The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey review

Hey guys... Sorry I haven't blogged in 2 years, 1 month, 1 week and 6 days.  But truth to be told, very few people read my blog, so the chances are that you're probably not bothered!

I've almost finished a part time English Course that I've been doing and my final homework is to write a persuasive piece of text on whatever subject I like.

I have chosen to write a review of the first part of a trilogy of films. The trilogy is based on a beloved children’s book called ‘the Hobbit’ by J.R.R Tolkien. It is also a prequel to ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy of films. I’m reviewing the first installment, which is called ‘Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’, directed by Peter Jackson. I’m going to be looking at how it works as both a film and an adaption of J.R.R Tolkien’s original tale. Through writing this review, I hope to answer the question, “Can film directors remain true to famous authors’ characterisation and exceptional story telling while dramatizing the scenes for the cinema world? Here we go!

My feelings towards it as a film are that it’s a very fun and entertaining ride. It is able to take you into a great fantasy world full of Hobbits, Wizards, Dwarfs, Goblins, Orks and Elves. It also feels like it’s being made by people who genuinely respect, love and care for the source material.  It’s full of excitement, and is a really well made and put together piece of entertainment.

Now, let’s talk about how well it works as an adaption of the book. Overall, it follows the book pretty well, and it certainly has the Spirit of the Hobbit book. However, it’s not an extremely close adaption! There are changes that have been made. I’m ok with most of the changes, and I even really like some of them. A film experience is quite different from a book, so when adapting a book into a film, certain things need to be changed to make it a better film experience. For example: in the book, Gandalf asks Bilbo to go on an adventure with him, because his mother 'Belladonna Took' loved going on adventures, so Gandalf thought Bilbo’s Tookish side would have a chance to come out when on the adventure. In the film however, Gandalf asked Bilbo because he remembered that as a child, Bilbo loved adventure and danger. But when Gandalf came back, he was disappointed because Bilbo had become stuffy and conservative! I think this change gives Bilbo a more interesting character ark. There are also a few other changes to the story, but for the most part, it is fairly loyal to the book. Some scenes are even just like watching the book on screen.

The film doesn’t just take content from the Hobbit book. It draws from some of Tolkien’s other writings. It’s about far more than just the titled character. There is also other backstory and changes from the book added to make the Hobbit fit in better with the already existing Lord of the Rings trilogy. Some book purists don’t like the fact that they’ve done that, but I personally like it. One very important thing to remember is that the Hobbit book and the Lord of the Rings books (despite the fact that they take place in the same universe) are just so different in tone. The Lord of the Rings is epic, dark and terrifying, whereas the Hobbit is a more light-hearted adventure for children.

The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings don’t line up that well when you read them together. There are quite a few continuity errors, and things that don’t add up. So Peter Jackson has made the Hobbit darker like Lord of the Rings. He has also made changes to make it fit better with the Lord of the Rings, but it still isn’t as dark or as epic as the Lord of the Rings was. It still has a more light-hearted tone. It still feels like the Hobbit, but the tone is more like The Lord of the Rings than the book was. 

The fact is that they really had to make it darker, because if they hadn’t, hardcore fans of the Lord of the Rings films would go into the Hobbit expecting another Epic like Lord of the Rings, and they would find themselves disappointed. Even as it is, people have been disappointed that it’s not as dark as the Lord of the Rings is, and that’s when the tone has been darkened. In my opinion if they hadn’t changed it at all, it simply wouldn’t work as a prequel to the Lord of the Rings.

However, because does have the Spirit of the book as well as a more dark tone like LOTR, one problem is that the tone is quite inconsistent. It feels like it shifts all the time. One scene it feels like a kids film, and another scene it feels much more like its for adults. But because there's so many people to please, it would be hard to find a way round that. The Desolation of Smaug's tone is far more consistently dark, but I felt like that instalment departed a little too far from the book, but I'm not here to talk about that yet. 

To conclude, I would say that An Unexpected Journey is a great film that follows the book fairly well, but it still has changes if it is to fit better with the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I'm going to give An Unexpected Journey 9/10. I wouldn't say it's a perfect film, but is near perfect to me if that makes any sense. There are some pacing issues, and the tone can be inconsistent at times (which was an issue even in the Lord of the Rings films to a certain extent), but I personally was fully entertained by it. It's not up to the high level of the Original trilogy, but neither is the book. 

