Hobbit Movie -- I've seen it! [open spoilers]

Cafe Society
61

It was awful. Perhaps 48fps hurt it but I found it a slog. About halfway through I was actually trying to fall asleep as a form of escape from the dullness (I was in the middle of the row and couldn’t tell if my wife was enjoying it).

On the high frame rate: I felt it made every single set look like they were filming on a miniature model. And somehow when people were moving quickly across the screen somehow it resulted in looking like they were sped up, almost to Benny Hill comedic proportions. Would be interested in seeing the frame rate used on a straight up drama instead of something that is 90% CGI and see if I react differently but I thought much of it just looked like a badly lit TV show. Bilbo’s Hobbit village did look like a Teletubbies set.

Since I haven’t liked anything Jackson’s done since about 1/3rd of the way into the second LOTR movie I didn’t have high hopes for this but was surprised at just how much I hated it. I think I’d rather have to watch Transformers 2 eight times in a row than sit through this again.

Definitely out for the next two.

62

I saw it in 2D because I don’t watch anything in high def or 3D if I can help it. I loved it as did my young son. I think The Second Stone is spot on. Middle Earth fanboys are going to like it. It’s a film for us. It lays on the lore pretty think and features in-depth treatment of key scenes. There is no romance in the film at all.

The parts I didn’t like so well all seemed the result of the controversial production decisions. Without the graphic “advance” the fluff of the stone giant squabble and cartoonish Goblin Kingdom escape wouldn’t have been necessary. Without splitting it into three movies would have allowed the stories* to flow better. I
worry about the character arc of Bilbo. In the book the first hint the dwarves have that he isn’t completely hapless is when he uses the ring to sneak into the camp on the far side of the Misty Mountains. Here he has grown to full blown heroics in the first film. I figure this was a victim of the need to craft an early ending to the first film rather than a more natural midpoint such as Mirkwood or Laketown.
*Remember Jackson isn’t making The Hobbit. He’s combining that book with the Quest of Erebor material concerning the expulsion of the Dark Lord from Dol Guldur. Since that material doesn’t contain a lot of narrative Jackson has a lot of leeway to move stuff around. But there was hardly any in the first film. Only the Radagast parts and the meeting of the White Council. I expect to see those elements take up large chunks of the second movie with Thorin’s company moving only to Laketown (if that!) which, as I’ve said, would have been a reasonable choice to leave off the end of the first of only a 2 part epic.

63

In the book, 1 and 2 are alluded to. 3 and 4 are added by Jackson (the capture by trolls in the book is not really any sort of battle, it’s more amusing.) 5 is NOT alluded to, neither in the books nor the other works, so far as I am aware. 6 is perhaps two sentences in the book.

Another problem is that the book takes the Goblin Town battle (7) and then goes to “Riddles in the Dark.” Then Bilbo gets back to the dwarves, and then comes the “Out of the Frying-Pan” battle in the trees. So the book has a battle, then the riddle game etc, then another battle. The movie shows the riddle game parallel to the battle in Goblin Town, so there’s no rest in between for the audience. I found that annoying: it makes battles 7 and 8 seem like one long action sequence, which I found tedious.

I agree that it’s very much a film for fanboys (of which I am one.) The battle in Goblin Town specifically seemed like cartoon to me. I think of goblin town as perhaps a couple of hundred goblins, not thousands and thousands. It’s just overdone, and the notion of a handful of dwarves fighting their way out violated my suspension of disbelief. (I felt the same about Moria in the FELLOWSHIP – too many.)

We saw it in 3D, and we had been told (we bought tickets in advance) that it was 48 fps, but I’m reasonably sure it wasn’t. I did find that the 3D often highlighted the mattes and rear-projection and made things look unreal rather than real.

And the movie ends after the chapter “Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire” … well, sort of. The eagles rescue them from the trees and goblins, but there’s no conversation with the eagles. And they’re dropped atop a bizarre rock formation, not an aeyrie.

64

The general consensus seems to it’s a decent family flick. But for adults, it amounts to little more than a kiddy fiddler’s date night movie.

Given the facts of the iffy 48fps and source material that’s a fifth the size of the LotR being fashioned into a trilogy of comparable length, I think I’ll tread very wearily.

Thrice bitten by Lucass, forever shy.

65

I know it is one of those “well then there’d be no movie” complaints but since no explanation is offered in movie, do the books have an explanation (I’ve read them but it has been more than 20 years) for why Gandalf can’t just short circuit much of things by asking the eagles for a ride from the Shire to Rivendell and then from Rivendell to the mountain?

66

Because Gandalf is a dick. There are plenty of theories, but mine is pretty simple. Gandalf is a dick. He has other stuff going on and makes it pretty clear that he is only going to provide limited help to the dwarves. He even buggers off a couple of times on other business leaving them on their own in fairly dangerous territory. I never could tell what game he was playing, and I’ve read that book so many times I could fairly tell it by heart.

