Tomorrow is the official release date of The Hobbit (part I). Until now, I’ve been feigning mild interest in the movie, with a hint of cynicism. “How nice,” I said, when I heard the movie was being made. “I hope it doesn’t suck.”
Yes, I’ve been playing it cool…being all, “I’ll see it when the crowds die down” and “Let’s wait and see what the reviews say, because you know how it is with sequels.”
But behind this cynical facade, deep in the childlike heart I keep hidden from the world*, hope and excitement have been growing. First I heard they’re getting Howard Shore to do the music. Then the announcement was made that Martin Freeman was to play Bilbo, and I thought, hey, this thing could really be good. Who better to play Bilbo Baggins than the guy who portrayed the hapless Arthur Dent so convincingly?
But I didn’t say that out loud. At least, not in public.
My burgeoning hope faltered with the announcement that The Hobbit would be three movies instead of one. “Oh, they’re just milking it for all the dollars they can get.”
You thought it, too. Admit it.
Maybe it’s true. But as long as they do a good job, do their motivations really matter? If all three movies are great, then don’t they deserve to make a dollar or two? Aren’t you excited at the prospect of having parts II and III to look forward to, just as we all looked forward to parts II and III of The Lord of the Rings?
So now that the movie is about to be released, now that I’ve seen the previews, read the interviews, and re-watched episodes of Sherlock, I am willing to admit it: I can’t wait to see this movie. In fact, if I had prosthetic hairy feet and the right wardrobe, I would dress up like a hobbit and go to tonight’s late-night showing.
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*My own, not someone else’s that I keep in a jar on my desk.
Marie Loughin's "I WANNA BE . . ." 
we’ll be there Friday at 7 pm., reserved our seats- I am going as Galadriel and Fiona and a friend are Orcs with the blue hands!
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:31:07 +0000 To: timkimkids@hotmail.com
Awesome! Have a great time! And if you don’t like it, I don’t think I want to know 😉
I am not a movie theater fan. I’ll probably wait until all three are available on Netflix. But three? The Hobbit was the shortest of the whole LOTR series. Why split it into three? Odd. (I’d pay money to see your hobbit feet)
Some movies I just gotta see in the theater. Besides, I like the popcorn.
I read that the writers used other materials written by J.R.R. Tolkien to fill in gaps in The Hobbit, making it fit better in the grand scheme of LOTR (and coincidentally lengthening the tale into three movies). For example, I wonder if they’ll deal with what happens to Gandalf when he leaves the dwarves and Bilbo to go check out the evil sorcerer (I forget what the evil sorcerer was called in The Hobbit) that has moved into some woods somewhere. In LOTR, we find out that the evil sorcerer was Sauron.
I’m not thinking about this yet — but I promise I will.
I didn’t know they were doing three parts, either. Hmm. Interesting. I think I’m going to have to send my wife with her father (whose last movie outing was LOTR actually). With our two little ones, movies are a seldom-done thing, and I think we used our babysitting credits to see Life of Pi. Did you ever go see that one?
However, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see it. Maybe the wife and I will just have to go separately 🙂
Paul
I totally admit I’m the worst critic in the world and easily entertained, but seeing it Friday night I was thoroughly entertained. It’s a little sillier than LOTR, and doesn’t carry the world-ending weight of those movies. In my opinion, that means they did it right, because I don’t remember The Hobbit in that light.
I go to movies for entertainment, and so far Peter Jackson has done just that. Even if he is cheating a little with non-Hobbit material to stretch the series out for three movies, I trust the man to present an entertaining story. He did an amazing job with Lord of the Rings, and I was entertained with the first Hobbit movie. I can’t wait for the next two.
I saw it yesterday and didn’t want it to end. I will definitely see it a 2nd time during the holidays to catch all the details I missed.