lyrics were SO on the nose! There was a line about a village at the bottom of a mountain burning AND THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED IN THE STORY! I guess I just think that kind of “Sit down and let me sing you a tale of dwarves and elves and dragons” song – at least done in such a modern pop style – seemed so out of place. Like, tonally it didn’t fit the movie at all and it took me right out of my Happy Hobbit Place.
I feel like Peter Jackson’s heart is in the right place on the “Maybe a lady? Could do some stuff?” front…but maybe instead of adding one to The Hobbit he could have just adapted a book that had women in it in the first place?
I love this plan! I’m now going to spend my day coming up with movie ideas based on books to pitch to Peter Jackson.
Mists of Avaloooooooooon
Ugh. I loved that book as a teenager and tried re-reading it again not that long ago and I hated ALL THE CHARACTERS. They were all just giant pains in the ass. I don’t know what the hell happened.
This has happened to me numerous times when re-reading works I lurved as a teenager. Wuthering Heights, Romeo and Juliet, Catcher in the Rye…I think we just grew up and got over ourselves (and them).
He promised me Temeraire! He PROMISED! (He bought the rights)
Ooh, this I want.
Didn’t he do that with “The Lovely Bones”? How did that turn out? (Actually asking! I didn’t see it)
BALIN WAS MY FAVORITE TOO OMG.
I had a flash in the pan crush on Thorin (duuhhhh, and I was also like 11) but I always knew deep down, Balin was the Best Dwarf.
I was horrendously bored (and made the mistake of taking in coffee, so also uncomfy and needing a wee) for the second half of the first Hobbit film, so this one is waiting for DVD. It’s a shame – they did such a good job on the actual massive trilogy, milking this tiny book for the same is just ruining it a bit.
Mmm, Thorin and FiliKili…
I was excited about The Hobbit, even as two movies, before they decided it was going to be three movies, and now I can’t even watch one because who has that kind of time, you know? I can’t commit to like 9 hours of movie-watching. Even on DVD it’s seeming kind of daunting.
I do spend evenings (especially in winter when I want to get the horse ridden and get back home to the sofa as quickly as possible) half-paying-attention to a box set or a movie while I also arse about on the internet or read or play with the cats or whatever, so I’m quite happy with movies that can take up most of the evening and be multitasked with!
Yeah, I want to see these movies, but after hearing everyone complain about how long they are, it’ll definitely have to wait for DVD so I can take breaks. I almost peed myself in the theater during the much-maligned 5 fakeout endings of Return of the King.
This is wonderful and I agree with all of it. “some other Victorian euphemism for ’10/10 would bang'” had me chortling so loudly that my coworker complained until I informed him (it is always a him) that it was a LOTR-themed chortle and he could stuff it.
#thorin is so hot always
YES, and also INFINITY YES to #16. Eh, I’m diggin the romance even though intellectually I know it’s stupid, so stupid. I do like that Kili was In Distress all the time. WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON WITH ORLANDO BLOOM’S FACE
17. There has never, in all the world, not even in Homeland, been a dumber plan to defeat a dragon than showering him with molten gold.
FIRE CANNOT KILL A DRAGON YOU DINGUSES
LOL RITE also loved how the gold was momentarily a giant statue of a dwarf like #SYMBOLISM
And then Smaug was like “seriously? Bye.”
And yeah Legolas is looking a little rough. He needs to get on Thranduil’s Botox plan.
I did kind of wish he’d stay a cool golden dragon because cool golden dragon
re: Legolas–I just spent the whole time like “no amount of makeup and CGI can make him look the same as he did ten plus years ago.” He is still handsome, just not….quite so perf.
I decided to settle this in my mind like so: Legolas puffyface is a manifestation of his spoiled youth as the princely son of the bitchiest elf-king in Middle Earth. His shapely elfbones show up in LOTR because he’s been hanging out in Rivendell, where Galadriel sets the tone for elfly poise.
I actually really approve of this decision and will now adopt it for my own Legolas-face-fix.
Plus all of that running he had to do while tracking kidnapped hobbits and living off waybread?
also he had weird blowy eyes. SO GLOWY.
HIS EYES RIGHT. They were definitely brown in the trilogy, weren’t they?
He wore blue contacts for LOTR.
Heavenly Creatures!!! My two weird friends and I organized a screening of it at our high school, and obviously everyone looked at us funny after that. I would say that the place it occupies in my heart has now been taken by Birth as the deeply disturbing movie you have to like in order to understand me, and I will definitely not be seeing The Hobbit, but if there was a 3D screening of Heavenly Creatures, I would be there with bells on!
“if Peter Jackson wanted to appeal to women, he should have re-released Heavenly Creatures in IMAX 3D HFR and left The Hobbit intact.” YES.
I hate to admit it but I would sideline my (currently not so ass-kicking) career for Thorin/Richard Armitage. The man gives me the vapors. For any of y’all who would like to partake of his non-dwarfy hotness, watch North and South or MI-5 (aka Spooks) on Netflix.
