Roger Bootle at the Daily Telegraph writes:
Today, I want to discuss the prospects for long-term increases in productive capacity. This may seem arcane, but it isn’t. It holds the key to prospects for living standards – and much else besides.
Not so long ago, it would have seemed incredible that this was up for discussion. My own generation, when we were young, didn’t entertain any doubts.
We regarded it as axiomatic that people would get much better off year after year. Yet most of economic history has been one long non-event, with living standards very nearly static from one decade to the next – until about 1500.
Then came a series of changes that saw economic growth set in – slowly at first but then gathering pace, culminating in what we call the Industrial Revolution. In the decades after the Second World War, productivity and average living standards here grew by about 2pc per annum, and at broadly similar rates elsewhere in the west.
Yes, economic growth seems to be a relatively recent concept. This no doubt explains why the Greens are generally against it!
The gathering idea is that the last two or three hundred years have been an aberration and that we are returning to the prior state of mankind. So no American dream. In fact, no dream anywhere from Sorrento to Scunthorpe.
There are three broad strands to this pessimism. The first concerns the rise of Asia. On this subject, I despair of the chattering classes. They think of economic life as a game of winners and losers.
As far as relativities are concerned, it is, of course, true that as Asia goes up then we must go down. But not in regard to absolutes.
The fact that China et al are going to become more prosperous does not necessarily mean that we are going to become worse off. On the contrary, the growth of markets that their development promises, and the increased global specialisation that it makes possible, offer the prospect of increased prosperity.
I agree. I just hope that as China’s economic prosperity and freedom increases, so too does their political freedom.
The second source of pessimism concerns limited resources. Unfortunately, the resource that is most relevant here is the limited space for this column. Suffice it to say that I have never accepted the view that we are soon facing resource, or energy, crunch time.
The great 19th century economist William Jevons once forecast the end of industrial growth on the grounds that we would soon run out of coal. This set the scene for more than a century of bad forecasting by economists. We didn’t run out of coal. And anyway, it became of much less relevance. Fracking for shale gas is the latest manifestation of the tendency for human ingenuity and the abundance of the earth to trump the pessimists.
Human ingenuity is incredibly resilient. Look at the change in technology in the last 90 years? Motorcars, for example, were just starting to catch on then. Who knows what the world will look like in 2100? Even 2010 is radically different to 1990 thanks to the Internet.
Cassandra Mason at NZ Herald reports:
A young man who was killed when his car left the road and crashed into a tree was eating chips and dip at the time of the crash, a coroner has found.
I expect the Government to now ban the eating of chips in cars. Or maybe it was the dip?
Photo by Phil Reid/Fairfax.
The Dom post reports:
A “public art installation” that has sprung up in a Wellington bus shelter will be dismantled in favour of wooden benches.
A Brooklyn bus shelter was mysteriously transformed into an impromptu lounge room at the weekend, complete with two tattered couches, a small library and a hot water bottle.
By early yesterday someone had added Christmas tinsel, a clock, a picture, an icecream container full of lemons and a life-sized plastic dog.
I think that is great. How cool would it be to have couches to sit on and books to read at a bus stop.
Wellington City Council spokesman Richard MacLean said the council was no closer to uncovering who was responsible. He said the scene would be removed before contractors arrived tomorrow to reinstall benches.
Why?
The Herald reports:
Police are urging people to be responsible at holiday season work parties after a woman bit off another woman’s fingernail at a Christmas drinks function in Hamilton.
Was there a silver dress involved?
Okay, have just closed voting in the 2012 Kiwiblog Awards. The winners are:
Thanks to all those who voted in the (unscientific) blog poll.
The Greens have put out a nine page discussion paper on some ICT issues. Good to see some policy discussion occurring. Some of the challenges they cite are:
New Zealand is reliant on a single fibre optic cable system connecting us to the rest of the world. This vulnerability is an issue for the entire New Zealand economy, not just the ICT sector.
