So what keeps drawing me - back and back, and back - ever 'there and back again', to quote J R R Tolkien's well-known phrase, fully utilized by his film adaptors, for Bilbo's adventure to the Lonely Mountain? Some throwback to childish phantasmagoria? An - as yet undiagnosed - case of "OCD", obsessive compulsive disorder, admittedly (if rather subjectively) so attested by a loving sister herself apparently afflicted with selfsame clinically-diagnosed condition? A 'pure and simple' liking, yea love for the (first instalment of the) film adaptation and its medley, its motley array of arguably brilliantly-characterized cast? Plenty of 'time on my hands' and a rather laissez-faire (by which folk tend to mean, laissez-aller) attitude to life, as some other siblings and another close 'relative' would no doubt attest, one calling me once 'a man of leisure'? Some misguided, and doubtless inordinate, desire or determination to defend Sir Peter Jackson & co, and to vindicate their reputations and efforts in their latest masterwork from the usual and all-too-typical jump-upon-the-bandwagon critics and detractors and innumerable other 'antis' presently relishing, and revelling in (and none too unsmugly at that) The Hobbit's failure to confirm even its seemingly meagre nominated share of three 'minor' awards at the recent Oscar's?
Perhaps all of the above - 'with knobs on', as some wags would surely add, 'along with all the rest', as others might say, inferring any number and combination of especially subconscious, subterranean impulses and motivations which invariably goad or prod one in a simultaneous multitude of often mutually-conflicting directions. But, damn it, I can't help myself: it's a damn good film, and even exquisite capturing/ rendering/re-enactment of the essential spirit of Tolkien's now 75-year-old kid's fantasy extraordinaire. Irrespective of the few, and I'll readily concede conspicuous, flaws that a keen reader and devoted admirer of The Hobbit cannot help but see, especially, or so I've found, with each and every subsequent viewing of its cinematic counterpart. Yep, The Hobbit departs, and at times majorly, from the substantial content, 'the guts' of J R R's literary work. But to the gratitude of all those diehard Tolkien fans who likewise relish and appreciate his works' Jacksonesque interpretation, the first film at least manages to adopt, to convey, to encapsulate the very mode, the manner, the style of that selfsame literary gem. And that's all that ultimately really matters. Or as the rotund woman is known to have remarked: "That's all she wrote."
Nevertheless for the sake of that ever-elusive quality of balance and fair play which the modern media pays much lip-service to yet really cares stuff all about, it would be a little remiss to overlook let alone leave unmentioned what strike me as the film's most glaring omissions, incongruities and inconsistencies, and so these will be cited and expounded in my final instalment. My essential premise, my justification for so doing being my admission as follows: yes, in many parts, respects and ways, as is somewhat inevitable with any film adaptation of especially a renowned and much loved literary work, The Hobbit diverges, and then some, from Tolkien's book. And of course this is patently self-evident, the two genres essentially differing so markedly from one another, not least in the ways that time is perceived and experienced, as well as the ways in which a narrator's or (especially) central character's unspoken commentary are re-presented visually. And, again quite understandably, I concede, with *each subsequent viewing, increasingly obscuring one's progressively fainter recall of one's own imaginative 'mock-up' of the original text, a tendency remarked upon at a recent public forum coinciding with the Dunedin, New Zealand premiering of The Hobbit by noted C S Lewis scholar, and founding Tolkien Club member (of one of its Australian chapters) Professor Paul Tankard of the University of Otago in Dunedin. Resulting in the molding, merging and morphing of one's original imaginative understanding into an increasingly 'definitive' idea one assimilates and imbibes and appropriates from the visual film material. To the obvious detriment of that initial, if necessarily inchoate, personal perception one forms and develops further with every new reading.
*Having already seen the film three times, at its Dunedin premiere on the 12th of December in its much-touted High Frame Rate 3D version, a week later as a personal birthday treat in simple 'ole 2D - yet, if anything, enjoyed even more, and lastly in mid-January in 'plain' 3D at the time a whole lot of criticism was being directed anew at the Government's costly financing of the venture. Incidentally the day I (initially) made this new posting coincided with a would-be 4th viewing, again in 2D, if I'd managed to get my act together sufficiently to 'cheer it' off the screen as it rapidly and rather prematurely winds down, at least here in the increasingly sunny south of God's Own. Incidentally, but intriguingly, espying an old newspaper clipping recently I noticed something rather interesting - for film buffs generally but especially for Wingnut Studios/Weta Workshop fans. In either 2000 or 2002, 'each and every kiwi' saw 4 films apiece that year, netting or grossing the New Zealand box office and/or the relevant filmmakers around **$100 million NZ, which even if just translated directly into 2012/2013 dollars would represent a sizeable one-tenth of the Hobbit's internationally-cited nettings/grossings of one billion dollars, last I heard anyhow. So you can see that if each and every New Zealander also saw The Hobbit an average of my own hoped-for 4 times, Jackson, Walsh, Boyens, Taylor et al'd be onto a (financial) winner beyond all description. And through their exceptional talents I'd suggest Aotearoa, in particular our tourism industry, would not be far behind. (**But in today's dollars who knows what the comparable figure might be... .)
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