North and South occupied so much of my time in 9th grade.
I didn’t see it till I was an adult, but wow. So sternness. Much brood. Wow.
That part where he’s like, Look back. All the feels. I can’t even.
LOOK BACK AT MEEEE
That book is also hilarious(ly great).
You know, he’s hot (and all the wind machines in Middle Earth agree with me) but I liked Bard a little better.
Bard can get it.
10/10 would hit that
The wind machines! There were a couple scenes that must have been almost embarrassing to film. Here, stand in front of this green screen and look as much like Washington Crossing the Potomac as you can. (Or whatever cultural artifact they use in the other colonies.)
It was worse in the last movie, where we had not only blowing hair in the wind next to billowing fire (that somehow did not catch his magnificent beard ablaze) but also he’s stomping majestically IN SLOW MOTION.
And snow. It was snow-sleeting when I went to see the movie but all that nasty frozen fluff would have looked majestic if it had some flowing dwarflocks to fall upon!
Bard is a little too Mary Sue in character right now but he is very handsome, and perhaps his piratical facial grooming hints at saucy depths yet to be revealed.
Oh, I’m all about the handsome, less about the character. I liked the character, even unrelentingly grim as he was (which I guess he sort of deserves since oily henchman is such a bitch to him all the time) but mainly I was like, “We-he-heeeellllo to you, sailor!”
BARD craggy brooding dark-haired badass heirs-in-exile yessssss…
Oh, Lucas, you bad man… :swoon:
LOOK BACK. LOOK BACK AT ME. *swoons*
I know. I KNOW. I would look back and NEVER STOP LOOKING JOHN THORNTON
Oh my god Noelle Stevenson’s comment made me nearly spit out my toast (reading Toast while Toasting yaaaas). Seriously though this list is so good, Nicole, you summed up basically all my thoughts perfectly. Except also: BARD IS HELLA CUTE, WOW
Don’t you think Bard looks just like Orlando Bloom in Pirates, though? They have the same pattern of facial hair and everything!
I did not find him nearly Grim enough and would’ve preferred Denzel Washington in the role.*
*True of most roles.
Not seeing a problem with him looking like Will Turner, though I would also like more Denzel in all the things
Denzel would have been ON POINT.
SO GRIM
I started to wonder if they’d just had Orlando Bloom play both roles and hoped that with all the CGI and make-up on Legolas’ face no one would notice.
Yeah, I kind of think it was a “budget cuts on stunt doubles” thing.
YES. I said this to my mom after seeing it yesterday and she looked at me like I was crazy and said “he did not.” So I’m glad you think he looked like him too. I was wondering for a sec if Orlando was playing two roles because why not.
How in the hell did Tauriel even find time to fall in love with Kili? It was some magic love-at-first-glance bullshit, and I’ll suspend my belief for magic rings and dragons and monstrous werewolves but I’ll be damned if I believe that that romance would spring from the ether.
Yeah I feel this way too. Though I also kind of got the vibe she was super lonely and living in this really socially stratified society, which we kind of got a hint of when she talks with Thranduil, and Kili is just this new, interesting person who talks to her with familiarity and friendliness, which she hasn’t had in a long-ass time.
Wow I thought about this more than I was aware of! Though I still don’t really buy it.
Yeah, I don’t buy it as a happy-ending-type romance. I agree with your assessment of their connection though, and I thought it was executed pretty well thematically, even if the glowy healing part was suuuuper cheesy. What I liked was that they’re obviously coming to the world with different experiences, but that they learned about each other and gained respect for those differences. I read their scenes as more of a comradeship/bash buddies thing, with romance in the future (you know, if they weren’t going to like, die heroically in battle, and if Thranduil weren’t going to be a cockblocker). I mean, Kili says “do you think she could have loved me”. Obviously he has a crush, because hello, badass elf lady who is also gorgeous, but their connection was borne from mutual respect and enjoyment of stabbing things.
Plus, I don’t agree with the bashing of PJ for having Tauriel choose to heal Kili. I mean, she just saw this gross orc dude gleefully talk about how the “young archer dwarf” is going to die painfully from poison. As she says to Legolas, the evil grows with each victory. Kili’s death would most definitely be a victory for darkness, and so she goes to fight that battle. That’s not “feelings getting the better of her”, that’s going to save someone she had grown to like as a person, like Boromir or Legolas would have done for Aragorn, and she STILL got to kick some orc ass on the way. Now, it would have been cool to have Legolas do the healing and Tauriel stand guard, or for Pete’s sake cast elf sisters, or a female lieutenant, so you can at least pass the Bechdel test, but overall, I liked Tauriel the character and how she moved in the story.
yes I agree. And I did like the little bit about whichever dwarf it was (there are so many dwarves sorry I can’t remember who each one is!) was all jazzed to see elf healing in person and how privileged they were to witness it, so at least it felt like her having a skill, you know?
