The One Ring

I’m decidedly “meh” on The Hobbit (which I saw last night). I enjoyed the first third or so  and liked some of the changes, but the battle set-pieces did not engage me, and I was just waiting for the end from about the troll scene on. I might even skip the next two in the theaters, although I’m sure I’ll get the extended edition trilogy on DVD when it comes out, completist that I am.

BRIEF, MINOR SPOILERS BELOW:

Some of the changes I just couldn’t fathom though. Why break a rock to turn the trolls to stone instead of tricking them into an argument? (Who knows, that might have even been the little thing that soured my outlook on the remainder of the film. I guess I’ll know when I watch the extended edition.) Why give Gollum the “time’s up!” line in the riddle game instead of Bilbo simply calling for more “Time! time!”?

END SPOILERS.

As an aside, the soundtracks for big-action flick trailers are all starting to run together. I think if you played me the score-only trailers for Pacific Rim and Star Trek: Into Darkness, I’d be hard-pressed to distinguish them (from each other, or from Battleship‘s trailer).

And as an aside to the aside, what’s the point in skipping the colon in Star Trek: Into Darkness and causing all kind of problems with style guidelines that lowercase four-letter prepositions?

Must be whiny Wednesday.

—jhunterj