Book to Film: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Contains spoilers

This time last year, I was more excited about the first Hobbit film than I was about Christmas itself, and despite mixed reactions to the film, I was pretty satisfied. This satisfaction did not prevent me from being quite nervous about the second film of three based on a short book. Promotional material and internet rumours got me worried that Peter Jackson and his team might be getting carried away with their own storytelling, neglecting the book that they were adapting. Were my fears justified? Perhaps a little. The Desolation of Smaug is certainly the weakest installment of the series so far, and the bad bits were every bit as bad as I had feared. But these were fewer than they could have been, and did not affect my enjoyment of the film as a whole.

When you are adapting six chapters of a book into a film of nearly three hours, you'd expect each chapter to be fully fleshed out, but the scenes at Beorn's house are rushed through at top speed, which I found to be an incomprehensible decision. The most memorable part of this chapter was completely cut, which disappointed me, as was the fact that Beorn was not, nor did he resemble, BRIAN BLESSED.  I also thought, even taking into account that he is a huge man in the company of dwarves, the proportions were all wrong, and they looked strange and unreal on screen together. Still, the actor owned the part for the short time he was on the screen.

The story really got going in Mirkwood, the eerie forest that would gladly lead the company to their doom. This is where The Hobbit benefits from having been made after The Lord of the Rings: If one Shelob is horrid, then many are worse. I had wondered how the film would get around the problem of speaking animals, which we have not yet encountered on the screen. This was neatly shown by being a result of Bilbo's enhanced ring-senses. Martin Freeman is superb in this scene, and you really feel his horror when he realises what his desire for the ring can drive him to: a frenzy of spider-slaughter that may have saved their lives, but which was powered by the One Ring and not his own mind.

I missed the Elves' enchanted feast: in the film the enchantment of Mirkwood was stated to be because of the power of the "Necromancer." As predicted, the Elves' warrior aspect was played up, over their otherworldliness, though Elvenking Thranduil was deliciously, reassuringly creepy. I would have enjoyed seeing more of the Elvish feasting in the film. In a way, Noelle Stevenson's "Randy Thrandy: Racist Party Dad" is closer to how I picture the Elves of the book. The antagonistic Legolas was amusing to watch; a younger, hotter-headed Elf-prince than the one we've come to know.

Legolas: "What's this? Some goblin mutant?" Gloin: That's my son, Gimli.

Fans of Legolas' stunts from Lord of the Rings should be pleased with this film; they are as awe-inspiring and sometimes hilarious as ever.

And then there's Tauriel: a hot-headed young Elf-captain who kicks all kinds of buttock. If only that was all. My friends and readers probably know what I'm about to say, and I'd rather not even acknowledge this part of the film, but I feel I must.Frankly, I would prefer to have no female characters in the film at all than a two-dimensional one, and certainly I could do without one whose main role in the story is for the purposes of romance where no romance should be-o. I enjoyed the first scene between Tauriel and Kili, but it was better implied than overindulged, and it came across as overly sentimental, predictable and sloppily written. But my objection to the inter-species romance goes beyond "Ew, gross" or "It's not in the book and therefore did not happen." I felt that it made Arwen and Aragorn's romance in Lord of the Rings less remarkable and rare, as well as diminishing the power of Legolas and Gimli's friendship sixty years later. And that's all I shall say on the matter. Just no.

The scenes at Laketown were rounded out; I feel in the book of The Hobbit you don't get a lot of time to look around the settings or meet the characters. We get to know a bit more about the character of Bard who will prove important in the future, and also to see the poverty of the town in comparison to the master's lavish living. Stephen Fry as the Master of Laketown was wonderfully disgusting, with a greasy ginger wig and moustache, and his servant/spy could probably have been related to Grima Wormtongue: slimy, sneaky, despicable. Yes, there was an additional subplot added in here, but it was along the lines of the Elves at Helm's Deep or Aragorn floating down the river and being kissed back to life by his horse, unnecessary but inoffensive. Although, come to think of it, that entire subplot was there only to advance the aforementioned dreadful romance. Hmph.

