Lee (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
inlovewithwords) wrote2013-02-03 01:48 am
inlovewithwords) wrote2013-02-03 01:48 am
Entry tags:
Far over the spid'ry streets so cold?
I was going to be far more competent with the entry-writing today than I am, and technically it’s the third and I’m therefore late, but it turns out that I was up until 06:30 this morning thanks to roommate rambling about the current LARP and then just came home from ten hours out with Araeph at The Hobbit and then dinner and drinks and endless conversation. I have therefore resigned from proper functionality or competence. Between not as much food as I should have had, two sidecars, some scotch, the cold, and much squee, my brain is frankly just not up to deep and serious introspection or whatever else I had planned.
HOWEVER!
Observations from today, beginning with previews: Despite Oblivious and After Earth starring Tom Cruise and Will Smith respectively (not a fan of either, okay) I am a little interested in what the two post-apocalyptic settings look like. Epic continues to look as cute in preview as it did before. ST: Into Darkness just makes me squee about Benedict Cumberbatch—and makes me wonder if the Star Trek v. Wars battles will end now that Abrams signed on to the latter. (Or get worse. More likely outcome…) Pacific Rim just keeps making me ask why anyone is trusting GLaDOS.
Man of Steel: Oi. Jonathan’s line about ‘maybe’ leaving the kid to die makes me want to find the writer who provided that line and explain to him, in clear and simple terms that even Bizarro could grasp, that it’s Jor-El’s genetics and Jonathan Kent’s raising together that make Superman the hero that he is. That said: the first flight, in the arctic, all crouched and cape-wearing? Is EXACTLY perfect. And Lois and Superman hold hands, so I stand by my OTP, okay.
The Hobbit:
Okay. I think I will do an in-depth, coherent review of it once I have it in front of me on a disc, but I will focus on the things that held Araeph’s and my attention through most of the movie. For one, we were hanging on every word waiting in breathless anticipation for the moment when Bilbo Baggins Saves Middle-Earth. And we couldn’t stop gleeing over it. I mean, things have their problems and all, but… “Riddles in the Dark” was just great. We also, of course, were beaming over the smaller things—like how gorgeous and perfect Cate Blanchette is as Galadriel (and how god how does she just turn and her skirts twist to be the most regal look ever?) and how mischievous she is, happy-and-warrior-and-not-gloom-and-doom Elrond, the Galadriel-Gandalf psychic back-channel while Saruman drones on, over just about everything about Bilbo—
But the thing that really got to us, and that we discussed rather in-depth, was the music. Besides the part where Howard Shore just did an amazing job as a rule, there is something really wonderful about the music in this movie. The only time the eerie intro music from Fellowship plays is with the Ring itself. Similarly, the only times the ‘thematic Lord of the Rings music’ plays are either in the Shire or when Bilbo is Being Especially Heroic. Other than that, the ‘Over the Misty Mountains’ theme is the backbone of the music. It’s wonderful because while the Lord-of-the-Rings theme plays at the start, to establish this is Middle-Earth, it really because rather strongly ‘the hobbits’ theme’ even more than before. And, of course, as it is primarily used when Bilbo is being awesome, it really underlines that, and how much Bilbo’s awesome really saves Middle-Earth.
Along with this was the sheer wonderfulness of the scene with the Ring itself, the one leading into ‘Riddles in the Dark.’ And it’s so clear just when the Ring drops that the thing itself intends to be picked up by the goblin (which would put it in the hands of Sauron sooner rather than later). But the Ring doesn’t count on the strength of hobbits, firstly that of Gollum the proto-hobbit, able to overcome the goblin. But, of course, then there’s Bilbo. And the way they filmed it, you can just see what the Ring intended and how it went off-course.
I find it to be one of the deeper moments of the movie, in some ways—not in any outside philosophical way, whatever, I don’t care about that. But on an in-world level, you see the manipulation of the Ring, at some level of the will of Sauron, lieutenant of Morgoth, once Melkor of the Ainur—and yet it’s a hobbit who picks it up. If ever an event in Middle-Earth highlighted the touch of Eru Ilúvatar, that moment of happenstance does, and they played it out perfectly in the movie.
(Bilbo saving the world, of course, remains one of our favorite moments. And we both noticed more closely how Gandalf diverted attention from how Bilbo escaped and onto ‘why he came back,’ and did so after seeing Bilbo slip something gold and possibly ring-shaped into his pocket. Just… hrm, interesting, Gandalf, keeping attention off that. I blame it and several other things on the fact that, being Olórin and therefore sekritly the wisest of the Maia (eat it, Curumo) his hunches are generally eerily on-target. It’s like being Sheridan, only with justification!)
