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Giancarlo (Giancarlo)
Username: Giancarlo

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 109.52.2.49
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 07:31 am:   

No criticism or comment yet over the "Hobbit" movie yet! That sets me wonder: didn't anybody mind or possibly dare? I understand it's not the epochal movie many were hoping it to be, especially after LOTR. I'm the undaring sort. The movie is fun but gone is the magic. The movie may be said to be all right but...there are too many "buts" to it which I don't even feel like going into. Though not a shame at all, it's pity! Where did it go really wrong?
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.29.172
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 08:52 am:   

It's possible no RCMB member except yourself has gone to see it, Giancarlo. I wouldn't have minded seeing a two-hour film adaptation of what was one of my favourite books when I was seven years old, though I've not returned to it since those days. But three hours to cover the first six chapters – I'm sorry, that's taking the precious. Life's too short. I could be over the misty mountains grim in that much time.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.212.230.189
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 09:04 am:   

Erm... I did make my comments about it in the films of 2012 thread. I really enjoyed it. It's visually stunning as you'd expect from Jackson's team and after the first half hour or so actually moves quite quickly. The riddle scene is a definite cinematic high point of last year. I'm really looking forward to the next film.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.29.160.43
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 09:36 am:   

I enjoyed it. Saw it in HFR 3D. Great fun.

But it's obviously a cash cow.
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Des (Des)
Username: Des

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 86.140.212.104
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 10:50 am:   

I prefer hobbyists to hobbits.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.49.91
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 12:37 pm:   

I wasn't keen on it till Gollum appeared. But it was comforting being in that world again, and has got me back into the books, which I'm reading to the family in the car while we go off to do some long country walks. I had forgotten how great the LOTR books were, and got quite choked up reading certain passages again.
As an aside, while reading a chapter yesterday (early on in the Hobbit's journey) my youngest said 'Watch them start singing 'Lollipop'', and it all clicked; Stand by Me/The Body IS LOTR.)
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.49.91
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 12:38 pm:   

But yes, the magic of the first three movies - and I think they did have magic - has gone. It felt like a funfair ride.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.49.91
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 12:40 pm:   

As another aside, we watched Avatar on the projector last night, the extended bluray, and were completely blown away. Those few touches and scenes on Earth really transformed the film for me and it's now one of the best films I've ever seen (blushes crimsonly).
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.49.91
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 12:52 pm:   

We also watched Fellowship of the Ring on the projector (again amazing) and there was a scene where we see Gollum as Gandalf talks about him, and it struck me that Gollum had been altered by his eavesdropping. These are richer books/films than I'd previously given them credit for.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.66.23.11
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 05:43 pm:   

I've heard people complaining about the original trilogy of films, saying that he cut too much out. Now that he's doing the Hobbit and not cutting anything, people are complaining about that as well.

It has to be remembered as well that certain sequences - especially the big fight set pieces -are skimmed over in the books in a matter of a few paragraphs, but necessarily take up a large amount of film time.

Personally I thoiught it was great. And it's nowhere near as much of a cashcow as Star wars 3d is going to be - same films relaeased again in another new format. At least these are new films.

I believe he's covering the Hobbit itself in the first 2 and the third film will be a linking story between the Hobbit and LOTR using materials from the various appendices.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.66.23.11
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2013 - 05:45 pm:   

BTW the hobbit is only 2.5 hours if you leave at the start of the end credits... so it's not a 3 hr film.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 111.243.149.140
Posted on Thursday, January 03, 2013 - 12:42 pm:   

I enjoyed The Hobbit. I was concerned at first about the validity of stretching it to three films, but after seeing An Unexpected Journey I liked the way they included things from Tolkien's appendices to flesh out the main story.

Life's never too short to see a good film - or to read a good book, for that matter.
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Giancarlo (Giancarlo)
Username: Giancarlo

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 95.75.77.156
Posted on Saturday, January 05, 2013 - 07:30 am:   

There are conflicting evaluations both in the RCMB Forum and papers' movie pages. Maybe I missed something, so I'm watching "Hobbit" again next week, maybe I'll be different minded about it. Good movie at least, anyway.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - 04:34 pm:   

Mmm... I was entertained by The Hobbit (you can't not be), but it was hardly a movie of any more weight than any other such entertainment, imho. I don't even see all these action/visual-FX films, and yet every shot/choreographed bit/action-taken/etc. was as predictable as 1, 2, 3. Have I become so jaded? I can't for a moment remove myself from the fact I'm watching not the Goblin King or Gollum, but CGI—and anyway, what the CGI's are saying and their motivations in life, are all vacuous nonsense. I guess I'm just the wrong audience anymore for this kind of thing....