67

  1. Keep in mind that Gandalf is not just an old man with a stick. He is, like Sauron himself, a Maia, one of the two orders of divinities that have existed since the dawn of time when Iluvatar sang Arda into existence. He’s quite literally a god - and as a servant of the Secret Fire, his role in Middle-Earth is to inspire and encourage the free races to oppose tyranny and evil, not to rid the world of it for them. If Gandalf were not so morally constrained, he could make himself the equivalent of Sauron in terms of power and rid the world of evil - but in so doing he’d become a tyrant himself and there’d be no leaders of men to oppose him.

  2. To which end, Gandalf needs the dwarves to overcome adversity themselves, and needs Bilbo to discover his capacity for courage and mercy, because, while he can’t see the future, he knows that the Bagginses are destined to play an important part in events to come, and they need to be spiritually prepared to play their role. In Tolkien’s worldview, it’s not generals or kings who are responsible for creating or defeating evil, but the willingness of everymen to tolerate or oppose it.

  3. Gandalf does not have power over the Eagles. They’re free peoples as well, not his private taxi service. He doesn’t summon them so much as ask them to do him a favor, and there’s only so far that their charity extends. Also, an eagle flight would be highly visible to the Necromancer and would make an easy target- though the Necromancer never becomes directly involved in the quest, Gandalf is concerned that he may ally himself with Smaug if either of them perceives a threat to their power.

68

Except that he doesn’t allow them to overcome their adversity. At least three times in the movie the only reason they survived was because of his direct intervention. Kind of removes all tension to have a walking escape clause accompanying the group. God will just fix it if things get too intense.

But this sounds like further evidence for why these are bad movies. You have to have read the books to understand the motivations or to even know who the characters are.

Which is fine if the goal is to simply create visuals for big fans of the books, but doesn’t make for anything compelling outside of that and they do seem to want other people to see the movie as well.

69

The Hobbit Film - Go See It!

My SO and I went to see the film yesterday, and we thought it was great!
Let’s start off with the biggest complaint of those nasty 47% of the conservative reviewers who complained the film is too long.

No. It is not too long.

Unlike many adventure/fantasy films where a group of people are simply plopped together and off they go - Peter Jackson allows us to enter the Shire and get to meet and know the characters, get to see the little details and what they eat and how they interact. You get a feel for the group and begin to understand the importance of their task and the danger that is going to be involved. In other words, by the time they set off on their journey, you know them, care, and give a damn if they all survive!

So while the first 1/4 of the film might seem like a not-so-quiet dinner party at the Shire with some friends, you get to know the back story and are ready to join in the adventure!

Mao said that a thousand-mile journey begins with the first step, and that first step on this journey gets off on the right foot! In short order, we are visiting new territory, different landscapes and meeting new and fascinating characters and creatures - and meeting new dangers around every turn. As the journey progresses, the audience is taken on a wild ride of both visual and visceral adventure.

It doesn’t matter if you have read the book (I have, my SO hasn’t), this film grabs you and takes you on part one of a wondrous adventure.

Yes, there will be the fanboys who will now begin to nitpick every single nuance and reference to some esoteric minor character/plot variance, and spend the next 30 years complaining why this didn’t happen or why that did happen. But for the vast majority of viewers, this will not be an issue whatsoever.

So, buy your ticket, get that big tub of popcorn (but unless you have a giant bladder, maybe stick to the small drink), and find a nice comfortable seat in a theater with a huge ass screen (we saw it in 2D), lean back and settle in. You are in for a glorious, 2 hour and 46 minute feast for the eyes, escape from reality, and the chance to be a wide-eyed kid again!

Great film, worth every penny putting it on the screen, and worth the few bucks it is going to cost for you to see it on the wide screen in all its glory! Go see it!

70

This CNN article, BTW, mentions that Azog the Defiler was in fact present in the LOTR appendices, and that the scouting trip to Dol Guldur is as well (though it was Gandalf and not Radagast who went there).

71

We will probably go see it tomorrow since the wife is off. Then we’re going to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra in the evening. Should be a good day!
My anticipation of this, based on the LOTR movies, is it should be great to see Middle Earth come to life. The bits that are accurate to the books will be great, the bits that PJ made up will suck, but overall it should be a great film. I’ll be getting the extended editions on dvd when they come out, I really liked the behind the scenes stuff that they put on the LOTR EE dvd’s.

Question for those who’ve seen it: Is there material in the movie that is taken from elsewhere in the LOTR universe (appendices, letters, etc)? Like how some of Arwen’s backstory in the other films was taken from the appendices? I’m still trying to figure out how they’re getting a trilogy out of it. Was anything left out of the Hobbit a la Tom Bobadil?

