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Ars: Final Hobbit Movie Is 'Soulless End' To 'Flawed' Trilogy
An anonymous reader writes: The final chapter to Peter Jackson's series of films based on The Hobbit debuted last week, and the reviews haven't been kind. Ars Technica just posted theirs, and it highlights all the problems with Battle of the Five Armies, a two-hour and twenty-four minute film based on only 72 pages of the book. Quoting: "The battles in Battle of the Five Armies are deadly boring, bereft of suspense, excessively padded, and predictable to the point of being contemptuous of the audience. Suspense is attempted mostly by a series of last-minute saves and switches. ... There are other problems. Everyone in this movie takes themselves way too seriously, which makes them even harder to sympathize with. Peter Jackson leans way too hard on voice modulation to make characters seem menacing or powerful. The movie's tone is still way out of step with the book's tone. ... There's one big thing that doomed these movies from the outset — the fiscally smart but artistically bankrupt decision to make a single, shortish children's novel into three feature-length prequel films." Other review titles: "Peter Jackson Must Be Stopped," "The Phantom Menace of Middle Earth," and "Lots of Fighting, Not Much Hobbit."
I disliked hobbit movies before it was cool.
I'm not going to see Age of Ultron either.
part 1 was pretty bad and part 2 even worse. i feel pretty ashamed for having paid money for those two - and having encouraged bad, soulless, moneygrabbing filmmaking by that. sorry.
I hate the way my friends' HDTVs make movies look like soap operas. I hated the last Hobbit which I saw in HFR/HD and the "look" completely ruined the film for me. The lighting used stood out like a sore thumb from the live action characters vs. the CG, the movement of the CG itself was horrible in many scenes.
And this film was no different. Ugh.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Seems Gollum was right...
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Three stars in the Observer and four stars in the Guardian.
I'll still be going to watch it with friends between Christmas and the New Year.
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
It was dry, but not BAD like Phantom Menace. Phantom Menace was horrendous on numerous levels and, if taken seriously, reduces the quality of the previous movies. This LOTR prequel finally was dry, unless you have some reason to be emotionally invested in the characters because of the book. But it was not a BAD movie, it was not poorly acted, it was not poorly written, and while it could have done with more meaning when it came to the acton (and I personally hate action) every last bit of the film-shooting and editing was done as spectacularly as can be done in a film.
This was not a BAD movie; it just wasn't the movie it could have been. And honestly, you'll never please the fan-boys anyway.
Where's a good threat when you need one?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
It's like Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird, there's a really good five and a half minute song in there somewhere.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Movies are about the visuals. That's why a good director means more than a good screen writer. The better the visual, the more time on screen. All movies need an inciting incident, an escalation, then a crisis and resolution. You can easily do a fantastic movie without much dialogue or voiceovers. In fact, the best way to do dialogue and voice overs is to let a good actor improvise. Works better than having the screenwriter do it - who should be creating potentially amazing scenes.
Books are about the dialogue and thoughts of the character. You can delve deep into their motivations and what they say. But book visuals are all in the mind of the reader. If a book has really good descriptions, it doesn't matter that much. But good words - said and thought by the characters, that makes the book.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Dear Peter Jackson,
You and I have journeyed far together. You brought Frodo's task to destroy the One Ring to life a mere decade ago, and with such verve and respect that myself and the world over could not turn a blind eye and fail to hail such an inspiring, thrilling, and (mostly) faithful adaptation. In those days it was clear your appreciation and understanding of Tolkien's most beloved work was paramount, and although some liberties were taken to accommodate the film medium, those liberties could be mostly forgiven in the wake of such illuminating entertainment.
Today is a far different day, and the lens I view your Middle Earth through now is not the same as when all was good and new. Time appears to have jaded your approach to the wonders of Middle Earth.
While some berated An Unexpected Journey for being slow, plodding, and somewhat uneventful, it still held much of the magic of yesteryear. Many great moments were found, and liberties, though present, were for the most part welcomed. Perhaps some moments in this first leg of the journey were a portent of what was to come, with Dwarves and Hobbit alike being immune to falling rocks, and Goblin Kings being so inept and vulnerable to attack by an aging wizard that one slice of a sword offers a silly comedic moment and death with little true peril. I held out hope here, however, as Thorin truly suffers in the mouth of Azog's Albino Warg.
