One movie would be tough if you're trying to develop everything for a wide range of audiences and it WOULD turn out disjointed. But remember that Rankin Bass made it one movie (and yeah, I was a six year old, but it still made plenty of sense to me). You can't argue that Jackson's film is long only because it tells the complete story properly--Rock giants? The rock giants scene was dumb, not in the book like that, and is an example of a scene deliberately lengthening the show for no real reason.
I cannot fathom how you can make a coherent comprehensive 78 minute film out of the hobbit (although note that it misses a lot of key scenes or massively truncates them).
And no, I agree Jackson's film has a number of scenes you could recut, trim, or cut completely. I think the film is about 20 minutes too long (the storm giants scene, for instance, I like about the first two minutes of - the literal version of what the book briefly discusses - but think "oh we are on the knees of storm giants" is totally unnecessary.)
After seeing how far the first movie brought us into the story I really questioning how much he can really make fans of "The Hobbit" happy by what's left.
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After seeing how far the first movie brought us into the story I really questioning how much he can really make fans of "The Hobbit" happy by what's left.
Have you read all of Tolkein's notes for 'The Quest for Erebor'? As you could see from the first movie there's a lot of things happening in the background of 'The Hobbit' (novel) that weren't told in the book itself;
as in; Sauron's evil beginning to spread, the rebirth of the Nazgul, etc.
There's plenty of things to be told and plenty of scenes that could do with elaborating on WHY Gandalf agreed to help the Dwarves, how The Witch-King of Angmar comes back to un-life, etc.
Pretty sure he decided to make these 3 movies a TRUE Prequel to LOTR as in, he's not just telling a whacky-lighthearted children's novel (The Hobbit) through cinema, he's telling the tale of how the events of LOTR were set into motion; (The Quest for Erebor)
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After seeing how far the first movie brought us into the story I really questioning how much he can really make fans of "The Hobbit" happy by what's left.
They have rights to use the appendices of The Return of the King, so that should make up a lot of it. Also, the first film only brought us to Chapter 6 of a 19-Chapter book.
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I saw the hobbit finally the other day. I was just simply amazed. I thought the beginning was a little long on the front/back story. i liked the fall of the mountain but the whole frodo/bilbo scene i could have done without.
i thought that was just filler. the rest of the movie flowed very well. i really like the trolls and the goblin king. that was just great.
i can't wait for the next installment next year. it is going to be a great time.
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Just saw the movie. I went with no expectations, and was disappointed nonetheless. I found the movie overleaded with action scenes that didn't really make sense, and did nothing for advancing the story. Shameless reuse of scenic techniques from LOTR. Numerous deus-ex machina-like moments.
I just saw ''The Hobbit'' and found the movie disappointing. They are trying too much to merge LOTR with The Hobbit when the only thing in common is the ring, the Glamdring and Dart and the mithril mail.
I consider that Peter Jackson killed The Hobbit. The most bothersome thing is that they added a bunch of stuff that never had any relation with the original story, which is supposed to be simple and easy to follow.
Instead of making 3 movies, they should have made only one big long movie. And why the heck do they show Radagast the Brown, Lady Galadriel and that Orc chase? They don't really contribute to the story! I'm sure Tolkien is making a facepalm in the afterlife.
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Radagast was from the extensions from what's been quoted around - and I'd assume Galadriel and the chase were the same.
Adding content is hardly "killing" anything though - especially with how many people critcized Tom Bombadil and other cut content from LOTR - but to include and overdo than cut or underutilize source material is what my response would be personally. Just like Jackson did.
Tolkien would have found them disapointing because of all the romance crap they added to the movie, as well as the empty plot holes they did. They also changed some of the characters to give them traits they never had!
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And also because he was generally a cranky control-freak old man in high passive-aggressive academic style, for whom nothing anybody else did was ever perfect. The same attention to detail that allowed him to create such an incredibly rich fantasy world also made him insufferable in the real one. He put his publishers through an unbelievable amount of crap over the cover design of the first edition of The Hobbit, and it only snowballed from there after the book was a hit.
