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Film Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

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It probably comes as no surprise to you that I was super excited about the first installment in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy. I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy and am a card-carrying member of the “I know each extended movie was four hours long, but I still wish there had been more” camp. Plus I love the book of The Hobbit, and am a huge fan of the original animated version. And also — Martin Freeman! Could there be a more perfect Bilbo Baggins?

So despite all the hubbub leading up to the release — Three movies! 48 frames per second! 3D! Elijah Wood returns! — I couldn’t wait to see it.

Now, one piece of controversy I can’t weigh in on is the 48fps 3D. We saw the plain ol’ 24fps 2D version. BUT The Husband went back a week later to see the 48fps 3D with his dad, and came back telling me it was life-changing and the single awesomest thing he’s ever seen in a theater. I asked him, “what about the people who say it makes it look like obvious sets and makeup and detracts from the magic of the world?” And his response was, “I have no idea what those people are talking about, but I feel sorry for them.” So I guess that’s our official family stance. If you disagree, you have to take it up with The Husband. Who won’t engage, so really, it’s probably best if you just rage silently.

Anyway, how about the movie itself? How does it stack up to LOTR, and how closely does it follow the book? And how did Jackson stretch an only moderate-length novel into three epic films? Is it a case of gratuitous money-grubbing?

Well, honestly, as a direct comparison, if I think back to how I felt the first time I saw Fellowship of the Ring and compare it to how I felt after The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the honest truth is I liked Fellowship more. HOWEVER. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like The Hobbit. it just means the films are different — as they should be, because the stories have a vastly different feel, despite sharing a director and a fantasy world — and that I find the beginning of Frodo’s story a bit more compelling than the beginning of Bilbo’s.

But for what it is — an adaptation of the first third (ish) of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, I think it succeeds. The casting of the new characters — Bilbo in particular — was spot-on, and much like with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, believing the characters played a huge role in accepting the fantastic story. Freeman’s Bilbo, in particular, was fabulous. He completely embodied the homebody hobbit and made me root for him in spite of the fact that Bilbo (in a that often goes unnoticed) is not heroic. In the book in particular, Bilbo pretty much never voluntarily goes into battle or stands up for his companions unless it somehow serves his own self-interest. Now in the movie, this is changed a bit, and although it made me tilt my head and go, “huh, that wasn’t in the book,” I understand why film-Bilbo needed to evolve a bit more than book-Bilbo. Some things work on paper that just don’t translate to screen. But Freeman made these changes seem totally organic to the character Tolkien created, and I think they worked.

The returning cast members — most notably Ian McKellen’s Gandalf and Andy Serkis’ Gollum — easily slipped back into their old roles. Kudos to the makeup department, because they made me believe that Elijah Wood, Ian Holm, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, and Hugo Weaving hadn’t aged at all. It helps that Elijah Wood hasn’t aged since he was about 15, but that’s beside the point. And they even made Ian McKellen look younger than he did 10 years ago. I tip my hat to them. That is no small task.

Aside from Freeman, the new cast members all performed admirably. The standouts was Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, the leader of the motley crew of dwarves that Gandalf assembles. This film fleshes out Thorin’s back story a lot more thoroughly than the book does (using supplemental materials written by Tolkien), and I found it really interesting to learn about why he was the way he was. We don’t get a very in-depth a look at all the dwarves, as the film decides to highlight just a handful of them. I imagine that different dwarves will be highlighted in different films, so that by the end, we’ll know a good amount about each of them. I don’t mind this approach, as it would be really hard to get a close look at all 13 dwarves and still have anything resembling a story in just one movie.

As for the differences from the book, there was actually very little in the way of actual change. Most of the elements in the film that aren’t found in The Hobbit are chinks of back story that Tolkien himself filled in in his other writings. So they’re not changes, or additions, to the story. They’re just parts of the story that give context to what’s happening, and tie it into what happens in LOTR, that people who have only read The Hobbit wouldn’t know about. In my opinion, that doesn’t make them gratuitous or indulgent. They’re part of the story. Have been for decades. They’re just not the first book. So I appreciated them. Now, there are a few legitimate changes to the story. As I mentioned before, Bilbo has a bit more of an arc. There’s some fighting in places where there isn’t fighting in the book. The order of a couple minor events is switched around. But there weren’t any changes that I felt hurt the story, or marred the integrity of what Tolkien wrote.