Desolation of Smaug, in its extended cut, also held moments of magic, though it fell victim to much of the same shortcomings, peril-wise, as An Unexpected Journey. While there were some true moments of dread, found in Mirkwood and Smaug's Lair, there were moments of silly nonsense, particularly in the Forge of Erebor with an ineffectual dragon, but also with liberties taken by unnecessary fabricated characters such as Tauriel, cheapening elvish magic and Arwen's importance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I still held out hope, even in this, because in the extended cut you brought us a better sense of pacing, more interactions with actual book characters such as Beorn and Thrain, and I couldn't help but hope you would do the rest of the book justice with proper emotional heft to go along with the bloody conflict that was soon to shake Middle Earth after its long peace.
After such a long journey, traveling through mountain, forest, valley, river, lake, and town, there were but some small matters to wrap up. A dragon threatened a town on the water. Armies of all manner awaited the opportunity to strike at Erebor should the threat of the dragon be eliminated. The characters we have traveled with required proper sendoff and emotional moments.
Certainly, the dragon threatens Laketown, burning and pillaging at whim. However, the witty, sadistic dragon I had hoped for instead functioned more as a flamethrower than a character. To this end, could Smaug not have tormented the denizens of Laketown a bit before reducing it to cinders and ash? A simple "Flee, flee for your lives! I will find you no matter where you hide and devour you as sheep." would have been very effective.
Certainly, the hero destroys the dragon, though in perhaps the most ridiculous way possible and within just a few moments. Smaug is further cheapened as a complete imbecile, ignoring the fact that the one weapon that CAN pierce his hide is pointed at him (and don't say he doesn't know what it is, because he had many of them fired at him the last time men had strength).
Certainly, Dol Goldur falls, but why does Galadriel appear so weak at particular moments throughout? It feels rather convenient that she falls to the ground weakened while the men (including the aged Saruman) fight it out amongst the Nazgul. While she may cast out Sauron from Dol Goldur, her appearance here felt very highly inconsistent, cycling between frail elf maiden and "beautiful and terrible as the dawn" elf queen.
A few more scenes before Kili and co. arrive from Laketown's ruins would have been nice, showing Thorin beginning the descent into
Before anybody points it out - all of the post below is anecdote - usual caveats apply.
A friend of mine is a teacher - he generally works with the 10-11 age-range (which in the UK at least, is unusual for a male teacher). This is, as is documented in any number of official and unofficial studies, a particularly critical year in the education of boys; it's when many of them start to fall behind the girls in their year group in academic terms (not catching up until the 18-21 age range). The individuals who start falling behind at this point generally never catch up.
Now, just a few weeks ago, and spurred by the impending release of this movie, I had a long conversation with said friend about childhood literacy, academic achievement and the Hobbit.
See, his view is that the big problem with the UK education system and boys is that they lose all interest in reading for pleasure right around that 10-11 age range. This is, in part, because the generally approved reading materials in schools have a heavy female tilt (lots of teddy bears and thinking about feelings, not so much on the swords, dragons and robots), but there's not actually a mandatory reading list at this age and teachers (if they're willing to stand up to the senior management in their school if needed) have quite a lot of leeway.
And his big antidote to "losing" boys at this age has, for close to a decade now, been "The Hobbit". Indeed, he's of the view that it's one of the finest children's books ever written; short enough not to be off-putting, gripping pretty much from the first page and written with an authorial voice that strikes a good balance between not being condescending and not being too advanced for the age-range in question. It is also a damned exciting story, with wizards, dragons, goblins and magic rings. The girls don't hate it and the boys absolutely lap it up.
So from his point of view, the movies have been a bit of a disaster. He'd been hoping for something he could take classes along to. Instead, the movies, are dark, brooding, serious, dark and extremely violent in places. They're absolutely not suitable for the age range the book is pitched at and, in any case, they miss the fundamental quality of what makes the book so great.
It's not a disaster for him - the book is still there and always will be there. But his view was that it was a missed opportunity to give the "best children's book ever written" a proper adaptation.
I've not read The Hobbit for many years myself, but this does chime with my own memory of it.
It's no Green Grass and High Tides, but it'll do.
Dude! Get back on your meds, man!
I do not see any problem with however long he wanted to make them; there is more than enough content for a dozen movies. It is sort of interesting that he mixed all this LOTR prequel stuff into it; though I do not think that he did a great job of it, as the childrens tale elements really seem to jive with the mature gritty action and LOTR premonitions. My problem is the sort of things he specifically did. Like have an elf falling helplessly in love with a dwarf because he implied his penis was huge (I am guessing that was not in the appendixes).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
in the battle of five armies. WOW what a BORING movie! This is the first and LAST of the Hobit movies we will go see. Good thing we saw it on $5 Tuesdays, I would have hated to have wasted full price on this movie.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
...is that enough people will pay to see them to make them look like a good idea. CGI shiny all over, not a hint of story.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
20 parts but a darn good nap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion
From the summary: "The battles in Battle of the Five Armies are deadly boring, bereft of suspense, excessively padded, and predictable to the point of being contemptuous of the audience."
