For me, An Unexpected Journey was the most anticipated film of the past five years. Films don’t garner much anticipation in my mind so that isn’t saying much. Still, being in New Zealand and getting to see it before the people back home sparked cherished memories of going to the midnight release of Star Wars Episode III oh so long ago. That movie had low expectations that were met if not slightly exceeded. That being said, my expectations going into The Hobbit may have been a bit unreasonable.
On the fourth of December as we were beginning our trip out to Abel Tasman, we stopped in a small town to get our Internet fix at the local library. I decided it would be a good time to look into getting tickets for The Hobbit, only to find that the midnight showing back in Nelson had been sold out. The online booking system for this theater has you reserve your seat rather than having general admission. The good seats were going fast and we quickly booked our tickets for the next showing at 10:30am.
After securing our tickets I consoled myself that at least we would still be seeing it on opening day. I then noticed that the theater in Nelson, State Cinema, also had theaters in other areas in the Tasman District (Nelson is to the Tasman District as Bellingham is to Whatcom County). Out of curiosity I looked at the other theaters and according to their website they had showings for The Hobbit on December 5th, the very next day, in a town we had passed about a half hour earlier...
I tried calling the box office several times to inquire about the next day’s showing, during what should have been business hours, only to be forwarded to a voice-mail box. In my excitement to see what I believed to be an advanced screening, I didn’t see the first clear red flag that something was amiss. I figured that we could wait all night in the parking lot and get the best seats to an early showing of a movie that was a part of one of my favorite movie franchises from my late childhood. With these stars in my eyes I convinced my highly skeptical wife that it would be well worth the detour.
On pulling into the theater complex I had high hopes. There were a fair number of cars in the parking lot, but not too many, and the icing on the cake was a figure of Gollum perched on the roof reaching for The Ring just out of grasp. As fate would have it, it was the perfect symbolism for what was to happen next. We parked and went in. We found an empty concession stand that doubled as the box office. After a moment the clerk came out of the side office and told us he didn’t know why the website said that there were showings tomorrow and that they had just started booking tickets for the midnight showing on the 12th. Having already purchased our tickets for that day we turned away in disappointment. Deceived, the experience I had longed for was as far out of reach as the ring from Gollum’s outstretched hand.
Close, but not close enough. We continued on our way and before we knew it, a week had gone by and we were off to see the film in Nelson, only to find that our trials and tribulations had not yet come to an end.
We arrived 15 minutes early. From our experience from movies back home this felt like being 15 minutes late. The automatic box office for online bookings was broken. There was a large line for the concessions/tickets but it thankfully moved quickly. We finally got our tickets only to find that there was a malfunction for the high frame rate version we had tickets for. We were being herded into a showing for the regular 3D version (the glasses for which were sold separately) with general admission and we thought it was probably too late to get good seats. We ended up getting our tickets exchanged for a later (non high frame rate) showing with good seats and the hope that the movie would make things all better.
It was too high a standard to put on any movie. Some of the liberties Jackson took with the story-line troubled me significantly and I left the movie wondering how I felt about it. I had expected to be super excited after seeing it but I didn’t feel that way. I asked myself if that lack of excitement made it a flop. I wasn’t ready to call it that and looking back, I feel the experience is much the same as the way I felt about The Empire Strikes Back.
At first Empire was my least favorite of the Star Wars movies but now it is one of my favorites. I think, now that I have recognized the issues I had going into the film, I can set them aside and will be able to fully enjoy the movie next time I go and see it. All that being said, if you are not much of a Tolkien purist (i.e. you haven’t studied the appendices from Return of the King too closely) you will probably enjoy the movie a great deal.
We will continue with our ‘regularly scheduled blogging’ soon after Jasmine posts her more thorough review of the movie.
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