Official 'The Hobbit' Thread - - - - Part 13

[superkong 500]

So according to one review

Spoiler

Legolas now has ninja and parkour skills lol, and he has a fight with Bolg which is described as a wreck it ralph/ radiated mutation with a face made out of play-doh and scrap metal.

 

[Drizzle]

So according to one review

Spoiler

Legolas now has ninja and parkour skills

I'm not surprised. Remember this?

[YT]suVx_JZSc1s[/YT]

And this?

[YT]sMjkfZ3q8tE[/YT]

 

[Victarion]

Consistency. I like what I've read of the film's conclusion.

Spoiler

Apparently Thorin gets some verbal sparring with Smaug. Then when the dwarves think they've beaten the dragon it bursts from the mountain, heading for Laketown.

.

 

[Liam_H]

What do you guys think in terms of boxoffice numbers.

Even with the first movie struggling it still hit 1 billion ww.

Im thinking 350 million domestic and 1.2 billion WW

You have it increasing and by that much? The first movie wasn't too hot with the GA so I see a slight decrease.

 

[warhorse78]

You have it increasing and by that much? The first movie wasn't too hot with the GA so I see a slight decrease.

But, the first movie didn't have a dragon or Legolas in it.

 

[redhawk23]

Is Orlando Bloom that much of a draw even as Legolas?

Meridith Borders did not have much good to say about the film in her remarks from Buttnumbathon

Next we saw trailers for Leprechaun, Under the Rainbow and Ralph Bakshi's Lord of the RIngs, gearing us up for the inevitable viewing of The Hobbit 2: The Desolation of Smaug (in 2D, 24 fps). I would make a "The Desolation of SLOG" joke here, but everyone in the film pronounces "Smaug" like "proud" for some reason, so it doesn't quite work. But yeah, this movie is a drag. Just a chain of endless, incessant, incoherent set pieces. Very little, you know, dialogue, or character work, or anything other than a bunch of scenes of half-baked looking monsters running around and yelling at each other. Martin Freeman has proven himself to be one of the only characters with any real personality in The Hobbit films, and also IT'S CALLED THE HOBBIT, so his dearth of screentime is a problem. Evangeline Lilly is pretty good and I sort of liked the Sherlock reunion, but mostly this felt like a collection of Blu-ray bonus material.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

No, but the ride took about 4 hours longer than it needed to be.

But the extended ride is still to come.

 

[Persona]

this TV spot brings the JUICE:

http://youtu.be/EiOZajplcEk

general critical reception staying strong. pretty much everyone saying it is better than the first one and a pretty good movie in its own right. a few negative reviews think it's more of the same (i.e. didn't like AUJ, either) and maybe one or two that actually liked AUJ better. Devin Faraci for BadAssDigest hasn't published his review yet but that will be negative whenever it comes out, he says he doesn't understand where all the positive reactions are coming from (he didn't like AUJ, either) and on his Twitter just harps on the use of CGI. which is valid and all, but seems kind of a strange thing to single out as your whole first take critique when CGI is so heavily prevalent in just about every fantasy/sci-fi/comic book Hollywood blockbuster these days.

most reviews seem to like Tauriel, so that's a plus. does sound like purists will have plenty to gripe about, glad i'm not one, heh.

 

[craigdbfan]

CGI Bolg at 0:05 into the trailer. Yuck.

What a shame.

Benedict as Smaug though sounds incredible. Love how he's making it very clear that he's a servant/ally to Sauron.

 

[ares834]

You sure that's Bolg? Sure he does appear to be a "hero" Orc but that doesn't mean he is Bolg.

 

[craigdbfan]

Apparently it's Bolg.

 

[ares834]

Shoot. That's disappointing.

 

[Octoberist]

They've also changed his original cool design too. That sucks.

 

[craigdbfan]

You could be right though Ares. To be honest this is according to me. I have no proof other than the descriptions I've heard and they match up with what I saw in that t.v spot. He still has some of the same markings that the practical one had too.

It's damn shame he looks like another random CGI blob. I really liked Azog and I'll probably enjoy Bolg too but the prosthetic orcs look 1,000 times better. Ugh. Such a wasted opportunity.

 

[Octoberist]

yeah you can tell they're CG. it's not as seamless as they think it is, or want.

 

[Octoberist]

Also are they not using Conan Stevens anymore even for Bolg's motion capture?

 

[craigdbfan]

yeah you can tell they're CG. it's not as seamless as they think it is, or want.

Nowhere near.

The amount of expression they were able to convey under all that prosthesis was incredibly transparent too. I still don't understand why they shifted away from it.

Look at the birth of Lurtz. Way more of an impact.

Also are they not using Conan Stevens anymore even for Bolg's motion capture?

Not sure.

 

[Octoberist]

I think the problem is that these CG changes happened so late in the game that they're not fully realized. It's hard for the makeup crew that wasted their time; it's hard on the CG crew because now it's another thing on their plate.

As nice Jackson appears to be, stuff like this reminds me that this is the movie business afterall. But then again, maybe it's just Jackson because I can't think of anyone wanting to make radical changes on the fly like this, where it IS a big deal.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Also are they not using Conan Stevens anymore even for Bolg's motion capture?

So we lost the Mountain for absolutely no reason...

And that is Bolg. It matches the description to a tee and it also harkens back to an early Azog design. It is also insanely disappointing. Not even convincing CGI work. So what is the excuse this time for the CGI looks bad?

 

[superkong 500]

Yep that is bolg for sure and it doesn't look half as bad ass or scary as the prosthetics bolg. What I hate the most about this cgi orcs is not so much that they are cgi but that they have almost no skin texture which makes them look even less real. Their skin looks like its made out of marshmallow.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Yep that is bolg for sure and it doesn't look half as bad ass or scary as the prosthetics bolg. What I hate the most about this cgi orcs is not so much that they are cgi but that they have almost no skin texture which makes them look even less real. Their skin looks like its made out of marshmallow.

Yep. When watching the extras on the extended edition they mentioned that Azog's markings are suppose to be cuts. I had no idea or if I did I forgot, because they look nothing like it. The textures just isn't there.

 

[vinsanity]

Looks like a Azog Clone, so bland

 

[DarthSkywalker]

So bad.

 

[craigdbfan]

This was so much better. At what point would anyone think that is better than this?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

This was so much better. At what point would anyone think that is better than this?

Spoiler

Don't worry, Persona will be here to tell us why the CGI orcs are better. After all we can put eyes and noses where ever we like. Oh wait, he has the standard face anyways? Well uh....