That pretty much describes all 3 movies to a Tee.
The original story was a books for childs that started with "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit" and kept being childish most of the way. This movie? "Die Hard: Dwarfs edition", deserving a PG-13 or R rating for violence and mass slaughtering. It was like watching the porn version of Cindirella. The basic elements were there, but is not the same.
Anyway, may worth to see the CGI work.
I wonder if they'll try to make The Silmarillion next?
If you're even a mild Tolkien fan it is worth seeing.
Visually it is quite stunning.
However, with that being said, can the three PJ Hobbit films, taken as a whole, be considered absolute and unadulterated crap?
Well of course.
The first one was just lame and way too long.
The second one sucked bigtime and was way too long.
The third one isn't bad, and was way too long.
At the beginning of the third one is a scene where the members of the White Council show up to find out why Gandalf has been at Dol Guldur so long... It is wayyy videogamed out, but actually kind of a cool scene.
I'm a huge Tolkien fan, and when I see these I have to assume I'm watching someone play a game...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
The all-to-common formula
I'm usually not the grammar/spelling nazi type, but I'm REALLY getting tired of people not knowing the difference between to and too.
WTF?!?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
If history doth repeat itself, then we will see a tightly cut single movie version of Jackson's Hobbit as soon as amateur film makers can get a good digital copy of all three films. Anyone who saw the Star War's prequels refactored into well paced and well cut movies knows that compressing three Hobbits back into the original book will be a treat. There is plenty to take out, good acting, and with skill the story can be made right again.
F=ma
As someone who is a bit of a grammar/spelling nazi, I'd have to give this one a pass if it's a standalone problem - I don't have problems with typos, and "all-to-" could have just been a miskey....
Not at all the same as there/they're/their....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Do you ever tire of assuming that minor spelling mistakes in an informal forum does not mean the author doesn't know the difference between the two?
But Phantom Menace bad? Nowhere close.
There's absolutely no reason why 20-something years worth of Anakin Skywalker's life pre-Vader couldn't have provided enough worthwhile material for three movies. George Lucas just sucked too much to figure it out.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The Rankin & Bass animated Hobbit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... is truer to the source material than this bloated mess.
Peter Jackson ripped the soul out of Lord of the Rings when he neglected to film The Scouring of the Shire. No one who loves Tolkien expected anything better this go-around.
Why is all the good stuff already modded 5, when I have mod points?
Indeed, I'd like to see the UnExtended Edition, which compresses the three films (474 minutes long, or 7.9 hours) down to one film that's somewhere between 120 and 180 minutes long.
Enjoy what? The never ending CG fight that doesn't seem to go anywhere? Tauriel being a good little damsel straight from Peter Jackson's imagination?
Forget there's a book at all, the movie is just plain bad. It's probably alright for the Transformers crowd, they love endless CG with no particular point.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
Given that a large portion of what he did was turn the children's stories into epic battle sequences, I'm not sure that those elements "jive" with the gritty action as "were turned into gritty action". Every instance where the party fled or used intelligence to escape overwhelming odds, Jackson simply turned them into superheroes who blasted their way out.
A particularly pungent example would be the escape from the wood elves' fortress; in the book, this was when Bilbo finally became a fully trusted, contributing member of the group as he used stealth to sneak the dwarves out in barrels. In the film, the dwarves conduct a battle from barrels they ride like boats. The central lesson that there is something to be learned from the meekest among us is completely overtaken by the desire to have yet another CGI battle-fest.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
Rabid fans of the movies, vs "Peter Jackson is satan incarnate and must be stopped". The latter is left over from print-fan memes during the original run of LotR, who would hate the movie no matter what he did, not because it's a movie, but because it's not the book. Print fans come in all shapes and sizes, and have all sorts of justifications for their views. I find it interesting that, back in the day, of the print fans that believed Lord of the Rings should be made into a movie, it was generally believed that only a 20 hour miniseries would be enough, in order to capture every scene and every song and poem, and the elves should be CGI because people weren't beautiful enough, and today we have print fans that are saying that three movies was too long. What the hell make up your mind.
Then there are the print fans who would be absolutely against any film, generally justified as "it substitutes Jackson's imagery for the reader's own" or somesuch, and from there leads to a place of madness, where calendars, posters and even cover art are forbidden, and the only way to read the stories should be on loose leaf paper from Tolkien's own typewriter.