Exactly. Maybe it’s like waterbending, where not all elves are healers and you really have to study it. I actually don’t remember that part in the movie; it sounds like something Gimli or a hobbit would say. I would have said Balin if I didn’t know he went to confront Smaug. It was probably Bofur (with the funny hat!), who got the kingsfoil. I know it was Kili, Fili, Bofur, and one other (god, I can’t remember either) that stayed back in Laketown.
Yeah, it was just a small line but it stood out at me for some reason. Maybe because it did make me think that it wasn’t something inherent to elves but something that she had to learn how to do? It might have been Bofur because it wasn’t Fili, as it was being said to Fili I think (in the sense of ‘wow, this is a special thing you just witnessed kid, appreciate it).
It was Oin, who has already been established as the chief healer for the group. While it’s logical for him to have stayed behind with the injured Kili, I think I’m going to have to watch the movie again to see whether there’s any indication of this before we see them in Bard’s house; I thought it was just Kili (ordered to stay behind), Fili (staying with him out of brotherly loyalty), and Bofur (who missed the boat) until then.
There was – right after Fili said he was staying, Oin said something to the effect of, “My place is here, lad.” meaning healing Kili.
Also “I stay with my patient,” or something along those lines. He takes being team medic seriously.
I have no intention of subjecting myself to any of these Hobbitical heresies, but I think “be lesbians with” is an excellent expression that I will appropriate forthwith. E.g., “I mostly fuck men, but I would be lesbians with Monica Bellucci.” Thank you Noelle Stevenson!
RALPH BAKSHI ANIMATED VERSION OF THE HOBBIT FOREVERRRR http://en.gloria.tv/?media=352980
I feel unworthy to correct you, but The Hobbit was Rankin/Bass rather than Ralph Bakshi. Rankin/Bass also did the Last Unicorn, the Return of the King, and a bunch of those animated holiday shows (Frosty, Rudolph, etc). The animators involved in The Hobbit went on to form Studio Ghibli. Ralph Bakshi made the Lord of the Rings with the unusual hybrid live action/animation (which stopped part-way into The Two Towers), as well as other adult-oriented cartoons.
But the Rankin/Bass version of the Hobbit is great, and I show it to my kids all the time.
My plan to get blasted on sake before watching this movie tomorrow is sounding better and better.
Also Ginger Haze 5-EVA.
I saw it drunk because after being spiritually CRUSHED after the first one, I knew I needed some bolstering. However (as mentioned), this is a long-ass movie and you *will* sober up before it ends. Learn from the mistakes of others. BRING A FLASK.
I CAN DO THAT.
1. Water bottle of booze
2. Largest movie theater soda available
3. Dump out half of 2
4. Replace with 1
5. Enjoy your film
Attempt to not miss too much while going to the bathroom every 40 minutes.
NO SYSTEM IS PERFECT
6. Snooze by hour 2
Is this a feature or a bug?
I don’t know anything about any of these things, but I just wanted to express my goodwill towards Evangeline Lilly for being one of the few Lost actors still working post-Lost!
ALSO for being on the receiving end of so much hatred during Lost (SHUT UP, LITERALLY ALL THE CHARACTERS ON THAT SHOW WERE THE WORST)
(ALL OF THEM)
Wait, what? A TON of them are working.
I mostly mean “Big Budget Things!” I mean, I love Daniel Dae Kim, but Hawaii 5-0 is not really the blockbuster of the year.
Ah, fair enough! It is mostly TV work for them. Once Upon a Time is basically a Lost reunion.
OH MY GOSH, you guys. So a month ago I had a fit of nostalgia and read the LOTR books and watched the extended movies and I am on board the Tolkien train again. I watched the behind the scenes videos. I have delved into the fanfiction, which I feel a little weird about, ten years too late.
Why, in all their production videos, does the crew seem to put so much though into the movies, yet the scripts are so bad?
Also I though it was Legolas and Tauriel that were supposed to have a thing. Jesus, Legolas is why I though I was straight when I was twelve. Although he is basically a lesbian. I want him to be lesbians with Tauriel.
What if Aragorn was a soft butch. What then.
i nominate you to be in charge.
I second this nomination.
I’ve just spent the majority of a VERY SLOW week at work diving deep into the tiny niches of the LOTR corner of Wikipedia. Very satisfying actually. Did you know that Aragorn is 87 years old when he meets the hobbits in Bree for the first time and sets out with the Fellowship? MIND. BLOWN.
Yes, he is one of the dunedain, the long-lived kings of Numenor, an island realm between Middle Earth and the West, that was founded by Elros, Elrond’s twin brother millennia earlier.
So basically Arwen is Aragorn’s first cousin, eighty-zillion times removed.
(Oh my lord, I am such a nerd, I could go on about this crap all day.)