And this film is overall more lighthearted and — occasionally — silly than LOTR. It’s received some criticism for this, but honestly, The Hobbit is a much more lighthearted book than the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It’s got singing. It’s got something resembling slapstick humor. It makes bodily function jokes. If anything, the film toned most of this down from the book (for example, the goblins aren’t singing when they chase the dwarves into the trees. Good call, Jackson, as a song there may have diminished the intensity of that scene — but if the song had stayed in, at least he could say it’s in the book). So yes, the tone is different, which means it’s enjoyable in a different way. It’s still a spectacular fantasy adventure set in Middle Earth, but they come in all shapes and sizes. Kind of like dwarves.

Bottom line: I really enjoyed An Unexpected Journey. Was it the overwhelming awe I felt after Fellowship of the Ring? No, but that’s okay. I enjoyed the story and appreciate the way it was told. I loved the characters and look forward to getting to know them better. And I am still nothing but excited for future installments.

Top Ten Tuesday (January 29) – Frustrating Characters

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What’s that you say? I’m actually participating in a Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by our friends at The Broke and the Bookish)? Why yes, young padawan, I am! I’ve been out for a while, because in keeping with my whole “blogging should be a fun hobby” philosophy, if I think the topic is going to be too difficult or just doesn’t interest me, I skip it. But this one seemed fun. And as a slight spin, I’m going to keep these characters limited to BOOKS I REALLY LIKED. Just ‘cuz a book is awesome doesn’t mean it can’t have frustrating characters. And just because they’re frustrating doesn’t necessarily mean I didn’t like them. Plus, it seemed like more fun than just trashing books I don’t like.

So HERE WE GO.

Dolores Umbridge, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Oh, how I loathed Umbridge. And yes, she frustrated me. Every time she would give Harry one of her torturous detentions or take points from Gryffindor for no good reason, I wanted to throw things.

Gale Hawthorne, Mockingjay. I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m Team Peeta all the way, partially because Gale frustrated me so much in this book. He was angry and impulsive and reckless and his bad decisions had some seriously awful consequences. I still don’t see how people think he was a good match for Katniss. They would have destroyed the world.

John Hammond, Jurassic Park. HOW many times was Hammond told that cloning dinosaurs was a Seriously Bad Idea? Many. Many, many, many. And yet he did it anyway and was somehow surprised when everything went wrong.

Mackenzie Bishop, The Archived. Yes, I seriously loved this book, and I seriously loved Mac. But she made some terrible choices. I could see why she made them, but that didn’t keep them from frustrating me, because I could clearly see that they were bad choices. You know why? Because SHE knew they were bad choices, yet made them anyway.

Nikolai Kretzsky, Between Shades of Gray. I spent this entire book wanting Kretzsky to redeem himself, and occasionally we’d catch glimmers of it — but then he’d go back to behaving like the rest of the NKVD. It made the book even more heartbreaking (FABULOUS book, if I haven’t stressed that enough) because someone we could see had the potential for good, so often chose not to.

Mr. Stalas, Between Shades of Gray. Yes, ANOTHER character from this book I adore. This book is really aptly titled, because a lot of the characters really do fall into a gray area. Mr. Stalas is one of them. He’s just kind of a miserable man who almost seems to go out of his way to make life harder for his fellow deportees. Yet he’s not the one keeping them in the labor camps. Almost every time Mr. Stalas opened his mouth, I wanted to throttle him.

Li, Incarnate. Ugh, is there much worse than a hateful, spiteful parent? I couldn’t stand the way Li treated Ana and made her feel worthless — which, of course, was the point.

Beth, Dare You To. Okay, I know this is unfair since this book isn’t out until May (and guys, if you liked Pushing the Limits, you WANT this book. Trust me), so first off, a disclaimer. I LOVED this book. And I loved Beth. But the way she pushes people away and doesn’t trust anyone is infuriating. Understandable, yes, but frustrating. Also, I very nearly put Beth’s mom on this list, but she more saddened than frustrated me.

FitzChivalry Farseer, Assassin’s Apprentice.  Again, I love this book (favorite Fantasy EVER) and I adore Fitz, but there is a whole section in there that made me want to throw him off a roof. (Heh. That is a joke that you will get if you’ve read the book). I knew his brain was being messed with, but still, I just wanted to take him by the shoulders and yell “SNAP OUT OF IT!”

Lindsay Edgecombe, Before I Fall. As Sam Kingston starts the book as an Obnoxious Mean Girl, it only makes sense that her BFF is also an Obnoxious Mean Girl. But unlike Sam, who keeps her memory of the looping day and evolves through the course of the book, Lindsay just stays an Obnoxious Mean Girl. She drove me nuts.