As before, the best parts of this film are those that come straight out of the book, and after the Elvish and Laketown diversions, the film got back on track when Bilbo went inside the mountain and came face to face with the dragon Smaug. The slow reveal of the dragon was magnificent. The gold moves over here to reveal a dragon's eye and head... then, as Bilbo tries to hide from Smaug, the gold moves over there and you, with Bilbo, come to realise just how huge this beast is. Voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch, Smaug is gloriously hammy, but terrifying as well. You know that he could swallow any of the heroes with a single gulp, and his snout comes way, way too close for comfort.The telltale orange glow through his belly before each exhaled inferno gives his victim a few seconds to feel terror with the knowledge of inescapable death. I was very impressed by this addition to the dragon mythology. As with the last film, the most powerful and impressive scenes were those acted by Martin Freeman and an actor in a motion-capture suit.

I am still unconvinced that The Hobbit really needed to be made into three extra-long films. Though I didn't really lose concentration, a larger proportion of this film than others were, well, padding. Last time I called it character development, extrapolation, filling in the details, but this time I don't think any of those words are as accurate as padding. The film is not two and a half hours of story, but is filled out to match the others in length by extended battle scenes, stunt sequences and unnecessary subplots. There was one long sequence towards the end when I though to myself, "I have absolutely no idea what they are doing, but let's just go with it." Turns out they were trying to give Smaug a golden crown a la Viserys Targaryen; a very very stupid decision of the Dwarves. If they'd read A Game of Thrones properly, they'd know that "fire cannot kill a dragon." But it can make him very, very angry. And an angry dragon is not a good thing to have around.

15-Day Book Blogging Challenge: Day Eleven

Day 11: Show off! 5 of your best blog posts!

1. The 50 Greatest Harry Potter Moments.

This one is what it says on the tin. My definitive top fifty moments from the entire series, both books and movies - but if I've forgotten one of your favourite scenes, lines or characters, let me know!

2. When Children's Books Were Two-And-Sixpence

An old post from the days before I actually had more than a couple of followers, before I'd found a book blogging community. In which I rant about kids' classic books being updated for a modern audience.

3: Adults: Why do you read YA?

From 2010, I wrote this post shortly after I'd rediscovered that teen fiction was not all shallow fluff. Also contains pictures of me as a scrawny teenager for you to laugh at.

4. Theatre: Much Ado About Nothing

A review of William Shakespeare's comedy, as performed in London by a certain Mr D. Tennant and Ms C. Tate. Be warned: contains fangirling.

5. V for Vendetta

A review in my very occasional "Graphic Novel Novice" series, this review compares book and film, setting the book against the context in which it was written, and how the different versions of the story complement each other.

Film: Prince Caspian (2008)

Prince Caspian remembered

I realise that although over the years I've written several posts about the Chronicles of Narnia, in book, film and TV format, I have only covered some of the stories. Prince Caspian was the second book to be published and the second film adaptation. While I was absolutely blown away by the first Narnia film, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which to my mind was a near-perfect translation from book to film, I remember being disappointed with Prince Caspian. This is perhaps not entirely the fault of the film - though not my least favourite book in the series, I think it is the weakest, with a comparatively slender plot. When the BBC adapted the book for TV in the precious Sunday Night Family Drama slot in the late '80s or early '90s, they ran it together with The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and two half-hour episodes were sufficient to tell the Prince Caspian story. The film-makers, by comparison, had to pad out the book's story by inserting additional scenes and conflict which meant that it was not the film of the book that The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was. With beloved classics such as Narnia or the stories of J R R Tolkien, I think you can tell where filmmakers have digressed from the original text, and their digressions, though often good, lack the sparkle that comes from seeing the book come to life before your eyes. It is still a pretty decent film, but Disney's Prince Caspian is not C S Lewis's Prince Caspian.

I worked out that it has been four years since I saw the movie. I saw it at the cinema on a date with my then-boyfriend, who later bought the DVD as his last Christmas present to me. We broke up shortly afterwards, and I haven't seen the film since. Perhaps my memory has been unfair to it. I remember that I enjoyed it pretty well at the time, though with a critical eye and a constant comparison to the book. But when I think of the film now, it is the memory of the disappointment that lingers. It is time to revisit the DVD in order to see if it is better than I think it is...

