Daniel Falconer

As I'm reading these art books for The Hobbit movies, I'm realizing how tragic it is that they completely failed at making them good. There are things that are such good ideas and intentions that aren't borne out at all in the movies: such weird things they cite that the movies then fail at. For example, they talk about how Jackson wanted new designs for the orc and elves because he didn't want people to see the same things on the screen. Which doesn't really matter, an orc is an orc is an orc. Make it ugly, no one cares.

But then he goes and does the exact same story beat of Arwen saving Frodo with Tauriel saving Kili… complete with Athelas… complete with "kingsfoil? That's a weed!" Which doesn't even make SENSE. Because Frodo was stabbed with a Morgul blade, an ancient and magical blade, and was turning into a wraith as the men of old who were corrupted by the spiritual being Sauron. Kili was hit with an orc arrow.

The art is great, but these books make the films worse.… (mer)

It really is unbelievable the amount of work that went into these films, and their predecessors. Props that are glimpsed for a second (or less) have been laboured over with love, on the off-chance that they might feature more prominently, giving the director a lot of latitude in choices.

The strengths of these books are the (if this were a documentary) "talking heads" ... almost all of the text are lengthy discussions by the crew and cast about the reasoning behind the choices. It's scrupulously detailed.

The books only miss out on five-star status because, as engrossing as they are, they aren't as emotionally engaging as I'd expect a five-star book to me. But for me, 4-stars is quite high praise!

(Note: 5 stars = rare and amazing, 4 = quite good book, 3 = a decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. There are a lot of 4s and 3s in the world!)… (mer)