Reliance on a single provider for our internet means higher prices, data caps, and less innovation for services. In time, international capacity will also become an issue. And a single cable system means that our link has less resilience. If the cable breaks or a technical fault occurs (as it did on November 9, 2012) then New Zealand may remain disconnected from the rest of the world until the connection is repaired.
I certainly agree it would be great to have competition for Southern Cross Cable, and lower prices and larger (or no) data caps. This is generally occurring anyway, but international cable competition would help further.
The technical vulnerability is somewhat over-stated as the Southern Cross Cable is a figure of eight loop and even if one portion falls over, service shouldn’t be significantly disrupted.
As fibre to the home gets rolled out, bandwidth needs will increase almost exponentially. However against this cable technology improves and SCC has already increased their capacity by 700%.
The New Zealand Government is indifferent to the local ICT sector in its current procurement policies, resulting in the purchasing of proprietary software from foreign companies. For example, the first part of a $2 billion Inland Revenue IT contract was awarded to French firm Capgemini and was designed in a way to make it nearly impossible for any New Zealand provider or group of providers to bid for the contract.
When all other things are equal, of course you want NZG to use local firms. But all other things are rarely equal. All oppositions always complain about overseas companies winning tenders, but never change anything much because it is both illegal to do so under many trade agreements, but also it is impractical. Do you put in place a rule such as go with a NZ company unless they are 5% more expensive? Why 5%? Why not 6% or 4%?
Anyway the proposals:
The Green Party proposes that the Government takes a $100 million cornerstone investment in a second fibre optic cable to ensure it is successfully constructed and stays in New Zealand control.
The NZ control part is silly xenophobia. Southern Cross Cable majority shareholder is a NZ company.
As to the substance, I am unsure that the reason Pacific Fibre failed was lack of capital. Many people were willing to invest in it. Their failure, to me, appeared to be an inability to get enough long-term customers to make it profitable. This was no fault of the directors. It is a very very difficult proposition to get long-term customers against an incumbent who already has customers at very high initial rates, and can lower marginal rates massively and still be competitive.
Competition would be good to set off such a price war, but merely having the Govt invest $100m into a company does not mean it could successfully compete.
While this is a significant investment, it amounts to 0.8 percent of the National Government’s $12 billion spend on new motorways. Reprioritising this spending would enable a $100 million investment in a second cable without adding to Government debt.
Oh this is nonsense. First of all the motorway spending basically comes from petrol tax. Are the Greens really saying they will use petrol tax to fund a part-share in a fibre cable? Secondly the Greens have already claimed all the motorway funding for rail and other projects.
There are pros and cons of a Govt investment into an international cable. However it is dishonest to claim it won’t lead to extra debt – of course it would.
We propose that government agencies be required to consider the wider economic benefits to New Zealand of supporting the local ICT industry when making purchasing decisions.
I think you will find most already do. This won’t change anything I’d say.
As a first step towards developing awareness, government agencies will have to measure how much of their current ICT spend is going to local companies and report on it.
That’s not a bad idea though. In fact I believe all government contracts quantums should be publicly disclosed
Government agencies will be required to use open standards for new projects and use open source software, where possible.
Many government agencies are already big open source and standards users. I’d be careful though about making open source software a requirement, unless impossible. That is a step too far. For example it would mean no school would be allowed to use Microsoft products.
Finally, we need to amend the Patents Bill to prevent the patenting of software
And here I agree.
Overall some good issues the Greens have touched on, but the solutions are very debatable. But that is what discussion documents are for.
You can provide feedback to the Greens on their discussion paper here.
3 News Political Editor Patrick Gower blogs:
It ‘Twas the year of the ball-breaker: and therefore Judith Collins is my politician of the year.
No doubt this will make plenty of people angry, because “Crusher” has her enemies not just on the Left, but on the Right.
But the fact that she is now widely recognised as a front-runner for National’s leadership shows just how big a year Collins had.
She simply smashed her way through the year – nearly everyone who came up against Collins came off second-best.
