The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies *SPOILERS*

So yesterday my boyfriend and I went to go see the final Hobbit movie. Aside from the row of guys in front of us with a running commentary, I really enjoyed the movie. I know a lot of people complain about it, but I believe that the good outweigh the bad.

One of the biggest complaints I've heard (aside from it being split into three movies), is that it's comical. This is true, I suppose. But the movie is based of a kid's book. The book is comical and childish. Of course, parents these days would say that it's way too graphic for kids, but that's because most parents these days are paranoid idiots that think that any little bit of violence will turn their child into a monster. Furthermore, there is very little violence in the book, not until the spider scene. Even then, the actual battle of the five armies is condensed to a few pages, with very little details except for scenes that are actually away from the battle.

I can see why anyone who has not read the book will think that the movie is comical, especially when compared to The Lord of the Rings movies. But keep in mind that the Lord of the Rings books were written for adults, along with just about all his other work. The Hobbit was meant for kids. But of course, who knew that, right? Most people must have been expecting something more along the lines of Lord of the Rings. And, about it might not seem like it, Peter Jackson gave them so much more than the book does.

First off, There is no Legolas and Tauriel in the book. Their little story wasn't needed in the movie. It was to add a bit of romance, and nothing else. Tolkien had not a bit of romance in The Hobbit, and I actually preferred it that way. I guess Jackson was trying to bring in a greater audience, such as girlfriends and females that would not normally see the movies.

Then there is the whole scene near the end of the movie with Fili, Kili and Thorin. This was perhaps my favorite scene, because it's only briefly skimmed over in the book. (Major spoilers ahead) As I said, in the book the final battle is very short. There's barely any details, and what there is isn't violent. In the movie, Jackson went into detail about the death of Fili and Kili, and how Thorin killed the Orc leader (who's name is slipping my mind right now), then died too. I think this was brilliantly done.

When people complain about it the comedic relief. That is, the three Ogres in the first movie, the barrel escape in the second movie, and Dain and his dwarf army in the third movie. All these are in the book though, and are very important scenes that Jackson could not cut out, and could never be forgiven if he changed them into something more serious. These scenes defined the book as a children's novel, and although the movie is not meant for kids, you cannot just cut out such important scenes.

So I would give the movie a 4/5, I suppose. I still love Lord of the Rings the best, but the Hobbit has more action and more comic relief, which I love. I can look forward to having a Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movie marathon soon!

Five Things (Almost) Every Fantasy Novel Has

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, it's been another long week at work. Finals are in progress, so a couple co-workers took the week off. But that's okay, most money for me! At least everyone else is eager for hours, so we're not too desperate.

Anyway, I've been reading the Inheritance Series (Eragon, Eldest... ect.) and I've come to notice a few things that a bunch of fantasy novels seem to share. And I'm not talking about the races of creatures, like elves and dwarves, as those are uniform and not expected to change. I mean small details.

1) If there is a blacksmith, he's a good guy. The more muscles, the better.

2) If there is a large mountain range, they have to have the word Mist in them. Like the Misty Mountains, or the Mountains of Mist.

3) If it starts off with an average person living in a small village tucked into the middle of nowhere, that person is the savior of the world, and that village is actually the ancient site of a once grand and very important city, which almost everyone just conveniently forgot about.

4) A character is going to get married? Better do it before that hoard of monsters come knocking at your door. (which happens to be a small village tucked into the middle of nowhere)

5) If a character needs to know something, they will not only learn it within a month, they will be a master of it, because it's 'just in them'.


Most of these examples stem from three series; Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, and Inheritance. I'm guessing that Robert Jordan and Christopher Paolini both read Tolkien, and took a lot of examples from him. Not to say that they're bad books (Wheel of Time is still very far up on my favorite books list), but they do tend to follow a predictable path on these five points.

The Silmarillion review

It's been a while since I've done a review, and that's most;y because I've been slogging through The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. I absolutely love The Lord of the Rings movies and the Hobbit, both the movies and the book, so I decided to give more of Tolkien's work a shot. I've already read the Fellowship of the Ring and got halfway through The Two Towers, but gave up when it got to the Frodo and Sam part. I've grown up quite a bit since then, so I figured I would be mature enough to read The Silmarillion.

Well, I wasn't wrong. It just took me a few weeks to read it. It's only 366 pages long. There's nothing actually wrong with it, and I was interested, but there was just so much going on. The whole book encompasses thousands of years, and at least two remakings of the world. There are so many people and names and places and events that I'm not really sure what happened. I could probably remember the more important things, but most of it has just been mixed together.