I digress. Anyway, for those who need a more faithful light hearted Hobbit, there's still the Rankin-Bass film from 1977. They even set some of Tolkien's poems to whiney music sung by people with terrible singing voices, so, like, cool. It made me want to gouge my eyeballs out and use them to plug my ears, but your mileage may vary.
As to whether any or all of the Hobbit films are the best films ever or a travesty that requires that the director be tarred and feathered and ridden out on a Grond, the actual truth is somewhere in the middle. Yes, three movies were probably excessive. No, one movie would not have done it. This is because it's not a matter of just telling the story in The Hobbit's measly 300 pages, but also giving the backstory that was in the appendicies to LotR (to which Jackson had the rights) and maybe approaching what might be a full telling of The Quest of Erebor, the story Tolkien later started to write, essentially re-writing The Hobbit to better fit into the tone and pagentry of Lord of the Rings. (Published posthumously by his son Christopher in Unfinished Tales.) Unfortunately, Jackson did not have access to Tolkien's writings other than what was in the appendicies and The Hobbit, and Christopher Tolkien absolutely refused Jackson the rights to Tolkien's other notes. So in order to make it fit with Lord of the Rings, Jackson had to make some of it up in order to not be sued by the Tolkien estate.
So, did he make stuff up that Tolkien didn't write? Of course he did. Did he make up *too much* stuff? Maybe. Did he put in too much filler? Yeah, probably. Should he have kept it to one movie and only filmed what was in The Hobbit? Absolutely not. There is more story there, (Specifically, why Gandalf felt Erebor was so important to the coming war) and Jackson told as much of it as he was allowed to. Three films *was* excessive, but to say it shouldn't be filmed because it wasn't in The Hobbit is to show ignorance about all the backstory and detail surrounding the Quest of Erebor that wasn't in what was essentially a children's book. And besides, The Hobbit was already filmed, in 1977. (I didn't like it much. It made my teeth hurt.)
Footnote, after all these years, having read the novels multiple times, once to my daughter before the films first came out, I just recently had an in-story epiphany. It always seemed curious and whimsical that Gandalf was so adamant about Bilbo being included in the quest. But think -- that simple decision set in motion a chain of events that after many years leads to the destruction of the One Ring -- something that probably could not have happened otherwise. How did Gandalf know?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The first one had its moments, but the second was jaw droppingly dull, and worst of all Jackson mutilated the escape from the Elf king's tunnels. They took the barrel rider scene and turned it into a video game.
I have no desire to sit through the third.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The original idea for The Hobbit was to make two movies. Then Hollywood executives got involved and the third movie was invented. With it came the need to invent new stuff to fill all the extra time, and most of it is garbage.
If you trim it back down to two movies, there is enough content to make a good pair of movies. Instead, what we got was Peter Jackson's attempt to make The Lord Of The Rings II, occasionally featuring a hobbit.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I don't see how you can claim the Lotro movie was faithful. I love the movies but is missing far to much to be faithful. They failed to mention there was a 20-30 year gap between Gandalf telling Frodo to keep the ring secret and his return during which he searched for gollum and he had people protecting the shire and that Frodo was ~60 yrs old when he left the shire. They skipped the entire section of the book for when they left the shire and went into the forest/graveyard. They changed the story on the reforging of the sword. They killed Sarumon before the final battle and completely cut out the battle of the shire. There were quite a few other differences as well but I last read the book 10 years ago so some details are faded.
...but I can't recall for sure whether or not I even saw the second one. I think from that you can estimate my level of enthusiasm for seeing the third one.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
If the movies were enjoyable, I might, but they suck on their own terms as well as adaptations of a much beloved book.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Anyone who don't write publikation ready matarial for slashdot, holly devoid of errers or types, are obvioulsy a rediculous jock who shuld have his iPhone (feckin' fanboi) sumarily shoot with a HERF gun.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I watched the first hobbit movie on an overnight flight from Toronto to Paris. It was the best stretch of sleep that I had on the whole flight. I caught bits and pieces of it, but the ridiculously over-long fighting and chase sequences soon put me back to sleep.
I have no desire to watch the other two, unless I need to take another red-eye.
Of course I found the LOTR movies dreadfully dull as well, and I've read the books dozens of times.
------- Mark
I stopped being a purist about such things long ago. I found it helped me to enjoy movies as their own story, loosely based on the book. I started watching GoT and made the conscious decision to stay one book behind the series, which has made a huge difference. I find I'm able to enjoy the show and appreciate the additional details and plot point differences in the books.