Gower looks at the other contenders:
Greens co-leader Russel Norman’s been cited by most of the commentariat as politician of the year. He had a great year, rising as defacto leader of the Opposition and was a superb economic communicator, even putting himself up as a future Finance Minister.
But Rusty came off second-best when he came up against himself. Yes, that moment of madness when Norman thought getting a laser printer to copy off some New Zealand $20 notes could pay for the Christchurch rebuild and solve New Zealand’s economic woes. It is frankly impossible to name someone who suggests printing money as politician of the year.
It is good to see a journalist actually cite policy issues in appraising an MPs performance, rather than purely how they handle the media etc. We need more focus on policies.
That takes me to Collins – she did not come off second-best, even when hit with the full-on wave of destruction that was the ACC Bronwyn Pullar scandal.
It wiped out Nick Smith as a Minister. It swept so far it even briefly touched Key – nobody seemed immune.
But Collins wiped out the chairman John Judge, and board members Rob Campbell, John McCliskie and Murray Hilder. Chief Executive Ralph Stewart freaked out and jumped.
Heads rolled.
Collins never looked entirely safe throughout – it was “harum scarum” stuff by her.
Collins was under extraordinary pressure. It seemed she had mishandled it – that there were things that would come back at her. They haven’t – yet. How she managed that, I don’t know.
Labour’s Trevor Mallard and Andrew Little tried to take her on over it. They lost – in the courts no less, when Collins did them for defamation. Collins put a hit on Mallard – that should not be under-estimated as a political hit. Collins beat up Mallard.
By the time the ACC report came out, Collins had it under control. The heads had rolled – this in a country where heads never roll.
In a scandal to hurt so many, for Collins to come out virtually unscathed shows considerable political skill. And maybe some luck.
Not much luck I’d say.
Next year there must be more policy and less politics from Collins – she must sort out ACC to really prove her mettle.
But this year Collins made a move.
She survived and managed the ACC mega-scandal. She put Bain’s Compensation claim in a choker-hold.
She got her way time and time again.
She has cemented herself as a potential future leader of the National Party.
And not once did she come off second-best. It was ball-breaking stuff, it wasn’t always pretty, but it worked – and Collins is my politician of the year.
A ballsy call.
Don Brash writes in the Herald:
Your columnist Bernard Hickey often writes articles with which I agree, but he has a real blind spot about monetary policy. Not long ago he was advocating printing money to reduce the foreign exchange value of the New Zealand dollar and avoid the need for so much government borrowing, apparently oblivious to the inflationary effects of such a policy. Yes, other central banks are printing money and buying government bonds, but they are all faced with potential deflation and have already reduced interest rates close to zero.
We are not in that situation by a very long way.
Printing money means we pay more for petrol, food, clothing etc.
Last Sunday he criticised what he described as our “obsession with strict inflation targeting” and “the theory that low inflation cures all ills”. But we’ve never had a “strict inflation targeting regime” and successive Reserve Bank governors have been willing to ignore the price effects of one-off factors like oil shocks and changes in GST, thereby allowing inflation to rise above the announced inflation target.
And the regime is set 1% higher than it used to be. It was 0% to 2%, and now is 1% to 3%. And as Don has said, it hasn’t rigorously been kept at 1% over the years.
If anything, we have had too much inflation. Those who say the answer is more inflation should be disregarded. How much more? Do we want 5%? 10%? 15%?
Low inflation does not cure all ills. But higher inflation helps nobody (except property speculators). It doesn’t even stimulate employment as we used to believe, except briefly by temporarily cutting real wages.
And while printing money or drastically easing monetary policy might get the exchange rate down, we know from bitter experience that this provides only temporary relief for exporters as higher inflation quickly offsets the benefits of a lower exchange rate.
For decades we could compete on international markets with the New Zealand dollar at US$1.12. Now we can’t because too often we listened to those who argued for just a bit more inflation.
The answer is not more inflation. The answer is greater productivity. You can’t print money to make a country richer.
