As we return to Middle Earth, exactly 9 years after Peter Jackson delivered the Academy Award winning climax of his Lord of the Rings trilogy, it goes without saying that a fair few things have changed.
We begin in The Shire, Hobbiton, with the familiar Sir Ian Holm as the elderly Bilbo Baggins, telling a tale that would frame the rest of the story. Similarly familiar music from composer Horner’s original score sets the scene as Jackson pans over the recreated Hobbiton. As we see this, with Frodo running off to meet Gandalf as Bilbo works his book, There And Back Again, you can’t help but feel nostalgic. But new technologies employed for the film – shooting in the much talked about 48 frames per second – alongside the 3D which makes use of this (the idea is that you’re seeing 24 fps per eye making it the “optimum” 3D experience), can’t help but distract.
The opening frames feel almost sped up and out of reality as your eyes adjust. The opening sequence as we are introduced to Smaug, the dragon, and his lonely mountain, feels cheaper than it should – I’ve already read comments comparing it to a CGI cutscene from a video game, and I definitely agree. It would be fair to say made me loathe the film for the first half an hour or so. A few too many cheesy moments and a slow set up as things get rolling didn’t help matters. All I could think was… “this is not The Lord of the Rings I remember…”.
Cut to an hour or so later, we have Martin Freeman’s Bilbo and his 13 Dwarven allies trudging across Middle Earth, led by Ian McKellen’s Gandalf. By now we’ve seen Flight of the Conchords‘ Bret Mackenzie join Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee and Hugo Weaving in Rivendell, and the “Unexpected Journey” has been very much set into motion. It’s fair to say that as a fan of the original films, as well as the book, once you come to terms with the film’s frame rate and its pace, you find yourself sucked in, immersed and enjoying almost every moment of the film’s just-under-three hour duration.
When it comes to the pace, there’s no arguing that the making of these films would have been as nostalgic for Jackson as it was for his audience. Lingering shots of Rivendell and Hobbiton take you back down memory lane, and visits with old characters are treated with similar sentimentality. You can’t help but think though that much of the film’s unnecessarily long scenes were done so to ensure the film – which was originally planned as a two parter – would make it as a trilogy. Some call that a moneymaking grab, others a chance to make the most faithful adaptation possible. After seeing An Unexpected Journey, I daresay I sit somewhere in the middle of that argument. But there’s no denying the length of some of these scenes; the film could have easily been cut down half an hour, the rest saved for an extended edition (which this version already feels like) for the more avid fans.
Among the films highlights, without spoiling too much, it was wonderful to see Christopher Lee make it into the film. Peter Jackson definitely owed him one for cutting him out of the theatrical cut of Return… and took the production to London to film the scene with Lee for The Hobbit. Now 90, Lee was noticeably frail for his performance, but Jackson definitely made this work and it was a joy to see his brief but pivotal appearance. Martin Freeman’s Bilbo was brilliant. Excellent casting and quite honestly a more enjoyable character and performance than Frodo, though it was hard not to see elements of Arthur Dent come through in it all… they are, after all, both characters who embark on an adventure much against their own initial desires. Ian McKellen was great as always, too, and the dwarves had some great scenes – though the repetition of dialogue and character development proved an easy reminder that this is a book with only so much content to draw upon. Then there was the scene with Gollum, which was nothing short of brilliant and a brilliant appearance from Barry Humphries – look out for that.
By the time we left Middle Earth for the fourth time, I was far from ready to leave. Though the pacing and its repetition was noticeable, the time passed quickly and it was hard not to get swept up in the grand adventure before us. From the soundtrack to the characters and the beautiful, sweeping New Zealand landscapes accompanied by Andrew Lesnie’s beautiful cinematography, it was almost like we never left in 2003. And had I seen it in 24fps 2D maybe that would have been the case.
I intend to see the film again in general release projected in this quality to see how I feel about it then. You do get used to it, as mentioned, it’s just not the easiest thing to watch – and I daresay it cheapened quite a few of the more CGI focused scenes. The imperfections definitely showed up far more than one would like – though the assumed 4K projection would have helped with that too.
Whether or not this way of filming is the future is debatable; I daresay I hope it isn’t. But in our return to Middle Earth we are definitely given a great ride no matter how you look at it. I for one can’t wait until we return the same time next year, and by then I have no doubt a lot of the criticism from the first film will have been taken on board. Until next time Mr. Jackson, until next time…
Review Score: 7.3 out of 10
