5 THINGS I LEARNED WATCHING THE ESCAPADES OF MIDDLE EARTH

Lessons learned...

So, yes, I did see the Hobbit...but I cannot give it a fair review as of right now because I saw it in the new experimental quality that Peter Jackson tried out (48 frames per second) which made the movie look more like a PBS special.  There is a thing as a movie looking TOO realistic.  Many may have liked it, but I like the graininess of movies.  I don't enjoy feeling as if I'm watching a 3 hour soap opera...add on top of that the fact that I saw this movie at 10pm after a very long and demanding day at work and you now have a flick in which the quality has already ruined my experience and my fatigue had me nodding off within a half hour.

I WILL be seeing The Hobbit again in the normal 24fps and will post a review about it.

So in keeping with the Lord of the Rings trend, let me share with you some things I've learned from the popular cinematic trilogy (NOT the books).

The orcs are terrible fighters

Ah the orcs...the bane of Middle Earth.  Feared and loathed.  Men cower at the mention of them, elves prepare for battle when they hear of their armies advancing, all creatures dare not venture into the night knowing the orcs are known to travel then...my question is: why?

These are the same orcs were defeatead by armies a third of their size at Osgiliath, shamed by only 9 people in the Mines of Moria and beaten up by the riders of Rohan.  We see in Moria something rather strange: the hobbits, who have never fought before because they are a peaceful people, actually brutalize the orcs.  The best scene has to be Samwise clocking them with pans and crock pots.

I think I could take the orcs if I met them on the field of battle.

Gandalf isn't as powerful as he seems

Don't get me wrong, Gandalf is the man.  He's the grandfather everyone wishes for...I mean, he puts on a mean firework performance and the tricks he can do with that wizard staff will leave people saying "how did he do that?"  

So why didn't he use any of his awesome powers to win a fight against weaker folks?  In the Mines of Moria he fights hand to hand (after using his staff to light the way), he used a cool trick to drop the Balrog into the abyss...along with himself; he came back as a more powerful white wizard only to show that he can shine bright, deflect an arrow and whistle like Greek God to make his horse show up.  All this before his staff was splintered by a ring wraith.  

Honestly, we love Gandalf simply because he's a cool dude who always has a great story and a plan.

Frodo is the hero for no reason

"I did it all alone...right Sam?"

Yes, he was the ring-bearer to a wedding of doom, but this title brought him more glory than he deserved.  He was constantly told it was a burden he HAD to bear on his own, yet, the one who did all the work was none other than Rudy...I mean Mikey...I mean Samwise Gamgee!

When Frodo was stabbed by the spider, Sam came to his rescue; when the orcs of Mordor took Frodo, Sam came to his rescue; when Frodo couldn't walk anymore up Mount Doom, Sam carried him the rest of the way...seeing a trend here?

The elves are jerks

Ok, so one human gave in to his human weakness of temptation and the elves decide to never trust another man for all eternity?  Pretty harsh dudes.  

A small squadron of elves is sent to Helm's Deep to help out the humans while the rest....run away?  Where's the faith?  

In fact, the elves only return when everything is over to present Aragorn with his wife.  Wow Elrond...wow.  

"We're smug because we see everything and don't do anything about it"

"You are so scared of me!"

The ring wraiths aren't so tough
The main wraith stabs a 4 foot tall man-child in the shoulder.  The other wraiths run away when Aragorn flashes a torch at them...all 9 of them.  They are taken to school during the final war by the eagles and the lead wraith gets stabbed in the back by a hobbit and stabbed in the face by a woman.

Yea, we got some real warriors there.









This is all in good fun, I love the Lord of the Rings trilogy (I've got all three extended versions for 4 hours of awesomeness per movie) and I'm sure I'm gonna like The Hobbit when I see it the way it's supposed to be seen!

"So you're saying I'm NOT the star of all the movies?"

Have a great weekend and Merry Christmas!

Jay