I did admire what I think was Jackson's attempts to paint, upon the screen, scenes that look as if they leaped living-and-breathing from the work of various famous Tolkien artists over the years—Darrell Sweet, the Hildebrands, etc. Surely that wasn't my imagination, but a conscious attempt? I just wish the story it was all attached to, had more depth and resonance for me....
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 1.169.137.50
Posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - 05:17 pm:   

That's the opposite reaction I had, Craig! Obviously the fantastical creatures are achieved through special effects - I don't think anyone believes what they are seeing on screen is a real goblin or a real cave troll. The effects in the film are excellent. WETA has really made an art form of this over the years.

Vacuous nonsense? I would hardly use that to describe Gollum's scene with Bilbo. Perhaps you don't quite get the British humour of much of it (the trolls, the goblin king, etc.).

The look of this and The Lord of the Rings is based on the artwork of the two illustrators who have come closest to depicting Tolkien's world over the years: Alan Lee and David Howe. They are the artistic consultants for the film, and each scene is based specifically on their work. I find the work of many who've attempted to illustrate Tolkien to be very much at odds with the way I imagine it. The Hildebrandts' pictures have always struck me as too gaudy, too cartoonish and superficial - nothing like the Middle Earth I envision. Certainly Lee and Howe (Lee, especially) come the closest to capturing the essence of Tolkien's world. Their pictures look as though they could be taken from an actual illustrated natural history of Middle Earth.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 1.169.137.50
Posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - 05:21 pm:   

Sorry, that should be John Howe, not David.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.29.177
Posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - 09:18 pm:   

Good children's books might make good children's films, Craig, but one can't expect them to have much traction for adults. The mass-market filming of Tolkien couldn't have happened before the runaway success of the Harry Potter franchise had proved that marketing children's fantasy to adults was a viable commercial model. Before that, there was no attempt to market such adaptations – for example, the films of Roald Dahl's novels or the TV adaptations of Tove Jansson's Moomin books – to adult audiences. Scholastic's power management of the Potter franchise changed the commercial landscape of fantasy – in contrast to the vertiginous geography of Middle-Earth, it sort of flattened everything out.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - 09:51 pm:   

AVATAR is a companion piece to TITANIC, I feel. They have stories and characters so cliched that they feel like musicals without any songs and so are initially easy to dismiss. But there's something deeper going on there, a tidal power. Ever since the first Terminator (featuring a man being stripped of flesh until he becomes a machine) it seems to me that Cameron is someone who's earnestly trying to become a human being, working his way upstream, fighting the slight technophillia and antrophobic autism in himself and trying to find his spirit. He's like a successful V'ger and I admire him for that.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2013 - 09:55 pm:   

The LoTR films don't do much for me, I'm afraid. It's like watching Jackson painstakingly assemble a giant Airfix hobby kit. Massive timewasters, the kind of project a lifer in Dartmoor might find theraputic, but for me it doesn't even resemble art.

Andy Serkis puts me off, too, I'm afraid. The man himself scares me. I sense a wounded person with unresolved issues and much anger.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.5.167
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 01:18 am:   

Huw – sorry, I wasn't getting at you with the above. If audience members appreciate a film, that's valid. But the makers of a blockbuster will not talk about it in artistic terms. At least not among themselves. When I worked for Scholastic the MD banned the use of the word 'book'. Everything had to be called 'product' at all times. That was the Harry Potter decade.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.5.167
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 01:20 am:   

Proto, Andy Serkis is superb as Ian Dury in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, for the reason you state.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.151.179
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 01:57 am:   

The bovine nature of the general public was evident to me when I encountered adults dutifully reading all of the Harry Potter books, but recoiling at the slightest suggestion they they read any other work of imaginative fiction. Many seemed to be merely demonstrating the required level of interest in what is popular, spending all of their energy maintaining their position in the roomiest part of the bell curve.

