The Hobbit, the movie!

If you read my blog from back in September, you know that I have been eagerly awaiting the big screen adaptation of one of my all time favorite books, The Hobbit.  Well, I finally got to see it last night and here are my thoughts.  First of all, I believe Peter Jackson lost the vision that made The Lord of The Rings such a great trilogy of movies.  It seemed to me as if he was trying to recreate the cartoon adaptations of the 1970's, rather than make the book come to life the way he did with the trilogy.  The dialog between the characters seemed hokey and silly.  The additional scenes that he added, which were not in the book, seemed labored and unnecessary, especially the addition of Radagast the Brown.  While Gimli in the trilogy seemed as if he was a real person, the dwarves in this movie could have been created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.  He even made one of the dwarves appear to be a tad "special".  One of the most irritating parts of the whole experience was the fact that all of the orcs were CGI, and not particularly good CGI in my opinion.  The orcs in the trilogy seemed real, because they were portrayed by real people.  In The Hobbit they were almost cartoony.  The entire movie was just entirely too glossy and plastic.  It did not come across as taking place in a real time or place, like I said about the orcs, extremely cartoony.  There were several things that were changed or omitted from the book which seemed unnecessary.  the additional scenes could have been left out and replaced with more of the detail from the book.  Peter Jackson seems to have relied too much on CGI and special effects rather than focusing on great film making, as he did with The Lord of The Rings trilogy.  I actually started to fall asleep a few times while watching the movie!  Overall, the experience left me sad and more than a little disappointed.  The Lord of The Rings was a masterpiece of film making.  The Hobbit was not even in the same league.  I hope that the next two movies can bring it back around, but I find myself doubting Peter Jackson.  Maybe if I wasn't such a huge fan of the book I would not be so critical, but that's just the way I feel.