Now, back to the original question, “Can film directors remain true to famous authors’ characterization and exceptional story telling while dramatising the scenes for the cinema world?” To answer this, I’d say that some books are easier to adapt into films than others. Whatever book you’re adapting, the chances are changes are going to have to be made in order to make it a better film experience. Books and films are rather different from each other. What may work in a book may not work in a film and vice-versa. I’d still say that most of the time yes, film directors could stay true to the authors’ intentions with their final film product. Obviously some book-film adaptions do this better than others. For example, the film Eragon did a horrible job of adapting the book it was based off into a film, but when there’s enough care and effort put into the film script, I believe that it can be done. 

I thought maybe I should show you the model of Yoda that I made. What do you think of it? How could it improve? BTW, I apoligise 4 Yoda's hands. I know they're not quite right! But I tried doing hands like the ones Yoda has, but they were very fragile, so they didn't stay on the model. They crumbled off!

Hello. I'm so sorry I haven't been blogging in such a long time, as usual, I've been either really busy, or just plain lazy. Anyway, I thought today I would talk about Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace in 3D. Rougly a month ago, I went to see The Phantom menace in 3D. I never got to see the trailer in 3D on the cinema, but I did see a review of the trailer on YouTube & the person who was reviewing it was saying the 3D looked FANTASTIC. I thought, "Wow!" I really want to see it!" So I did, but to be honest; I was pretty disapointed in the 3D. When it came to the space ships & stars, it had more deph than it usually does, but other than that it could have done without. There was not 1 single bit that looked as if it were coming out of the screen. Nothing at all! There were some scenes when only viewing the characters, when you wouldn't even notice it was 3D. It was still good to see it on the big screen anyway, & to see Yoda as CGI, becase Yoda has now been replaced with CGI as in the original film, he was a puppet, & the puppet in TPM didn't look very good. The one in the OT looked ok, but the one in Phantom looked pretty awful! I'll put a picture of both of them bellow, so you can compare them.

Hello. Sorry I haven't blogged on this blog or my other two for quite a while.

I'd just like to say, do you remember when I was talking on the 22nd of May 2009 about the film of the Hobbit that they were hoping to make? Well, (I can't remember if I told you or not) there is now a release date for it. It's going to be in cinema's on the 14th of December 2012. I have seen the new trailer of it & for those of you that haven't seen it yet; the link is bellow.

Have a go at this test! I was OCD.

Crazy Quiz from Quiz Rocket!

Quizzes: Customer Engagement

I found out something quite interesting about the next Narnia film! I think a few months ago I did a post about the Narnia creators being unsure weather they were going to make 'The Silver Chair' next or 'The Magicians Nethew' and they were going to leave it to the fans to decide. To me it appeard that 'the Silver Chair' got more votes but according to NarniaWeb there are more people who voted for the Magicians Nethew. I'm very proud that they are making 'The Magicians Nethew' (for I was a bit worried they wouldn't get to make that one). But personally I still think 'The Silver Chair' would be a better one to do next: for one thing Will Poulter (Who Played Eustace)will be groing up to fast & they should do 'The Silver Chair' while he's still young. Another reason is because it just doesn't seem right for 'The Magicians Nethew' to be before 'The Silver Chair' when all the other films havew gone in the order like this. But I am looking farward to 'The Magicians Nethew' coming out & I hope they choose a good person for Uncle Andrew; I've always pictured Christopher Lee as Uncle Andrew, but I'm sure there's plenty of good choices. I just hope that when they come to make 'The Silver Chair' that they choose a good enough person for Puddleglum, because if they don't then it could be terrible, but if they do it could make the film brilliant & as funny. I also hear that they've finally started making the Hobbit. They've been talking about making it ever sinse 2005, but they've finally started & the release date is the 19th of December 2012. Here's a link for more help - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0903624/ Also, if you've got any views on the then please, please, please leave a comment :)

Here is a talk on brain Plastisity that my mum did when we were at Rora House (homeschool camp. It's about how the brain can re-connect.

ೋ ❤❤❤~~HAPPY NEW YEAR~~❤❤❤ ೋ
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I'd just like to take this time to wish everyone reading this a happy new year :)
If you want to post this think onto your blog or website (whatever) then just highlight the 2010 and copy it then paste it onto your blog. If you don't know how to do that just ask.