72

Just got out of this. The first hour, hour and a half is pretty miserable. I was checking my watch repeatedly starting around the 40 minute mark; I’ve seen about 30 movies in theaters this year, and the last time I was doing that was John Carter. That said, the second half picks up well. The Bilbo-Gollum stuff is especially great, and I’m really happy I saw it if only for that scene. As someone else mentioned, Martin Freeman is much more watchable than the Frodo-Sam combo was, and that more than anything is what keeps this movie going. 68% or whatever this is currently running on RT is absolutely fair; this doesn’t have nearly as broad an appeal as even Fellowship did, and I can’t imagine someone who isn’t fairly sympathetic to the source material enjoying it too much.

73

Ok. I just saw it. Here are my thoughts.

By and large I enjoyed it. As an unabashed Tolkien fanboy, I felt this was more “true” in feel than TT or RotK were.

It was a bit too long. I would have been plenty happy with 15-30 minutes less. Oddly though, there were a couple of scenes that just cut out short. I thought Bilbo should have had more time manipulating the trolls. But others (the giants) just felt uninteresting and uninspired.

Radagast was a waste of screen time and annoying. Thoroughly disliked every moment he was onscreen. While Saruman considered him a fool in the books, I never got the impression he was insane, caked with bird shit, and drove a rabbit sled. They could have made him odd without dialing it up to 11. I sincerely hope he doesn’t come back.

The action as others have said, never felt interesting. There was never a feeling that anyone was ever in any danger. The dwarves were all either Legolas dialed up to 11, or completely incompetent. Either they were slaying dozens or goblins per second, or for some reason were unable to fight against 20 or so wargs. Can’t have it both ways, either the goblins are a threat, or they aren’t.

The riddle scene was fantastic. Serkis as Gollum again stole a movie. The entire scene was both tense and comedic. And one of the few chances we got to spend much time with any of the characters.

The score was too predictable and annoying. Generally it predicted the next minute of film rather than enhancing it. Ah, Gandalf is about to dispense wisdom. Oh, evil guys are about to appear. I know the themes from the LotR. If you are going to use more or less the same score, make it a bit more subtle please.

74

Quite a bit was added in from Unfinished Tales and the appendices. There are at least two extended flashback scenes to the fall of Erebor and the Dwarf/Goblin war. You also see Radagast (instead of Gandalf) at Dol Guldur. And we get a meeting of the White Council.

Not a single scene from the book is cut. And it goes from the party to Carrock.

There is an entire new plot thread that ties in Azog from the Dwarf/Goblin war… that is pretty much unnecessary, and leads more or less directly to most of the complaints I had about the movie. PJ is a fantastic adapter of material. But every time he veers off it seems to lessen the work as a whole. But by and large there isn’t too much new material.

75

I saw it yesterday. I almost didn’t go, because I’m not a real fan of what Peter Jackson did in the LOTR movies. My expectations were REALLY low, so that probably helped.

I was surprised that I liked it. I was pretty engrossed throughout the whole movie. There were parts I didn’t like. E.g., Radagast leading the orcs “away” from the party, but continually coming back TO them. That was just stupid and cartoony.

And all during the goblin battle, I kept thinking “Indiana Jones called. He wants his unbelievable escape sequences back, especially the mine cart ride in Temple of Doom.” :dubious:

But Martin Freeman is adorable and very watchable. I liked the dwarves. I hated the wargs, because they looked stupid and unrealistic.

Lots of LOTR call-backs for fans of the movies, too, like that bit with Gandalf sending the moth for the eagles.

OTOH, I really liked The Fellowship of the Ring. It was the other movies I was disappointed by. I expect the same thing to happen here.

76

Well, that sucked! I’m a big fan of the book(s), and think it would have stood very nicely on its own without being adapted into some cartoonish action extravaganza. So much of the subtlty was erased. I found myself wondering why I had found the troll scene so amusing. I won’t go all fanboy and name all of my complaints, but why did they think it would be better to have Gollum give away the answer to the one riddle.

Also didn’t care for Watson/Bilbo. Does he have a mannerism other that that jerky look to the side, while looking as tho he is not sure what to say?

Looked at my watch at about 1 hour in, and again at the 2 hour mark. Felt like walking out during the Indiana Jones sequence (if ONLY there had been a coal car!), and would have left when the trees started tumbling and Watson went all Rambo- but a third glance at my watch comforted me that it was nearly over. Won’t be watching the next 2.

77

Considering that the source material was after all a children’s book, I’m surprised that so many people are complaining that it’s silly and childish. But then, this is the same thing that fueled most of the backlash against the Star Wars prequels, IMO - both trilogies were intended for kids, and the kids who’d grown up in the 20 years in between were surprised that the prequels were childish.

Personally, I was so caught up in it that I lost track of time and was surprised when the movie ended - I thought there was still another hour or so to go. I can’t think of any scene I would have cut from the film

78

I saw it earlier today. I was surprised that it didn’t drag as much as I thought it might. I found it a little difficult to understand Gollum, particularly during the riddle game. I wondered why Thorin didn’t kill Azog after chopping off his arm, when Azog was clearly distracted.

79

Just Tim Benzedrine and his Old Lady.

:slight_smile:

80

I know it’s a hijack, but why?