Prince Caspian Revisited

I guess a large part of the problem was the casting of Caspian himself. In the book, Caspian is a child, maybe thirteen years old, whereas actor Ben Barnes was in his mid-twenties. Though it is acceptable to age characters up a couple of years, and maybe cast actors up to five years older, if they don't look their age, making Caspian an adult changes the whole dynamic. Peter, too, is a few years older than his book counterpart seems to be - probably because who would believe in a thirteen-year-old high king and warrior? But the two kings (because Caspian is the rightful king) spend much of their screen time bickering and being obnoxious to one another, and generally behaving in a way that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike Narnian Kings. It makes for a darker and less magical Narnia than the one I tried to find in my wardrobe as a little girl. Maybe the filmmakers felt that the original story lacked internal conflict or character growth, maybe they thought the boys were a little too noble and goody-good.

The movie starts differently to the book, firstly showing Caspian's aunt giving birth (I know that ladies DID give birth, and that it is a significant plot point, but it seems somewhat out of character for a children's story
of that era to actually show it.) The first we see of Caspian is of his escape in the night - I was surprised that in such a slender story that required so much padding and dull, dull battle scenes, they missed the establishing scenes with Dr Cornelius and the astronomy lessons. Those are among the scenes I am fondest of in the book, the most Narnian, so I was sorry they were gone (though the "dance of Tarva and Alambil" is mentioned later on by a centaur.)

Back in England, with the Pevensies, I appreciated the details that remind us that their London is still at war - in the books, this is only shown as the set-up for The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and never mentioned again. The script gives no reason for the children to have left Professor Kirk's house in the country, but I know many children were brought home by their parents after the Blitz, so this is not a continuity error so much as a "time has passed." Although Peter's scuffle on the station with the other schoolboys is out of character for the sensible Peter of the books, it shows the toll that everyday life takes on children who have grown up once, been kings and queens of Narnia, and then have to go through adolescence all over again. I always felt that was a cruel fate. Georgie Henley's Lucy really makes us feel the tragedy of centuries passing in Narnia, while the children have been away for just a year in their time. I always felt a certain amount of sorrow that we only get to spend a brief time with Tumnus, the Beavers and the others, and then the next time they are long dead, but all I need is to reread The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe again. For the Pevensies, there is no time machine. Once those thousands of years have passed, there is no taking them back.

I love the banter between the children, but Skandar Keynes stands apart from the rest as Edmund, with his cheeky grin and smart comments. The dialogue can be a little clunky at times, but not half as bad as the BBC version, which has the word "magic" used about three times in two sentences. Add cynical dwarf Trumpkin into the mix, and I had a grin all over my face - and is that Game of Thrones' Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) under the beard? (Answer - yes. Yes it is.)

Warwick Davis, who is no stranger to Narnia, having acted in the BBC version in the roles of both Glimfeather and Reepicheep, this time gets to play a bad guy, Nikabrik, but plays him as a more rounded person than I've previously thought of the character. Like Trumpkin, he is angry and suspicious, but more hostile to our heroes, and ultimately proven an enemy, yet his reasons are understandable. He is portrayed as someone whose downfall was brought about by desperation, rather than an intrinsically evil character.

A short conversation between Lucy and Susan is heartbreaking when you know the books.

"Why do you think I didn't see Aslan?"
"I don't know. Maybe you didn't really... want to? [...] You're happy to be here, aren't you?"
"...While it lasts."

Welcome Reepicheep! I'd forgotten he was in this story, though the lion-hearted mouse has always been my favourite character in the series. He certainly does not disappoint here. He gets a few new wonderful moments, as well.

"You're a- a mouse!""I was hoping for something more original."

I really don't like the plot and character derailment of Peter and the Narnians attempting to attack King Miraz's castle, and I won't deny it, it's purely and simply because that didn't happen in the book. More to the point, it shows a stubborn pig-headedness on Peter's part which, to be fair to the filmmakers, gives him more development when he does start trusting Aslan and accepting Caspian as the King of Narnia, but it's out of character. I accept that they needed to fill out the plot, but I'm not happy with how they did it. This is Osgiliath all over again. It's just not Prince Caspian, and that's all I have to say on the matter! Hmmph!