The Herald quotes US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell:
“We fully understand that New Zealand is not looking to go backward to re-create a relationship of the past,” he said, “but to re-create a strong, multi-faceted, multi-dimensional relationship for the 21st century.
“This is pretty much the model of how we want to do business. I think we have about as close a relationship as two countries can have now.”
And he credited the personal regard President Barack Obama had for Prime Minister John Key for the improvement.
“I see President Obama regularly in meetings and I see the leaders that he is attracted to and he has to deal with a huge number of people.
“The truth is there are three or four leaders in Asia that he [strongly] respects and kind of listens to when they talk.
“It’s Prime Minister Lee in Singapore, it’s Prime Minister Najib in Malaysia, SBY (Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono) in Indonesia, Lee Myung-bak in South Korea but Prime Minister Key is in that list.”
A long way removed from when the previous Prime Minister had to do a written apology to the US President for her comments!
The Sandy Hook shootings are arguably the saddest I can recall. All mass shootings are tragic, but to mow down six and seven year olds is a type of evil that is thankfully rare.
Most humans have a deeply protective instinct when it comes to kids. This was seen by the actions of the teachers at Sandy Hook, as AP reports:
When Adam Lanza stormed into Victoria Soto’s classroom, he was armed with a rifle and two semi-automatic pistols with which he had already killed 20 small children. She had only her courage, and her instinct to protect her class.
Soto, 27, was alone. A friend, posting on her Tumblr account, said: “When the shooting started Vicki hid her kids in closets and when the gunman came into her room she [said] the class was in gym.”
That lie saved their lives, but it didn’t save hers.
Lanza shot her dead and then, frustrated, turned the gun on himself.
Her cousin Jim Wiltsie told ABC News: “I’m just proud that Vicki had the instincts to protect her kids from harm. It brings peace to know that Vicki was doing what she loved, protecting the children, and in our eyes she’s a hero.”
She is indeed. That is inspiring quick thinking and courage.
It starts with the principal, Dawn Hochsprung, who had the presence of mind to turn on the school intercom, broadcasting screaming and gunshots into every classroom, so that others had to time to take cover.
“That saved a lot of people,” said teacher Theodore Varga, who survived the massacre.
Hochsprung was in a meeting with a parent and senior staff when Lanza began shooting nearby. At the sound of gunshots and screaming, some in her office dived for cover, but Hochsprung and the school’s psychologist, Mary Sherlach, 56, ran out to confront Lanza, shouting back to the others to lock the door. They were both shot dead, Hochsprung as she lunged at the killer.
Again I am awe struck at the courage of confronting an armed killer.
Another teacher used her body to hold the door shut, and was shot in the leg and arm through the door.
Music teacher Maryrose Kristopik kept 20 children safe by barricading them into a closet. Even when the gunman battered on the door screaming, “Let me in! Let me in!” she kept her nerve and blocked the door with her body.
As I said, almost all of us have this wonderful instinct to protect children. Few are ever faced with the test of having to risk their own lives to help save them. The death toll may have reached 60+ if it were not for those teachers.
I’ve done a little table comparing the MP ratings done this year by Fairfax, NZ Herald and Trans-Tasman.
The Fairfax ones were out of five, so I have doubled them for comparison purposes.
The National Minister with the greatest variation is David Carter. Fairfax had him as a 5/10 while Herald had 8/10.
Steven Joyce was only Minister to get the same score from all three publications – 7/10.
The overall highest ranked Minister was Tony Ryall on 8.3, followed by Finlayson and Collins on 8.0 each.
The Labour MP with the greatest variation is David Shearer. Fairfax had him at a massive 8/10 while Trans-Tasman had 4/10 and Herald 6/10. Also great variation with David Parker whom Fairfax had at 9/10, Trans-Tasman 6.5 and Herald 6.0.
Parker’s overall average was highest for Labour at 7.2, followed by Robertson at 6.7.