Same with comic book movies. Of course, comics have so many different origin story lines, it might be easier. When it comes to Star Wars however, I am an original trilogy theatrical release purist. Han shot first!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
There's only about 190 pages. It's actually quicker for the average reader to read the whole of the hobbit than to watch all 3 films. I was disappointed with the films, partly for the spurious additions (giant worms eating through the ground? I'm only slightly surprised Bolg didn't quaff a vial of the Spice of Arrakis...), partly for the changes in plot (they mostly seem more egregious here than in LotR) and partly for some of the acting. BUT, having seen the extended versions of the first 2 films on DVD, I'm somewhat heartened by the extra scenes. I think there is enough in the extra scenes to allow someone (I might even have a go myself) to take all 3 extended DVDs when the 3rd one is released and make 2 considerably shorter, more child friendly films that are at the same time truer to the book. I can think of a couple of places where the cuts will be slightly rough, and some of the changes make it impossible to be 100% purist, but it'll certainly be truer and more watchable than Jackson's version.
And Smaug. Instead of mistaking Bilbo's riddle to mean Bilbo is a Lake-Man and leaving immediately to destroy Lake-Town, Smaug fruitlessly fights the dwarves then just decides to leave for no apparent reason. WTF?
And Gandalf *knows* that the Necromancer is Sauron, then does nothing about it for decades and forgets until Bilbo's 111th Birthday Party. W. T. F.
There's only about 190 pages. It's actually quicker for the average reader to read the whole of the hobbit than to watch all 3 films.
Just some numbers. The average person reads at between 250 and 300 words per minute. Let's call it 275.
Hobbit is 95,356 words long. That's 347 minutes of reading.
The first two Hobbit movies combined are 330 minutes long.
So basically an average reader will plow through the book in the time it takes to watch two of the movies plus some trailers before the third. Forget the extra 144 minutes of the actual movie!
"Oh no... he found the
Yeah, of all the dumb elements in the film, the spice worms annoyed me the most. Why didn't the orcs have them dig directly into Erebor, and take the fortress from inside and then have any elves and dwarves that were outside face attack from two directions?
Even the use of big battle sequences might have been forgivable if they seem to fit the story. But instead, the dwarves fight like each one is just about as tough and difficult to harm as the terminator, the elves fight like they're major characters in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the fearsome orcs and goblins "bred for war" die so fast and easily one thinks Azog might conquer more territory by arming a bunch of Hobbits.
I thought the scenery was beautiful, the costumes stunning, the sets breathtaking, and outside of combat most of the character interactions were reasonable and enjoyable. I especially did like the relationship Thorin and Bilbo develop over the films. But otherwise, there's two or three hours of good film in there.
To be fair, my sons love it and if it gets them to read more I'll call it a winner, period.
...or in this case, it might as well be called the fan un-edit. I will definitely have a copy of all the movies... but will be one of the first to download a fan edit that is closer to the original story. Hopefully there is enough material in there to repair it. (First thing that comes to mind is the barrel amusement park ride.) If we are in luck, Peter captured a lot of extra footage that could be used from the extras. I still see it big enough for two movies.
When I saw how much weight he lost and how much more dignified he looked since LOTR, my hopes for the Hobbit movies fell drastically.
It wasn't so bad, overall... but they should have made the series two movies, at most. There was significant filler.
...Steve
That's like watching a Godzilla movie and complaining that it has an anti-nuclear message.
I haven't seen any of the Hobbit movies in full yet, but I know to expect an action movie.
I wonder what this reviewer thinks of the SuperMoses movie? Put off by too much action hero stuff in action hero movies?
Two bad.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
And Beorn, the most interesting and mysterious character in "The Hobbit" much like Tom Bombadil in FOTR, was never developed. Or how Gandalf used trickery and mind games to get Beorn to accept dwarves. Now that would have been interesting. The eagles could have also been explored as a race and characters. Instead we get an elf and dwarf falling in love. WTF? And an escape scene that looked like a Disney ride or an abomination out of the "Pirates of the Caribbean".
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Three movie review stories on the front page.
Plenty of other techy stuff that could be advert^W^Wtalked about.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I see a lot of movies, but I disliked the last Hobbit movie enough that I have no interest in seeing this one.
Even in Middle Earth. This can't be classed as a problem with the movies, the issue exists in the source material as well.
Throughout both The LoTR and The Hobbit, the heroes are mostly invincible. Aragorn and the Nazgul on Weathertop, the Mines of Moria, the Orcs at Amon Hen, Gimli and Legolas at Helm's Deep, and so on and so on.
Even Boromir was nigh-on unkillable at Amon Hen and only died because Tolkien needed him to. The book has him "pierced by many arrows" and the heroes there had a kill-ratio of at least 10-1. More if you discount the hobbits.
If anything, the kill-ratios were lowered for the movies. Read the LOTR Wikia entry for Amon Hen http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Skirmish_at_Amon_Hen for a comparison.