…Okay then. I am off to eat a slice of pie, have some scotch and then a cup of tea.
(I. Need. The Hobbit. Soundtrack.)
HOWEVER!
Observations from today, beginning with previews: Despite Oblivious and After Earth starring Tom Cruise and Will Smith respectively (not a fan of either, okay) I am a little interested in what the two post-apocalyptic settings look like. Epic continues to look as cute in preview as it did before. ST: Into Darkness just makes me squee about Benedict Cumberbatch—and makes me wonder if the Star Trek v. Wars battles will end now that Abrams signed on to the latter. (Or get worse. More likely outcome…) Pacific Rim just keeps making me ask why anyone is trusting GLaDOS.
Man of Steel: Oi. Jonathan’s line about ‘maybe’ leaving the kid to die makes me want to find the writer who provided that line and explain to him, in clear and simple terms that even Bizarro could grasp, that it’s Jor-El’s genetics and Jonathan Kent’s raising together that make Superman the hero that he is. That said: the first flight, in the arctic, all crouched and cape-wearing? Is EXACTLY perfect. And Lois and Superman hold hands, so I stand by my OTP, okay.
The Hobbit:
Okay. I think I will do an in-depth, coherent review of it once I have it in front of me on a disc, but I will focus on the things that held Araeph’s and my attention through most of the movie. For one, we were hanging on every word waiting in breathless anticipation for the moment when Bilbo Baggins Saves Middle-Earth. And we couldn’t stop gleeing over it. I mean, things have their problems and all, but… “Riddles in the Dark” was just great. We also, of course, were beaming over the smaller things—like how gorgeous and perfect Cate Blanchette is as Galadriel (and how god how does she just turn and her skirts twist to be the most regal look ever?) and how mischievous she is, happy-and-warrior-and-not-gloom-and-doom Elrond, the Galadriel-Gandalf psychic back-channel while Saruman drones on, over just about everything about Bilbo—
But the thing that really got to us, and that we discussed rather in-depth, was the music. Besides the part where Howard Shore just did an amazing job as a rule, there is something really wonderful about the music in this movie. The only time the eerie intro music from Fellowship plays is with the Ring itself. Similarly, the only times the ‘thematic Lord of the Rings music’ plays are either in the Shire or when Bilbo is Being Especially Heroic. Other than that, the ‘Over the Misty Mountains’ theme is the backbone of the music. It’s wonderful because while the Lord-of-the-Rings theme plays at the start, to establish this is Middle-Earth, it really because rather strongly ‘the hobbits’ theme’ even more than before. And, of course, as it is primarily used when Bilbo is being awesome, it really underlines that, and how much Bilbo’s awesome really saves Middle-Earth.
Along with this was the sheer wonderfulness of the scene with the Ring itself, the one leading into ‘Riddles in the Dark.’ And it’s so clear just when the Ring drops that the thing itself intends to be picked up by the goblin (which would put it in the hands of Sauron sooner rather than later). But the Ring doesn’t count on the strength of hobbits, firstly that of Gollum the proto-hobbit, able to overcome the goblin. But, of course, then there’s Bilbo. And the way they filmed it, you can just see what the Ring intended and how it went off-course.
I find it to be one of the deeper moments of the movie, in some ways—not in any outside philosophical way, whatever, I don’t care about that. But on an in-world level, you see the manipulation of the Ring, at some level of the will of Sauron, lieutenant of Morgoth, once Melkor of the Ainur—and yet it’s a hobbit who picks it up. If ever an event in Middle-Earth highlighted the touch of Eru Ilúvatar, that moment of happenstance does, and they played it out perfectly in the movie.
(Bilbo saving the world, of course, remains one of our favorite moments. And we both noticed more closely how Gandalf diverted attention from how Bilbo escaped and onto ‘why he came back,’ and did so after seeing Bilbo slip something gold and possibly ring-shaped into his pocket. Just… hrm, interesting, Gandalf, keeping attention off that. I blame it and several other things on the fact that, being Olórin and therefore sekritly the wisest of the Maia (eat it, Curumo) his hunches are generally eerily on-target. It’s like being Sheridan, only with justification!)
…Okay then. I am off to eat a slice of pie, have some scotch and then a cup of tea.
(I. Need. The Hobbit. Soundtrack.)