Yes, Joel, he's a perfect fit for Dury, Gollum and, come to think of it, Kong. I think he's trying to heal himself, but I do think he's trying to heal himself. I think it was his off-screen sadism towards a teenaged Jamie Bell during the filming of DEATHWATCH that first set alarm bells ringing.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 04:37 am:   

But I think the Harry Potter films come out better, in comparison to The Hobbit, which I'm amazed to say. I wonder if it's the expectations, raised so high? I mean (and I mean this with absolute admiration now) if this were called Dungeons & Dragons, I'd have been floored: that filmmakers came not only so close, closer than ever before on film, to capturing that game/experience, but raising it to high art—looked at that way, the film soars. But the whole doesn't sustain as a "great film" (all one term), as what we come to expect from great films: character depth and development, rich themes, finely-woven plotting, superb dialogue... I even fault the direction, since so much of this looks like computer-programmed responses, with little in the way of real innovation. There is more amazing/innovative/fascinating direction/writing/acting/depth, in a single (film-length) episode of Martin Freeman's "Sherlock," than all of his Hobbit. I was entertained... but not sustained. I have no desire to go back and see this again—"Sherlock," yes... even various Harry Potter films, yes....
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.49.91
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 10:54 am:   

I loved Avatar last time I saw it. It was pure, like old, traditional fantasy. LOTR is hampered by some of it's music overuse and editing misjudgements, but it still has that purity for the most part. I tend to enjoy cinema made by innocents more than craftsmen, though.
I adored the Harry Potters, until the last couple, which is a shame. Too long, too gloomy. But then the last book was awful, so we can't really blame the filmmakers.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.49.91
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 10:58 am:   

I also flew through the Potter books, which were great. They have something a lot of books don't have at the moment, and that's a sense of character and drive, and a world you can believe exists after a while.
I've been rewatching the first Lovejoy episode, made in 1984. It was absolutely wonderful - as fanciful and rich as LOTR or Bond, and multi-tonal - sad one minute, funny the next, exciting, mysterious. My youngest said it was like Tintin, and he had a point. I loved that the episode ended with a baddy island base and an exploding boat, but also had time for poignancy when a character we only meet once is killed, and hear signs that Lovejoy is quite a sensitive, poetic soul.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.8.19.171
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 11:50 am:   

"The mass-market filming of Tolkien couldn't have happened before the runaway success of the Harry Potter franchise had proved that marketing children's fantasy to adults was a viable commercial model."

Joel, am I misreading you? Tolkein's trilogy wasn't for children as such.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 01:04 pm:   

Well, it was according to Michael Moorcock! I think it was too. I loved it as a child but haven't managed to reread it since puberty.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 1.169.137.50
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 01:46 pm:   

That's okay, Joel. We do seem to have differing opinions occasionally, as well as many shared ones!

I don't think it's accurate to say The Lord of the Rings is aimed at children, quite the opposite, in fact. And I don't believe for one second that Peter Jackson and his fellow filmmakers are adapting Tolkien only for the money. Frankly, he could do anything at this point.

It's worth pointing out that the Lord of the Rings films were started before the Harry Potter films (which are mainly for children, I think, although many adults love them too). Jackson wanted to make these films as early as the early 90s, but it was a matter of acquiring the rights. I do agree that the success of the Harry Potter books may have helped persuade the studio that Tolkien's trilogy was a viable project, but I think they would have been made regardless. Tolkien has a very wide, steady fanbase all over the world, and I don't think Jackson would've been turned down, regardless of the Harry Potter films, which came out around the same time.

I'm saddened to hear of these trends you've witnessed in publishing. My parents have always worked in education, and I work at the school they've run for the last thirty-plus years in Taiwan, Over this period we've worked with many publishers, including Scholastic, and their representatives have never referred to books as anything other than books, and, for what it's worth, we'd never dream of calling them 'product'!
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.49.91
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 04:08 pm:   

It's my view that 'most' movies are heartfelt, even the Hollywood stuff.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 04:55 pm:   

Quick example of a problem I had with The Hobbit, and why it's not a "great film": It opens in the Shire, and we get a long, long sequence at Bilbo Baggins' "hole in the ground," where we get to meet Bilbo and the dwarves and etc. Bilbo here is a young man/Hobbit (though we do see him older, too), and he lives here in this placid village alone in his hovel, care-free (he has no job? how does me make money?) and completely alone: no friends, no girlfriend/wife; mentions of distant relatives, sure. But there's nothing at all compelling about Bilbo—he has no personality, no past, no present, no future. There is nothing at all relatable; he is an illogicality, like we're being told as viewers that 1+1=3. Just accept it, the film seems to say; accept what we're dishing out to you, that young pleasant happy Bilbo has no friends no siblings no wife no lovers no children no hopes no dreams no job no memories no nothing. For me, it's instantly distancing... and I never caught up....
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.77.198
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 05:03 pm:   