Trying to become famous by taking photos. Visit my homepage please.
And Beorn, the most interesting and mysterious character in "The Hobbit" much like Tom Bombadil in FOTR, was never developed. Or how Gandalf used trickery and mind games to get Beorn to accept dwarves. Now that would have been interesting. The eagles could have also been explored as a race and characters. Instead we get an elf and dwarf falling in love. WTF? And an escape scene that looked like a Disney ride or an abomination out of the "Pirates of the Caribbean".
Basically, with the removal of ideals from society, you can expect their absence from culture, too.
Everything these days boils down to
* she's hot
* someone said something offensive and I will defend my idiom
* actions, explosions, battles
* it's his dying breath
say...speaking of shitty fantasy trilogies i thought that shit with the blue aliens was supposed to be a trilogy? whatever happened? i guess the merchandising and bluray sales didn't really hit expectations for a new sci-fi property/brand?
We here at James Cameron Heavy Industries are happy to report that not only did international Blu-Ray® DVD sales meet market expectations, they totally and utterly surpassed them. As such, we've turned the planned Trilogy into a TETRALOGY! That's right -- not two more, but THREE MORE 3D IMAX EXPERIENCE movies featuring cutting edge CGI technology for you to spend every last hard earned dollar on tiny theatre seats and cold, greasy popcorn
Sadly, this embarrassment of riches has caused us to push back the production schedule a bit to accommodate HIS Lord Jim's latest round of ass-raping of the Terminator franchise and to allow for more production coordination with Disney to develop a world wide network of Avatar theme parks in disney properties world-wide.
Need to see it to believe it? http://www.imdb.com/name/nm000...
I was hoping that the trilogy could be rescued by a fan-edit. But now I don't.
The Hobbit is completely devoid of suspense (haven't seen Part 3 and will wait for DVD). Compare with FotR:
Opening story with Sauron kicking ass.
The early scene where Frodo and the hobbits nearly get discovered by a Dark Rider. Probably the best scene of the trilogy, with visually-distorting magic and insects freaking out if you weren't convinced yet.
Weathertop, not one of the better scenes but still great.
Arwen rescuing Frodo. First deviation from book but probably made it a better film (unlike deviations in later 2 films).
Moria scenes: just amazing.
To be frank, FotR was vastly better than the subsequent two, which relied on large battles for thrills. I'm going to guess that Jackson had some help with FotR... and thank God. It's become one of the best films of all time.
Now the Hobbit had nothing like that, maybe because of child audience potential but also because of the other big flaw: none of the dwarves are convincing bar possibly Thorin. They don't look right and don't act great either.
Maybe keep the sections focussing on Bilbo, Gandalf, Radagast, Smaug, bits of Thorin and turn it into an hour long prelude to LotR. Yep, cut 80-90% of it.
The Hobbit movies lost me with Beorn. WTF, PJ? WTF?
I really wanted this to be a light-hearted adventure, focused on Bilbo's character growth, and the point made that adventures can be fun and rewarding, but war just sucks. The book was pretty amazing that way.
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Does this involve Sting having a knife fight in a space loincloth? Because it should.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
I agree, I found part one to be acceptable so I watched part two. Part two sucked. Even the CGI was worse. Not bothering with part 3.
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I've seen the first two so far and they didn't convince me for the 3rd. I'll probably go because my GF wants to.
The problem is that The Hobbit is an entirely different book compared to LOTR. It's a childrens book, a soft introduction to Middle Earth, not an epic fantasy tale. It should've been dealt with in a different way, not as a "we made a shitload of money, so let's make more LOTR movies" prequel. It basically fell into the same trap as the Star Wars prequels - the attempt to replicate a success by doing more of the same, completely missing the idea that maybe the first was a success exactly because it was not more of the same, but stood out from what else was on offer at the time.
And omg were they filled with crap that had nothing to do with story or book and was only added to complete some Hollywood recipe.
They should've made it one move, for a younger audience, made by a different director, without trying to make it a prequel and "foreshadowing" everything we've already seen.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I was thinking this - I generally read at a little over 1 page per minute (obviously it depends on the typescript, and how challenging and convoluted the page is). 72 page is an hour.
What? Grown men find a movie written for boys ages 6 to 12 shallow? You don't say...
I took my son to it yesterday.... he spent the rest of the afternoon riding our Dog around like a warg and chopping at lego dwarves. I think the movie had the effect it intended.
Not saying I thought it was a masterpiece, but I'm glad I watched it.
Director's Edition will be the compilation REMOVING all the boring parts, presenting a 3.5 hours movie.