YOU’RE a nerd? I tried giving myself an Elvish translation of my name in college. I was old enough to kno wbetter.
AHAHAHA I CAN’T EVEN DEAL WITH THIS WHOLE THING BECAUSE ‘AT NIGHT ALL CATS ARE GREY’
amazing
I love Tauriel. I was ready to be all “ew romance” until I realized Kili was the damsel in distress and then I just giggled quietly for the five hours of the film
I’d pick up Bofur at a bar. #noregretz #allcatsgrey
BOFUR FOREVER. He’d show you a good time.
Bofur is a total babe, A+
BOFUR MY LOVE
Thank you – THANK YOU. Someone had to say it. Bofur is also on The List.
And I’m not gonna judge anyone for whom Dwalin hefts their hammer, if you get my drift.
I also don’t think Balin is that weird. I don’t find him sexy, but he’s a kindly grandfather, wtf.
OMG DWALIN!!!!!! He’s just a slab of annoyed masculinity that I would like to take a nap on.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH SCREAMING FOREVER AT DWALIN
AND THIS DESCRIPTION OF HIM
CAN I JUST
nap on him
FACT: Bofur looks like George Harrison. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thu…
Number 1) brings up a good point. Can Dwarves make babies with other races? We know Maia & Elves can (Melian + Thingol = Luthien) and we know Elves & Humans can (Tuor+ Idril = Earendil), but can Dwarves mate with Elves or Humans? I am writing some Legolas/Gimli slash/fic presupposing that Gimli was actually a lady-dwarf in disguise and this kind of information is pretty crucial for me to stick the landing.
I don’t think there’s any textual source that can clarify it. So feel free to imagine away. Personally, I think yes, Dwarves and humans not only can interbreed, they have done so frequently. After all Dwarves are mortal, like Humans.
However, in my house, Legolas and Gimli are a gay couple, and that’s that. In fact, they kind of represent the sort of early 20th-century gay English couple that Tolkien might be familiar with: Inseparable, but oh, soooo discreet.
OMG YES, DWARVES + HUMANS = HOBBITS. You have solved the great mystery of our time!
Hmm, not to delve too deep, but they were created under rather different circumstances– elves and men being the children of Illuvator and dwarves being the secret children of one of the Vala. Maia are gods, so I would bet they could pretty much do whatever (whoever), Zeus style.
Also, Gimli and Legolas= gay couple, no doubt.
Yes, best we not wake the Balrog of Ardan sexual compatibility! Otherwise I will start thinking about Ent Sex.
But you’re right, Dwarves were created by Aule not Illuvatar, so they may function differently (Aule also mentored Sauron AND Saruman, so his judgement is suspect, and I assume he was not particularly good at fashioning genitalia, which is why Dwarves rarely marry and have kids).
I haven’t read the books since middle school, so I remember nothing, hence all concerns for ‘book purity’ went out the window. Thranduil was so fabulously dickish though, and by Lee Pace’s sheer fierceness alone the movies get a pass.
Same here. I think that was probably the best way to watch the movie.
I can’t have been the only one rooting for him to dispatch that captive orc.
Marc Almond (former singer of Soft Cell) said on Twitter that one of the reasons the Hobbit was great was the “fabulously camp Elf King” and I agree with him. More fabulously camp Elf King!
I got into LotR hardcore as a teenager, but I don’t really have much emotional connection to the Hobbit (it was boring, and so was the Silmarillion COME AT ME) so it doesn’t bother me that Jackson is screwing around with it. I do wish he’d screw around with it better, though, as his added scenes are pretty weak. I didn’t mind Tauriel, but I would have preferred if they had just made Bard female. I liked it, though, and thought it was better than the first one. That might be mainly for the Bilbo/Smaug scenes, which were amazing.
All of my hardcore love for LotR did not help me get through The Silmarillion. THERE I SAID IT.
I found the Silmarillion a lot easier to get through when I realized it was more like an encyclopedia of mythology than a novel or proper story (NB this strategy only works if you’re the kind of person who reads mythology encyclopedias for fun.)
The Mary Sue has a really good piece here pointing out that the dwarves themselves had no distinct personalities until they were brought to the screen and each given really distinct looks and mannerisms and personalities, which is absolutely a form of character invention/insertion where there was none before. 30 more Tauriels please. Re-insert Arwen into the battle at Helm’s Deep. Kili is a lady. GIVE ME ALL OF IT.
ALSO, I LOVED THIS MOVIE. I don’t think Tauriel is in lesbians with Kili, but just- god, he’s like, not one of these blond assholes she works for, and he’s kind of stupidly funny and adorable, why not check out how he’s doing after that crazy barrel escape while you’re also scouting to see if you can find any news about this upcoming epic battle coming up that’s threatening your homeland? Oh, Kili is dying from an arrow wound and you know what would help because you had to take an elf first aid thing as part of your job in the Mirkwood Guard? She can do more than one thing at a time!
can we talk about how Lee Pace’s Thranduil was the most beautiful bitchy camp nightmare of our collective consciousness. like, as a species.
