DarkPanda XIII said:
1) Have you read "The Hobbit"?
2) Whether or not you have read the book, what are your feelings when seeing this trailer?
I read the Hobbit and LOTR about twice each, once when I was younger and once just before the Fellowship of the Ring was released theatrically.
and... I don't like them.
It's the dialogue.
I cannot stand the way Tolkien writes dialogue.
I have been taken to task for my opinion on this literally hundreds of times - I am both a nerd AND a fantasy nerd, loving Tolkien should really go with the territory, or so I am told.
I am fully aware of Tolkien's impact on Western fantasy, in that I fully respect that Tolkien essentially invented it. I know that everything we accept about dwarves, elves, wizards, dragons, all of that in almost all forms of western literature, movies, video games, RPGs, all of it comes from Tolkien. I have a great deal of respect for this, for the influence of his work.
I like his descriptions and I love how complete his world is. Everything has a thousand years of palpable history and I appreciate it a great deal.
I don't like how Gandalf is used as a Deus Ex Machina, I don't like his insistence on including so many utterly useless extraneous characters (Pippin and Merry, for example, basically don't need to exist) I don't like how morality is absolute by species (all Elves are good, all Orcs are evil and that's kinda bullshit and - while it was assuredly not Tolkien's intention - is pretty fucking racist) but mostly, it is the dialogue.
His characters stiffly spout convoluted gluts of awkwardly high-toned prose and absolutely nobody talks like a real person at any time.
At any time.
What is worse is that because his impact and influence on fantasy has been so very very pervasive, hundreds of lesser fantasy authors trying to ape Tolkien's style all did that shit, too, forcing their characters to vomit out these nonsensically Shakespearean lines.
I hate it. It detracts severely from the characters and the situations, it makes me lose focus and stop caring about them. The dialogue rings so very false to me and as a result there is, for me, a constant disconnect, a second layer of suspension of disbelief on top of the one I'm already dealing with, what with all the monsters and magic and whatnot.
As a result, getting through all three LOTR books and even the movies was a sometimes almost painful slog.
Having said that, I will likely see this movie anyway.
Peter Jackson is very good at action and scope, I like the way he sets up his scenes and I like how he does not solve all his problems with MOAR CGI like dozens of other directors.
And it's been years since I've seen a decent movie featuring a huge Dragon, and I must admit i'm intrigued to see how he handles Smaug.
