My feelings about the Hobbit movies have been detailed elsewhere.
As to whether my disapprobation of those movies thus far negatively affects my liking of the Lord of the Ring movies, I think so. I find PJ’s liberties and film-making sensibility more conspicuous and irritating than I once did. So, I’m not sure I can enjoy the LOTR movies as much anymore. I’m giving it time, and I’ll probably pass on the third Hobbit installment. After a few years, I’ll rewatch my extended editions of LOTR and hope for the best.
If I criticize the LOTR films, I criticize them as movies, not as adaptations. For large parts of all 3, I remain utterly captivated and enchanted, and they remain some of my favorite movies.
That said, I greatly disliked 2 things-the evisceration of the characters of Treebeard and Denethor. Having Treebeard being utterly clueless about the destruction of a large chunk of his forest, along with his feckless what me worry attitude towards the broader issues of Middle Earth, when he should be-nay, is-wise enough to grasp the implications…it just greatly weakened him as a character. “How can that be your decision”, indeed.
Denethor I think was a victim, in part, of a relative lack of screen time to fully develop his character. But turning him into a bitter raving clueless loon was a major mistake-I see no reason why he couldn’t have retained his dignity (and thus avoided those ridiculous blows from Gandalf and his staff). Giving us a scene with him and the palantir, revealing his quiet desperation and despair, would have done a lot of redeem the character.
On the other hand, I have no issue with the treatment of his son Faramir-in the EE’s at least. I wouldn’t have bought him as being this whimsical Pollyanna while his entire kingdom is crumbling and he is struggling to redeem himself in the eyes of his father. In the end he did reveal his quality. On film, that character worked.
I dislike the Hobbit for many of the reasons gone over in this thread. But the decision to film in a completely different style than the LOTR films, eschewing location shoots for the most part, made it seem like it came from a completely different universe, and instead of the grandeur and expanse of LOTR all of the FX in the Hobbit just seemed cheap and 2D by comparison. Compare how Legolas looks in both-a living vital being in the former, a wax dummy in the latter.
Also, the orcs are the most INEPT army since the iraqi’s. They get slaughtered in two’s and three’s by every character. Why those guys don’t just hang their heads in shame and say “ahh hell with it”, I’ll never know.
Watch Cumberbatch on Graham Norton. There is less enhancement than you think.
I enjoy the Hobbit movies well enough. They could be better. They are bloated and unrealistic. But I still think they are fun. It does not effect how much I like all three Ring movies. For all of the movies I don’t care that they are not direct adaptations. The books are still there on my shelf.
I loved the LotR trilogy, put them right up there with the Star Wars (4-6) and Indiana Jones trilogies.
As a fun frolic in the park, The Hobbit movies are almost great, but I’m having difficulties with some of the interpolation and the oh-so-long filler stuff that just doesn’t work. Drawn out and just barely, just barely, this side of believable battle scenes didn’t help either.
I understand Jackson wanted to ‘set-up’ the LotR trilogy in the Hobbit, but it hurt more than it helped.
The feeling there is some sort of love triangle, the dragon chase, and the ninja elves were the pinnacle of wtf…really? They added nothing to the movie, and even less to the story. All seemed to be jammed in there to fulfill some cliche need of movies today.
Some of the dwarves looked too…fake, moreso human than dwarves.
Martin Freeman was an excellent choice. I like his approach to playing Bilbo, it works for me.
The back story for Bard is interesting, and intrigues me to see where it goes.
The look and feel of Smaug is astounding, perfectly as I imagined. Cumberbatch was the perfect choice for the voice.
On a 5 star rating: Overall LotR 4.5 star. The Hobbit 2.5 star (so far) - we’ll see how the final movie goes.
Personally, I think the animated Hobbit was better than the one that Jackson is making so far. But his work on LotR leaves enough credit in his account with me that I’ll still see the last Hobbit movie. Now, if that one is bad, too, that’ll close out the account, but he still gets that one last chance.
Oh, I took a look at the Hobbit movies, just to see the special effects and costumes and actors and scenery. I did doze off now and then because…well, it was kind of stupid. I loved the actor playing Bilbo, loved him. Loved Gandalf. I simply didn’t get the dwarves…most were cartoonish types with latex noses and bizarre facial hair. What was with the one or two ‘hot’ dwarves, the one interested in Liv Tyler? They were like two different species. Sparrows and blue jays…nothing will ever take away from The LofR movies. I will sit down gladly on a weekend when it is on TV and would sit there from beginning to end. The Hobbit? not so much. In 5 years or so, IT may show up on Saturday afternoons on TNT. I would look at it now and then when it was on as background noise…
I could have written the OP, almost word for word.
I liked the original LOTR trilogy very much, despite some nitpicks (Legolas shield-surfing, Aragorn going over the cliff, the plump Elf who leads the Elves to Helm’s Deep, etc.). The Hobbit movies have been much worse - simultaneously bloated and frantic. The dwarves don’t look like dwarves; their body proportions are still human, despite their funny hair and big shoes. Radagast with bird poop in his hair and a rabbit-drawn sleigh - aiyee! Martin Freeman makes a pretty good Bilbo, though, and as noted above, the riddle-game with Gollum was well-done.
They don’t ruin the LotR film trilogy for me: I still think of those as an A, an A-, and a B- respectively, and I’m down for a repeat watch of any or all of the three on any random lazy weekend.
However, he has managed to ruin the last Hobbit movie for me already, in advance. I have literally no desire to see it.
The Hobbit: The Bird Shit Is Still on Radagast’s Head
The Hobbit: The Frankly Disturbing Interspecies Romance
The Hobbit: Does Thorin Look Like A Klingon To Anyone Else?
The Hobbit: The Forced Inclusion of Legolas
The Hobbit: The Wheelbarrow of Asbestos +5
The Hobbit: The River of Endlessly Regenerating Barrels
The Hobbit: We Spent The Whole FX Budget on the Awesome Dragon, Sorry About The Rest
The Hobbit: Especially The 1996-Level CGI Molten Gold
I really don’t understand seeing things so simply for “completeness.” If you’ve seen enough of PJ’s work to predict that the new movie will at best annoy you, why give him any more of your money?
The books have been a part of my life for so long - since age 9; I’m 41 now - and for so much of that time the idea that even a half-decent live action rendition of the books seemed an unattainable dream, that I want to see it all to completion just to see how [The Fall of Barad-Dur/The Grey Havens/The Death of Smaug/The Battle of the Five Armies] looks.
Which is why I’ll probably spring for it in the dollar theater. $1.50 + putting my feet on a sticky floor > $11.00 to see it in the first run.
I didn’t read LotR until after the first movie came out, but I do love it. Even so, I still don’t get it. Movie is not the superlative of novel. The things I love most about my favorite books don’t translate to film. When I hear of a book I love being adapted to film, I feel no urgency to see it.
That isn’t that to be snooty. There’s great movies that would be crap novels even if Steinbeck were writing the book version.
I generally like PJ as a director, so I don’t know if he got Lucas-itis or if something else wrong with The Hobbit movies. It kills me every time to type movieS. And three! Not just two! It’s my favorite Middle Earth book and I was so looking forward to them, even after it was announced it was going to three. It’s so slow and tedious. And weirdly, with all the bloat, many details and parts of the book are left out! So it’s a weird adaptation on every level. It’s not unwatchably bad, but I too can’t wait for a fan to cut that shit down to 120 minutes, tops.