PIEMAKER ELF KING
THAT CROWN.
Lady, we didn’t see the movie together (ALTHOUGH WE SHOULD HAVE) but this was my primary takeaway! I want to be Thranduil for all of my next costume parties. I want to swish around in a kimono and have enormously long lashes and always leave my mouth open, just a little, to let the steam of my contempt escape when I must speak to my inferiors. I want to roll my eyes exquisitely when burdened with the incompetence of others.
Smaug was a fantastic beast, the whole movie raced along and made 2 and a half hours seem short to me, but my kingdom for Thranduil.
always leave my mouth open, just a little, to let the steam of my contempt escape when I must speak to my inferiors. I want to roll my eyes exquisitely when burdened with the incompetence of others.
i try and live my life according to these, the commandments of thranduil
i really need to find/make a giant autumnal crown of disdain and majesty
WHOLE MOVIE OF THRANDUIL PLEASE THANK YOU
HIS FABULOUSNESS, THE EVIL QUEEN THRANDUIL.
…also it’s now my headcanon that Legolas grew up with two dads, and it was assiduously Never Mentioned when he visited other kingdoms, and he’s always slightly had a complex about it. Thus the Tauriel-crush, and “ugh, I’m STRAIGHT, Dad!” attitude that he had throughout.
“Oh, Kili is dying from an arrow wound and you know what would help because you had to take an elf first aid thing as part of your job in the Mirkwood Guard? She can do more than one thing at a time!”
YES. YES, PLEASE LET US BE FRIENDS. I am honestly (and I’m sorry that this is going to sound dickish but I guess maybe it is) so OVER people being like, “Oh, sure, just abandon your ass-kicking to help someone.” like it’s a BAD THING. I thought Legolas was a fucking dick for leaving Kili to basically die, and I thought it was awesome that she had the depth of character to be able to say to herself, “I bet I could do something here that was useful, helpful and good.” and then Bofur shows up with Kingsfoil (“Kingsfoil? Aye, it’s a weed!”) and she’s like, “DING DING DING, here’s a sign! I should help!”
Sorry, I have a lot of feelings here.
a) KINGSFOIL AYE IT’S A WEED!!!!
b) Yeah! It’s the belief in the Strong Female Character where to be a Strong she can’t exercise a full range of emotions. I disagreeeeeee. Hell yeah Tauriel can stick some kingsfoil into Kili and see what happens!
c) going all ~aglow~ is absolutely a Peter Jackson/Weta thing where elves in the LOTR trilogy apparently need the assistance of sighing mandorlas to get any of their healing bullshit done. IT’S NOT TAURIEL’S LOVE FOR KILI, IT’S A DIRECTOR’S INABILITY TO TRUST THAT HIS ACTORS KNOW HOW TO ACT.
oh look it’s feelings o’clock
a) I just realized I miss Sam Gamgee and must watch the LotR movies again posthaste.
b) Yes! It wasn’t weakness. Compassion isn’t a weakness, and I watched her be conflicted about the decision. It wasn’t her just tossing off her duty at the first good looking manny to walk by her. This seemed to be her deciding this was the Right Thing to do, and it fits with the elf persona.
c) Weta and PJ both seem to really luuuurve effects for things like that. I liked it a lot for Galadriel’s “bitch I could be badass overlord of it all” moment, but that was less of a glow and more of what I imagine lightning looks like if it’s slowed way down and you’re up close.
(I’m coming back a week later to tell you that I put in LotR to start watching them again yesterday.)
YESSSSSSSSS
i, as a person who strong-armed my mom into seeing the hobbit this afternoon after spending two days watching the LOTR trilogy with our whole family, support this. take it as you will?!?!? ’tis the season for not leaving the house and becoming really invested in the struggles of a fictional planet.
I still have to take my mom to see it, but to be fair, she’s not at all in need of strong-arming. She’s dying to see it, she loves them all unabashedly and since she desperately wanted to name me Galadriel when I was born I’m pretty sure she’s not just humoring me.
SERIOUSLY. And Tauriel knows that orcs are a blight on the earth, and that Kili dying because of them would be a victory for evil, so she adapts and fights the battle on that front. Why is this so difficult to understand? Also, come on, Legolas, don’t let your Dwarf Racist Party Dad (TM gingerhaze/Noelle) get to you! Everyone matters, even when you live for millennia.
And yeah- awesome, wonderful Bofur. His heartbreaking conversation with Bilbo pre-goblins KILLED ME last movie. WITH A SPOON OF FEELS. Here, I think he knew its healing properties, as evidenced by his horror that they were feeding it to pigs, but he probably didn’t know elvish chanting to go with it, so it’s probably for the best that Tauriel was there.