And likewise, I'm not happy with the flirtation between Caspian and Susan.

As Susan never returns to Narnia, and Caspian later marries another, it is a story that is left dangling and untidy, put in for the sake of it, and I'm not a fan of putting the mushy stuff where no mushy stuff should be-O! The Chronicles of Narnia are children's stories, and when I was a child, I liked my stories to be about children. Romance belonged in the adult world, which was boring, (or at least the teens, which were just as foreign to me.) Lucy and Edmund sum it up perfectly, in the lines that were the only good thing to come out of that subplot:

"Maybe when I'm older I'll understand."

"I'm older, and I don't want to understand."

Is adding romance to a children's story alienating to its audience, are kids growing up faster than they used to, or was I the anomaly in my apathy towards the pink and fluffy? Answers on a postcard please.

In short, Prince Caspian works best when the filmmakers stick to the original material. I can understand their reasons for the added fight scenes and (ick) romance, and they do add more character development than the book, whose Peter, in particular, is pretty static after The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But this added conflict and character development means that I am spending time in the company of people who I don't know any more. These are not Caspian and Peter, though Susan stays Susanish throughout. Her added depth is consistent with what is shown in the later books, an interesting but unsettling issue; a character treatment that has left readers and writers unsatisfied for the past decades. The film's additions, though they do not resolve all the unanswered questions, fleshes out this enigmatic Pevensie girl in such a way that it fails with the two kings. Ultimately, I'm not sure whether Prince Caspian could ever work as well as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: the plot is just too thin for two and a quarter hours, and the extended battle scenes and plot digressions leave me cold. When it works, it works well, but it lacks the consistant brilliance of the original Chronicle of Narnia.

Book to Film: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

This is going to be a looooong one. Spoilers for the film, but not later on in the book.

It's always risky adapting a beloved film for the big screen. They say that no two people read the same book; everybody has their own ideas about how it should look, sound and feel. Even Peter Jackson, whose adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings was widely acclaimed, was not guaranteed to repeat his success upon his return to Middle-Earth. One could be forgiven for thinking that after the sprawling three-volume epic, The Hobbit should be a piece of cake, but the smaller novel provides its own challenges. In effect, it has to be two different stories simultaneously: the simple fairy-tale that Tolkien started writing while marking exam papers, and a part of an entire world of mythology that culminated in the Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit's reviews have been very mixed, and those negative reviews that are not primarily concerned with Jackson's experiments with frame-rates, seem to fall in one of two camps. Some complain that The Hobbit is too much like Lord of the Rings, too epic and complex, when it ought to be a Narnia-esque kids' adventure. Others think that it is too simple and childish - not enough like LotR. 

Me? I couldn't be happier. As far as I'm concerned, Jackson got the balance just right, keeping the world of The Hobbit consistent with the existing cinematic Middle-Earth, but retaining the story's unique flavour. At first I had my doubts about the wisdom and necessity of turning The Hobbit into two films, let alone three, but after reading the book I realised just how much happens, how many people Bilbo, Thorin and co meet, and how many places they visit, rushed through at a chapter per location, character or incident. It would be a very long film to do each one justice. Jackson and co have also turned to the back end of LotR's appendices and other writings to give an added depth to The Hobbit.

The film opens with a prologue, slotting it nicely into the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, by showing Bilbo Baggins as an old Hobbit, and a cameo from Frodo. Perhaps this is a little forced, but it rekindles that homey feeling of Bag End, and was probably put in as an excuse to show Bilbo writing and narrating those immortal words:

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Corny set-up or not, those words would have been missed if they had not been there. The entire Bag End scenes which follow are practically flawless. Martin Freeman truly is the young Bilbo Baggins. I fear Mr Freeman may be in danger of being typecast as an ordinary Englishman (or hobbit of the Shire) who finds himself caught up in extraordinary adventures against his will - see Sherlock's Dr Watson, or Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's Arthur Dent. But he plays these roles so beautifully! Bilbo and Gandalf's first interaction walked straight off the page and onto the screen, a lighter comedy than in even the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring, and laying to rest my anxieties that this would be more Lord of the Rings: The Prequel than The Hobbit. After this very strange encounter with a wizard who seem to know more about Mr Baggins than he ought, poor Bilbo finds his house swarming with Dwarves, with muddy boots, sharp swords and huge appetites, completely clearing out his pantry and threatening to trash his kitchen. (Spoiler alert: Yes, the washing-up song is in there - one of my favourite moments in the entire film.)