Does this involve Sting having a knife fight in a space loincloth? Because it should.
Loincloth Sting vs. Sting without the nice brass buttons?
He did it in LotR too - the Ents for example, decide (eventually) to fight out of responsibility. But in the film, they instantly change their mind in a simple, emotionally-crippled act of revenge.
Its like PJ doesn't understand complex emotions at all. He could have had the Ents gathered around slowly making their minds up like the UN deciding whether to intervene in the latest atrocity, but no - it had to be a very simplistic and obvious excuse for another CGI battle.
I'm only surprised he didn't have Wormtongue going "look into my eyes, you are feeling sleepy" at the start of any discussion with Theoden.
Hemispheres is even better, IMO.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Was Hobbit perfect? No, of course not. However, it could have been much, much worse. I'll point you to the epic ruination of Starship Troopers or the somewhat lesser mangling of Ender's Game or the utter crap fest of Battlefield Earth (strip out the thinly disguised Scientology elements and you still have the bones of a good story). These are books I grew up with and I felt real excitement knowing they would finally be movies... Then I saw the movies...
For all the purists that think every line of dialog should be preserved to properly honor J.R.R. I'd like to mention Dune. I've worn out copies of this book. I've got just about every version available of the David Lynch movie. However, I said for a long time that I wish that movie had more from the book and was more faithful. Then I got the Dune mini-series on SciFi channel. It was chock full of hours and hours of dialog. You know what? I can't stand it, it's just boring. Books and movies are different media and just blindly spamming straight from the book does not make an engaging movie.
Had Peter Jackson made the LOTR movie purists wanted, it would have flopped and you wouldn't have gotten The Hobbit at all. Had he made the first Hobbit movie the way purists wanted, we might not have gotten the end of the story (see Battlefield Earth, it's abysmal failure doomed the second movie intended to actually finish the story).
Hey, if you don't like the movies, that's fine. Everyone gets an opinion. However, given the Hollywood track record with adaptations of Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and the need for them to make movies with as broad of an appeal as possible, I think that we actually got far better than we could have expected...
In the film, the dwarves conduct a battle from barrels they ride like boats.
Well they had to fight off the troop of Orcs that were hell-bent on chasing them down even though there was no such troupe of Orcs in the book and the lead Orc, Azog although referencing an actual character in Middle Earth lore, had long since been killed by Thorin.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Well, if you're going to blow the source material to hell than I guess throwing in some Harkkonens would be fun too. Maybe add Darth Vader while you're at it, and General Zod.
What you highlight here is a fundamental difference between what can be accomplished in fiction on paper and what works well for film. The scene you described worked well in the book, obviously, but I can't help but feel you're missing something about the experience, the resonance, of reframing the action of the ents on film as it was done. This strikes me as important because when that scene came up in the movie it was powerful...actually the only real scene in the second film that I distinctly remember, and it was precisely because of how Jackson did it that the event went from "story bit that moves things forward" as it was in the book to "defining point of change" as it was in the film. It was a powerful scene. There's a lot I disagree with on how The Hobbit was handled, padding being a key issue.....but the LOTR films were outstanding, and at least partially because they were not (thankfully) done as 9 movies instead of 3. This led to a lot of "short cut" approaches to telling the story, which forced Jackson to reach for quicker but more poignant and resonant, emotional events in those films. Unfortunately, had they been made now in the same manner as The Hobbit, we not only would have gotten that lengthy debate among the ents you suggest, but it would have been 30 minutes long and involved lots of slow motion and drawn out voice-modulated speeches.
Muscle-memory has a lot to answer for in typos. Quite often I end up typing "ing" for words ending -ing, eg withing, or "and" instead of -an.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Tolkien wrote the Hobbit for small children. Twee in tone - the dwarves had green, and yellow, and blue beards, for instance. In his short piece, A Meeting in Erebor (adapted into the movie!), he had Gandalf and Aragorn meet at the Pony, I think, and they discussed dark and grave matters in an adult tone, setting the Hobbit events up for the LOTR. Had Tolkien not had a day job, he'd probably had rewritten the Hobbit to bring in in line with the LOTR and the older stories.
Jackson had the appendices of the LOTR to work with, but nothing else from the Simarillion or Untold Tales, because the Tolkien estate doesn't like what he did. Perhaps that was shooting themselves in their own feet, as he had little story material and so had to make up filler.
Do recall that the Hobbit, as a story, is rather thin.
I'm holding out for the 4-movie 16-hour extended-trilogy version of Farmer Giles of Ham and the first part of Leaf by Niggle: An Unwanted Journey.
