The Hobbit

tanis · December 14, 2012, 01:41:25 AM

Well, I just recently got home from the midnight showing of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I'm posting this simply to warn those of you I can, it's a rather disappointing movie. See it, if you like, but don't expect much from it.

I can go into detail, if you'd like, but for now, suffice it to say I was not impressed with Peter Jackson's latest foray into Middle Earth.

warpmaster · December 14, 2012, 11:22:55 AM

You do know its a Kids film don't you?

tanis · December 21, 2012, 03:52:50 AM

I'm sorry, I'm talking about the Peter Jackson live action movie, which is the follow-up to his The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Drul Morbok · December 22, 2012, 03:40:36 AM

I also saw the movie recently....my advice:

Forget anything from and about the book.
Forget anything you might know from and about a guy named J.R.R.Tolkien.
Forget anything you might associate with the term "fantasy".

If you think you can do this - enjoy the movie, I'm almost sure you will!
Otherwise, you might wait for it to appear in free TV - not the worst way to spend Xmas 2013

tanis · December 25, 2012, 01:56:51 PM

I'll watch the rest, but only to see how they rendered Smaug.

Drul Morbok · December 26, 2012, 02:04:13 PM

Well, maybe I'll also try to see it in cinema...I watched it in 3D, you know, with those goggles, and since it was almost the first time I watched a movie in 3D ("almost" because 15 or 20 years ago, I was in a tech museum where such a cinema was THE new attraction, unfortunately with a rather boring movie, and still far away from what they did in The Hobbit), I was pretty impressed.
And yes, I also want to see Smaug rearing and rampaging and whatever on a really big screen in 3D

But I also liked the dwarven stronghold, and much of the scenery, buildings, ruins and landscape on the surface...the battles also did look nice, from a technical point of view, but unfortunately I once again felt supported in my judgement that, after Walt Disney "staged" the 7 Dwarfs, everybody seems to think that, for a movie, featuring dwarfs automatically means going slapstick

Oh, and BTW: Since the first days of cinema, movies got colors, they got sound, they even turned (kind of) 3D...so why on earth do fake beards still look as fake as they ever did

warpmaster · January 02, 2013, 11:48:50 AM

QuoteI'm sorry, I'm talking about the Peter Jackson live action movie, which is the follow-up to his The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Yea ,so am i.Its a kids film

My boys loved and i found it enjoyable.Sure its nothing like the LoTR films,but just like the book its aimed at children

David Roomes · January 02, 2013, 10:38:10 PM

There were things I liked about it and things I didn't. I liked the dwarven stronghold and some of the combat/action scenes. I thought the goblin city under the mountains was very good. However, I disagree with some of the choices Jackson made. I don't think it was really necessary to include all the "supplemental" material. Yeah, it may have come from Tolkien's writing, but I think just sticking with the original Hobbit book would have been fine. Also, if he had just stuck with the book, he could have done this in two movies, not three. I also noticed that he changed some things from the book in places for no reason (and not necessarily for the better).

Overall, not bad though. It's important to keep in mind that the Hobbit was a children's book and it reads that way. It's a much different tone than LotR and I think Jackson was trying to be faithful to the children's book tone rather than keeping with the adult tone of LotR. That was a choice. I'm not sure if it was the right one. I, for one, would have been happy with something more consistent with LotR.

I will see the next 2 films and I am very interested to see how they do Smaug.

I saw the high frame rate 3D version. The 48 fps is going to take some time to get used to (assuming that it catches on). I have no idea if it will. It DOES look strange. But it may just be a matter of familiarity (i.e. we'll all get used to it eventually). I'm sure if we had been raised on 48fps, the standard 24fps would look equally strange to us.

sid6.7 · December 12, 2013, 08:48:22 PM

okay guys here comes part 2!

Delbareth · December 28, 2013, 01:02:27 AM

Hi!
I've just seen the part 2. I think its a quite good movie, although a LOT of materials has been added. Without doubt it could have been made in only two movies!
Anyway, it doesn't disturb me as strongly as it was with LotR (Elrond giving the sword lately, the undeads, the elfes in Helm's Deep...). They added new characters for obvious reasons, specially the female elf character.
And at last, I like the way they did the dragon. As David doesn't like intelligent dragon I wonder what he think about Smaug

sid6.7 · January 02, 2014, 05:25:26 AM

the dragon was very cool and everything i imagined it would be

David Roomes · February 21, 2014, 07:16:53 PM

Sorry for the very late reply. But late than never...

I actually really liked Smaug. I don't mind that he was an intelligent, talking dragon. That's just part of Tolkien's Middle Earth. I'm ok with that. And I think the filmmakers did a great job on Smaug. The visual FX, the movement, the fire, the voice... all of it. They did a great job.

Overall, I really liked both Hobbit movies, Part 1 and 2. Liked them both very much and saw both of them twice in the theatre. Very much looking forward to Part 3 later this year.

The Hobbit

sid6.7

sid6.7