Official 'The Hobbit' Thread - - Part 16
- Thread starter Thread Manager
- Start date
- Status
Pickleweasel
Sidekick
- Joined
- May 5, 2013
- Messages
- 3,959
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 58
So this was going to make 75 million over the 5 day weekend but made 24.5 million on wednesday? Talk about low balling it
Marvolo
Avenger
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2006
- Messages
- 47,795
- Reaction score
- 10,771
- Points
- 103
Well great, Bofur is my favorite dwarf.
Same here.
Marvolo
Avenger
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2006
- Messages
- 47,795
- Reaction score
- 10,771
- Points
- 103
mclay18
Avenger
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2005
- Messages
- 17,383
- Reaction score
- 5,609
- Points
- 103
I think the only pickup scene shot in summer 2013 was that protracted dwarves-vs.-Smaug mine scene in Desolation of Smaug.
DigificWriter
Superhero
- Joined
- May 4, 2002
- Messages
- 7,692
- Reaction score
- 5
- Points
- 31
^ That's still a fairly small amount of material in relation to everything that is contained in the Trilogy, which actually makes the argument that the story should've only been told in two installments lose even more traction.
It seems like more than 3/4 of what's contained in the Trilogy was filmed during the original principal photography shoot, meaning that they did in fact have enough material shot to make 3 films without having to do a whole lot of revising.
It seems like more than 3/4 of what's contained in the Trilogy was filmed during the original principal photography shoot, meaning that they did in fact have enough material shot to make 3 films without having to do a whole lot of revising.
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2008
- Messages
- 40,446
- Reaction score
- 6,223
- Points
- 103
So... my "review."
I gotta say, I've been defending Jackson a lot in the past two years with the past two movies. As flawed as the previous two films were the flaws never did outweigh the overall story. They made the best of the terms that they were dealing in. The best you can make when you ridiculously split up a single book into three parts. In fact, I might even love the second film, and I think the first is great, warts and all. But it wasn't until the release of the third that I really started to dislike this whole splitting up into three parts idea. Not just here but with movies in general. I gave the first two the pass because they made the most out of it, but for it's final third, you felt the superfluous nature really sink in.
There was disconnect from me, which has never happened to me with a Peter Jackson Middle Earth film.
Let's begin with the beginning. You open to what I thought closed the last movie really well for a cliffhanger. You end your second film on that, so it's reasonable to think it will be something worthwhile right? Right? Nope.
Instead we get ten minutes of the most rudimentary kind of dragon work imaginable. Dragon flying, dragon blowing fire, town on fire, people screaming, people escaping. And then Bard kills Smaug. Is this really the finest that Smaug, who proclaimed himself "Death" in the closing minutes of the last film to live up to? When we finally see this great dragon unleashed in the open? Not at all. It just seemed like an after thought just to get to this battle of the five armies.
Now my biggest problem with the movie: Thorin's "gold sickness" that really sinks the first half that just made me internally facepalm. It was so contrived to the point where I just flat out disliked Thorin. Stubbornness of dwarves aside, the execution itself just wasn't good.
Maybe I could have let this pass if he was the only one acting like a fool. But the problem here was that EVERYBODY was acting like a goddamn fool. Thranduil and even Bard. I get that was conscious among Bilbo and Gandalf, but when all your leaders are acting like petty school children in the yard it just becomes bad writing. This is where you could tell the writers had to stretch this thing out to a third film.
And Billy Connelly as a CGI Dain??? What?? Was that even necessary? You had the other Iron Hill dwarves as practical, why not Connelly? That's the other thing I hated. Unnecessary CGI, and noticeable CGI to boot.
It wasn't much of a battle of the five armies. What started out to be the battle of the five armies turned into the private battles of be the dwarves and elves vs the two orcs.
And unfortunately, Jackson fell into the trap of overusing CGI. To the point things felt so artificial. I was fine with the aesthetic before but here I just didn't feel engaged. To the point where I was relieved to see practical orcs in the Dale assault scenes.
Peter Jackson will always remain a huge influence on me, but this part of the journey just wasn't really worth following anymore. It felt tired, just like he must be ****ing tired after 16 years. The director from LOTR doesn't feel like the same director who did this film. I look forward to this smaller projects that hopefully aren't The Lovely Bones.
I'd be very interested in seeing someone cut together one single Hobbit film by the time the third comes out. Or maybe some day, maybe 30 years from now, we'll see a great single Hobbit film.