“blond assholes” omg omg I am dying of laughter
Oh, Kili is dying from an arrow wound and you know what would help because you had to take an elf first aid thing as part of your job in the Mirkwood Guard? She can do more than one thing at a time!
omg, agree with this SO HARD. Like, she just heard this nasty orc dude talk about how the “young archer” that she just made buddies with is going to die horribly from poison. She just told Legolas how she views the orcs- as blights upon the earth, and each victory they have causes evil to grow. Kili’s death would have been such a victory, so she goes to fight a battle on that front. Because he’s her FRIEND (although I wouldn’t complain if they were lesbians together, you go Noelle!), just like Legolas would do for Aragorn. I think it made total sense, even if the glowy healing bit was suuuuper cheesy. I wouldn’t complain if he cast maybe a couple more female characters, so one lady isn’t stuck being all things, or if maybe Legolas did the healing while Tauriel fought off orcs, but overall I was pretty satisfied.
Hey The Toast. Please keep doing these fandom impressions, as they make me very happy. These are important issues to discuss!
The “love triangle” was just excruciating. Kili was a character and Tauriel was a character but I just had to assume Orlando Bloom was standing somewhere behind those contact lenses. “This is my romance stare! It is also my annoyed stare and my combat stare and my ‘you made me bleed my own blood’ stare!”
But I think the worst was the amount of dragon stuff. I liked the dragon and I get that they wanted to add some spectacle, but you can only have a bunch of dwarfs actively antagonizing a dragon with nobody dying or even getting injured for so long before you stop being impressed by the dragon.
MORE SPIDERS NEXT TIME
NO ONE MAKES ME BLEED MY OWN BLOOD
To paraphrase the i09’s review: It’s a terrible movie that I enjoyed tremendously.
Also:
LEE PACE SO HAMMY. His Thranduil was such a bitch and I absolutely LOVED it.
Thranduil is just LIFEGIVING and that gif is perfect. And I totally agree with that i09 reviewer, spot on.
*right-click-fucking-save* on that gif, yo.
Haven’t seen the movie yet, but this list is great. Prooooobably the best/most important IRL takeaway, though, is that Nicole follows Noelle Stevenson on twitter, A+. Also now when I see the movie, I’m only going to imagine Kili as Tauriel’s lesbian dwarf buddy. THANKS FOR THAT, RAD LADIES OF THE INTERNET.
Clearly this thread is just going to occupy my whole day. #coolwithit
oh wait also, how are we neglecting #8? They could have cut out like, half the orc fighting and showed the Elf party, which I DESPERATELY wanted to see. Drunk hillbilly elves with their camp king! Yes please!
I’m hoping there’s elf partying in the extended edition, just like BOFUR’S SONG was saved for the extended edition of the first one. ohhhhh my god bofur i have such a bofur problem it’s like a terminal case of BOFUR up in here
BOOOFUUUUUR
Ohhhh yeah. I definitely feel ya. I love how Bofur jumps from a gleeful “Oh, ‘e’ll roast yer face off, ‘e will” to a watery “I do wish you the best, Bilbo” after Bilbo’s all, “get off my case, noisy homeless dwarves!” ALL THE TEARS. He and Balin definitely get all the compassion awards.
ESPECIALLY WITH THRANDUIL. It would have been SO much fun to see.
there was supposed to be a party! I want an elf party!
Oh, I totally forgot about that. Elf drunken revelries would have been awesome. Plus, you just KNOW Kili would have totally boogied up on an elf man thinking he was a lady, then- bam! Fires out. (That bit in the extended edition of the first movie was GOLD.) *sigh* I guess they ran out of money for drunken elf revelry, kind of like the Harry Potter movie ran out of money (it seemed to me) in the Goblet of Fire, so they had shrubberies instead of a kick-ass Sphinx.
I also think it would have highlighted the differences between these elves and the High Elves of the West better. I mean, you know the Wood-elves are way closer to the sídhe or Tuatha Dé Danann of old Irish legends, that live under hills and steal people for like, 500 years until they get bored with them. Alien, god-like creatures with absolutely no concept of human morality. You don’t tell them your name, you don’t eat their food, and you sure as hell don’t start dancing to their music, because they would eat elven popcorn and laugh at you until your legs were bloody stumps. Jareth was peanuts compared with those guys.
can I just love you for your Labyrinth reference? kthnxbai.
(soooooo true about the Mirkwood elves, though. Thranduil bitch-face was all we got to see of the difference here, and a little more….malicious naughtiness, would have be nice.)
Yay Labyrinth! *high-fives*
I would have loved to see malicious naughtiness (hopefully in the extended edition!), but the funny thing is that Tolkien tries to maintain “elves they were and remain, and that is Good People.” Not really, dude. And this after he calls them less wise and more dangerous!
OH MY GOD YES! Mmmmmmmm your references to the sidhe are making me all *wiggly*.
I will be seeing this over Christmas break, and I will be getting a large popcorn. Can anyone recommend a good time during the movie to leave for 5 minutes and get a popcorn refill? I so rarely get to take advantage of the free refills, this is my chance!