So I suspect his objections would begin with the font of the opening credits, somehow. But more specific problems I anticipate are the accents (why is Pippin a Scot?) and pronunciations, the irreverent sense of humor (one word: Gimli), the cuts and plot holes Soriel mentioned (where did the hobbits' swords come from?), the short-changing given to some very important supporting characters (Faramir, Treebeard), and Peter Jackson's general aversion to subtlety (that goddamn mace of the Witch-King's).
One thing, though: I have a hard time believing even he could fault Ian McKellen's performance, so good it is.
Also, Christopher Lee actually knew him, and seems to share something of the same attitude (his infamous "that's not what a backstabbing sounds like" remark), so we can probably consider Saruman a credit too.
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The thread is thirteen pages long, so I'm not sure if it's been discussed yet, but I hated the scene with Gandalf, Galadriel, Saruman, and the other elf. It seemed unnecessary. Unless it was stated in some other book and I misread The Hobbit, no one cared what the dwarves were up to until they were captured by the elves in the forest. I recognized the need to set up for the Necromancer part (I assume that Gandalf and friends will beat him up while Gandalf is no longer in the dwarf party), but did it have to be so long and boring?
The thread is thirteen pages long, so I'm not sure if it's been discussed yet, but I hated the scene with Gandalf, Galadriel, Saruman, and the other elf. It seemed unnecessary. Unless it was stated in some other book and I misread The Hobbit, no one cared what the dwarves were up to until they were captured by the elves in the forest. I recognized the need to set up for the Necromancer part (I assume that Gandalf and friends will beat him up while Gandalf is no longer in the dwarf party), but did it have to be so long and boring?
Pretty sure it was in annex at the end of Return of the King
The scene with Gandalf, Galadriel, & Saruman or the Necromancer? I remember the Necromancer mentioned a few times in the annex (Gandalf and friends do go beat him up, right?), but I don't remember there being a part about the elves giving two craps about what the dwarves did.
Huge ranting wall of text. I feel like I may have done one of these earlier, but the thread got bumped since... Heh.
I'd heard mixed reviews before I saw it. Personally I was pretty disappointed. The original trilogy was okay. There weren't really that many scenes that make me think 'yeah, that scene alone was worth 3 hours of movie', but they were decent for fantasy film. The Hobbit was half serious fantasy, half them taking The Hobbit's more relaxed tone too far into annoying goofiness. The dish tossing scene was so out of control I could barely watch the screen. I mean, really? Who thought that was a good idea? I vaguely remember the dwarves might've cleaned up after themselves... Did they really go that far in the books? That sort of dexterity is so out of characters for dwarves, and it just looked awful.
Also, where were the other dwarves? I saw like two or three. The rest were just humans. How do you **** up dwarves? You made like perfect looking dwarves in lotr, now you have beardless ones? The leader has stubble and is built like a human? Dafuq?
And Radagast... He was interesting in the books because he was mentioned what...once? And only mentioned as a wizard kinda related to Gandalf in that way. So they toss him in here, cover his face with bird **** and make him act like a ****ing idiot riding a rabbit pulled cg sled of dog****.
Those things alone would've made me unable to take the movie seriously or think well of it, but there were a ton of other things I really disliked. Something about the flow of the start just felt awkward and forced. Maybe something is just lost in translation, but it didn't feel so odd in the books. Watching them trespass into his house and what followed...and then him deciding to join them. I just didn't believe it for an instant.
The entire goblin scene was awful. Why not have a few goblins chase them in a dark tunnel? Did we need 10000 goblins in a brightly lit city of bridges and a seriously awful looking goblin king (that comes back to life)? How did they get captured when they first fell down, but fight off the entire city of goblins when gandalf appeared? Lol, what changed? Why not just fight them right away? That one explosion Gandalf did, did they know that was coming? Does he forget that spell between now and lotr? Oh yeah that one spell that kills like hundreds of goblins, right. Whoops.
Also, they all died like 3 times in the cave. Oh, the shaft gradually narrows and it slides to a stop. Yeah they totally didn't die! Yeah kill them again so you can have a funny one liner! Boy, I'm really scared they're gonna die now. Oh no those lil orcs are gonna do what a million goblins and falling a mile couldn't! Oh god please don't kill them it's so tense.