Now, who's ready for The Silmarillion?
I gotta say, I've been defending Jackson a lot in the past two years with the past two movies. As flawed as the previous two films were the flaws never did outweigh the overall story. They made the best of the terms that they were dealing in. The best you can make when you ridiculously split up a single book into three parts. In fact, I might even love the second film, and I think the first is great, warts and all. But it wasn't until the release of the third that I really started to dislike this whole splitting up into three parts idea. Not just here but with movies in general. I gave the first two the pass because they made the most out of it, but for it's final third, you felt the superfluous nature really sink in.
There was disconnect from me, which has never happened to me with a Peter Jackson Middle Earth film.
Let's begin with the beginning. You open to what I thought closed the last movie really well for a cliffhanger. You end your second film on that, so it's reasonable to think it will be something worthwhile right? Right? Nope.
Instead we get ten minutes of the most rudimentary kind of dragon work imaginable. Dragon flying, dragon blowing fire, town on fire, people screaming, people escaping. And then Bard kills Smaug. Is this really the finest that Smaug, who proclaimed himself "Death" in the closing minutes of the last film to live up to? When we finally see this great dragon unleashed in the open? Not at all. It just seemed like an after thought just to get to this battle of the five armies.
Now my biggest problem with the movie: Thorin's "gold sickness" that really sinks the first half that just made me internally facepalm. It was so contrived to the point where I just flat out disliked Thorin. Stubbornness of dwarves aside, the execution itself just wasn't good.
Maybe I could have let this pass if he was the only one acting like a fool. But the problem here was that EVERYBODY was acting like a goddamn fool. Thranduil and even Bard. I get that was conscious among Bilbo and Gandalf, but when all your leaders are acting like petty school children in the yard it just becomes bad writing. This is where you could tell the writers had to stretch this thing out to a third film.
And Billy Connelly as a CGI Dain??? What?? Was that even necessary? You had the other Iron Hill dwarves as practical, why not Connelly? That's the other thing I hated. Unnecessary CGI, and noticeable CGI to boot.
It wasn't much of a battle of the five armies. What started out to be the battle of the five armies turned into the private battles of be the dwarves and elves vs the two orcs.
And unfortunately, Jackson fell into the trap of overusing CGI. To the point things felt so artificial. I was fine with the aesthetic before but here I just didn't feel engaged. To the point where I was relieved to see practical orcs in the Dale assault scenes.
Peter Jackson will always remain a huge influence on me, but this part of the journey just wasn't really worth following anymore. It felt tired, just like he must be ****ing tired after 16 years. The director from LOTR doesn't feel like the same director who did this film. I look forward to this smaller projects that hopefully aren't The Lovely Bones.
I'd be very interested in seeing someone cut together one single Hobbit film by the time the third comes out. Or maybe some day, maybe 30 years from now, we'll see a great single Hobbit film.
Now, who's ready for The Silmarillion?
Last edited:
Matt Mortem
Karloff is King
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2007
- Messages
- 18,517
- Reaction score
- 43
- Points
- 58
What was going on with Orlando Bloom's face? Looked like piss poor CG in some shots.
Octoberist
point blank
- Joined
- May 13, 2005
- Messages
- 46,465
- Reaction score
- 17
- Points
- 33
It's upsetting because Peter Jackson seems to be a real nice dude, who often makes the dumbest decisions as of late.
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2008
- Messages
- 40,446
- Reaction score
- 6,223
- Points
- 103
I'll always love you Peter. And I'll always love LOTR as the greatest cinematic trilogy of all time. But I just did not love this last movie.
Tacit Ronin
Avenger
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2009
- Messages
- 20,527
- Reaction score
- 8
- Points
- 31
Oh that's simple, don't film every microscopic thought that pops into your head. Starting with the impotent white council stuff and the ponderous interracial romance.
DigificWriter
Superhero
- Joined
- May 4, 2002
- Messages
- 7,692
- Reaction score
- 5
- Points
- 31
^ I'm pretty sure the White Council stuff was part of GDT's original treatment for the duology, so that argument doesn't hold water.