>>>Bilbo has no friends no siblings no wife no lovers no children no hopes no dreams no job no memories no nothing

Yes, I just Friended him on Facebook!
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 111.243.149.106
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 05:35 pm:   

Sorry, Craig, but that it just nonsense. Bilbo doesn't have a past? Of course he does - his adventure is the point of the whole film! If you're talking about pre-adventure Bilbo, it seems pretty obvious from the details and clues supplied by the actor and the filmmakers that he's a well-to-do hobbit who lives on his own, enjoying a quiet, comfortable life. A lot of information on his personality and his background is given in this long 'unexpected party' scene which serves as a prologue.

We're introduced to some of his relatives - Frodo, his nephew, for one - either first hand or through exposition, and while we don't see him with friends, so what? He's clearly a bit of a loner. He is well-regarded but viewed as something of an eccentric; his adventures in a world other hobbits are totally unfamiliar with keeps him somewhat distant from them.

He doesn't work because he's already well off (and will be even more so later, after his adventure). Why should it matter whether he has a job or not, or that he's a bachelor? An observant viewer picks up on all these little details scattered throughout the film to form a general picture of the character.

I don't know what it is you wanted his character to be, but he certainly is a character... perhaps just not the one you wanted.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.212.230.84
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 09:55 pm:   

Surely every character in every film first appears as a blank canvas which is then filled in through dialogue and action. Due to the much criticised slowness of the beginning of the film, we actually get a fair amount of time to get to know our hero before the quest starts in earnest. I'm afraid, Craig, your criticism holds little to no water.
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David_lees (David_lees)
Username: David_lees

Registered: 12-2011
Posted From: 92.22.37.132
Posted on Wednesday, January 09, 2013 - 10:39 pm:   

Christopher Tolkien's not a fan.

"Christopher Tolkien gave his first ever press interview with Le Monde, shedding light on his father's vision and sharing his own deep dismay with Hobbit director Peter Jackson."

http://worldcrunch.com/culture-society/my-father-039-s-quot-eviscerated-quot-wor k-son-of-hobbit-scribe-j.r.r.-tolkien-finally-speaks-out/hobbit-silmarillion-lor d-of-rings/c3s10299/#.UO3jZ291GSo
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 03:54 am:   

Sorry, Weber & Huw—both of you, I believe, miss the mark. It's not just the opening... there is no character to Bilbo (and I mean in this film; I can't remember the novel, it's been so long). It's not just all I've said about how we're introduced to him; forward, he reveals nothing further about himself. The best we get, the closest we get, to something like a history/past/inner-life to Bilbo, is in his games with Gollum, telling riddles... but all that says, is that Bilbo likes riddles (and I found that famous scene, strangely awkward and even embarrassing, when displayed). He's presented as a rather fussy bachelor, who loves doilies and hates muss. That's as far as any meaningful development goes, as I see it. In a film nearly THREE HOURS long....
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 1.169.130.139
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 07:56 am:   

The Hobbit is a fantasy adventure story with a big cast of characters - there is really not much time to spend introducing Bilbo's friends and explaining his type of work (or lack thereof). I've already tried to explain some basics about his character, but I think perhaps you're asking for something that isn't suited to this kind of film, or perhaps something that won't be revealed in more detail until later on.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.212.231.190
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 10:38 am:   

Well Craig, with all due respect, as you see the film seems to be missing huge swathes of detail. Huw has given a really good description of the character of bilbo, all of which is easily gleaned from the film. I'd also point out that it's clearly inherited wealth as well as is made clear in the dialogue. I've never read the books so this is the only exposure i've had to these stories, and if a complete novice like me can pick up these details, then anyone can. There are clear developments to the character as well, his response to danger situations grows and changes as the quest moves on and he finds his inner strength. Also it's not a 3 hour film. It's 2.46 with end credits, 2.30 without.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.212.231.190
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 10:46 am:   

And the article about Chris Tolkein, that read to me as sour grapes that he's not getting a big enough share of the pot and doesn't have any creative control over the film franchise and merchandising.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.49.91
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 12:57 pm:   

Craig - don't worry. I'm an idiot too. I felt the same. I personally would have cut the fighting mountains scene (which added nothing) and replaced it with a scene in which we see Bilbo interact with his neighbours. Bilbo does feel a bit blank. We don't know why he's comfortable or how, why he likes it that way. We shouldn't have to watch a film having read some kind of instruction manual before going in. Maybe they should have had loads of background written up on the screen, like Star Wars or the old Robin Hood?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 80.239.243.82
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 01:12 pm:   

