Viewed: Theater

I originally read The Hobbit some 30 years ago. I recently read The Hobbit to my boys a few years ago over a few weeks as bedtime reading. They liked the story, and we as a family have been excited to see the movies together. Especially after the great success of The Lord of the Rings movies. We saw the first movie, An Unexpected Journey, last year for my oldest son’s 12th birthday party.

We saw this second part of the movie trilogy this week. I’m not the fanboy I used to be about Tolkien. I really enjoyed the stories, both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, in my youth, but they’re not in my top ten favorite books now. The LotR movies, though, rekindled my interest. Those movies were very good, and relatively very true to the books. But The Hobbit movies have strayed far from the book’s storyline. I know movies can’t always follow the books exactly, if for no other reason than they are just such different mediums. But after seeing LotR, I came to expect Peter Jackson to make a relatively faithful production of The Hobbit. He didn’t.

The first Hobbit movie, I’d say was 80% true to the book. I thought the product, in general, was good. But this second movie is like 50% true to the book. Arguably less. There are several bits of the book missing in this second movie, and there are whole swathes of this movie that are completely made up, not in the book. That fact alone is not bad, in and of itself. But it’s what was added, and how, that makes me not like this movie as much as the previous and the LotR trilogy.

First off, The Hobbit (the book) is a children’s story. A story for children. This fact makes the violence in the film adaptations shocking. The movies have lots — lots! — of violence, fighting, killing, and at least three beheadings on screen. Fortunately there’s not much visible blood from all the sword and axe strokes. Watching this second Hobbit movie made me regret taking my 9 year old son to see it without reviewing it first.

Second, most of the fighting action is what Peter Jackson fabricated whole-cloth for the movies. The last 20 minutes or so of The Desolation of Smaug is a long scene of the dwarves fighting the dragon — a scene that not only doesn’t happen in the book, but feels really stupid in the movie. In the book, Bilbo Baggins survived his encounter with Smaug by using his wits (and the magic ring of invisibility). In the movie it’s an action sequence that shows Bilbo surviving mostly by being incredibly lucky. In the book, the dwarves survive the dragon by hiding from it. In the movie, the dwarves manage a running battle with the beast and even forge a freakin’ giant gold statue for apparently some kind of morale victory.

I was stunned when the movie ended before Smaug attacked Laketown. The Keystone Cops-like battle with the dwarves even made Smaug’s boast about being “Death” while flying toward the human settlement feel pathetic. He couldn’t kill even one of the 9 dwarves (and 1 hobbit) inside his own lair. Instead of a terrible force of evil nature, Smaug comes across as a buffoon.

All in all, I didn’t like this second movie. I don’t hate it. I don’t even dislike it, although I do dislike the on-screen violence added to a children’s story.

Bullgrit

Holy moly, this is a big family!

Bullgrit

Because of my mid-life crisis fitness quest, I’ve really tried to avoid sweets as much as possible. But desserts are my greatest weakness. If I’m not totally in control, I so easily fall for a piece of cake, a cookie, a brownie, or candy. Sometimes I just have a sweet-attack and scrounge for anything sweet I can find around the house. Usually we don’t have much sweet stuff in the cupboards and pantry, or else Wifegrit keeps them well hidden. A few days ago I was in one of my sweet tizzies and looking around for some kind of sweet, and I found the mother load hidden at the top and back of the pantry.

I pulled everything out and set it on the kitchen table. What the hell? Do you think my wife is trying to sabotage my diet?

Her response: “But it was all on really good sales.”

I ended up baking a batch of cookies. She saved me from worse damage by taking the other packages away and hiding them, (I suspect at her mother’s house).

Bullgrit

So I found a section of a journal I had to write for my 11th grade English class — 1983-1984, 16 years old. This is eight pages torn from a spiral notebook, with each entry written in pencil. Here’s the transcription, including poor grammar and spelling and all…

Sept. 7.  So far school has been great. So my day was too.

Sept. 8.  Things have gotten better. I’m beginning to talk to people more and I don’t feel like a stranger.

I don’t remember why I would feel like a stranger in 11th grade. I attended the same high school 9th through 12th grades. So that entry confuses me.

Sept. 9.  I’m having great fun. Today is Friday but I wish we still had a few more days at school before the weekend.

Sept. 12. School is still great. It seems people think that this girl I’ve been talking to is my girlfriend. But their wrong. I have no girlfriend and won’t none.

I know who this girl is because her name is at the top of the notebook page where I wrote a note to her saying, “Cammy, Please don’t read this.” I remember Cammy.

Sept. 13. Well nothing much has changed. I’m still having fun.

Sept. 14. Its been about the same today.

Sept. 15. Its been a wild day. This girl I’ve been talking to has all-of-a-sudden gotten lots of enemies.

Sept. 16. Nothing much has changed, still having a good ole time.

Sept. 20. This has been a tiring day.

Sept. 21. This has been a great day. Everything has been going my way. I found out something that everyone though I wasn’t but I am.

It seems that my junior high school year started off really good. I don’t remember why every day was great, fun, wild, or tiring. And I don’t remember what the Sept. 21 entry meant. The vagueness of that one short sentence intrigues me.

Skipping ahead a few entries, I find that some things about male-female relationships are pretty much constant.

Oct. 5.  Today has been pretty good. But a girl is mad as fire at me and I don’t know why. She want speak to me or let me know what she’s mad about. So I’ll just let her be mad. If she won’t talk to me theres nothing I can do to straiten what ever it is out.

Here and there through the pages of this journal, my teacher wrote short, one- or two-word notes in red pen. At the end of the above entry, she wrote, “Right”. It’s good to know your English teacher has your back in your adolescent relationships.

Oct. 10. Today has been hectic <- is that the correct spelling? Not much has happened today, its just that I haven’t had enough sleep. I went to the Street-A-Fair yesterday and a channel 12 camera man filmed us for a while. So I stayed up till 11:00 to see if I was on T.V. Unfortunately I wasn’t.

I actually remember this situation. The Street-A-Fair was, (is? I don’t know if it still happens), a sort of fall festival in the downtown of my hometown with food and music and various demonstrations by local businesses and performers. I was there on a date with a girl and her friend. I remember seeing the TV camera, and I remember it was trained on us for a good amount of time. But, sadly, when the local news that night showed footage of the street activities, we weren’t shown.

There’s much more in these journal pages, and maybe I’ll show more of my young days later.

Bullgrit