I know the eagle saved Gandalf in lotr, but it was so minor you didn't get caught up in it. Here you have a ton of them appear and save a bunch of people and just fly around with them. It gives you enough time to think... why don't they just get rides to dump the ring later? Why don't they just fly all the way to their destination now? Oh right, cuz eagles are independent. I'm sure they couldn't come up with some trade or negotiation, or Gandalf couldn't do some magic stuff for them later. Any excuse just feels thin here, considering the urgency of the ring's quest. I know it happens in the books, it just feels less glaring once again, or maybe you just don't care when reading the hobbit cuz it's just a fun adventure novel. This however was LotR the prequel.
And the entire necromancer subplot feels unnecessary. That's largely what breaks the tone so much. Galadriel is way too weird and serious for the hobbit. Her scene is out of place, especially with Radagast being a moron only scenes away. Plus you get the feeling that Gandalf knows the necromancer is Sauron. One scene in particular it's strongly implied by his expression. I always felt like he was just another evil dude to them until later. So he really doesn't think to investigate this ring of power Bilbo finds when it coincides with Sauron coming back? I dunno...
Maybe I've been watching too much Troll 2, or RLM, but it didn't take long until I was laughing inside (not out loud, that's rude :P) rather than really caring about the movie and characters.
My apologies for necroing an old thread, but I figured raising this one would be more appropriate when discussing the new Hobbit film vs. starting a new one.
It seems that most people who were fans of the book didn't really care for the first film in general. I see that that the 2nd film is sitting at 78% at RottenTomatoes and is slowly going down - probably winding up at the same % as the original.
Is anyone going to see this? I think I will simply for the Dol Guldur storyline as I'm not that familiar with it and I'm interested to see where it goes. From the trailers, it seems we're getting plenty of elf action from Legolas and a new female elf - something I've personally had enough of in the LOTR trilogy.
In my youth the Hobbit book was one of my favourite books. Luckily I don't care how different the movies are. Just enjoy a good fantasy spectacle. Everyone should cool down a bit and just embrace it. You don't have to love it, but if you like fantasy you should watch this movie imo
I don't hate the movies, but there are definitely things about them not to like (the Wizard has birds**t on his face? really?). I think the root of my criticism would be along the lines of what you said. That they aren't trying to create a great version of the Hobbit for film, but instead they're trying to create a great fantasy spectacle that makes lots of money and the Hobbit is just a convenient vehicle for them to use.
So in that sense I put the first one on about the same level as a shallow big budget summer blockbuster movie like Transformers or the Star War prequels. Not unwatchable, but not one worth remembering or seeing more than once (for the record I did enjoy the LoTR trilogy and consider them good movies). I'll see the second one and try to judge it on it's own merits but my expectations are not high.
Reviews for this one are telling me that I'm going to end up annoyed rather than relieved. They're all pointing to Bilbo becoming even more of a background character in his own story. But I'm gonna see it and hope like hell that I enjoy it...
And thanks for necro'ing the thread; I wasn't sure if I should.
The thing that really caught my interest in the first Hobbit film was the whole Dol Guldur storyline because I don't remember it at all in the Hobbit book (which I read along time ago and probably don't remember specific details). And I certainly don't remember the White Council meeting in Rivendell in the Hobbit book in the fashion that the movie took place. In the book, Gandalf just sort of disappears and reappears here and there to save Bilbo and the dwarves from danger - I'm assuming this is Jackson's attempt to reveal what Gandalf has been doing while being away from the company.
When I read all of Tolkien's books (Hobbit and LOTR), I read them separately and didn't really link too much of them together other than Bilbo finding Gollum's ring in the Misty Mountains in the Hobbit which became the central focal point of the LOTR books. But reading up a bit more on the whole Dol Guldur storyline, the reason Gandalf is so interested in helping Thorin in the Hobbit is because he senses that Sauron is back and he may want to eventually team up with Smaug to wipe out Middle Earth. So basically Gandalf wants to eliminate one of the two "threats" in Smaug before Sauron can ally with him in a similar way Sauron allied with Saruman. I think adding that storyline into the movies is a good thing that bridges the two film trilogies together - albeit taking away some of the original Hobbit storyline which is why perhaps some critics are saying that Bilbo is more a backburner character in the new Hobbit film vs the focal point (too much time spent on the Dol Guldur storyline).
