The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

Directed by Peter Jackson

Well, here I am for the second Hobbit movie, as late or later seeing it than I was the first last year [link]. December is just an intrinsically busy time of year what with end-of-semester duties, holiday preparations, and so forth. Plus I had a very bad cold on top of a pile of essays to read over the opening weekend. Long and short, as much as I was looking forward to it, I seem to be the last person I know who wanted to see it who has seen it!

Also, whereas last year the delay in seeing it meant that my only option was 3D, a format I generally do not prefer, this year my only option was 2D. Frankly, I did not miss the 3D, although I may well have opted for it if I had a choice, based on the recommendation of a couple of friends. Oh well. I don't think my enjoyment of the movie suffered in the least.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)

Directed by Peter Jackson

I have to confess that, although I've had a great love for J. R. R. Tolkien and his constructed linguistic-historical mythology of Middle-Earth ever since I was first introduced to The Lord of the Rings when I was in high school, and have reread that magnum opus several times, I have read The Hobbit only once (well, twice, counting the time I read it to my son a decade ago) and have had a much lower opinion of it than any of Tolkien's other works. Mostly, I know, that comes from approaching it in a backwards manner, having already been entranced by the high fantasy of LotR when I then picked up the considerably more juvenile “prequel.” As much as I enjoyed it on its own terms, also, I had the rather childish adaptation by Rankin and Bass that came out during the same general period of the late 1970s contributing to what I considered (and still do) an irreconcilable clash with the heroic gravitas that prevails in the “sequel” (and even more so in my own personal favorite of Tolkien's works – yes, The Silmarillion).

The Rankin/Bass Production
of The Hobbit (1977)

Nevertheless, I was as excited as anyone else when the “long-awaited” (an obvious turn of phrase that I nonetheless owe to an Internet friend) revisiting of Middle-Earth as envisioned by Peter Jackson finally appeared on the horizon with the release of the rather extensive teaser trailer about a year or so ago. And I definitely liked what I saw then. I had the opening date of 14 December marked in my iPhone calendar from as early as it became known to me, and fully intended to be there that first weekend if not that first day of general release.