Like i said, i've not read the books. The only thing i know about the stories is what's in the films. I certainly didn't need an instruction manual for the characters. Martin Freeman's performance and the dialogue was more than enough for me.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.49.91
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 01:53 pm:   

Well whoop-di-do.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.212.231.18
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 01:58 pm:   

I like the maturity of the debate here.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.49.91
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 02:49 pm:   

It was going nowhere anyway.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.212.231.134
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 03:44 pm:   

You feeling alright Tony? You're not normally quite as churlish as this. Craig is more than used to the attitude we were showing him. He expects it from us. It's just friendly banter.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 1.161.43.131
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 04:05 pm:   

I may disagree with Craig, but I'm genuinely curious about his perspective and think it's a worthwhile topic for discussion. I was out at the doctor's today and all the time I was waiting there, I found nyself mulling over what Craig said about the characterization in The Hobbit. I agree we aren't given all that much to go on with Bilbo, but don't think it really hinders the film at all (at least, it didn't for me). It's not the kind if film that requires a really in-depth look into the minutiae of the various characters' personalities, in my view. If anything, the dwarves' motivations are more important than Bilbo's.

Hope you're okay, Tony.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 04:21 pm:   

I saw 'The Hobbit Part I : An Unexpected Journey' (I'm assuming that's the full title) on Tuesday and have to say I loved every moment of it. As an epic visualisation of the first half of Tolkien's great novel it will never be surpassed nor could we have hoped for a more trustworthy fanboy/director to bring it to life. It is indistinguishable in quality from Jackson's 'The Lord Of The Rings' trilogy of more than a decade ago, looking and feeling, visually and in terms of performances, like it was made straight after.

I can't find fault in it for what it is... even the lengthy added scenes and characters that never appeared in the original narrative are defensible because they come directly from Tolkien's own extensive appendices, designed to give explanatory backstory and depth to the novel. So my initial scepticism about expanding a single novel into a trilogy to rival TLOTR would appear to have been unfounded. As for criticism of how "slow to start" the film is I actually loved the long intro sequence and its carefully crafted build-up of initial backstory, atmosphere and character with ever so subtle hints of the not so fun life-changing events to come. Never has a lead character's naive exuberance at setting forth on an exciting adventure been so laced with poignancy and a sense of impending doom.

In many ways - like the original 'Star Wars' trilogy - Jackson's films are beyond criticism as great big crowd pleasing extravaganzas with heart and intelligence and, most importantly of all, complete respect for the legendary source material. Even Jackson knows that - as well nigh miraculous a job as he's done - these films pale into shallow insignificance beside the literary and artistic achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien's imperishable, genre-defining and never to be bettered masterpieces!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 05:31 pm:   

I think we're all having a nice back-and-forth, and perhaps just the confines of the written word, and making it seem like we're "arguing" with each other... but I don't think any of us is. Right, guys?

Huw, perhaps it's a super-subtle aspect I'm nagging myself about, and that I'm missing the bigger picture? The film does, for example, actually begin, with Gandalf's narrative of the dwarves' kingdom and their rising greed and the coming of Smaug. This is told in a very fairy-tale style: the dwarves exhibit a single trait, greed; they experience a poetic comeuppance, the dragon. The movie tips off its viewers into the tone of the whole: fairy-tale, fantasy, shades of allegory.

So no, we don't expect characters of post-modern sensibility or of penetrating psychological analysis. But take another fairy-tale fantasy in film, Disney's Sleeping Beauty. If I remember correctly, the film also opens with a kind of narrative, a set-up that takes years past it to reach the 2nd Act, a curse that results in a banishment, the setting of a fairy-tale tone for the film. But when we reach the main character Aurora, she's a young girl who dreams of falling in love, of meeting her prince, of creating a "normal" life for herself. Despite its fairy-tale setting, she is a woman with common dreams and desires and drives. She is askew though she doesn't know it, she is not quite right in the/her world, and there are demons (she had nothing to do with!) from her past that she will have to contend with, despite all her innocence, to reach Prince Charming.

A rich, if simple, fairy-tale character. But Bilbo Baggins...? He lives a life of contentment already, but it's all about things: his stuff, his house, his town, his land. Am I missing the deliberate contrast with the dwarves here?... perhaps, perhaps. But is it enough to found a film upon?

