04-19-2006, 04:43 AM
Just got back from the show, it was pretty good, I enjoyed it.
The staging was really great, it was really appealing visually. The end of the first act was the Balrog, and it was really fantastic... lights, wind, and they blew this confetti stuff at us, it really made it feel like the stuff on stage was moving towards you.
The story was... well... they weren't really faithful at all, but I imagine that that was due to the time constraint. Even so, it was a little over 3.5 hours long. On the other hand, they did hit a number of points that I think they put in because they were complaints that people made when the movies were coming out... Glorfindel, the Scouring of the Shire, and there is a mention of Tom Bombadil at the end. Still, I found the story disappointing.
The songs and singing weren't terrible, but weren't fantastic either. The hobbit songs were the best, the elven ones were a little laboured, especially since small parts of them were in elvish.
But the production and visual effects were the best part, definitely. In addition to the Balrog scene, Aragorn's waking of the armies of the dead was really neat, and there is a dance scene in Bree that was great to watch.
Gollum was a big hit with most of our group as well... the actor who played him did a great job, both physically and with the material he was given.
(I was totally rolling my eyes on the way out, though... so many people talking about how they love LotR, but how they had never read the books, about how there is no action in The Hobbit and it was therefore impossible to read, about how the musical really took licenses with the story, since the Scouring of the Shire was "just made up". <sigh>)
The staging was really great, it was really appealing visually. The end of the first act was the Balrog, and it was really fantastic... lights, wind, and they blew this confetti stuff at us, it really made it feel like the stuff on stage was moving towards you.
The story was... well... they weren't really faithful at all, but I imagine that that was due to the time constraint. Even so, it was a little over 3.5 hours long. On the other hand, they did hit a number of points that I think they put in because they were complaints that people made when the movies were coming out... Glorfindel, the Scouring of the Shire, and there is a mention of Tom Bombadil at the end. Still, I found the story disappointing.
The songs and singing weren't terrible, but weren't fantastic either. The hobbit songs were the best, the elven ones were a little laboured, especially since small parts of them were in elvish.
But the production and visual effects were the best part, definitely. In addition to the Balrog scene, Aragorn's waking of the armies of the dead was really neat, and there is a dance scene in Bree that was great to watch.
Gollum was a big hit with most of our group as well... the actor who played him did a great job, both physically and with the material he was given.
(I was totally rolling my eyes on the way out, though... so many people talking about how they love LotR, but how they had never read the books, about how there is no action in The Hobbit and it was therefore impossible to read, about how the musical really took licenses with the story, since the Scouring of the Shire was "just made up". <sigh>)