Official 'The Hobbit' Thread - Part 17

[regwec]

You aren't missing much.

 

[Iceman]

The Last Goodbye should have been nominated (and win imo) for Best Original Song. I have a feeling the movies mixed to bad reviews took aways its chance though.

Pippin can sing, at least he's good for something! I liked his effort during Denethor's sloppy eating in RotK too.

 

[titansupes]

I have no doubt there. I've been wanting to re-read The Hobbit, LOTR, and The Silmarillion lately, but haven't had the time, but the girlfriend and I were re-watching FOTR Extended Edition on the weekend, and good god, the difference in quality between even just the LOTR films and The Hobbit ones is just astounding. As much of a Tolkien purist as I am and get annoyed with certain alterations Jackson and company did with the LOTR films, they did a hell of a lot right, which can be forgotten in this thread at times.

It is particularly annoying how much more beautiful of a film FOTR is, effects and all. The extensive use of bigatures, huge sets, and mass numbers of extras really goes a long way to selling the world they created and making it all look and feel real. Barad-dur, Minas Tirth, Isengard, Minas Morgul, Edoras, the Mines of Moria, etc. all look wonderfully real. Weta should be incredibly ashamed of the work they put out on these Hobbit films. It falls way short of work they were doing a decade ago!

 

[henzINNIT]

The first Hobbit fan-edit is out already. 4.5 hours isn't bad, but I think it could still be leaner. I look forward to the thousands that follow.

 

[regwec]

Can the Legolas/Tauriel/Alfred/other fan-fiction scenes be removed without making even less sense of the remainder?

 

[Octoberist]

While I do feel for the hard work that the men and women put into the visual effects for The Hobbit, I'm glad it wasn't nominated for Best Visual Effects for the Oscars.

 

[CapedCrusader14]

I've been working on my own edit with Five Armies included in it the last couple days. This film is proving a lot harder to work around compared to the last two.

******* Alfrid.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I liked these movies well enough. LOTR was much better, for sure, and stretching it into 3 films made it feel long. I'd also say most of the characters lacked personality (LOTR had more true "characters" than the Hobbit series did), but that being said, the movies were entertaining. It hits the high points of the book for the most part, and we get some nice performances out of Martin Freeman, Lee Pace, and a few others. So, I am overall happy with the series. It's nto a 5/5 like the LOTR films were, but a solid 3/5 series is better than many other franchises that revisited a much better set of films (I'm looking at you Star Wars!)

 

[Octoberist]

Yeah, I just don't buy who the elves would bring so many of their troops over….what, their Elf Jewels?

It would've been better if they were out numbered by the Orcs, then the Dwarf army comes in to save the day.

The other thing that bothers me is the Army of Men: A bunch of fisherman with pitchforks. Wasn't Bard the captain of the army in the book? Even in the cartoon movie, Bard came off as a heroic leader. Here, he just plays tag-along to the elves. A country bumpkin. A hero still but then kinda disappears towards the end of the film.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Yeah, I just don't buy who the elves would bring so many of their troops over….what, their Elf Jewels?

It would've been better if they were out numbered by the Orcs, then the Dwarf army comes in to save the day.

The other thing that bothers me is the Army of Men: A bunch of fisherman with pitchforks. Wasn't Bard the captain of the army in the book? Even in the cartoon movie, Bard came off as a heroic leader. Here, he just plays tag-along to the elves. A country bumpkin. A hero still but then kinda disappears towards the end of the film.

They were apparently the jewels of Legolas' mother who died. Makes the last scene between Legolas and his papa more meaningful when you understand that. Also explains why he so down on love.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I've been working on my own edit with Five Armies included in it the last couple days. This film is proving a lot harder to work around compared to the last two.

******* Alfrid.

I liked these movies well enough. LOTR was much better, for sure, and stretching it into 3 films made it feel long. I'd also say most of the characters lacked personality (LOTR had more true "characters" than the Hobbit series did), but that being said, the movies were entertaining. It hits the high points of the book for the most part, and we get some nice performances out of Martin Freeman, Lee Pace, and a few others. So, I am overall happy with the series. It's nto a 5/5 like the LOTR films were, but a solid 3/5 series is better than many other franchises that revisited a much better set of films (I'm looking at you Star Wars!)

It is insane that there are so few "true" characters when the films are so stretched out.

It would be like if GoT just decided not to do anything for long stretches.

 

[CapedCrusader14]

Absolutely.

Well my preliminary cut came out to around 4 hours and 40 minutes when you include the credits, and 4 hours 26 minutes without them. I think as my cut stands, 2 films would have worked just fine all things considered. I'd say my cut is probably as good as it can possibly get for these films but I know it won't save them from problems that still exist even in the best of scenes in the trilogy (few and far between if I may add )

 

[Brother Jack]

The first Hobbit fan-edit is out already. 4.5 hours isn't bad, but I think it could still be leaner. I look forward to the thousands that follow.

That would have equated to two movies about two hours in length. That was Guillermo Del Toro's original plan. I remember him saying there was a point in the book that worked perfectly as the break between the parts but I don't know what it was.

 

[Marvolo]

They tried a few different endings for film one. Idk what GDT's ending was, but Phillipa ssid that at one point they wanted film 1 to end when the dwarves open the hidden door to Erebor. But they quickly realized that it required film one to move much faster than they wanted and thwy were skimming and losing well known moments from the books so they decided not to break the story there.