Hello! I apoligise for not blogging in ages; I've just been really busy with other stuff. The day before yeaterday we went to see the new narnia film "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"; you could watch in either 2D or 3D, we went to see it in 2D (I guess because it's cheeper) and some of my family are a bit tierd of 3D. Before we went; I wasn't sure what it'd be like; I thought I might be really disapointed in it; after all this persen on YouTube - whose YouTube name is 'GlumPuddle' said it was a pretty dreadful film. When I went to see it; I thought it was really good. There were a few stuff I didn't like about it though; I won't go through the details because I really don't want to spoil the story for you incase you go and see it so I won't, except I'll tell you it mayby didn't quite get the longing for Aslans country from Reepichep quite the same as it did in the book. Changing the subject, I thought the boy who played Eustace (Will Poulter) did a brilliant job at being Eustace; he really was perfect for Eustace. He was quite funny as well; it wouldn't of been the same without him. In fact - I will show you a clip bellow of a scene with Eustace in. I personally don't like watching clips (even very small ones) because they give away a bit of the story, so if you don't want to watch; I compleately understand, but if your really anxious to see what Eustace is like (perhaps if your not going to see the film) then I'd check this clip out.

I found out something interesting - http://www.narniaweb.com/2010/09/silver-chair-or-magicians-nephew/ I'm Happy to hear that it looks as if after 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader', they are planning to make another Narnia film. But they don't know weather they are going to make 'The Silver Chair' or 'The Magicians Nephew'. So they have left it to the fans of Narnia to decide. The Silver Chair seems to get the most votes, and I definitely agree that 'The Silver Chair' is the best choice because they'll need to use the boy who played Eustace for 'The Silver Chair' while he's still young otherwise he'll grow up to fast; and I think it would be better if they continue with 'The Silver Chair' next anyway. But all the same - I am very pleased that they are planning to make 'The Magicians Nephew'. I was a bit worried that they wouldn't make that but it looks as if I was wrong. I very much hope they make 'The Horse and His Boy' and 'The Last Battle'. The Last Battle especially because that's the end result of Narnia and won't feel complete without it. I would say that if their going to leave any out I'd go for 'The Horse and His Boy' because that doesn't seem a very important one to have in it. However, I still hope they do make it! I hope they make them all, but 'The Horse and His Boy is my favourite one even though that's one I'd leave out. Please post a comment on views on this - I want to hear what 'you' have to say about it.
Thanks for reading.

I found this very interesting test on weather I'm annoying or not. Check it out, I was 41% annoying as you can see from my results :)

You Are 41% NOT Annoying!

You Are Annoying Most Of The Time. You Can Be The Class Clown, But You Still Annoy Everyone But The Popular People Who You Want To Fit In With. Move To Canada. That's Right, It's Close To America, But Not THAT Bad.

Are You Annoying?
Take More Quizzes

I found this film with this young man who was speacking about the trailer of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader". He was speacking about his views on it and things like that. I thought I'd show it to you, he's got some interesting points on that trailer. He speacks about what he likes about it and what he dislikes and all that. Sorry that you can't see it all, I don't know how to make the screen smaller so you can see it.

About a year ago I did a post about the next Narnia film which is going to be "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader". I talked about it no longer being Disney; about it changing to '20th Century Fox', and how that I wasn't happy with them doing that. I believe that about two years ago I did another post about all the the things in the Prince Caspian film which were changed from the book, and I also said that Micheal Aped would be making "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", and not Andrew Adamson who made the others. I said I hoped that Micheal Aped would keep it closer to the book than Andrew Adamson. However I think I was wrong. I've seen this trailer of "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and it looks like this is changed quite a lot. I've got the trailer bellow. I've also seen a film of a man talking about what the next Narnia film looks like, and what he thinks of the trailer, which I'll hopefully put on this blog next time. Anyway the trailer is bellow this writing. Watch it and tell me you're views on what you think the films going to be like.

I have recently got a new zoom lens for my Photography: it is a lens which only works for people, (not landscapes). We had to get one for people because there's going to be a Wedding soon; and gues what!- I'm going to be the Photographer for the Wedding, so I need a lens for people for that. I will put the Photos of that Wedding on either this blog or my blog on Photography, (I haven't decided yet), the other blog was supposed to be for landscapes. But anyway, the lens that I've got is 55/80 zoom (which unless you're also a Photographer, you probably don't know what that means). But it bssicly means that it zooms quite far in, and doesn't zoom very far out, so if I want to get the whole view, then I'm better using my other lans.

Alice and Esther have recently gone to this Science project for home educators and in it they learned all these things about Chemistry. And the day after they went; our mum went in the seller and brought a microscope up and also a few 'cemicils', which I can't remember the names of. What we were going to do was to put the cemicils under the microscope; to make them bigger. We also put a few other stuff under the microscope; such as, - solt, sugar, flour and Cristal. I'll show you what all the stuff that I know the names of are.