J.R.R. Tolkien didn't give the Dwarves a lot of personality, with the exception of the king, Thorin Oakenshield. Balin is kind, Dori is "a decent fellow," Fili and Kili are young, cheerful and a bit reckless, and Bombur is overweight - that's about all we know. For the film, each of the thirteen has his own look and personality trait. Fili and Kili are shaping up to be fan favourites - especially among the female fans, perhaps for obvious reasons.

May I here point out that they were always my favourites, years before they were cast? Fili, Kili and Balin, who is depicted in the film as a gentle soul but a seasoned warrior, a loyal follower of Thorin, but one filled with doubts about the wisdom of their quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain of Erebor.

An unexpected favourite from the movie adaptation turned out to be Bofur (played by James Nesbitt) who has been expanded from one of the Interchangeable Backup Dwarves to quite a character. He starts off as quite a lovable rascal with a Northern Irish accent and a twinkle in his eye, tormenting Bilbo in his home and sparing no details about exactly how it would feel to run into the business end of Smaug* the dragon. Yet, a moving scene later on in the film proves that he is made up entirely of charm and loveliness.

Reading the book, I never found Dwarven king Thorin Oakenshield to be a very likeable character, surly at best and a complete jerk at worst, but, again, the movie rounds him out a little by showing flashbacks to his past. After showing the devastation of Erebor and the awful aftermath of battles, his quest comes across as more than filling his pockets with gold. I still wanted to shout "Oh, shut up Thorin!" a couple of times, but not as often as when reading the book.

Like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit uses long, panning shots of breathtaking New Zealand countryside that made me want to pack up my bags and hop on a plane to go on long treks across the mountains. Howard Shore returned to compose the score, keeping in the heartachingly familiar Concerning Hobbits theme, and giving it a jaunty and adventurous twist in keeping with Bilbo's character. As well as other familiar leitmotifs, Shore has introduced some new tunes, most notably the solemn, proud, Dwarf theme (the same tune used in the "Misty Mountains" song which reduced many a Tolkien fan to tears in the first Hobbit trailer last year.) The soundtrack and scenery help to ground this story in the same Middle-Earth as Rings, leaving me feeling as though I'd never left.

It is interesting to compare the perspectives of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings quests. LotR focused upon the human civilisations and the Elves, whose glory days were coming to an end, and the beauty of their kingdoms in Rivendell and Lothlorien, but the only Dwarf, Gimli, was mainly used for comic relief. We return once more to Rivendell, but somehow it doesn't feel like the same idyllic haven that it was before. In the company of Dwarves, we see through their eyes, and I felt that Jackson excelled in subtly giving the same place a sense that something was slightly off-kilter in this golden leafy paradise. The Elves do not sing "tra-la-la-lally," (thank goodness!) but there is a tra-la-la-lally feel to their music, that is at odds with the solid, earthy Dwarves. That being said, I enjoyed seeing another side to Elrond: riding home exhilarated from battling goblins, not the care-worn, frowning leader bearing responsibility for the whole world as well as his wayward daughter.

