Official 'The Hobbit' Thread - - Part 18

[Tacit Ronin]

I get engrossed in the Bilbo and Smaug prattle, and then it keeps cutting to Killi whimpering under a shiny Kate.

 

[regwec]

I re-watched DOS today (I dunno why): it was excruciating.

I turn the movie off after the end of Bilbo and Smaug's conversation.

I have still only seen it once.

I get engrossed in the Bilbo and Smaug prattle, and then it keeps cutting to Killi whimpering under a shiny Kate.

It's a bit like eating a bowl of strawberries and cream, while someone occasionally pokes a dog turd on a trowel under your nose.

 

[Jaspertian1105]

The most redeeming thing about this whole Hobbit movies was Smaug, plain and simple. Maybe Freeman had some moments but he was just there to react most of the time. The first movie is the best, just for the riddles scene. In the second i fast forward to Smaug and then in the third after his dead, the movie is over for me.

They really managed to butcher this book and load the screen with unnecessary stuff and add dialogue that no one asked for. Thankfully PJ cant touch this books any longer and they can rest in peace for a few years. I started with hope after the first movie, like FOTR, but by the second movie, PJ decides to do basically whatever he wants and it ends on a bad note. I happened with the LOTR trilogy for me as well, i only saw ROTK twice and that was enough

 

[Tacit Ronin]

Martin was the best thing about the trilogy to me. Which makes it an utter shame that he felt like a supporting character in his own movies.

 

[Jaspertian1105]

Martin was the best thing about the trilogy to me. Which makes it an utter shame that he felt like a supporting character in his own movies.

Yep he and Smaug, and moments of Thorin if he wasn't a totally different character from the books in the end. With no proper death scene, the best dialogue from the book and was scratched, again Jackson thinking he is a better writer than Tolkien.

You had the words written, when they used them it was the best dialogue of the movie, went they started making stuff up you could tell that it was far worse.

And Legolas has nothing to do in this movies, and the so called romance was atrocious. You could do 2 movies without a problem, instead of 3

 

[Vartha]

any word on the Extended Battle of the Five Armies?

 

[regwec]

I caught the second half of AUJ on TV last night.

It was far worse than I remembered. More than anything, the dialogue is appalling. The attempt to script speech in a "Tolkien style" was not made with the requisite skill or appreciation of what was being imitated, making it grate terribly on the ear. What is worse, the endless intrusions of "comic relief", heralded by a return to a modern vernacular, make the attempt seem superficial and indirectly satirical in itself.

And it looks so incredibly cheap: the "fairytale lighting" is more reminiscent of a TV studio or a stage set than anything.

 

[Marvolo]

any word on the Extended Battle of the Five Armies?

Should be getting news this month or in August.

I caught the second half of AUJ on TV last night.

It was far worse than I remembered. More than anything, the dialogue is appalling. The attempt to script speech in a "Tolkien style" was not made with the requisite skill or appreciation of what was being imitated, making it grate terribly on the ear. What is worse, the endless intrusions of "comic relief", heralded by a return to a modern vernacular, make the attempt seem superficial and indirectly satirical in itself.

And it looks so incredibly cheap: the "fairytale lighting" is more reminiscent of a TV studio or a stage set than anything.

You're being hyperbolic. The dialogue isn't appalling. The dialogue in the star wars prequels was appalling. The dialogue in AUJ is nowhere near that. In fact this is the first time I've heard this complaint. I didn't even notice a difference between the dialogue in AUJ and the LOTR films. There were less direct quotes from the book compared to the LOTR films, but the stuff that was direct quotes was the same quality as the stuff that wasn't direct quotes in the LOTR films.

 

[regwec]

No, I am not being "hyperbolic" (and I do wish people would stop misusing that word); if you fail to note the marked differences between the original dialogue and the fanfiction, then you are not particularly sensitive to such things. In this instance, I suppose that is your good fortune.

 

[ThePhantasm]

I thought regwec was being kind, personally. The gulf of quality between the fanfic Jackson & co. dialogue and the straight-from-the-book dialogue is huge.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

Pretty much. Complete ear annihilation.

 

[C. Lee]

I haven't read the book since around 1972 or so.....so I don't remember much of the "original" dialogue......so Jackson's "fan fiction" dialogue sounds fine to me.

 

[regwec]

You don't need to remember lines from the original: the lexicon, the syntax and often the subject matter of the two are so distinct that they simply don't sound alike. The more successful scenes, like Riddles in the Dark, are invariably those where the dialogue from the book is left largely unmolested.

 

[ThePhantasm]

One of the worst offenders is the White Council scene, in which not only the dialogue but the characterizations are all wrong. There's no sense of the nobility and dignity of the council members, its just like a pub chat about the Necromancer. Galadriel is made out to be the most powerful of anyone whereas Elrond and Saruman come off like bumbling idiots, and Gandalf appears to be intimidated by everyone.

 

[regwec]

That scene seemed like a first rehearsal, frankly. And I loathe the motif of Galadriel talking in our heads, while pulling that warm-as-ice bunny-boiler smile at the camera. And Saruman's reference to a "human sorcerer" pulls us out of Tolkien's world and into the world of roleplaying table-top games; a fine example of PJ's tin-ear for language.

 

[Vartha]

Should be getting news this month or in August.

Hopefully this month

 

[ThePhantasm]

 

[regwec]

The last eighty pages are left blank, Sam. For you to write your own ****ty fan fiction.

 

[Marvolo]

The Extended Edition of the Battle of the Five Armies has received an R rating for violence!

http://www.filmratings.com/search.html?filmTitle=hobbit&x=0&y=0

The reason it had to be submitted to the MPAA is because it is getting a theatrical release in October along with the extended editions of the first 2 hobbit films.

Now for some rumors:

Jackson supposedly said that they had to cut a lot of violence ("brutal orc killings") to avoid an R rating for the theatrical cut. Also there may have been a Beorn torture scene flashback and an Alfred death scene filmed which may have been put back into the extended cut.

 

[sueb1863]

Why did the story need a Beorn torture scene? Or more Orc violence for that matter?

I also didn't get the impression that these movies were popular enough to warrant a theatrical rerelease of all four films.

 

[Ducard]

An R-rated Hobbit?

What the hell?

 

[regwec]

Terrific. An R rating for one of the world's most loved children's books, Beorn being tortured, and more Alfred.

PJ is just trolling at this point.

 

[C. Lee]

It shouldn't be cut to an R rating....but an Alfred death scene would be a good thing.

 

[regwec]

Only if it happens before 4/5 of his original scenes.

 

[Boom]

Wow. You just can't make this **** up.