Finally saw it today. Loved it, just like I loved the first trilogy. And I seem to be in the minority when I tell you that my first thought after it ended was, “I’m glad this is another trilogy! I’d hate to only have one more of these to look forward to!”
I felt the same way. My major issue was having to wait a whole year for the next film.
OK, I’ve now seen it twice in the past week - a week ago in HFR 3D by myself and today in normal 3D with my kids.
Obviously I enjoyed it enough to see it twice. I still wish PJ had left it to the Hobbit only, and skipped Radagast & Dol Guldur etc. Then he could left it light-hearted, instead of Epic!, and we could have had “Fifteen Birds in Five Fir Trees”. But it was still very good.
As a fan of 3D, I thought HFR was noticeably better, more focused, and brighter than standard 3D. Some things did look a little “glossy” in HFR, but it was worth it for the improvement in clarity. I’ll definitely make a point of seeing the next two in HFR as well.
My 12 & 10 year old said they loved it. My 8 year old got bored about half way through, but after some Angry Birds, she got back into the story. But that was a direct result of all the extra plot points and conversations around them - a movie that follows the book closely shouldn’t be able to bore an 8 year old.
I just have to ask, where was your daughter playing Angry Birds?
I’m guessing at the base of a tree surrounded by flaming pine cones.
Well,
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
managed it reasonably well.
Hey, I have a question about the movie, something that didn’t make a lot of sense to me when I saw it. Near the very start, Radagast finds his trusty hedgehog injured, and is trying various things to heal it. He has an epiphany that it’s a magic spell or something, sticks a bottle in it’s mouth and is either feeding or drawing forth a blue liquid from/to the animal. All the while, what are apparently large spiders are trying to break into his house. When he finally cures the hedgehog, the spiders retreat.
My questions: What the hell was that all about? What was wrong with the hedgehog? Why did the spiders attack? Why did curing the hedgehog drive the spiders away?
He thought the animals had a real disease or sickness, and was using healing herbs and medicine. Then he realized that it wasn’t that, it was a dark spell, magic. So he used his own spells/magical abilities (he’s a wizard after all). The blue thing I thought was the stone from his staff. I’m guessing he realized he needed to use a real, strong, survival/life affirming/giving spell to counteract the spell the hedgehog had. And the spiders realized that, despite being addled, he knew and could use spells against them, so they left him alone.
Just to make sure my answer covers whichever sense of “where” you meant - she started playing it during the Gandalf/Saruman/Elrond/Galadriel scene. The theater was maybe 10% full, so she and I moved over to some seats by the wall, so we were nowhere near anyone else. And she was playing on my phone.
Oh, and all my daughters were completely grossed out by Radagast, once they realized what was on the side of his face.
Huh. Thanks, but that’s almost worse. The spiders cast a spell on a hedgehog? Perhaps in hopes of entrapping Radagast?
(I’ll also note that occurances of “spells” in Tolkien are few, and in fact I can think of only one: the spell Gandalf cast on the door the Balrog was trying to open in Moria.)
No, it’s the general malaise of Sauron’s presence at Dol Guldur that’s darkening the Greenwood (soon to become the Mirkwood) and sickening the animals. There were far more animals than the one hedgehog lying prostrate on the forest floor. The spiders are a symptom, not a cause.
Radagast himself was done well but I really couldn’t stand the animals. I mean I like cute animals as much as the next guy but it takes me out of the movie when all the little girls in the theater are going “awwwwwww”
Also of forgot about the whole 48fps thing until after I saw the film. It looked like a regular movie to me.
OK, I begin to grasp the time compression the movie is using. This is now the origin story of both Mirkwood and the Witch King, which in the books occurred respectively 1900 and 2500 hundred years prior to The Hobbit’s events. Maybe they’ll make it all sorta make sense in movie time once there’s more films.
My current reaction to the whole Radagast hedgehog scene isn’t a good one so far. Did anyone here find it compelling? I’m genuinely curious.
Well, I had my trepidations with the Ents going into The Two Towers. I’m a Tolkien geek but realize that the written word is one thing, film is another. Jackson handled Treebeard perfectly, IMO, thanks in part, no doubt, to the concept art team of Alan Lee and John Howe. The key, I think, will be giving the spiders a suitably alien-sounding voice.
Went last night. Didn’t hate it, but I loved the book so much, I knew I wasn’t going to love it.
Agree with a lot of the comments - why are there no handrails in Goblin-town and why does Radagast keep leading them back to the group?
My nine-year-old loved it. We are reading the book and she is newly determined to get through it since she wants to know how it ends. She did, however, tear up at the headgehog’s near demise.
Yes, compelling and endearing.
Oh , much more than that. Gandalf comes in with a flash and a bang when they kill the Great Goblin. He also lights a fire in the Redhorn pass. He turns pinecones into little firebombs when they are tapped in the trees. These are even shown in the films. Several other examples:
He also lights his pipe with his finger during the dinner scene at Bilbo’s.
Ha! Good points. I guess in my mind I was excluding “Gandalf lighting things on fire” - which happens quite a lot - apart from “spells.”
I was trying to think of a “spell” from the books that might make someone ill, like the hedgehog. The only example is the Black Breath, “contracted” from the Nazgul. Is the hedgehog the first (film) victim of BB?
nm