Review: Incarnate by Jodi Meadows (@jodimeadows @harperteen)

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I’ve heard good things about Incarnate by Jodi Meadows for months. Between the unique premise and the gorgeous cover, I knew I’d get to it eventually, but with the sequel, Asunder, releasing tomorrow (!), I thought it was about time I finally plunged in. Now I see what all the fuss was about.

The Plot (from Goodreads)

New soul

Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

No soul

Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

Heart

Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies—human and creature alike—let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all?

My Thoughts:

Jodi writes in an engaging prose that sucked me in from the first page. This was vital, since her world is so different from our own. The concept of the million souls being reincarnated over and over is presented in an organic fashion that made the fantastic premise seem completely believable. Right away, I was in Ana’s head, experiencing the self-doubt she feels under the cruel treatment of her mother, and cheering for her to strike out on her own.

When she meets Sam, I instantly liked him. He was kind and compassionate with her. I loved the interaction of Ana, flabbergasted that anyone would actually like her, and Sam, who’s determined to break through her walls and get to know her, even if she’s different. It was amazing to see his treatment of Ana contrasted with the way most of the people of Heart treated her. There were some who were accepting of her, like Sam, but many others whose reactions ranged from cautious to downright hostile. It was an interesting look at prejudice and preconception, especially in this society whose members have known each other for millennia. Obviously, as a reader I wanted everyone to be instantly accepting of Ana, but at the same time, I could see why they weren’t. She had replaced their friend, an established member of society. Even though it wasn’t her fault, it would be hard not to blame her.

One of my favorite aspects of the book was the use of music. I’m not sure how musical Jodi Meadows actually is, but she writes like someone who has a deep understanding of the joy of making music. She perfectly captured the feelings of sitting at a piano, creating a new melody, becoming lost in the notes. I loved the role it played in the development of Ana’s character and her relationship with Sam. I haven’t read a lot of YA where the characters who were musicians actually felt like musicians.

Then there’s the fantasy elements — dragons and enchanted stone and, of course, reincarnation. I thought this book was a really unique combo of fantasy elements with a distinctly sci-fi feel (although there’s very little that would actually classify this book as sci-fi, it just had that vibe, if that makes any sense). It made me keep wanting to peek behind the curtain, as it’s hinted over and over that there’s an explanation for everything happening beyond “because it’s magic” or “because that’s the way it is.” I can’t wait to see what it is.

Incarnate was an original and romantic story that transported me to a beautifully unique new world. I loved the characters, the setting, and the many questions it posed about both its own fantasy world and our own, and I look forward to finding out what happens to Ana in Asunder.

Throwback Thursday (January 24) – Throw Momma From the Train

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ATTENTION! Next week, Mandi and I will be hosting a Throwback Giveaway! That’s right, you will be able to WIN THINGS! I’m not telling you what yet, but they will be awesome. Trust me, you want to enter.

But here’s the catch: You will have the best chance of winning if you participate in Throwback Thursday. And comment on other people’s Throwback Thursday posts. And yes, you can do this after the giveaway goes live, but EVEN OLD THROWBACK THURSDAY POSTS WILL COUNT AS ENTRIES. In other words, browse your bookshelf or DVD collection, find something you loved, and HOP TO. RIGHT NOW. Get a leg up on the slackers.

Throwback Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books.

It’s the nature of book blogging to focus mainly on new releases, but there are thousands of great books out there that haven’t seen the “New Releases” shelf in years. We hope to be able to bring attention to some older titles that may not be at the top of the current bestseller list, but still deserve a spot in your To-Be-Read pile.

You don’t have to be a book blogger to participate! You can put up a Throwback Thursday post on your non-bookish blog; or if you don’t have a blog at all, just use the comments to tell us about a book you remember fondly.

And NOW! We’re expanding! Throwback Thursday is no longer limited to just books! Throwback Thursday is dedicated to shining the spotlight on any book-related old favorites that need to be remembered.What’s your favorite classic television show or movie adaptation? What about your favorite song? Was your favorite toy a character from a book?

Here’s how it works:

  • Pick any media (or non-media item) released more than 5 years ago. Remember to keep it book-related!
  • Write up a short summary (include the title, author, and cover art, if applicable) and an explanation of why you love it. Make sure to link back to The Housework Can Wait and Never Too Fond of Books in your post.
  • Link up your post at The Housework Can Wait or Never Too Fond of Books.
  • Visit as many blogs as you can, reminisce about books you loved, and discover some “new” books for your TBR list – or some other classic!

Feel free to grab the Throwback Thursday button code from the sidebar to use in your posts.