Burnsalot Goldyflaps was good and all, particularly for showing off Martin Freeman’s incredible acting, but Thranduil was my favourite part -Lee Pace chewing on the scenery, bitching out everyone who stood still long enough, and looking remarkably like Jareth the Goblin King.
I realise that the heroes must face challenges and setbacks but it’s starting to look like while Thorin is very good at brooding nobly, when it comes to Plans he is thick as pigshit.
Legolas’s face! Legolas’s glassy stare that substitutes for emotion! Legolas’s pretty pirouette in the barrel fight scene! I don’t know if he even had lines, I was too busy laughing hysterically every time he came on screen.
I agree with meanchelled above re: Tauriel. Why the hell shouldn’t she strike out in traditional dissatisfied hero style, why should she be the sticking point in a movie that strays so far from the source material, what’s so terrible about going “oops the nice one is dying that’s a shame, I can actually help”? Kili still strikes me as a teenager over his head and seeing what he can get away with, and I’m completely unconvinced that either Legolas or Tauriel necessarily feel romantically about anyone, so that’s fine, though it’s a little patronising that they felt the need to stick in a ~dramatic love triangle~ in the first place. WHY WAS HIS HEAD IN THE WALNUTS THOUGH. WHY.
Needs more songs. Always more songs. In everything.
I was a little confused about the walnuts. Like, ok, the table is a little hard for trying to not die on, but really? Someone thought, “Walnuts! That’s a puffy place to cradle one’s head!”?
I think that Fili and Kili are, by dwarfish standards, just barely past teenagers, and Tauriel was pretty, so that all fit for me. I’m not sure she had romantic feelings for him – “quite tall” isn’t “I want to have his bearded babies”. It’s more “I’d pull that.”
I most definitely snorted loudly at that pirouette.
HA walnuts. I noticed that too. I would think walnuts would be super expensive, with the town’s money drying up and having to import them in.
I also agree about Tauriel, and will probably have a huge treatise about it in a separate comment, but Tauriel and Kili strike me as more similar to Eowyn and Merry, than Aragorn and Arwen. I mean, they both like the night sky and stabbing things, they’re not freakin’ soulmates. It does seem a bit like the editing (and magnificent bastard Thranduil) is trying to push the love triangle, while the actors are like “nope, no thanks”. Especially with the horrid treatment of the glowy healing scene, guh. I think it’s way more effective if he sees a dreamlike, muted Tauriel, and sort of hears her elvish chanting from far away, rather than Arwen-o-vision.
And definitely more songs. Also, did anyone hear the awesome “far over the misty mountains cold” leitmotif thing from the first movie? Because I didn’t, and would very much have liked to hear some sort of ethereal instrumental to that effect as they were coming into the Lonely Mountain.
I missed that Misty Mountains song terribly and immediately went to listen to it upon getting home. Wish that had been the credits music instead; the actual one felt like such a change of pace.
Laughing about the walnut pillow is what got me through that part of the movie, so don’t knock it.
Can we talk about how ridiculous that barrel fighting scene was? I am all about bows and arrows and elves and shit, but c’mon Peter J.
Pro tip: take a shot every time Legolas looks surprised and angry at the same time. It’s his only look.
I’m still not sure whether it was meant to be ridiculous or not. I laughed till I cried and wheezed and choked, but what if it was meant to be dramatic?
Lee Pace as Thranduil was an actual manga drawing.
For me, this movie hit the sweet spot of being captivating/possessing lots of sets I want to live in (the 3D/IMAX/HFR is great because I can just pretend I am IN MIDDLE EARTH) and also having just enough dumb shit to be amusing. Every battle scene was basically a Rube Goldberg contraption.
I liked many things about Tauriel. Firstly, I love that Tauriel’s youth and outlook highlights the one big weakness of elves, and immortality in general- when you’ve been on the earth for a few millenia, you forget how to care about things. I mean, freakin’ Thranduil- for all his knowledge and magnificen(t bastardness)ce, can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak. Maybe his knowledge of Sauron gives him more reason to be afraid. Maybe that’s part of the commentary on why our lives burn cruel and blind and short, but as beautiful and fiery as we can make them, while elves just become obsolete. Thrandy can probably understand a bee buzzing from miles away, but has forgotten that someone like a hobbit can actually change the course of history (not that that’s happened yet, but the point still stands). It makes him an interesting character, that he’s powerful (and faaaabulous) as all hell but essentially a coward. That’s always been my issue with elves- they’re wise and gorgeous and all, but they never do things. At the end of Return of the King, Elrond and Galadriel could still totally outwit and outfight anyone who comes at them without even getting dirty, but they’re bored. They just give up. (Yes, major oversimplification, and I still need to read the Silmarillion, but still. Silly elves.)