But of course, that's Tolkien. I remember The Lord of the Rings books being the same, and that's another reason why I stopped reading them. I always thought it was because I was so used to the movies that the books were just too different. But I think it's honestly just too much going on.

I might try to finish reading The Lord of the Rings later, especially now that a lot of events, at least from the movies, has been cleared up from The Silmarillion.

The Art of Imagination: Medieval Fantasy

While listening to the radio on my way home today, my mom turned to a station that was talking about books. Now you would think this would peak my interest, but every time I listen to this radio show, or any other talk show or media that has anything to do with books, I never know the authors or the books, and most of the time I have no interest in them. The truth is, I'm rooted in speculative fiction. I hate non-fiction, especially biographies, I don't have much interest for teen fiction (though you don't find that being talked about much either), and my interest in literature has been in a steep decline ever since entering college. I find myself fascinated when someone does not like the same genre as I do, as I have grown up reading such things as Chronicals of Narnia, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Ranger's Apprentice, Tamora Pierce, and all number of other YA fiction. Furthermore, it seemed like back then everyone I talked to back then knew exactly what those books were (to a degree). They had all read them, enjoyed them, and kept reading similar books. At some point this ended. people 'matured' and grew out of these 'childish' novels. I am going to advocate for these overshadowed pieces of art.

Speculative Fiction is a genre that means the subject matter could never be real, or has a 99.99% chance of never coming true. It is dragons, unicorns and magic, wizards and superhuman knights. It's flying cars that run on nothing but air and humans with super powers. It's extra terrestrial beings that look suspiciously similar to humans and long dead creatures coming back to life. It is the real escape, because with anything else, there is always that possibility that the fiction will become non-fiction. Speculative Fiction is the only genre where you can truly escape from reality. 

Now that I've caught your attention, I should steer you in the right direction. I personally like medieval fantasy the best. I would say that 90% of my book shelf is medieval fantasy. This sub genre is, obviously, set in a medieval era world, whether it's Earth or otherwise. 

One of the most well known examples is George R. R. Martin's series A Song of Ice and Fire (adapted into the TV series A Game of Thrones). This series is good for getting the realistic effect while combined with a tad of fantasy. In fact, I think it would be better if the dragons were taken out completely. It's well written and the plot makes you think, but it's not my favourite series. 

For something more high fantasy, definitely go with Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. With this one you have to be careful that you're not too used to the movies though, as that was severely affect your opinion of the books. I'll admit that I was never able to finish the books, because I could not stop thinking about all the differences between the books and the movies. 

If that difference turns you off, then I would suggest Robert Jordan's A Wheel of Time series. It's much like Lord of the Rings, but almost five times longer, with a more complicated plot that branches out several dozen times and (mostly) comes back to tie into a neat bow at the end. Many people who have read it will say that it's not worth it past the sixth book. This is definitely untrue. I highly suspect those people never bothered to finish reading the series, as by the twelfth book it definitely picks up. This is also when Brandon Sanderson took over the series after the death of Robert Jordan.  The Wheel Of Time is one of my favourite series, and although it may get a little slow at some points, by the end of each book you will be itching to pick up the next.

Those are the top three Medieval Fantasy series that I have read, but there are definitely plenty more. Medieval Fantasy is defined not only by the time era, but by characterization. These books will typically portray knights, kings, queens, royalty, thieves, assassins, farmers, shepherds, mages, and any number of people associated with medieval times. Along with them will often (but not always) be mythical creatures, such as dragons, unicorns, Minotaurs, elves, dwarves, mermaids, centaurs, and so on. And finally, to truly make it a speculative fiction piece, is the magic. This can come in unexplained forms (such as in Harry Potter), or in ways that are attempted to be explained using religion or science (such as in Elantris). Not all cases of speculative fiction need to have magic though, as Tolkien proved in his books, which although contain mythical creatures, never really had magic (aside from the wizards, who were rare and kept magic very exclusive, to the point that it was part of being a race, rather than a knowledge, much like immortality to elves.)

Anyway, enough of my babbling! I'll continue on Wednesday, going over another sub genre of Speculative Fiction.

The Hobbit review *SPOILER ALERT*

Today while at the mall with one of my friends, we randomly decided to go see The Hobbit, since we have both read and enjoyed the book. I am also a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, though I have to admit that I wasn't able to get past half way through the second book. It got to the Frodo part and I gave up. I hate Frodo.

Anyway, I'm going to say it now, that I found the movie to be a huge disappointment. I'm going to cut this post into three sections; pros, cons and neutrals.