All three publications had the National frontbench ranked higher than Labour, but still significant variation. For National the average was 6.9 TT, 6.8 Fairfax and Herald a bit higher at 7.4.
For Labour Fairfax highest at 5.6, Herald at 5.5 and TT 4.1.
So in terms of the average difference, TT had Nats +2.8, Herald had Nats +1.9 and Fairfax Nats +0.8.
As many will have seen, Massey University is running a competition for best quote of 2012. One of the more well publicised finalists is:
I did not come up the river on a cabbage boat. (John Banks responding to media questions about Dotcom.)
There’s just one problem with that quote. It’s wrong. The actual quote by John Banks was:
I think you think I came up the river on a cabbage boat.
Now if this was just a news story, it wouldn’t matter. But if you are running a quote of the year competition, you’d think you’d check the quote was in fact an accurate quote.
Now as Toby Manhire has blogged, Banks has referred to cabbage boats many times, as far back as 1999. He did once say “I didn’t come up the river on a cabbage boat.” but that was in 2011, and in response to the extraordinary policy gains ACT managed in the coalition negotiations.
For around a year, I’ve had a problem where my web browser (Chrome) stops working a couple fo times a day, and I get the message:
The server at www.kiwiblog.co.nz (or whichever page it is) can’t be found, because the DNS lookup failed. DNS is the network service that translates a website’s name to its Internet address. This error is most often caused by having no connection to the Internet or a misconfigured network. It can also be caused by an unresponsive DNS server or a firewall preventing Google Chrome from accessing the network.
What is puzzling is that I still get Internet access for e-mail, tweet deck etc.
Now the problem goes away when I turn the ADSL wireless router off and on after the usual two minute wait to reboot. I assumed it was a router problem. However Vodafone kindly sent me a brand new router, and annoyingly the problem hasn’t gone away.
Anyone got any ideas what it may be? It is especially annoying if I type up a blog post and lose it, because the web isn’t properly connected.
Dan News does a great compilation of the years’s bloopers from our news shows. I’ve set this one to start at my favourite blooper. Hilarious.
EveryTrail – Find hiking trails in California and beyond
This was a fun, but tough walk.
The first couple of kms are the popular walk from the Brooklyn Wind Turbine to the Hawkins Hill Radar. Uphill, but not too steep except at the end as you pass the Wellington Castle and the nice dogs there try to jump over the fence to rip your throat out.
Instead of turning back, you carry on past the radar, and carry along the 4WD track past a couple more communication buildings. You get great views of the western wind turbines as you head towards the trig station. Pretty windy up there.
The track from the trig on is more narrow and mainly downhill. It is incredibly steep in some places, and combined with gravel paths, the potential for disaster is high. I only fell over once (a nice grazed right leg to show for it) but at times had to side-step down the slope. It was tough going.
While mainly downhill, there are parts where you go back uphill again, and again very steep in parts. We did a total of around 250 metres vertically uphill and 600 metres vertically downhill.
Towards the end you hit the old WWII observation bunkers. Stunning views of the ocean and South Island. The map says there is a track to the right and to the left. However to the right looked like a cliff, smelt like a cliff, sounded like a cliff and we concluded was a cliff. We later learnt there is no path there now.
The path to the left (follow the yellow markers) turned out to have its challenges also. At first a nice walk down a valley, but then it joined another valley and the path turned into a stream. And while the stream had little water, it had a downhill gradient in places of 45 degrees or so. Think climbing down wet rocks, more than walking.
It was with some relief we hit Red Rocks below. A bach owner told us we were the only people that weekend to do the track. I was not totally surprised. Don’t get me wrong – I loved the challenge, and the views. But the steep downhill is not for the faint hearted.
We then had a three km walk or so around the coastline to the Te Kopahau car park. Almost 12 kms all up and took three hours 20 minutes.
Next week in the Mt Victoria loop track which will be considerably easier.
The HoS reports:
It’s tough being a whistleblower as Private Bradley Manning has found.