This is Esther looking into the microscope.

I think this is solt.

I think this is sugar.

This is flour.

I don't know what this red stuff is.

This is cristle! I don't know what the rest are. If you want; you can comment on what you think they are?

Sorry that I haven't blogged in about two months! I just haven't really got round to posting things. And I also haven't really been fealing like it. Anyway, today I thought I would show you my latest animation about Count Olaf from "A Series of Unfortunate Events" which is a book. Infact: if you want to hear more about "A Series of Unfortunate Events" click on the link hear :- http://busyatthemoment.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html

There is a place like no place on earth known as hades, or more well known as ‘hell’. This is an essay on what the place of hell is like.
It is clear from the Bible that hell is a place of torture, pain and agony; it is where sinful people who haven’t repented for their sins go. It is a place were you cannot escape from: once you’re there, you’re there, and you’ll never ever get out, so you’ll stay there for ever and ever, unless you confess your sins to Jesus, and trust in him that he died for you. But anyway we’re not talking about that, we’re talking about “hell”. There is a story in the Bible about a wicked rich man who was really selfish, and later went to hell, and when he was in hell (guess what), he could see the people in ‘heaven’ which is a beautiful place where people who have repented for their sins go. But anyway that’s not the point! If he could see people in heaven he knew what he was missing, and felt really awful. You’re probably wondering why I told you that story of the rich man. Well, I told you the story to bring out the point that in hell people can see those in heaven, and feel sorry even though they may never get out because of their wickedness, so I’m warning you (people reading this) repent for your sins and trust in Jesus or the penalty is hell. Thanks for reading.

I notice lately that a lot of films are becoming 3D. Two days ago we went to the Cinema to see 'A Christmas Carol', and that was '3D', but I also notice that a lot of other films are becoming '3D'. Ben and Nomi also went to see 'Avatar', which was also 3D, and Tim Burton has Created a new film of 'Alice in wonderland' which is also going to be 3D, Toy story 2 is coming out again, but in 3D, and also 'Toy Story 3' is also coming out in 3D; I hope that the next Narnia film (which will be 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader') will come out on 3D. I think soon all the films will come out in 3D, I think that could be the latest stile of film.
First we didn't have any films, them we had black and white films without sound, them black and white films with sound, them low quality colour films, them average quality colour films, them really high quality films with really good graphics, and Special Effects. And now we have '3D'. I think that is going to be the latest quality. When we went to see 'A Christmas Carol' we got given these 3D glasses, but we took our 3D glasses with us because soon we might be buying quite a few 3D films because they are all turning 3D. I certainly think that 3D is absolutely 'fantastic', it made 'A Christmas Carol' quite scary in scenes. Thanks for reading, I'd love some feed back. Please.

I've also done lots of other work on PhotoPlus which you can see bellow this post. I'll talk to you showing how I did them all.


This first Image is an Image of myself and a clone of me, what I did was I had two images of myself and I copied one Image onto the other Image and them erased the background, and behold I got this picture.

It took me a while to figure out how to copy one Image onto another Image, which is what I did on the clone picture. I was trying to figure out how to do that, but I used the wrong tool, and figured out another effect, and that effect was quite similar, it was were you got one Image onto another, but in a different way; It made the Image look quite sort of cartoony. The Image bellow is the Image that I got.


This final Image was done the same way that the clone one was done; I just got an Image of me hiking and put it onto a image of the beach, and this is what I got.

Sorry I haven't quite finished my essay posts yet! I know I said I said I had finished the series of posts on 'Photography', but There is something about Photography which I think I should put on here. About two weeks ago I finished the Photography coarse: But while we were at 'the Photography coarse' we learn how to edit Photos using 'a Photo editing program', I learn t how to make blared Photos clearer, and how to get one Image onto another Image: For Instance; just supposing I wanted to get a sheep that's in one Image onto another Image; this coarse told me how to do it........ Anyway as part of our homework we had to get three images and edit them and get three other Images and take a bit of the Image out and put it onto another Image. The Images that I did are bellow. I've also made some other ones which I will Upload sooner or latter.


These are the first three Photos that I have edited.













These three Photos that have been edited are the ones which I have just Sharped and brightened up a bit.

I wrote 'Gluten Free Cook Book' on the first edited Image because I also plan to use it for my Gluten Free Cook Book which I made.