I also apologize for not posting anything yesterday. I was stuck at my friend's house up on a mountain because of a sudden snowstorm.

Pros

-The acting was amazing. I loved all the dwarves, especially Fili and Kili. Martin Freeman makes an amazing Bilbo Baggins, and as usual, Ian Mckellan was superb as Gandalf.

-It's funny. I know this isn;t really something that should be included in the pros section, especially for an adventure movie like The Hobbit. But the book was funny in some parts, and I love having the comic relief.

-The singing was beautiful. One of the more famous parts in the book was the song in Bilbo's house. It has the deep, dark tone to it, and was song perfectly. It added the solemn tone that persists throughout the movie, and adds the serious element that is only lightened by the comic relief.

-They got some parts right... These some parts include the flaming pinecones, most of the riddle game (Though it was cut short), the golden buttons flying off of Bilbo's shirt (Though it was at the wrong time), and several other small details that escape my mind at the moment.

-The history. It's not part of the books, but I think that it is one of those few times where I actually appreciate something being added. In the book it's hinted to and explained throughout the book, but they couldn't do that without confusing the viewer in the movie, because they cut it into three parts. The only problem is that they got the history partly wrong... And added a few things that were not supposed to be in it. But it got the general message across and was a good start to the story.

-The graphics and filming. It's a small detail that can easily be overlooked, but the details in the movie surpass those of Lord of the Rings. Not by much, but it was still pretty amazing.


Cons

- It didn't follow the book. This will always be the main complaint of anyone who has read a book and later seen the movie for it. I just don't understand why directors cannot follow the book. It's written out for them already, it's just more work for them to re-work everything. In The Hobbit movie, I would say that half the movie was not from the book. That means that half of what they added could have been from the book, and therefore they probably wouldn't have had to cut the movie into three parts.

- It was cut into three parts. I would understand if the book was as large as one of the Lord of the Rings books, but The Hobbit is at least half the size of one book. There was no reason for them to cut it into three parts. Maybe two, since there is a lot going on and sometimes parts need further explanation to let the viewer know what is going on. But the first part is three hours long. I think they could have put at least half the book into one movie, instead of only a third.

- It nearly put me to sleep in some parts. I would not complain so much about the parts they added if they had made those parts interesting. There was way too much talking, and although there was also plenty of fighting, it was the talking parts that bored me. Oddly enough, these talking parts always seem to happen in Rivendale...

- A lot was taken from The Lord of The Rings movies. I suppose like uncle like nephew? There were two huge parts that mirrored each other; Bilbo/Frodo hanging off a cliff and need to be rescued, and Bilbo/Frodo accidentally falling and having the ring slip onto their finger. I understand the hanging off a cliff part, that's done in just about every adventure movie, but the ring part nearly made me burst out laughing.

-Small details that they got wrong. As long as it leads to the same end, I suppose I can't complain, but I would like to see it mirror the book perfectly. But that's an impossible request, as no director can possible do that, right? I suppose it's their way of having a creative touch.

-The Eagles were called by Gandalf. I wouldn't give this a second thought it I had not read the book. But the movie portrays the Eagles as servants to be called upon when in need. Furthermore, they appear to be simple animals, if larger that average. They show no intelligence or hint of being their on 'people'. In the book they happen upon the fire in the trees and pick up Gandalf and company because they owe him a favour. They drop everyone off and stay to chat. This proves that they are intelligent, but also that they are noble, proud and majestic, with a mind of their own that cannot be called upon like a taxi.

Neutral

-The riddle part was cut short. It's not a big deal, I suppose, especially considering I had expected them to butcher it. There was at least one more riddle each with they cut short, one of which it was my favourite riddle. It was disappointing, but I can't really complain.

- The dwarves didn't have hoods. It sounds stupid to anyone who has no read the book, but they entered the house and were mainly described by the colour of their hood and the silver tassel that hung from it. (Hood means hat, by the way) Thorin was the only one to have a golden tassel, marking him as different from the rest. It also goes to show that tiny details were either overlooked or not important enough to deal with, despite the fact that all it needed was a hat added to each dwarf.

-Thorin nearly died. Once again, I can't complain, since it was pretty bad-ass (Pardon my language). It showed his determination, courage and honour, but also an important part that shows up later in the book; his weakness, which is basically just being weak... He is portrayed almost as a god-like figure, strong, bold, and overall an impressive leader. But he is felled with barely a scratch on his foe. It brings him back down to human (or Dwarf) level and shows that he is mortal, and only a little better than his companions.




That's all I can think of for the moment, but I'm sure I will be able to add more later.