Thanks for participating, and we look forward to seeing which books you choose to remember!

My Throwback this week is…

Throw Momma From the Train, starring Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal (1987)

 I am classifying this under the category of “bookish” because although it is not actually based on a book, it is about a frustrated author suffering from writer’s block as he attempts to write his first novel, while making ends meet by teaching a creative writing class. That seems pretty bookish to me.

Also, it’s an excuse to talk about this movie, which is one of my favorite movies ever. EVAH.

Here’s the gist of it. Larry (Billy Crystal) has lost his writerly spark, as his first novel was stolen by his ex-wife Margaret (played by Captain Janeway) and subsequently hit the New York Times Bestseller List. He wants to write a new novel, but he’s too consumed by bitter thoughts of Margaret to make any process. This bitterness bleeds into all aspects of his life, including the adult writing class he teaches. In the class is Owen Lift (DeVito), a mild-mannered wannabe writer who lives with his cantankerous Momma (played by Mama Fratelli). Owen has attempted to write a murder mystery, but it sucks. Larry advises him to go see a Hitchcock thriller to try to get the feel of the kind of story he wants to tell in his head. Owen decides to see Strangers on a Train, and comes away with the notion that what Larry was really telling him was that he wants Owen to kill his wife in exchange for Larry killing Momma.

And what follows a hilarious tale of attempted murder and unlikely friendship.

I love this movie so much it’s ridiculous. Maybe you aren’t into black comedies from 1987, and that’s fine. But if you want something to make you laugh and provide you with an arsenal of quotable material (seriously, my husband and I quote this movie to each other all the time. It’s also the source material for the header on my Tumblr #shamelesstumblrplug), this is the movie for you. Or if you’re a frustrated writer who sometimes harbors violent urges (which…I think…is most writers).

This is a blog hop! Link up your Throwback Thursday post below!



Discussion: Name that genre! And…does it matter?

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I don’t know about you, but I sometimes get genre-burned. I’ll pick up a book, thinking it’s one thing, and then be disappointed when it turns out to be something else. It’s not that the something else isn’t good, or even that I didn’t like the book. It’s that it wasn’t what I was expecting. And while I sometimes welcome the unexpected, like with a juicy plot twist, I find myself wishing sometimes that the book world as a whole — bookstores, bloggers, even authors sometimes — would try to be a tad more accurate with genre labeling.

Also, let me just throw this out there: Young Adult is not a genre. Nor is Middle Grade, Adult, or New Adult. Those are audiences. They encompass the age demographic a book is targeting. But they don’t tell you a thing about what the book is about, other than the relative age of the characters (give or take a few decades, in the case of Adult).

So let’s talk just a minute about genres, what defines them, and which ones tend to have an identity crisis.

These are highlights from the Goodreads definitions. Sometimes it’s just easier than trying to type it all out myself.

Fantasy: Fantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting. Fantasy is generally distinguished from science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of technological and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three.

Science Fiction: Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation).

Dystopian: Dystopia is a form of literature that explores social and political structures. It is a creation of a nightmare world – unlike its opposite, Utopia, which is an ideal world. Dystopia is often characterized by an authoritarian or totalitarian form of government. It often features different kinds of repressive social control systems, a lack or total absence of individual freedoms and expressions, and a state of constant warfare or violence. Many novels combine both Dystopia and Utopia, often as a metaphor for the different directions humanity can take in its choices, ending up with one of the two possible futures.

Romance: According to the Romance Writers of America, “Two basic elements comprise every romance novel: a central love story and an emotionally-satisfying and optimistic ending.” Both the conflict and the climax of the novel should be directly related to that core theme of developing a romantic relationship, although the novel can also contain subplots that do not specifically relate to the main characters’ romantic love.

Historical Fiction: Historical fiction presents a story set in the past, often during a significant time period. In historical fiction, the time period is an important part of the setting and often of the story itself. Historical fiction may include fictional characters, well-known historical figures or a mixture of the two.

Horror: Horror fiction is fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the audience. Historically, the cause of the “horror” experience has often been the intrusion of a supernatural element into everyday human experience. Since the 1960s, any work of fiction with a morbid, gruesome, surreal, or exceptionally suspenseful or frightening theme has come to be called “horror”.

Contemporary: Contemporary literature is literature with its setting generally after World War II.

Paranormal: Paranormal books involve unusual experiences that lack a scientific explanation. Some popular subjects in paranormal books are supernatural creatures, ESP, clairvoyance, ghosts, UFOs, telepathy, and psychics.

Steampunk: Steampunk is a sub-genre of science fiction and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used-usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England-but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date.