That, or if I do watch Hobbit 3, I'll need some good pipeweed first.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
One of the things I loved in the books, was the use of language. You'll notice the ents have a way of speaking that reflects their character as being extraordinarily slow and deliberate. Then later, when the hobbits are reunited, you see that Merry and Pippin reflect that with changes in their manner of speech.
Green screen extravaganzas aimed specifically at the ADHD generation that needs five minutes of action for every three seconds of dialog. LOTR it ain't.
And Gandalf *knows* that the Necromancer is Sauron, then does nothing about it for decades and forgets until Bilbo's 111th Birthday Party. W. T. F.
Well. Uhh... in the books that's sort of the case anyway. In fact, Gandalf knew -before- the Quest for Erebor that the Necromancer was Sauron, which is why he objects so strongly at the unexpected party in Bilbo's house when Thorin casually mentions that the dwarves should pay back the Necromancer. "Don't be absurd, the Necromancer is a power greater than that of all the dwarves put together. The dragon and the mountain are more than enough for you." When Gandalf leaves the dwarves in Mirkwood, it's to head south to meet with Galadrial and assault Dol Guldur. They worried that Sauron and Smaug would provide mutual aid if only one of them were attacked (though Sauron aiding Smaug was far more likely than the reverse).
Gandalf's problem was with the White Council. He wanted to act, but Sarumon overruled him, saying the One Ring was lost forever, and it was better to watch Sauron and figure out what he was doing than to drive him into complete hiding. Gandalf did not realize that Saruman was blocking action because he thought that, with its master searching for it, the One Ring would make itself known. Saruman already desired the One for himself. So while Gandalf pushed to take action against Sauron, his hands were tied. While the dwarves take on Smaug, Sauron leaves Dol Guldur for good, setting up shop permanently in Mordor again. Just ten years after the Battle of the Five Armies, Sauron declares himself openly again.
But what was the big change? It's on Bilbo's 111th that he finally realizes Bilbo's ring is a ring of power. He had suspicions, but nothing confirmed. It's on his journeys after the party that he realizes Bilbo's ring was the One. That put everything in motion.
So while I can blame the movie series for a number of inaccuracies, it errs in that it shortens the time between when Gandalf discovers the Necromancer's identity and when Frodo sets off on the quest.
To be fair, while the adventures in the books were amazing and even fun, Bilbo never felt that way. He was in over his head from the start, and immediately regretted not staying home.
He did it in LotR too - the Ents for example, decide (eventually) to fight out of responsibility. But in the film, they instantly change their mind in a simple, emotionally-crippled act of revenge
To build on what the other responder mentioned, the motivations were the same in the book and the movie (the books go into far more detail at the intense hatred and thirst for revenge that the Huorns have). The difference was that Treebeard knew the death toll during Entmoot, which influences that decision, but in the movies, he's not aware of the cost of the clear-cutting until he sees it.
Tauriel being a good little damsel straight from Peter Jackson's imagination?
While Tauriel doesn't seem to have a point besides speaking the most banal of lines... most people who read the Hobbit later in life and aren't used to its eccentricities will reach a moment when they realize "wait a minute. I've read a few hundred pages and I don't think I've even heard a mention of a female, even in passing. Hey, all these characters are single dudes, do woman even exist in Middle Earth?"
Dude, you've been listening to Christopher Tolkien too much. He's far more purist and hardcore than his father was.
Starship Troopers was great satire.
+1 to that.
There were enough tells in the first movie that I decided to skip both prequel sequels. My only regret concerns the movie not made.
The problem when you have a strong emotional investment in something is that one's instinct is to give it one more chance. By the time you've watched two bad movies, you're almost pot-committed to watch the third.
It takes a special will to abandon a franchise without falling into the emotional mulligan trap, and so there's ultimately little incentive for Jackson to not do what he did.
I'm slowly learning. My loyalty function has now evolved to where it's almost vertiginous.
That is the result of progressive education and a lowering of all standards for inclusivity.
Bizarre argumentation. One hardly knows where to begin with your assumptions and red-herring analogies.
To address your first point - with it's ill-considered implications of parity between democracy, capitalism and actual worth or value: Commercial success at this scale simply indicate how thoroughly that vulgarity and thoughtlessness have been cultivated and encouraged by this media-driven culture over the past 90-100 years or so.
When people make "free choices" in such a society, they do so in appalling ignorance, with a maximum of empty stimulation. This is the post-Edward Bernays world.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
This is the first time I've complained about spelling or grammar on /. in a long time.
What is really annoying is that every time I see "to" I instantly think "going somewhere".
So when I see/read "to-common" I think they mean they are going to common.
That is what kills me when I read things that have their to and toos mixed up.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range