Wtf: *fansqueeeeeeeeeaaaaaaal* [trailer for The Hobbit]

[black_sluggard]

It's so hard to even articulate how excited I am about this movie. Or even just this trailer, oh my God. The dwarves, and the song, and Gollum, and the song, and Gandalf, and the song!

I was ridiculously happy to hear that song again. ^^

I must have watched the cartoon billions of times when I was a kid and I always loved that song. All the songs. And the songs from The Last Unicorn and The Flight of Dragons, as well.

Overall, the Rankin-Bass cartoons were some of my very favorite films during my childhood*. The style of animation was dark and unique, very different from Disney, and the muted colors made the cartoons feel like storybook illustrations come to life. Which is pretty appropriate, given all three were adapted from novels.

The first two, based on J.R.R. Tolkein's The Hobbit and Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn respectively are fairly self-explanatory, though the source of the third film is a little more complicated. The first two are also fairly popular, and I wouldn't be afraid to say they qualify as classics, cult or otherwise.

The Flight of Dragons is a lot more obscure. It is a combination of Peter Dickinson's The Flight of Dragons (a heavily illustrated history of dragon lore and theoretical speculation on how "real" dragons might have managed to function) and Gordon R. Dickson's The Dragon and the George (part of his Dragon Knight series, which I read and reread multiple times in highschool).

Characters and storyline are (more or less) lifted from the latter, while the designs of the dragons and the explanation for how they breathe fire and fly are taken almost perfectly from Peter Dickinson's book. On the surface it is your basic "quest to destroy the evil artifact and save the princess", but there are a few bizarre, metafictional turns. For instance, the main character is Dickinson himself. The overall story then becomes a fictionalized account of what inspired the book to be written as, similarly to The Dragon and the George, the protagonist is forced to learn about dragons from first hand experience...

Which, due to a magical mishap is mostly from an insider perspective.

It is definitely my favorite out of the three (though it beats The Last Unicorn only narrowly). I also consider it a formative influence. It had a very deep story which examined the question of whether science and magic were mutually exclusive, and what the role of magic is in the modern world. The experiences of the protagonist feature the same flavor of confusion I often write in my stories, of a character overwhelmed not only by the world they find themselves in, but by the place—and, indeed, the shape—they occupy within it. And many of the magical attacks of the wizards were remarkably subtle, taking the form of influence over evil beings (I swear, the sandmirks are still one of the creepiest monsters I've ever seen) or a spell to attack the heroes with feelings of hopelessness.

Plus, the dragons were the good guys, there was a talking wolf (who is technically undead, and how cool is that?), a badass knight, a kickass ranger chick, and James Earl Jones voiced an evil wizard.

And Bryagh... *shivers*

You used to be able to find it in parts on YouTube. I don't know if it's still there. If I weren't posting this from my shitty laptop I would look and provide you a link. Watch it if you can find it, if you were a fan of the other movies or just of fantasy in general.

And now a brief aside...

I don't know why it's so hilarious to me that Aidan Turner is playing Kili in the new movie. I mean... You know what I mean, right? I was lucky enough to be able to watch the first two seasons of (the real) Being Human. Now, I totally loved him in that, and was truly disappointed when the onDemand cable stopped offering the original series in favor of the remake (which I hate). I guess the thing is, when I look at the man, nowhere in the the thirty billion thoughts I could imagine running through my head (often exceeding the PG-13 rating) is "This guy should totally play a dwarf..." Don't get me wrong, there's no reason dwarves can't be hot (I actually liked Gimli quite a bit, but that's because I love John Rhys Davies' voice).

The casting just seems...really left-field to me.

I have to wonder, were they intentionally trying to inject more eye candy. It would explain why Legolas gets a cameo (though a fairly logical one).

Then again, do I actually mind Kili being the hottest dwarf in the history of Middle-Earth?

Pfft.

---

*Of course I also enjoyed a lot of other films that probably weren't quite as age-appropriate. Like, I dunno...Beastmaster and Excalibur?
Witches magicking cows to give birth to human babies, vulture-people that digest you while you're standing up, corpses getting their eyes pecked out by crows, magical rape, sibling incest... God, is it any wonder I'm so screwed up? XD

Comments

[adja999.livejournal.com]

So, I'm going to sound clueless but.... there's a cartoon? Oo
All the cartoons you describe seem very interesting. Though disturbing, but we both know we like that.

You think any of them can be found? I don't know if they're really abscure, independent things or not. You think we'd have the dvds here in France?

I don't know Aidan Turner from anywhere else, but I looked up the promo shots and he is rocking major frowny-Sylar eyebrows. :P

Though they did pick a weird cast, I am SO NOT afraid. You just KNOW those guys will make you buy the characters, the surrounding ambiance is so vivid that... it didn't bother me that Frodo was played by the nerd from The Faculty the first time around (though he was badly played, by that's another thing). This universe is made to suck you in, and they've made it work so well in the past.
Though it'd be illarious if they slipped a John Watson reference at some point.
I'm just imagining Bilbo going 'Elementary' at some point. Which is meta on so many levels. (Because, as you probably know, the quote is attributed to Sherlock in many movies and articles, but Sherlock never said that.)

[black_sluggard]

The Rankin-Bass cartoons aren't very well known and have kind of a cult following. The company is more famous for its stop-motion cartoons (they did the old holiday specials like Rudolph), though they also did the original ThunderCats. I think was lucky enough that my uncle was a total geek who taped all of these when I was a kid (I think they were originally TV specials).

I know The Last Unicorn is available on DVD because my sister has it, though I don't know how easy it is to get internationally. The Hobbit is more well known I think, so it definitely is, but The Flight of Dragons might be really hard to find.

He does have some eyebrows doesn't he? He played the vampire on the original BBC version of Being Human. Probably the coolest vampire on TV in a very long time...

Yeah, I'm not afraid either. We all know Peter Jackson delivers, and I think Guillermo del Toro contributed to the creature design even though he bowed out of directing (and I just love his creatures so very, very, very much). I can't wit to see what Smaug and the spiders look like. And Beorn! He wasn't in the cartoon, and I remember when I read the book I was all "Why did they leave this guy out, he's awesome!" ^^

I still need to find a way to watch Sherlock. I've already read so much fic of it... >.<