We get a bit of a glimpse into the "hole" in his life the morning after the dwarves have left: his cottage is spotless, and he's all alone, and suddenly he seems to see how dull and empty and lonely his life is. It's an attempt… but I feel the film wastes it, because it's not enough, to what we've been given (and it didn't need to be this way). He rushes away excited, shouting to all he's going on "an adventure," in one of the film's (and novel's) more memorable sequences: but he was a kind of fussy robot anyway. The film fails to really give a sense of the Shire, of Hobbiton, and so his satisfaction with his homeland that makes him sacrifice it so he can help some dwarves get theirs… it's as not-quite-there as why, really (and the film doesn't explain this) the particular hobbit Gandalf needs (because they're all good burglars, he claims) has to be Bilbo, and no one else.

The film could have really given Bilbo's character depth, nuance, and poignancy (again, he's the major protagonist). I think this is why it's no mistake that The Hobbit was basically passed over for all the major Academy Awards category nominations today—and one can't say it didn't have enough publicity and awareness to have made it onto the noms. Perhaps there was a lot cut out, and will come back into the DVDs, like with LOTR? We shall see.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.60.39
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2013 - 09:45 pm:   

Am I the only old hippie here who wasn't into Tolkien? I had the books, of course, but never managed to get past page 5 of The Hobbit. Typically, I could never get into Dunsany either.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.30.203.45
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 - 01:08 am:   

'Perhaps there was a lot cut out, and will come back into the DVDs, like with LOTR?'

Of course: there's no way a short novel for young children could possibly be filmed in as little as two three-hour films, is there?

Craig, you may be looking for something that was never there. Tolkien just doesn't do characterisation. Hobbits have the hobbit personality. Elves have the elf personality. Anyone who doesn't fit any generic mould, such as Gollum, is pathological. More spiritual people tell me that this is because Tolkien is writing about Jungian archetypes. That makes sense, since Jung's work is a fantasy psychology in the same way that Scientology is a science fiction religion.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 - 06:17 am:   

You're right, Joel. But I think this is why I was saying that as a film, or as a "great film," The Hobbit doesn't cut it—it's just not got enough there.

I think allegorical films are perfectly acceptable, or say, overtly political ones; All The President's Men, for example, has in its two main protagonists (played by Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford) a couple of extremely "flat," un-developed/ing, background-less individuals. But that film keeps all the tension and drama focused upon the events at hand in the film: other elements, psychological or otherwise, would be superfluous; the film goes out of its way to telegraph to the audience as such.

Not so The Hobbit: we are presented not with the allegorical in Bilbo—clearly the creators are presenting what they think is a full character. And it's, frankly, unacceptable they ended up with what's there for us. Even the Conan films, even the moldy old sword-and-sandal epics, knew enough to insert a basic "love interest," or something relatable to the human experience. Why does Bilbo finally go chasing after the dwarves? Because he wants an adventure? That's it?! If they had better established a real sense of poignancy, exploited the sense of a lost homeland... but then, how do you do that with those silly caricatures that were the dwarves, anyway?... clearly I'm asking far too much of this film... but that's just it, it could have been so much more....
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.167.145.210
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 - 09:49 am:   

"Why does Bilbo finally go chasing after the dwarves? " - a few reasons. Gandalf has given him a good talking to about living up to the family name the previous night- including a cracking line about the origin og the game of golf. He wakes up and, on finding the house empty, there's a palpable sense of regret on his face as he walks through the house and realises (as Huw said above) how empty his life really is with all his OCD obsessing over doilies and his mother's crockery. When he finds the contract still there it's clear he wants his regrets to be about what he's done with his life rather than what he's turned down and he picks it up and runs with it.

Acording to one of my friends who's read the Hobbit several times, Jackson has hit every note from the first half of the book as well as throwing in extra detail from the appendices.