These are just some of the biggies. There’s tons of genres and subgenres out there. Right now one of the biggest genres on the internet is Erotica, and there are hundreds of subgenres under it. Every story you can think of can become an erotica with a little bit of tweaking, and it almost always does. If you don’t believe me, you can see it for yourself on smut websites or XXX Tube 1 or other such places. Then there’s the hybrid genres. For example, romance can be incorporated into nearly all of these genres, which gives you Historical Romance, Paranormal Romance, etc. I think one of the reasons that genres get so muddled is that they’re not mutually exclusive at all. Contemporary is anything that takes place after World War II? Well, that could encompass pretty much everything (except Historical), couldn’t it? And obviously, there’s tons of crossover between Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror/Paranormal.

I think the problem happens when we get these main categories confused. I think the problem is twofold:

1) Certain genres are really popular, and everyone wants their book (or their client’s book, or their friend’s book) to be the next Big Thing. So they say it fits the genre, when in reality, it doesn’t. (I’m looking at you, Dystopian Fiction.)

2) Lots of books are really hard to classify because the authors have mixed a bunch of genres together in a delicious cocktail of imagination. It’s a bit more understandable how these get confused.

3) Sometimes a story can change genres in translation or adaptation. If you look at Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer, for example, the movie adaptation by Alex Garland is classified as a horror film according to websites like Hell Horror (hellhorror.com) and IMDB, but the book itself is considered to be in the weird or speculative fiction genre. So stories could often be quite fragile or fluid when it comes to genre.

So what’s the trick to figuring out how to classify what you’re reading? Just ask yourself a few questions:

1) What’s the setting? Is it past, present, future, or a made-up world? Is it based on reality, or could it plausibly happen in our reality, or is it in no way related to our reality? Does magic factor into it? Science? Is it based on a historical event that actually happened, or a historical event that might have happened if things were different?

2) If it is the future, what shaped the world? Was it a cataclysmic event? Government conspiracy? Aliens? Magic? Technological advancement? Just because it’s the future doesn’t automatically make it sci-fi or dystopian or post-apocalyptic. Look at why the world is the way it is, and that’s a big clue.

3) What’s the conflict? Is it about whether or not Jim and Sally will get together, or is it about whether or not Jim will save Sally’s a ghost, or is it about whether or not Jim will discover that he’s really a prince and the only one who can free Sally from the dragon? Granted, Jim and Sally may get together in all of these scenarios, but it’s only the main conflict in one of them.

Am I alone in caring about this? I’m not sure. Maybe you don’t care how something’s labeled; a good book is a good book. So what if you were expecting dystopian and got sci-fi instead? Or you wanted steampunk but wound up reading historical fiction? What’s the big deal?

But if you’re like me, it’s kind of like ice cream flavors. If I’m in the mood for chocolate and I get strawberry, I’m going to be disappointed. I like strawberry. Sometimes, all I want in the whole world is strawberry. But if I’m in the mood for chocolate, strawberry won’t cut it.

Here’s some examples of books I’ve seen miscategorized (a lot):

The Dark Unwinding by Sharon Cameron. I’ve heard this book described as Steampunk and Paranormal, but really it’s just Historical Fiction. The automatons in the story are things that actually existed during that time period (you can ask Sharon. It’s fascinating), and there’s no supernatural elements that defy scientific explanation.

What’s Left of Me by Kat Zhang. This one always gets called Dystopian or Sci-Fi. But really, if you look close, it’s neither. It’s a modern alternate reality. So really, it doesn’t fit into any of the above categories. Broadly, it can go under the Speculative Fiction umbrella, but none of the other terms really fit. So there’s really little wonder why bookstores want to label it as something else.

Defiance by C.J. Redwine. This book is a cornucopia of so many genres, it’s easy to see why people can’t seem to label it. I’ve actually had a few discussions with C.J. about what to call this book, and even she is at a bit of a loss. I’ve heard it called Steampunk, Dystopian, Fantasy, and Sci-Fi. It’s marketed as Fantasy Adventure, but there’s no magic (although there is a blind wingless subterranean dragon). What it actually is, I believe, is a Post-Apocalyptic Adventure. I think.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I always see this book on the Horror shelf, and it’s just not. It’s not designed to scare or horrify. It’s about magical powers and adventure. It’s Fantasy.

How about you? Do you long to sneak into bookstores and reshelve the books to more accurately reflect what’s in them? Or do you figure, hey, I don’t care why someone picked up the book, as long as they’re reading it? What books do you see commonly misclassified, and do you care?