The US Army intelligence analyst is alleged to have provided a huge trove of classified information – everything from Iraq and Afghanistan war logs to 250,000 diplomatic cables – to WikiLeaks in 2010, triggering enormous media coverage and a witch hunt by US authorities to find the leak.
I don’t regard that as whistleblowing. A whistleblower would reveal specific information about specific alleged misdeeds. That is vastly different to stealing and passing on 250,000 cables.
Stuff reports:
Fairfax Media is reportedly selling its remaining stake in Trade Me for about A$650 million (NZ$810m).
If the sale were to proceed, it would considerably pay down the company’s debts.
The stake is reportedly being sold to a range of New Zealand and Australian institutions in a placement through UBS, according to market sources.
The quoted sale figure would exceed what Fairfax paid for Trade Me in its initial investment five years ago.
Fairfax bought the online auction company from founder Sam Morgan and his fellow private investors for NZ$700m in 2006 and previously recouped NZ$364m by selling a 34 per cent stake through Trade Me’s initial public offering in December 2011.
Morgan went on to be made a board member at Fairfax.
In June, Fairfax further sold down its holding by 15 per cent at a discounted price of $2.70 a share, retaining 51 per cent of the company.
The sale is surprising because it is regarded as the best asset in the digital arm of Fairfax, said Lance Wiggs, a former Trade Me insider who worked on the initial sale to Fairfax.
‘‘It does make sense for investors that you want to separate your assets, one old media, one new media. If I was Fairfax I would want to own Trade Me, not old media,’’ Wiggs said.
The purchase and sale has been a net gain for Fairfax. However I do wonder at the wisdom of selling the only part of your business that actually made money!
Another episode in the case against Horan in the SST:
MP Brendan Horan used his mother’s credit card to pay for accommodation while attending a race meeting and campaigning in New Plymouth, it is alleged.
He also allegedly used the card to buy a cheap suit, to stay at a motor lodge in Hastings and to pay a veterinary bill for his horse.
The Sunday Star-Times last week obtained hundreds of pages of Horan’s mother’s bank statements going back to 2000. They show that Olwen Horan’s cards were being hammered while she was terminally ill and bedridden before her death in August.
There are two issues here – legality and morality. I’m surprised with all this evidence, that no one has gone to the Police.
But even putting aside the legality, I think it is morally indefensible to be spending up large from your dying mother’s credit card as if they were your own.
The Star-Times can reveal her credit card was used at the Dawson Motel in New Plymouth on May 27, 2011. Horan was in New Plymouth overnight on May 26 to attend a race meeting, and made a speech to a Grey Power meeting on behalf of Peters when Peters’ flight was diverted due to bad weather.
Maybe NZ First should refund some money also!
In August 2011, the card was used to buy a suit at Barkers menswear in Papamoa for $99. Horan had boasted at the time about it being a bargain.
A bargain indeed!
Horan last week told Radio Live his relationship with his mother was such that if he ever required anything, “all I needed to do was ask”.
He said there may have been cheques from his mother, but no-one had shown him specifics.
“She may have given me some cheques… mothers tend to do that.
“And if she did, so what?
And it might well be legal, if she agreed. But considering the codicil to the will, it suggests she did not. But again regardless of the legality, most people would not regard his actions as ethical.
When ever there is a mass shooting in the US, there is inevitably a debate on the gun laws in the US. I find the level of ignorance in the debate inevitably high.
Personally I like living in a country where the level of firearm ownership and use is relatively low, and the level of gun related crime is also low.
If you want to debate gun control in the US, you need to understand three things.
I say this not to defend US gun culture. I’m not a fan of guns. But if you don’t understand how a political system works, then calls for change are an (understandable) knee-jerk response.
Now taking the 2nd amendment issue first, this clearly places a limit on gun control laws. You can’t just ban private gun ownership. And there is no possibility the 2nd amendment will ever be taken out of the Bill of Rights. Now the 2nd amendment does refer to a well-regulated militia, but courts have ruled that this doesn’t mean that gun ownership is only allowed for members of militias (especially as there are none now), but was allowed for traditional purposes such as self-defence.