And secondly, I’m agreeing with quite a few people upthread, but I love this list except for the slight Tauriel bashing. Her decision to heal Kili is tied pretty well into her earlier convo with Legolas about the growing evil the orcs represent. Plus Tauriel’s just seen this gross orc dude chuckling about killing the “young archer”, slowly and painfully. Thus, healing Kili will prevent a victory for the darkness, and he happens to be someone she has a friendly connection with, and so she does. And even then, I see their friendship as more akin to Eowyn and Merry than Aragorn and Arwen- bash buddies with common shoulder chips about how they’re viewed in their respective cultures, rather than omgsoulmates. I loved how that connection was built organically from being willing to learn each other’s differences, and it’s a nice thematic precursor to Legolas and Gimli’s relationship.
I think many peoples’ issues with Tauriel could be solved by creating more female characters- if you’re going to go off book, go big or go home, Jackson. That way Tauriel isn’t stuck being the resident badass as well as political mastermind AND healy glowy ethereal elf lady. Not that she can’t be, but I would definitely have loved a female lieutenant, or maybe a prissy elf sister, to at least pass the Bechdel test. Bard’s daughters help a bit, but they’re still kids, and they probably won’t be the ones to help Bard with that arrow.
Uuuuggghhh yes to everything here. YES. also, man, what I would have given for them to cast someone as Thorin’s sister/Fili and Kili’s mother, Dis. I WANT TO SEE WHO THE DWARF WOMEN OF THE DIASPORA LOOK TO, DAMMIT.
Aw man, I totally forgot about the dwarves. They could have totally showed Baby!Gimli and his mom! Or had Kili flashback to his mother telling him to “come back, you little brat”, even as she teared up- which would make the future movies EVEN MORE HEARTBREAKING. I loved the Prancing Pony scene, but you could have shown the dwarves saying bye to their families in their broke-ass settlement, or something.
Interestingly, I think I saw a lot of dresses among the dried-up corpses in the Lonely Mountain. I think that’s what they were? They looked like those ribbon-y medieval bodices, so thanks for the dead dwarf women, I guess…? Damn, kids. Grim stuff.
This is spot on. And I think The Silmarillion backs you up. It’s set back in the First Age (about 6,000 years and more before The Hobbit) when the Elves were relatively young and were, yeah, pretty active– they created amazing stuff, rebelled against the gods, built cool kingdoms (Gondolin! Doriath!), warred against Morgoth, and even each other. Whereas, as you say, by the time LOTR and The Hobbit roles around, the Elves are mostly checked out. I think there’s even a line in Tolkien somewhere where he talks about how Elves get weary of life and eventually turn invisible.
YESSS THANK YOU FOR #14 MODIFYING #13. (because yes, Thorin is worth briefly side-lining for, then sweeping him up in the cavalcade of fabulousness you have going on.)
and #1 is how I’ve felt since the first movie…..I walked out of the theater, going, “but, but, but, I just want to FIX him!” #allllltheunhealthyfeelings
Thranduil can be the Evil Queen of my Heart any day. (it looks like the extended version with have Lee Pace CAPE-SWOOSHING. CAPE. SWOOSHING. I don’t think my display an handle that much fabulous.)
Tauriel was the bomb, because she got to be badass AND a vulnerable girl with feelings, and she acted on them the way a normal person (and not an emotionally repressed elf) would. I like how normal she is. It’s like they blended Arwen *and* Eowyn, which gives a *whiff* of Mary-Sue, but nothing I couldn’t overcome.
A montage of Lee Pace’s Thranduil cape swooshing set to the strains of David Bowie’s Modern Love! This is what I truly want for Xmas!
I think my favorite part was when *spoiler* Orlando Bloom has a nose bleed and essentially makes a face like, “Nobody makes me bleed my own blood.” I was like, do elves not bleed? What am I seeing here? I could care less about BC because meh, no thanks, but I do love Gingerhaze’s idea about a lesbian romance. Also, Balin had me tearing up so much, poor baby. Overall though, the Durins are my favorite and I am attracted to them, no shame.
Embarrassing true story: I thought Bard (Luke Evans) was Orlando Bloom when I saw the trailers and I was all like: ‘What have they done to Legolas!? He’s not even blond anymore!’
Anyway….
This thread needs more Beorn. I was never more disappointed. Bear-mode is my preferred physique for men – so it was pretty sad that Beorn was some kind of weird tragic giant wolf thing (how did that shackle even stay on when he transmogrified?). Why did they not do the hilarious ‘dwarves-arriving-one-by-one’ sequence? It would’ve been awesome.
You guys, I can’t help but return to this thread. It is the most happily dorky (and I meant that in a good completely non pejorative way) thread I have seen ever and it’s so awesome. My people!
I love Tauriel! But it didn’t stop me producing this: http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2013/12/26/85546-…
This movie was absolutely terrible. I’m not a Tolkien purist and even enjoyed the first Hobbit, but fuck me this was bad!