Tacit Ronin
Avenger
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2009
- Messages
- 20,527
- Reaction score
- 8
- Points
- 31
Maybe with GDT, the White Council scenes would actually blend in the texture and not feel superfluous.
it's really funny now with the release of this third and comparatively shorter Hobbit film to see all the complaints about stuff that was left out while at the same time we keep getting the complaints about how this shouldn't have been a trilogy and much shorter as a whole.
i get that there is stuff that people deem superfluous that they say should have been cut in favor of other stuff being put back in, but you see a lot of disagreement about what that stuff is and what stuff exactly needs to be in this third movie. i'm sorry, i love the barrel scene in DoS. that kind of giddy, imaginative setpiece is one of the major reasons that i go see a PJ movie. i haven't seen Bof5A yet but i do look forward to the action and quicker pace, at the same time i will definitely check out the EE to see if it addresses some of the issues that fans have here with narrative blips and lapses.
but the big thing that i take away from this, and really what i've been taking away from it all since AUJ, is that there was NEVER going to be any pleasing everyone with movies like this. way too many expectations, way too many ways to approach the existing material and the filmic world (stay true to the book or try to create something more consistent with the LotR trilogy, expand the scope and tone or keep it small, employ more current techniques or regurgitate LotR's methods, and on and on).
i think two films instead of three and more practical effects vs. CGI would have done a lot to improve the overall consensus on the Hobbit movies, but even then there would have been people who would have wanted more. there are some truly awesome things achieved with some of the CGI in these films, even if the effects are inconsistent on the whole. i agree on the bloat issue even as i appreciate many of the ways in which these films expand the story to connect more to LotR. i think despite a bit too much reliance on CGI there is still, clearly, a ton of passion and craft that is poured into these films. and i think PJ doesn't always make the smartest filmmaking decisions but that's sometimes his intelligence taking a back-burner to his over-reaching in terms of scope and drama, which i find him hard to fault too much for since there are good intentions behind a lot of it, i don't feel like it's all about making money or pandering to the lowest common denominator, even though i could see how it might come off that way to some.
anyways, i can't wait to check this one out.
i get that there is stuff that people deem superfluous that they say should have been cut in favor of other stuff being put back in, but you see a lot of disagreement about what that stuff is and what stuff exactly needs to be in this third movie. i'm sorry, i love the barrel scene in DoS. that kind of giddy, imaginative setpiece is one of the major reasons that i go see a PJ movie. i haven't seen Bof5A yet but i do look forward to the action and quicker pace, at the same time i will definitely check out the EE to see if it addresses some of the issues that fans have here with narrative blips and lapses.
but the big thing that i take away from this, and really what i've been taking away from it all since AUJ, is that there was NEVER going to be any pleasing everyone with movies like this. way too many expectations, way too many ways to approach the existing material and the filmic world (stay true to the book or try to create something more consistent with the LotR trilogy, expand the scope and tone or keep it small, employ more current techniques or regurgitate LotR's methods, and on and on).
i think two films instead of three and more practical effects vs. CGI would have done a lot to improve the overall consensus on the Hobbit movies, but even then there would have been people who would have wanted more. there are some truly awesome things achieved with some of the CGI in these films, even if the effects are inconsistent on the whole. i agree on the bloat issue even as i appreciate many of the ways in which these films expand the story to connect more to LotR. i think despite a bit too much reliance on CGI there is still, clearly, a ton of passion and craft that is poured into these films. and i think PJ doesn't always make the smartest filmmaking decisions but that's sometimes his intelligence taking a back-burner to his over-reaching in terms of scope and drama, which i find him hard to fault too much for since there are good intentions behind a lot of it, i don't feel like it's all about making money or pandering to the lowest common denominator, even though i could see how it might come off that way to some.
anyways, i can't wait to check this one out.
Last edited:
Greens
I am Danny DeVito
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2011
- Messages
- 16,459
- Reaction score
- 804
- Points
- 103
Smaug and.... Smaug.
Greens
I am Danny DeVito
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2011
- Messages
- 16,459
- Reaction score
- 804
- Points
- 103
Enriquespy
Superhero
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2007
- Messages
- 8,167
- Reaction score
- 2,234
- Points
- 103
In this movie
Take that as you will.
Other than that is an entertaining film.
Gandalf's only magical thing he did was wizard-chating with Ragadast. All he did in battle was hitting people with his stick.
Take that as you will.
Other than that is an entertaining film.
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2005
- Messages
- 197,677
- Reaction score
- 86,785
- Points
- 218
Rewatching Hobbit 1 and 2 again (having seen them just before 3) and Martin Freeman is just awesome, absolutely perfect for the role. And all the dwarves have grown on me a hell of a lot more than when I 1st saw the 1st film.
- Status
Similar threads
Staff online
-
DKDetectiveBoo Boo Bubbles (he/him)