The 2nd amendments writers were partially inspired by the English Bill of Rights and the earlier common law.
In terms of the actual law, it is worth noting Connecticut has the 5th toughest gun laws of the 50 states. Specifically:
To buy a gun, Connecticut law requires residents apply for a local permit, typically with the town’s police chief, have their fingerprints taken and submit to a state and federal background check with a 14-day waiting period. To buy a handgun, residents also are required to take a gun safety course.
The state is also one of seven to have an assault weapons ban that specifically lists more than 35 semiautomatic and automatic weapons. It does not appear to cover the .223 caliber rifle used in Friday’s attack.
In terms of the culture, Americans recall that it is only through gun ownership that they won their independence from Britain. Now I agree 200 years on, they don’t need guns with individuals to overthrow a government. But the reality is that this cultural tradition is hugely strong in America, and you are never going to have the US with Europe or NZ style gun laws or levels of gun ownership. It is like wishing for the Easter Bunny.
That is not to say that there are not improvements that can and should be made to the gun laws, especially around automatic weapons. But don’t think for a moment that you will ever have a case where criminals in the US can’t get their hands on lethal firearms.
Just got back from seeing Part I of The Hobbit films.
The 48 rate frame speed is quite incredible, especially combined with 3D. It definitely does take around 10 minutes to get used to it, and the early scenes with the dwarves seem almost unreal and you wonder if it is CGI. But then when you get some NZ scenic shots, you realise how amazing it is.
The movie starts with a history of the dwarf kingdom under The Mountain and the coming of Smaug. You never see Smaug, just his tail and devastation. His full glory will be in Part II. The scenes of Erebor in its glory are amazing.
The Bag End scene is very faithful to the book, and a lot of fun. It did drag on a few minutes longer than necessary in my view, but overall the movie was well paced for what it got through in 140 minutes.
The troll scene was quite comic, and in fact there were many laughs during the movie – tinged with a bit of darkness.
The wargs were absolutely terrifying, and Jackson’s battle scenes remain unsurpassed.
Radagast the Brown was generally okay and funny, but I can see how one reviewer said he had a tinge of Jar Jar Binks about him. But they pulled him back just in time. His rabbit powered sleigh was absolute genius though. Radagast plays a key role in uncovering the growing evil at Dol Goldur, which will be a major aspect of Part III I am sure.
The dwarves are difficult to distinguish at times, despite their physical differences. The best guide to their different personalities is actually in the Air NZ monthly magazine.
Saruman and Galadriel play minor roles which add little, but help set up Part III also. Azog makes a great baddy, and you see how Thorin got the name Oakenshield.
The highlights are the scenes in the Misty Mountains. Great battle and running scenes. Barry Humphries excels as the Great Goblin and Andy Serkis captures Golum in all his complexity. I especially like it where Bilbo spares Gollum’s life, as this is so significant later on.
Seven of us viewed it, and everyone loved it. Can’t wait for Part II which will have a lot of action also – Beorn, Wood Elves, Giant Spiders, Bard and Smaug.
The Herald quiz is here. 9/10 in 43 seconds.
Hitfix reports:
Peter Jackson‘s “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” has finally finished making its journey to the big screen, and Middle Earth fans sure missed the director-co-writer’s take on the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien.
The film, the first of three based on the slender 1937 tome “The Hobbit,” picked up an estimated $13 million in midnight screenings in the U.S. on Thursday night. It’s the best December midnight performance of all-time.
Opening on 3,100 theaters (it’s adding nearly 1,000 more today), and aided by inflated IMAX, 3D and 48 fps ticket prices, “The Hobbit” is expected to gross somewhere between $80 million to $90 million for the weekend, which should easily pass the previous December champ — the Will Smith’s epic “I Am Legend,” which scared up $77.2 million in 2007.
I’m off to see it today. Can’t wait.