#is that he goes after frodo and sam and they end up in Shelobs cave and Mae is gonna kill the hobbits but the Liquid Starlight

[dragonatthedinnertable]

Today I watched "Hobitit", the Finnish TV adaptation of the Lord of the Rings. 9 25-min episodes. It's nod bad (although not good, either). I have a lot of thoughts about this. I'm gonna break them up by episode (roughly).

Episode 1: Bilbo. This one is just old!Samwise talking to some Hobbit children about the War of the Ring and Bilbo's riddle game with Gollum. When a kid asks "What about Frodo?", he very dramatically says "His time will come soon..." and stalks outside.

Episode 2: The Road.

Hobbiton looks really dark & grim (and the model shot hass like 5 houses).

Bag End doesn't look fancy. It looks like the same 5 boxy houses as the rest.

Gandalf's moustache is glorious.

Samwise has a bad 80's mullet going on. I can't take him seriously.

Using the Ring makes the wearer disappear in a puff of smoke.

The Black Riders are really cool. They're rotoscoped, translucent, and animated at a lower frame-rate. They look really otherworldly.

Episode 3: The Old Forest.

I think this is the first adaptation that uses ol' Tom Bombadil?

Lots of green lighting in the forest. I'm 99% sure that they never actually put the actors in front of anything but a blue-screen when they're outside.

We get our first special effect. It's seriously worse than half of what I see on old Doctor Who...

They include the bit where a barrow-wight captures the Hobbits, but we don't see the wight, and barely see the barrow, so if you don't know the book this scene makes no sense.

There's a side bit where Gandalf gives his message to Butterbur, and then goes to see Saruman. There's someone else at Isengard, who I'd guess would be Wormtongue, but since we never see either of these again it doesn't matter.

Episode 4: The Prancing Pony.

They get a really cool background music for The Cat and the Fiddle song. I don't think it's Frodo's actor singing, though.

The Hobbits seem exactly the same height as everyone else.

Strider is good as a Ranger, but throughout I really don't buy him as a royal heir.

Episode 5: Strider

Weathertop is basically a small pile of stones.

There's a shot of the crebain with NO significance whatsoever.

The fight with the Black Riders is really vague. The Fellowship is crouching in the forest, waving torches. Frodo puts on the ring with like no prompting, and then there's splashing and he wakes up in a white room.

That white room (completely featureless) is Rivendell, apparently. They use his bed as the table.

For some reason, Boromir has a weird kind of punk-rock samurai vibe? He's got a rice farmer hat on his back.

Gimli has the shortest beard I've ever seen on a dwarf. Like, it's 3 months of growth, at most???

Ancient-looking Bilbo comes in, offering to take the Ring to Mordor. Everyone's like, "Now, now, Bilbo..."

Episode 6: Lorien

With a bit of narration, we skip through Hollin and right to the fight with the orcs in Moria.

We don't see the Balrog at all, just Gandalf swirling down a fiery-red drain hole???

Lorien has nothing but Galadriel in a lake, which is the Mirror.

This is the point I realised that Legolas hasnt' said a word the entire time. He doesn't.

They do the whole breaking of the Fellowship here too. The orcs' arrows are weirdly twiggy.

Boromir has a frikkin' KATANA! Like, what???

This is the last time we see Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli.

Episode 7: Mordor

Mount Doom is visible as a cinder-cone spouting flame like an oil refinery.

Sam & Frodo cross the Emyn Muil. There's a whole bit with the Elvish rope, which is weird because there was definitely no gift-giving scene in Lorien.

Gollum is very stutter-weepy.

Old!Sam covers the entirety of the Treebeard thing & the sack of Isengard in 2 minutes of narration. Rohan isn't mentioned at all.

The Eye of Sauron is literally an eye. A human eye. Blue-screened onto the sky. The iris is different colours sometimes.

Episode 8: Mount Doom

The Black Gate is really, really small.

The entrance to Shelob's Cave looks just like I expected the Sammath Naur to look, which was confusing.

We don't see Shelob at all. There's no build-up, no Gollum talking about "Her!". We just see Frodo falling as if stung, and Gollum yelling "The Shelob got him!" That's it. The orcs certainly talk about her as if she's there. I was hoping for at least a really bad model or overlay effect, but given the lack of a Balrog I shouldn't be surprised.

Episode 9: Liberation

The Ring literally weighs Sam down when he puts the chain on. Same when Frodo puts it back on.

When we see Mount Doom, it looks like a really-low shot of a steep columnar peak.

Next time we see it, Frodo is strangely half-way up.

Then we see Gollum & Frodo at the top, and it's just a really short, squat cinder cone.

When Gollum falls in, it looks exactly the same as Khazad-dûm, except that the Eye is there. And there's the same effect where Gollum looks like he's going down a plug-hole.