I really don't know what else you expect the film to contain. He's apparently nailed the novel bang on.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.167.145.210
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 - 09:53 am:   

AS for why does it have to be Bilbo - as you asked earlier - I'm assuming that either the explanation is as slight as we were given - that he made an incautious comment to Gandalf on their first meeting in the film and his family has a history of going off on risky adventures, or there's more to it that we haven't been told yet. We know that Gandalf is playing a long term game here. He's chosen Bilbo - that's the important thing.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 - 01:07 pm:   

The film nails the action and broader themes of the novel and puts faces to the famous characters but pales beside Tolkien's prose because it can't get inside the minds and motivations of those characters anything like the written word and the reader's own imagination and sympathies. It comes close at times (specifically the scene in which Bilbo spares Gollum's life and is damned to be hated forever for his compassion) but this apparent lack of true psychological depth is the fault of trying to make popular cinema out of great art, as 'The Hobbit' and all the writings of Tolkien are. There are times spectacle necessarily takes over at the expense of Tolkien's original literary intentions but, hey, that's cinema - the weaker medium. Jackson has got as close as anyone is ever going to get - but still - anyone who wants to understand what the real fuss is about should read the books... as I intend to again quite soon.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 - 02:10 pm:   

Tolkien's major talent as a fantasy writer was the evocation of atmospheric and symbolic landscapes – lonely mountains, claustrophobic tunnels, dangerous crossings, ruins, wilderness. These are the true characters of his novels. He couldn't write dialogue to save his life – indeed, he is the chief architect of the pseudo-medieval dialogue convention that is obligatory in contemporary fantasy. It's down to Tolkien that any fantasy story in which the characters talk like real people is invariably dismissed as 'horror':

"Yon arachnid monstrosity is a being of mortal dread" = fantasy

"Eeek! It's a fucking giant spider!" = horror
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 - 04:15 pm:   

I'd say his major talent was as a storyteller and a conjuror of worlds, races and mythologies peopled by tangible individuals whose stories gave "humanity" to the epic events they lived through in his imagination... and in ours. To criticise the language, dialogue, poetry and songs of Middlearth as somehow pseudo-mediaeval is to lose sight of Tolkien's unrivalled creative achievement in literature (nevermind fantasy literature) and to be side-tracked by the slavish imitation of it that has bedevilled the genre ever since. None of that is Tolkien's fault and, indeed, is the ultimate accolade that can be bestowed on any work of fiction. And that's even without taking the stupendously multi-layered allegorical aspects of his vision into account... children's literature this ain't!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 - 05:16 pm:   

Weber makes a compelling case above... but sorry, to me, it doesn't cut it. I'm critiquing it as a film—and as a film, it's lacking necessary elements, including those that go into making a satisfying character; when the filmmakers go out of their way to tell me they are trying to do just that.

I didn't make them do that! They chose to! Therefore, they must stand or fall against those standards they set up.

It's what I've (in-artfully) termed the "cell phone rule" in film. We are now in a world where the cell phone is ubiquitous; therefore—whatever the genre—in any given film set in the contemporary world, and when it comes to the major protagonists, you simply have to address the existence of a cell phone, even if it is of no plot significance whatsoever. A character's cell phone must ring, s/he must make a call; if a character doesn't have a cell phone, then this itself must be explained. If not, it contributes to the entire "suspension of disbelief" so vital to film storytelling: to not seeming authentic, real-world, believable.

So too, and of much more importance, a character's relationship life. Where, when it comes to Bilbo Baggins, are the ladies the girlfriends, the friends, the sisters, the brothers, the parents, the coworkers, the neighbors, etc.? Yes, one's mentioned here, one there—but they exude no presence in Bilbo's life. He's like a solitary creature existing alone in deepest space, toiling over his doilies... not an old man (we can accept such a trait there), but a young seemingly virile happy contented "normal" hobbit. When he abandons his entire world, he sends no letters to loved-ones... he simply rushes off shouting silliness to those who live nearby—who scratch their heads at him (probably trying to remember who the hell he even is).

Am I remembering the novel incorrectly? Wasn't there some hobbit chick in the Shire who had some presence in Bilbo's life? Geez, it's been a long time since reading that....
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 - 06:41 pm:   

I suspect that I owe my lifelong obsession with the right to hibernate to an early reading of The Hobbit. Either that or Finn Family Moomintroll. Or, of course, it may be a consequence of my having been a hedgehog in a former life.
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 114.25.178.72
Posted on Friday, January 11, 2013 - 09:59 pm:   

"Yon arachnid monstrosity is a being of mortal dread" = fantasy

Tolkien didn't write dialogue like this, Joel. He was, primarily, a linguist, and a scholar of old literature and mythologies. He knew how to write dialogue that suited his created worlds perfectly.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.25.8.31
Posted on Saturday, January 12, 2013 - 07:50 am:   