But it was in Rivendell that I had the closest thing to a criticism of the film: the role of Galadriel. My quibble was not with anything explicitly said or done, so much as the veneration with which Galadriel was treated. Yes, she is one of the wisest beings on Middle-Earth, and, though she is not mentioned in the book of The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings and Unfinished Tales establish her as being a key member of the White Council. But she is still an Elf. The film adaptation implied in its treatment that she ranked higher even than Gandalf, but the wizards of Middle-Earth are in fact closer to angels than humans or Elves. Still, if these suggestions and insinuations are my only cause for complaint - and "complaint" is far too strong a word, really - then The Hobbit fares better than both The Two Towers and Return of the King, which in turn are nearly flawless despite each containing a moment that makes me shout at the TV every time. + 

Galadriel is not the only character to be moved to The Hobbit from Tolkien's works. For the first time, we are introduced to Radagast the Brown, a third member of the order of Istari (commonly known as wizards.) Sylvester McCoy (familiar to many as the Seventh Doctor) portrays Radagast as a rather dotty character, with a darling little pet hedgehog named Sebastian - not a name that you could derive from any of Tolkien's languages, but one which suits the hedgehog perfectly. But I digress. Hidden beneath Radagast's silly exterior which earns ridicule from the haughty Saruman and certain critics, are strength, wisdom and courage equal to that of his peers. "Is he a great wizard?" Bilbo asks Gandalf, "Or is he more like you?" "I think he is a very great wizard," is Gandalf's answer, and I think I would prefer to take Gandalf's side on this matter than Saruman's. Power corrupts absolutely, as is proven by Saruman later on in Lord of the Rings, but there is an innate innocence to Radagast that prevents this in his case.

The great enemy of The Hobbit is, of course, Smaug the dragon, but he barely makes an appearance in the first part of the film - just flashes of stamping feet, swooshing tail and a single golden eye. But there are other foes that Bilbo and the Dwarves must face in the form of the trolls and goblins. These seem to jar a little in comparison to the evil creatures we have previously encountered in Middle-Earth, and it was very strange to watch the trolls sitting around the campfire grumbling and talking. The Great Goblin is quite jolly in a nasty sort of way, even singing a happy little song about how he intends to send the Dwarves to a gruesome fate. Such moments remind us that The Hobbit is a children's story, and yet at the same time, the villains are more complex than the Lord of the Rings orcs, with distinct personalities (albeit not particularly pleasant ones) which may cause a bit of a twinge of disconcerting pity when they get killed. There is a poignant moment when the blue glow of Bilbo's sword, an alert to the presence of goblins, fades away, the goblin having been killed by Gollum. It is strange and unsettling to feel pity for the orcs - battles against them were simple and straightforwardly good-versus-evil in the more "grown-up" Lord of the Rings. Yet that moment of pity foreshadows the critical turning-point in the entire Ring saga: when Bilbo Baggins did not kill Gollum.

It is not only the Hobbit's monsters' characters that seem a little out of place with how we've seen them so far in the cinematic Middle-Earth, but also their appearance. It is apparent that a lot more CGI has been used in the creation of the goblins, and perhaps also the trolls, than in Lord of the Rings. LotR was, of course, a big turning point in computer graphics in the movies, with Gollum a pioneer in motion capture technology. But whereas Gollum fits right at home among the other cast, thanks to the character's design and Andy Serkis' extraordinary acting skills, some of the Hobbit's CGI antagonists don't look as real as the old-style orcs which were actors in prosthetics. I thought that there was something slightly off about the Pale Orc, Azog, but it wasn't until my second viewing that I realised why. It was not merely that computer graphics look less solid than the real thing, but Azog, as well as one or two of the other creatures, looked like they had wandered off the set of Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth - probably no coincidence, as Del Toro also worked on The Hobbit.

Gollum, of course, stole the show, and I was saddened at the end of the film to remember that he only featured in the single chapter of the book and would not be seen again until Lord of the Rings. He is, as ever, alternately hilarious, cute and pathetic, but my friend and I agreed that we also got more of a sense of menace from him than in his previous appearances. Frodo, of course, knew of Gollum before their first meeting, but Bilbo was unprepared, alone and terrified, and he first sees Gollum violently killing a goblin twice his size. Freeman's and Serkis' acting in their game of riddles is marvellous, bringing the book to life in a bit of light relief but with an undercurrent of tension beneath.

"If Baggins loses, then we eat it whole?" 

"...Fair enough."