Another ending point for film one that they tried was when Bard steps into frame for the first time and points his bow at the dwarves on the shore of the river. When he is in a kind of shadow silhouette so the audience wouldnt know who he was and then the film cuts to credits leaving you wondering whether its friend or foe. Film 2 (There and Back Again) was meant to open with Bard's boat on the Lake and the dwarves are with him.

Adding DOS required them to make the third act of AUJ into the opening of DOS. And the opening act of There and Back Again became the middle act of DOS. Created a real mess.

 

[CGHulk]

Well I finally saw this for the second time in theaters tonight and I have to say I liked it even more. The only complaint I have are three shots where we see the CG elves faces, and they are noticeably unrealistic. Other than that I love the movie, I can't wait to see/own the extended cut!

 

[CapedCrusader14]

Made this video out of boredom and fun, some of you might get a kick out of it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkreTz_-E8U&list=UUEksaWJ-t4sl41yd_o1rACQ

 

[craigdbfan]

I have no doubt there. I've been wanting to re-read The Hobbit, LOTR, and The Silmarillion lately, but haven't had the time, but the girlfriend and I were re-watching FOTR Extended Edition on the weekend, and good god, the difference in quality between even just the LOTR films and The Hobbit ones is just astounding. As much of a Tolkien purist as I am and get annoyed with certain alterations Jackson and company did with the LOTR films, they did a hell of a lot right, which can be forgotten in this thread at times.

It is particularly annoying how much more beautiful of a film FOTR is, effects and all. The extensive use of bigatures, huge sets, and mass numbers of extras really goes a long way to selling the world they created and making it all look and feel real. Barad-dur, Minas Tirth, Isengard, Minas Morgul, Edoras, the Mines of Moria, etc. all look wonderfully real. Weta should be incredibly ashamed of the work they put out on these Hobbit films. It falls way short of work they were doing a decade ago!

Yup I've been watching all the EE lately and FOTR specifically to me stands out as the crowning achievement (always has for me but especially now). It's a masterpiece.

 

[Roose Bolton]

Fellowship is, in a lot of ways, a triumph of filmmaking.

 

[craigdbfan]

That's a great way of putting it. It's incredible that even after all these years I still get the same elation and level of awe when watching it.

I remember leaving the theater thinking to myself "How in the world were they able to do that?". 14 years later and I still look at the film in utter amazement.

 

[henzINNIT]

Another ending point for film one that they tried was when Bard steps into frame for the first time and points his bow at the dwarves on the shore of the river. When he is in a kind of shadow silhouette so the audience wouldnt know who he was and then the film cuts to credits leaving you wondering whether its friend or foe. Film 2 (There and Back Again) was meant to open with Bard's boat on the Lake and the dwarves are with him.

Yeah I read Jackson himself describing this. You can sort of tell when you look back, because there is a tonal shift when the company arrive at Laketown.

There were a shocking number of last minute revisions in this series. I noticed the toy line was pretty screwed over, running with Legolas and Kate from Lost figures for the first film. Guess they found out too late that they weren't even in that film. They also made a toy of Bolg based on his practical look that was completely CGI'd over lol.

 

[regwec]

Though I think LOTR has its problems as an adaptation of the book, there is little doubt that the use of locations, props, costume design, sets etc has really defined how that sort of movie should be made. Ironic that PJ himself abandoned it all in favour of 32-bit CGI for The Hobbit movies.

 

[InCali]

They tried a few different endings for film one. Idk what GDT's ending was, but Phillipa ssid that at one point they wanted film 1 to end when the dwarves open the hidden door to Erebor. But they quickly realized that it required film one to move much faster than they wanted and thwy were skimming and losing well known moments from the books so they decided not to break the story there.

Another ending point for film one that they tried was when Bard steps into frame for the first time and points his bow at the dwarves on the shore of the river. When he is in a kind of shadow silhouette so the audience wouldnt know who he was and then the film cuts to credits leaving you wondering whether its friend or foe. Film 2 (There and Back Again) was meant to open with Bard's boat on the Lake and the dwarves are with him.

Adding DOS required them to make the third act of AUJ into the opening of DOS. And the opening act of There and Back Again became the middle act of DOS. Created a real mess.

I'm surprised PJ was concerned about losing well known moments. Maybe they should have focused on well known moments in the storyline instead of making stuff up. How about this? Cut 90% of the Esgaroth footage as there's no chance of losing well known moments.

 

[Spider-Fan]

It is insane that there are so few "true" characters when the films are so stretched out.

It would be like if GoT just decided not to do anything for long stretches.

It really is insane. These films were jammed with so many characters, but oh so few are memorable.

 

[Venomfan]

They were apparently the jewels of Legolas' mother who died. Makes the last scene between Legolas and his papa more meaningful when you understand that. Also explains why he so down on love.

what's strange is that they never actually tell you that in the movie. Must have cut the scene out

 

[InCali]

They were apparently the jewels of Legolas' mother who died. Makes the last scene between Legolas and his papa more meaningful when you understand that. Also explains why he so down on love.

Great. Something else they made up. Even better, they don't explain what it is that they made up. Unless I'm sorely mistaken, Tolkien never even mentioned the mother of Legolas.

If I am, I apologize.