I must admit that I find all the portentousness of Tolkienesque fiction a bit tiresome, as if everything has a mythological symbolism and is profoundly meaningful. I mean, what I want to know is this: how do Hobbits go to the toilet? I jest, but even so, a bit of commonplace consideration would make it all less, er, poncy to me. I just don't experience life that way.
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Giancarlo (Giancarlo)
Username: Giancarlo

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 217.202.71.31
Posted on Saturday, January 12, 2013 - 08:00 am:   

One wonders how Guillermo del Toro, who was scheduled to direct before P. Jackson took the helm, would have tackled the novel. I've read around the former is to be involved in a "At the Mountain of Madness" movie project, probably Spielberg producing. Fact or legend, I seriously doubt any such movie will ever be seen on any screen except in dreams.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 02:17 pm:   

The elephant in the room of this discussion is Michael Moorcock's famous article 'Epic Pooh', which argued that Tolkien had found a winning formula in terms of appeal to fantasy fandom: a mawkishly infantile narrative with a veneer of academic erudition. I wouldn't necessarily put it as strongly as that – but few commentators on the field have as much credibility as Moorcock.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.60.39
Posted on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 04:04 pm:   

a mawkishly infantile narrative with a veneer of academic erudition

That's exactly how I feel about Tolkien. Too many Gates of this and Steps of that leading towards the Dawn of the Purple Nothingness, which lies forever glowing inside the evanescent Heart of the travel-weary Transfixer, as he gazes upon the Crystal Pillars behind the Wizard's - (yawn).
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 05:08 pm:   

That sounds more like 'A Voyage To Arcturus' to me, Hubert. Now there's an epic fantasy so far up its own symbolism it implodes in the reader's consciousness about halfway through.

First and foremost 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord Of The Rings' are two of the most unpretentiously thrilling and emotionally affecting adventure novels ever written. All the other riches that lie therein only make the trip all the more pleasurable and worthy of re-reading with countless interpretations offering themselves each time. The reason for Tolkien's longevity as a popular writer is his accessibility for all ages. To read him at a young age is to fall in love with what literature is capable of... and it's a love that lasts a lifetime.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.60.39
Posted on Monday, January 14, 2013 - 08:23 pm:   

To read him at a young age is to fall in love with what literature is capable of

You may well be right there, Stevie. I didn't get to read Tolkien until I was in my very late twenties, and by that time I was utterly devoted to Lovecraft. Precious little room for anyone else, I'm afraid.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 86.24.62.55
Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - 12:04 am:   

There were five authors I read as a very young child whose work turned me into a lifelong fan of genre literature; Tolkien ('The Hobbit'), C.S. Lewis ('The Chronicles Of Narnia'), Alan Garner ('The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen'), Robert E. Howard (the Conan stories) & Agatha Christie (gobbled them up in my pre-teens but specifically 'Murder On The Orient Express' which I "solved" & 'Ten Little Niggers'). I went on to discover the horror greats in my teenage years and Lovecraft was principal among them.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.30.205.219
Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - 12:35 am:   

Stevie, have you read the restored, unexpurgated, undiluted texts of the Conan stories that became available in the 1980s but were not published in the UK until a few years ago? Makes a real difference. Indeed, having restored texts of Lovecraft and Howard compensates for much that is shit about living in the 21st century.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - 11:32 am:   

I have the recent big hardback edition of the complete Conan stories, Joel, but have yet to read it - so the answer is no!

On the back of enjoying the complete collection of E.F. Benson's ghost stories - and bearing in mind it's been 2 years since I last read a horror antho(!) - I'm toying with the idea of making 2013 the year of short stories and cutting back on my novel reading, temporarily. A first read of the complete unexpurgated Conan tales would be a good place to start methinks.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.148.30
Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - 02:36 pm:   

"To read him at a young age is to fall in love with what literature is capable of... and it's a love that lasts a lifetime"

I read Rings when I was around 10 (and drifted away during the first book) and when I was around 30 (and drifted away during the third book). Much like Lovecraft, the main problem is the ponderous style. Though older, Poe reads as more modern than Lovecraft. Gerard Manley Hopkins is a 19th century bore, while John Donne remains vibrant even though his words are a couple of centuries older.

There is some pleasure to be had in some of Tolkien's misty prose. It does give a sense of events seen through the gauze of time, but that's I find exhausting in anything longer than a short myth or fairytale. I'm not much of a reader, though, to I'll yield to the opinions of those who are.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.233.148.30
Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - 02:36 pm:   

"...SO I'll yield."

(Not much of a writer, either.)

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