After Mount Doom explodes, Sam & Frodo wake up in the same featureless room of Rivendell. Apparently it's Minas Tirith. We never see another part of the city at all.

Surprisingly, we actually see the Scouring of the Shire. Or at least part of it. After Merry threatens his way into the guard house at the Brandywine Bridge, there's just Hobbits running around with farming tools.

I think we see Saruman coming out of Bag End? It's hard to tell, because he's only in shot for a few seconds, and also the same size as the Hobbits (just like everyone else is).

After old!Sam finishes his story, he walks in the same direction as Frodo left in. There's no harbour, but he walks dramatically along the Straight Road.

None of the actors can emote very well. This, along with the blue-screening of all outdoor shots, makes the whole thing feel very flat. It purports to just tell the bits of the story that the Hobbits see, but that seems to translate only to Sam. It's weird not seeing anything of Treebeard, or Rohan, or Minas Tirith.

That said, the writers know the lore of the world really well. Old!Samwise namedrops Gil-Galad, they use all the names of Rauros, that kind of thing. There's nicely poignant bits thrown in there. Boromir delivers his "give me the Ring, Frodo" speech as flat as anything, but when they close-up on his face, his eyes are swimming in tears.

Overall, I give it a solid 5/10.

[big-zube]

the best moments from return of the king that make me Feel a Lot

after gollum frames sam for eating all the lembas bread and then frodo leaves with gollum and sam is left all by himself when everything he's ever done on the trip was to try to help frodo and he's so, so tired

when frodo is in shelob's cave and he realizes how sorry he is and how much he needs his sam and then he collapses and has that vision of galadriel that gives him the strength to get back up

when sam thinks frodo is dead but then he's not and it turns out ok

right after pippin picked up the palantir and he's all shaken up poor bbyyyyy

when pippin is about to leave to gondor with gandalf and merry is pissed at him but he doesn't realize that the reason merry is so upset is that they might not get to see each other again and the moment when innocent lil pippin realizes and merry is choked up and he says "i don't know what's going to happen" and then pippin is whisked away and merry immediately races to the top of the building to watch them ride into the distance

when pippin kneels in front of denethor and offers a lifetime of service in return for boromir's life (HOW IMPOSSIBLY NOBLE AND SELFLESS OF HIM??? HIS HEART IS SO PURE)

when denethor tells faramir that he wishes he died instead of boromir and faramir says he'll do his best to make up for that loss while obviously trying not to cry in front of his stupid bitch of a dad

when arwen has that vision of aragorn with their child and decides once and for all to become mortal no matter what elrond says

when aragorn is about to leave to go rally up the ghost army and eowyn is like "you can't leave on the eve of battle" and aragorn is like dude why are you here and she's like do you really not know and he gives her that slightly pitying look you give when someone loves you and you don't love them back and he just softly goes "eowyn." (and then says something about it's only a shadow and a thought you love which is also a cool line)

pippins gorgeous sad song

eowyn scooping merry up onto her horse so that he can join the battle, and then the way they look out for each other during it all, they're so sweeeet

"A SWORD DAY, A RED DAY" pep talk and then this giant mass of people screaming "DEEAAAAAAATH"

when theoden is dying and he realizes his daughter is the soldier who killed the nazgul dude and the moment they share right when he goes out

WHEN PIPPIN AND GANDALF ARE SITTING TOGETHER IN THE MIDST OF EVERYTHING AND PIPPIN SAYS "i never thought it would end this way" AND GANDALF COMFORTS PIPPIN BY TELLING HIM ABOUT HOW PEACEFUL THE AFTERLIFE IS WITH THE WHITE SHORES AND STUFF

when pippin and merry reunite afterwards and pippin tells merry that hes going to look after him

when aragorn gives his pre-fight pep talk and finishes it with "for frodo" and charges the orcs and there's a pause and the first people to follow him are merry and pippin, the most unlikely soldiers, with hearts so much bigger than their tiny bodies and filled with love for their friend

"what about side by side with a friend"

"I CAN'T CARRY IT FOR YOU, BUT I CAN CARRY YOU"

"it's gone. it's done."

"i'm glad to be with you samwise gamgee here at the end of all things"

THAT WHOLE SCENE, AND THEN WHEN THE EAGLES RESCUE THEM, AND THEN WHEN FRODO REUNITES WITH EVERYONE IN BED

when frodo is about to board the ship and everyone is falling apart emotionally and he hugs the other hobbits and each of them cling to him as tight as they can and then. AND THEN. when he gets to sam. and that tender kiss on the forehead. fuck

and then on the ship he turns to look at them one last time and he smiles and its the most beautiful smile you've ever seen because all the color has come back to his face and he's truly at peace for the first time since bearing the ring and his happy ending has finally finally finally come

THE GODDAMN HUG. THE GODDAMN SMILE.

THE WHOLE GODDAMN MOVIE

oh yeah and that gorgeous credits song