I actually saw Desolation of Smaug today and it was great. Better than the 1st movie for sure. Middle-Earth destroys your retinas with its beauty as always and the attention to detail is lovely. There are some amazing set pieces that give DoS a much higher rewatch value than Unexpected Journey. Of course the ending is utter bull**** and there was loud booing at the showing I attended. The 3-D is worth paying for if you're into that. 4.5 out of 5.
Maybe on Friday I'll post a more detailed review.
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I cannot fathom how you can make a coherent comprehensive 78 minute film out of the hobbit (although note that it misses a lot of key scenes or massively truncates them).
And no, I agree Jackson's film has a number of scenes you could recut, trim, or cut completely. I think the film is about 20 minutes too long (the storm giants scene, for instance, I like about the first two minutes of - the literal version of what the book briefly discusses - but think "oh we are on the knees of storm giants" is totally unnecessary.)
Have you read all of Tolkein's notes for 'The Quest for Erebor'? As you could see from the first movie there's a lot of things happening in the background of 'The Hobbit' (novel) that weren't told in the book itself;
as in; Sauron's evil beginning to spread, the rebirth of the Nazgul, etc.
There's plenty of things to be told and plenty of scenes that could do with elaborating on WHY Gandalf agreed to help the Dwarves, how The Witch-King of Angmar comes back to un-life, etc.
Pretty sure he decided to make these 3 movies a TRUE Prequel to LOTR as in, he's not just telling a whacky-lighthearted children's novel (The Hobbit) through cinema, he's telling the tale of how the events of LOTR were set into motion; (The Quest for Erebor)
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They have rights to use the appendices of The Return of the King, so that should make up a lot of it. Also, the first film only brought us to Chapter 6 of a 19-Chapter book.
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i thought that was just filler. the rest of the movie flowed very well. i really like the trolls and the goblin king. that was just great.
i can't wait for the next installment next year. it is going to be a great time.
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Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
I consider that Peter Jackson killed The Hobbit. The most bothersome thing is that they added a bunch of stuff that never had any relation with the original story, which is supposed to be simple and easy to follow.
Instead of making 3 movies, they should have made only one big long movie. And why the heck do they show Radagast the Brown, Lady Galadriel and that Orc chase? They don't really contribute to the story! I'm sure Tolkien is making a facepalm in the afterlife.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Adding content is hardly "killing" anything though - especially with how many people critcized Tom Bombadil and other cut content from LOTR - but to include and overdo than cut or underutilize source material is what my response would be personally. Just like Jackson did.
Re: People misusing the term Vanilla to describe a flying, unleash (sometimes trample) critter.
And J. R. R. Tolkien didn't?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
So I suspect his objections would begin with the font of the opening credits, somehow. But more specific problems I anticipate are the accents (why is Pippin a Scot?) and pronunciations, the irreverent sense of humor (one word: Gimli), the cuts and plot holes Soriel mentioned (where did the hobbits' swords come from?), the short-changing given to some very important supporting characters (Faramir, Treebeard), and Peter Jackson's general aversion to subtlety (that goddamn mace of the Witch-King's).
One thing, though: I have a hard time believing even he could fault Ian McKellen's performance, so good it is.
Also, Christopher Lee actually knew him, and seems to share something of the same attitude (his infamous "that's not what a backstabbing sounds like" remark), so we can probably consider Saruman a credit too.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Pretty sure it was in annex at the end of Return of the King
Also, where were the other dwarves? I saw like two or three. The rest were just humans. How do you **** up dwarves? You made like perfect looking dwarves in lotr, now you have beardless ones? The leader has stubble and is built like a human? Dafuq?
And Radagast... He was interesting in the books because he was mentioned what...once? And only mentioned as a wizard kinda related to Gandalf in that way. So they toss him in here, cover his face with bird **** and make him act like a ****ing idiot riding a rabbit pulled cg sled of dog****.
Those things alone would've made me unable to take the movie seriously or think well of it, but there were a ton of other things I really disliked. Something about the flow of the start just felt awkward and forced. Maybe something is just lost in translation, but it didn't feel so odd in the books. Watching them trespass into his house and what followed...and then him deciding to join them. I just didn't believe it for an instant.