When Gollum discovers the loss of his "precious," the light relief is gone. The Ring is Gollum's sole reason for being, and its loss seems unendurable. But Gollum will go on hunting it for the next sixty years - or seventy-seven if you go by the book's chronology. Gollum's agony is heartbreaking, and the expressions changing from terror to compassion on Bilbo's face will stay with me for a long, long time. The entire saga depends on that single moment, and it could not have been done better. It was perfection itself.

I still don't care for 3D, though. I'm unsure whether the edition I watched on Friday 14th was the infamous double-frame-rate version of the film or not (I'm no expert in that sort of thing, being more concerned about the story, scripting and acting) but I did find it difficult to focus during the busy action scenes. The 3D is certainly well done, but I found it to be more of a distraction than an enhancement. There was one notable moment when I thought that a member of the audience had stood up in the aisle and blocked the screen, until I realised that it was a 3D character on the edge of the shot.

After Lord of the Rings, I hadn't been too excited about the possibility of a Hobbit film, and doubted the necessity of making more than one - after all, it is shorter than any one LotR volume. Yet despite its simplicity, it is a very full book, as I realised on my recent reread. Are three films really necessary? Well, I've no doubt that there are parts of An Unexpected Journey that could be trimmed with little detriment to the finished result, and I would have estimated that Jackson could probably have made two decent movies without sacrificing any plot. Yet if parts two and three are up to this standard, then as far as I'm concerned, the more Hobbit film there is, the better. (Bring on the Extended DVD!) An Unexpected Journey was an absolute joy to watch - though I strongly advise you to avoid drinking anything before or while watching it. I have already seen the movie twice, and expect to see it at least one more time. Probably more.

*I've been pronouncing it "Smorg" all these years, but apparently the "au" makes an "ow" sound. Similarly, the film rhymes "Thorin" with "Florin" but I've always called him "Thor-in."


+the Faramir-fail and the Sam-go-home-fail, if you're interested.

TV: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1988)

They don't make kids' TV like they used to. Fact.

The Lion...

As a child, I watched very little television indeed, but perhaps that made the programmes and dramas I did watch all the more special. In particular, I have a soft spot for the old Sunday night dramas the BBC used to show in the run-up to Christmas: six-part adaptations of classic children's literature. The Phoenix and the Carpet was one, and The Borrowers ran to two series, which remained buried deep enough in my subconscious that on my first viewing of Lord of the Rings, many years later, I saw Ian Holm's Bilbo Baggins and my brain screamed "IT'S POD!" But no drama can live up to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I would have been just about three, and almost certainly this would have been my first encounter with the story, but I have no memories of seeing it for the first time. I've just always known that story.

In later years, we had a taped-off-the-TV video of an animated adaptation, which now I think is... not very good. Back then, I viewed it as fair, but not "the real thing." My grandmother was the custodian of the (mostly) live-action mini-series, and to watch this was a rare treat. As far as I was concerned, this was the book come to life off the page.



The music of the opening titles is the closest thing I've found in the real world to magic, and it brings tears to my eyes. It evokes the reality of magic, and the knowledge that if I went into my wardrobe, maybe I would find my way into Narnia. Or, alternatively, I could stick pictures to the back of the wardrobe, imagine myself there, and it would be just as real, just as good. There was none of the wistfulness of knowing that the real world just isn't as exciting as the world of the imagination, because as far as my younger self was concerned, they were the same thing.

...The Witch...

Of course, in 2005, Walt Disney Pictures brought out their Hollywood film of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and I have no complaint with their treatment of my beloved story. (The sequels left a fair bit to be desired, but I can count even teeny, minor criticisms of L, W & W on my thumbs.)

The BBC mini-series is very much a product of its time, with theatrical over-acting and a quaint combination of costumes and animation for special effects. We've got a dwarf with a broad Yorkshire accent, beavers who resemble lisping potatoes, and an Aslan who, if he opens his mouth wide enough, reveals a man inside a lion suit. And yet, all this fades away, leaving the storytelling to do the work. Watching it now, I was pleasantly surprised how well it stood the test of time in an age of 3D, CGI and Blu-ray, proving that above everything else, what is needed is a good story. The casting is wonderful - I love the hammy White Witch, plummy-voiced, blinky older brother Peter, the freckled and resentful Edmund, Susanish Susan and round, toothy Lucy.

