My Thoughts after watching The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The wait is finally at an end, yesterday I went to the theatre to see the first of what is now three hobbit films – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I’ve never read the Hobbit book but I intend to eventually. Being a big fan of the first Lord of the Rings Trilogy and fantasy films on a whole, I had very high expectations and from the first few scenes I was tremendously impressed.

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Laying the Foundations

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey overall was a good movie, not a great movie, but a decent one that is obviously meant to lay the foundations for the other two upcoming films in the series The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug next year and The Hobbit: There and Back Again in 2014.

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To me it would be wrong to compare this film with anyone from the Lord of the Rings trilogy as while set in the same world the mood and feeling of this film is very different. familiar faces, places and enemies return but we are also introduced to some new ones, some more memorable than others.

Special effects hit and miss

The CGI and special effects ranged from unbelievable in some of its implementations to being an obvious eyesore in others. The bad effects such as plastic looking characters really disconnected me from the world and reminded me many times that it wasn’t real. For example without being too much of a spoiler, the fight in the cave with the goblins came across as some kind of vintage comedy roll, not a matter of life and death while on the flip side Smaug’s early attack on the lonely mountain and surrounding areas was really an engrossing scene.

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Still a must watch

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is a must watch whether you are a fan of the books, Lord of The Rings and fantasy films or not. There is enough there to be interesting as long as before making that investment of time you understand that this will be a three film relationship.

7 thoughts on “My Thoughts after watching The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

  1. Its supposed to be comedic but the effects and the cgi never came across as fake, did you watch it in 3D?

    The comedy is because the book is a fairy tale not a Fantasy Action story. But the sort you read to kids.

    1. yup I watched in in 3D, awkward glasses and all.

      I understand the fairy tale nature of the story thats why I said it was unfair if persons compared it to the LOTR trilogy

  2. I liked it too, but was a little bit underwhelmed, maybe the obvious prehype and LOTR comparisons got to me. I suppose the storyline will build, but to be honest I did not feel the pull into the ’cause’ of the reclaiming home.

    Anyway, I look forward to the rest. Gollum was as usual my favourite maniac.

    If you want the book to read, and can promise to read it in a week, I have a nice collector’s edition can lend you.

  3. I just finished reading the book to my 7 year-old, just in time for the release of the first installment in Australia on Boxing Day. We saw it yesterday in 3-D. The boy loved the movie – he was enthralled by the book so he loved putting faces to names and visualising scenes that he had only previously imagined. As for me, I was disappointed. The spirit of the book seemed almost entirely lost as the movie, for me, departed so far from the text.

    1. as a Hollywood blockbuster it was really well done I guess. I guess that is always the risk in the mediums changing from a book to the big screen. It will be interesting to see how it stacks up after the 3 films

      1. They should therefore rename this installment of The Hobbit from “An Unexpected Journey” to “An Unexpected Story”. 🙂

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