New Movie: The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies

[Lost_Wanderer]

I noted that (the geography-heavy descriptive passages) when I last read “the Hobbit” to my son. It wasn’t always easy for me to follow, and I’m newly at least theoretically interested in geography or orienteering (though I wasn’t when I was a kid, when I first read the book).

I think this is probably what I’d call a sort of shortcoming when it comes to Tolkien. If you’re going to describe something like say, a path, the defining features of a mountain pass or the size of a waterfall, I would patiently read and re-read until I’ve got the full picture in my head. (Maybe I should start filling my mental dictionary with more geographical terms. )

On the other hand, you start talking North, South, and then going as far as sounding like a mountain guide then you’ve lost me. (The closest thing I’ve gone to caring about polar coordination was in the movie Pacific Rim, where they saw an island a few miles east that was getting closer and turning out to be a giant monster. )

 

[tomarin]

I think this is probably what I’d call a sort of shortcoming when it comes to Tolkien. If you’re going to describe something like say, a path, the defining features of a mountain pass or the size of a waterfall, I would patiently read and re-read until I’ve got the full picture in my head. (Maybe I should start filling my mental dictionary with more geographical terms. )

On the other hand, you start talking North, South, and then going as far as sounding like a mountain guide then you’ve lost me. (The closest thing I’ve gone to caring about polar coordination was in the movie Pacific Rim, where they saw an island a few miles east that was getting closer and turning out to be a giant monster. )

Having pondered this for the past few days, (and having just finished reading “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” to my son, which makes an interesting contrast in that it doesn’t feature such terrain-oriented passages) I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a conscious attempt of Tolkien’s to create an effect of realism in a fantasy story featuring creatures normally associated with fairy-tales (trolls, dragons, etc.). And it’s one that is largely successful, if you contrast it with C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, which don’t seem altogether real, or not as physically real and tactile as Middle Earth. I think it’s of a piece with the long and detailed prologue to “The Fellowship of the Ring” which gives a sociological, anthropolgical and historical account of the various subgroups of Hobbits as if they were an actual phenomenon in the real world that anyone could study.

It’s funny that I remember “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” with a lot more fondness than “the Hobbit” yet having just read both again I feel that"the Hobbit" is a lot more substantial, even for a children’s book.

 

[Pons]

A disgrace, like the other movies.

“But this is your hour, and the power of darkness.”