The entire goblin scene was awful. Why not have a few goblins chase them in a dark tunnel? Did we need 10000 goblins in a brightly lit city of bridges and a seriously awful looking goblin king (that comes back to life)? How did they get captured when they first fell down, but fight off the entire city of goblins when gandalf appeared? Lol, what changed? Why not just fight them right away? That one explosion Gandalf did, did they know that was coming? Does he forget that spell between now and lotr? Oh yeah that one spell that kills like hundreds of goblins, right. Whoops.
Also, they all died like 3 times in the cave. Oh, the shaft gradually narrows and it slides to a stop. Yeah they totally didn't die! Yeah kill them again so you can have a funny one liner! Boy, I'm really scared they're gonna die now. Oh no those lil orcs are gonna do what a million goblins and falling a mile couldn't! Oh god please don't kill them it's so tense.
I know the eagle saved Gandalf in lotr, but it was so minor you didn't get caught up in it. Here you have a ton of them appear and save a bunch of people and just fly around with them. It gives you enough time to think... why don't they just get rides to dump the ring later? Why don't they just fly all the way to their destination now? Oh right, cuz eagles are independent. I'm sure they couldn't come up with some trade or negotiation, or Gandalf couldn't do some magic stuff for them later. Any excuse just feels thin here, considering the urgency of the ring's quest. I know it happens in the books, it just feels less glaring once again, or maybe you just don't care when reading the hobbit cuz it's just a fun adventure novel. This however was LotR the prequel.
And the entire necromancer subplot feels unnecessary. That's largely what breaks the tone so much. Galadriel is way too weird and serious for the hobbit. Her scene is out of place, especially with Radagast being a moron only scenes away. Plus you get the feeling that Gandalf knows the necromancer is Sauron. One scene in particular it's strongly implied by his expression. I always felt like he was just another evil dude to them until later. So he really doesn't think to investigate this ring of power Bilbo finds when it coincides with Sauron coming back? I dunno...
Maybe I've been watching too much Troll 2, or RLM, but it didn't take long until I was laughing inside (not out loud, that's rude :P) rather than really caring about the movie and characters.
It seems that most people who were fans of the book didn't really care for the first film in general. I see that that the 2nd film is sitting at 78% at RottenTomatoes and is slowly going down - probably winding up at the same % as the original.
Is anyone going to see this? I think I will simply for the Dol Guldur storyline as I'm not that familiar with it and I'm interested to see where it goes. From the trailers, it seems we're getting plenty of elf action from Legolas and a new female elf - something I've personally had enough of in the LOTR trilogy.
I don't hate the movies, but there are definitely things about them not to like (the Wizard has birds**t on his face? really?). I think the root of my criticism would be along the lines of what you said. That they aren't trying to create a great version of the Hobbit for film, but instead they're trying to create a great fantasy spectacle that makes lots of money and the Hobbit is just a convenient vehicle for them to use.
So in that sense I put the first one on about the same level as a shallow big budget summer blockbuster movie like Transformers or the Star War prequels. Not unwatchable, but not one worth remembering or seeing more than once (for the record I did enjoy the LoTR trilogy and consider them good movies). I'll see the second one and try to judge it on it's own merits but my expectations are not high.
And thanks for necro'ing the thread; I wasn't sure if I should.
When I read all of Tolkien's books (Hobbit and LOTR), I read them separately and didn't really link too much of them together other than Bilbo finding Gollum's ring in the Misty Mountains in the Hobbit which became the central focal point of the LOTR books. But reading up a bit more on the whole Dol Guldur storyline, the reason Gandalf is so interested in helping Thorin in the Hobbit is because he senses that Sauron is back and he may want to eventually team up with Smaug to wipe out Middle Earth. So basically Gandalf wants to eliminate one of the two "threats" in Smaug before Sauron can ally with him in a similar way Sauron allied with Saruman. I think adding that storyline into the movies is a good thing that bridges the two film trilogies together - albeit taking away some of the original Hobbit storyline which is why perhaps some critics are saying that Bilbo is more a backburner character in the new Hobbit film vs the focal point (too much time spent on the Dol Guldur storyline).
Maybe on Friday I'll post a more detailed review.