http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/9730525/The-Hobbit-An-Unexpected-Journey-movie-review.html

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey barely leaves the driveway. The film lasts for 11 minutes short of three hours, and takes us to the end of chapter six in Tolkien’s original novel, which falls on page 130 of the official movie tie-in edition. That’s half an hour per chapter, or one minute and 20 seconds per page. The work of the sombre Hungarian auteur Béla Tarr, whose grinding tale of apocalyptic poverty The Turin Horse ran to a mere 155 minutes, feels nippy by comparison.

This film is so stuffed with extraneous faff and flummery that it often barely feels like Tolkien at all – more a dire, fan-written internet tribute. The book begins with the unimprovable ten-word opening sentence: “In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.” Jackson, by contrast, starts with an interminable narrative detour about a mining operation run by a team of dwarves, involving magic crystals, orc armies and details of dwarf family trees that are of interest, at this early stage in what is supposed to be a family film, to almost nobody.

Travel websites have reported significant growth in searches and bookings for New Zealand this month, after the worldwide release of The Hobbit.

The flight search website Sky scanner.com recorded a 102 per cent increase in worldwide searches for flights to New Zealand this month compared with December 2011, including a 117 per cent spike in searches for flights to Wellington.

The foreign currency exchange group Travelex has reported a 26 per cent increase in pre-orders for New Zealand dollars compared with December 2011.

Air New Zealand bookings from the United States were reported to have nearly doubled on the day before the November 28 world premiere in Wellington, and increased by a third in Japan after a Hobbit promotion there.

The worldwide tour operator Trailfinders, which has introduced a Hobbiton Express Day Tour from Auckland for 2013, has reported almost a 10 per cent increase in forward bookings to New Zealand for the new year.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8133052/Hobbit-ramps-up-interest-in-travel-to-NZ

Perhaps he could do a real kiwi story. Say, a fantasy about a boat sailing from the far side of the earth 2000 years ago, and having to deal with giant moa and giant eagles, and maybe giant tuatara. And leave it open as to whether they survive.

Or he could remake Goodbye Pork Pie.

I like the symmetry of his big epic efforts… two trilogies of three hour films linked to each other.

Is there going to be a third to make it a trilogy of trilogies?

I’m waiting for him to make something that just goes for the all out no holds barred LCD wow factor that schlunky mwah putanahutees such as myself would salivate to see.

Don’t drink and drive.

Why didn’t Bilbo put on the frigging ring and gut the white orc?

Why didn’t the eagles fly them all the way to Lonely Mountain?

The movie is a steaming dog turd. One of the dullest and most overblown spectacles I have ever had the misfortune to see.
Gushing fans in New Zealand are letting their fervent Nationalism overlook this fact.
International critics and fans have not been so blind…

That is not however what the producers wanted nor paid for. They got what they paid for, an entertaining theatrical spectacle that will reap large profits and be an experience worth the price to the audiences.

Plenty of time ahead of us for someone to make a smaller more nuanced film of just the one book.

Speaking of Christopher Lee, I was surprised to see him. I hadn’t heard Saruman would featrue and am not surprised that his advanced years limited him. I thought Ian McKellen was showing some fatigue as well.

iMP (969) Says:
December 31st, 2012 at 11:54 am
Kiwiblog auto-technicals seems to have had trouble with the word “valar” Gandalf’s order, in this review, and substituted “maia” automatically, unless its a Green Party conspiracy.

They are correct. Gandalf is not one of the Valar, he is of the Maiar.

[DPF: Kiwiblog auto-technicals are me, and I know my Tolkien ]

The Wheel of Time concludes this year, finished by Brandon Sanderson who was chosen by Robert Jordan’s wife to complete the series.

A Memory of Light.

20 years this series has been written over.

In my opinion, the biggest problem was that Gandalf saved the party *every* time they got into trouble. I know that this follows the text, but it makes the action scenes somewhat repetitive & boring.