...and the Wardrobe

The BBC also adapted three other Narnia books: Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which were put together as a six-parter, and The Silver Chair. I saw The Silver Chair, which features Doctor Who's Tom Baker as a marvellous Puddleglum, while still a child, and once again I found it was close to perfect, but I was older and more critical of the Prince Caspian/Dawn Treader adaptation - it was a bit rushed and I thought Caspian really ought not to have such childish curls - but even so, with its limited budget and dated special effects, I feel that it captured the essence of the original stories better than its more cinematic Hollywood remakes.

Top Ten Tuesdays - Kids' Classics

Top Ten Tuesday is the brainchild of the ladies at The Broke and the Bookish, and this week the task is to list ten books of our favourite genre. A tricky one for me, as I read so many different types of books. Should I list classics? Fantasy? Any particular sub-genre of fantasy? Thrillers? Teen reads?

In the end I decided to go with:

The Top Ten Books That Shaped My Childhood.

These are the kids' books I would reread regularly, and still return to for a bit of comfort reading, the books that inspired my daydreams, make-believe games, fanfiction and not-really-very original fiction.

1. Anne of Green Gables. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed my blog for a while. Anne Shirley was a kindred spirit and probably the most "real" character I'd yet encountered in my reading.


2. The Chronicles of Narnia. For years, the back of my wardrobe was covered in tiny drawings of characters and scenes from this book, cut out and stuck on with blu-tak, in an approximation of a map. If I couldn't actually get to Narnia through my wardrobe, my imagination provided the next best thing.

3. Swallows and Amazons. Oh, for the freedom to spend one's childhood camping, sailing and adventuring, in a world where the lines between real life and fantasy are blurred and where you can live out the stories in your head. That is what childhood should be.

4. Famous Five. I think Enid Blyton was generally disapproved of by schoolteachers and librarians when I was a kid, and I couldn't understand why. Her adventure stories appeal to the imagination of adventurous children with ruined castles, rugged moors and caves galore - and of course, lashings of ginger beer!

5. Malory Towers. I found the first book in this series in the school book box when I was in the middle of my Famous Five craze. This launched me into the world of old-time boarding school stories, midnight feast and hilarious pranks, and inspired my first "novel": First Time At Abbey School, which was basically Malory Towers with the names and events jiggled around. I was very proud of that story, which was handwritten, in pencil, in a Lion King exercise book. I probably ought to type it up before it fades away completely.

6. Chalet School. When it became apparent that I had discovered school stories and wasn't going to give them up, I was bought the first in the Chalet School series by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer. This series follows the school from its beginning with two teachers and three students above an Austrian lake in the late 1920s. Little did the author foresee the way the series must accommodate real historical events several years later - but the Chalet School in Exile, in which the school flees Austria to escape the Nazis, is uindoubtedly the best book of them all. It is remarkable for being a contemporary account of Austria in 1938, written by an Englishwoman and for children.

7. The Railway Children. When I was small, I used to swap toys and books with one of my best friends until my mother put a stop to it. One of the books I did get from her was the ladybird edition of The Railway Children, which became a favourite. Many years later, I was given the "real," full story, and it was wonderful to discover that there was so much more than I had realised.


8. What Katy Did. I was probably given my Katy omnibus because of the heroine's name. The books can be a bit moralising and sickly in places - this is Victorian children's literature, after all - but there are such vivid descriptions of Katy and her siblings' antics and games that I could quite happily imagine myself among them.

9. Little House on the Prairie. Let me put my hands up and say that I have never watched the more well-known TV series, which seems to have a reputation for being too sweet and wholesome to be true. I've lived with the movie in my head for so long that I would jealously resent anyone showing me their version.

10. Anastasia Krupnik. This is probably the odd one out, being the only book or series written after about 1950! Anastasia is "the girl who thinks for herself," and with each book she has a brand-new interest or obsession or project - very much like myself, both then and now. Most of the books end each chapter with a list (things I love/things I hate,) a story-in-progress or a school project, which show Anastasia developing and maturing as a character. She's got a loveable, artistic family, even if her little brother Sam is too precocious to be true.