Official 'The Hobbit' Thread - Part 9

[Marvolo]

Yeah, Borrimir was Boss and his death made me really sad. Still does after all these years. "My brother, my captain, my king."

 

[Boom]

Sean Bean was truly one of the trilogy's highlights.

 

[corby]

This kind of defies logic for me. Why would you march a large army hundreds of miles to a battle then decide " Im not feeling it today. Time to go home." Are elves that well off that they can waste days and supplies marching to a battle then not fight? And how did Thranduil get his army there so fast? It should have taken a message a day or two to reach him then the time to prepare and mobilizing the army would have taken a day or more and then there is the time it takes to actually get to the battle. And one would think that during that time of preparing his army he would have thought, "I really dont feel like helping these dwarves fight a dragon." saving him the trouble of going there. Or did he do it just to spit in the dwarves face in their time of desperation? Either he occupies a level of smugness not known to man or he is an entirely incompetent general/king.

While watching I didn't even think of them as going to battle. I just figured Thranduil was going to visit Erebor to look upon the Arkenstone again and just takes a bunch of troops with him for protection on the journey.

 

[Excel]

I didnt have overly low or overly high expectations (find the original LOTR trilogy overrated but enjoyable once every few years), but I quite enjoyed this. The beginning def. drags, and the Gollum scene was more annoying than fun imo. But Gandalf, the action, Biblo are all excellent. Other than it dragging, I see no complaints worth merit. Its not Gladiator, but it is a good movie.

& its box office s underwhelming all around. It had an impressive midnight number, everyone since - including overseas- has been bad. OBVIOUSLY big numbers in general & making plenty of profit, but...in comparison to expectations? This is closer to bomb than break out when judged in that context. Its barely beating films like I AM LEGEND despite 5 years of inflation, 3D, "huge" fanbase, etc...

really no spinning it either. Frankly, its overseas numbers are pathetic for what many thought it would be making a few months ago.

 

[Abudefduf]

Watched this on monday. Very disappointed; I almost feel bad for having criticized the LotR trilogy so much in the past (well, not on this board, but still.)

It's a mediocre movie. There's too much CGI, the story is diluited, the humor is often bad and childish (and not in a good way), the score is forgettable (with the exception of the Misty Mountains theme) and then there's that f***ing awful character that is Azog.
It's not even particularly faithful to its source material. The basic plot is the same and it does borrow a few lines of dialogue from the book, which is cool, but that's pretty much it.

Freeman is a great Bilbo though, and the Riddles in the Dark scene is perfect. I even liked the Dwarf company, despite their lack of beards . But overall, what a huge letdown. I'm definitely lowering my expectations for the 2nd film.

 

[ThePowerCosmic]

I thought it was funny that when Gandalf gets tired of a person not listening to his plane he seems to make everything go dark. Oddly enough it happens both times at Bag End.

The Dwarfs start to make him mad and he does what he does to Bilbo when Bilbo says to Gandalf you want The Ring For your self.

Yeah, I loved that part. We saw the first time that Bilbo got scared from Gandalf doing that in The Hobbit, and we see him get scared again in FOTR.

 

[TheVileOne]

Just curious were those meant to be dwarf women in The Hobbit evacuating Erebor? Because they didn't have beards, but they looked female and Dwarf-ish.

 

[Tony Stark]

I didnt have overly low or overly high expectations (find the original LOTR trilogy overrated but enjoyable once every few years), but I quite enjoyed this. The beginning def. drags, and the Gollum scene was more annoying than fun imo. But Gandalf, the action, Biblo are all excellent. Other than it dragging, I see no complaints worth merit. Its not Gladiator, but it is a good movie.

& its box office s underwhelming all around. It had an impressive midnight number, everyone since - including overseas- has been bad. OBVIOUSLY big numbers in general & making plenty of profit, but...in comparison to expectations? This is closer to bomb than break out when judged in that context. Its barely beating films like I AM LEGEND despite 5 years of inflation, 3D, "huge" fanbase, etc...

really no spinning it either. Frankly, its overseas numbers are pathetic for what many thought it would be making a few months ago.

Glad to know you think the Dark Knight Rises bombed.

 

[craigdbfan]

Just curious were those meant to be dwarf women in The Hobbit evacuating Erebor? Because they didn't have beards, but they looked female and Dwarf-ish.

I think some of them didn't have beards exactly but they did have very long sideburns and even a bit of a chin hair/goatee thing going on.

Spoiler

 

[Tony Stark]

Sean Bean was truly one of the trilogy's highlights.

I wish they would have included the flashback scene with Boromir and Faramir in TTT. I realize they probably worried about how the story would flow, but that scene describes so much why Faramir ultimately lets Frodo and Bilbo go. The way the TTT reads it so drastically changes Faramir's character from the book, that I think that scene is desperately needed.

 

[Tony Stark]

I think some of them didn't have beards exactly but they did have very long sideburns and even a bit of a chin hair/goatee thing going on.

Spoiler

Good catch. I didn't really notice anything, but part of it was the city of Dale (just outside the gates of Erabor) was a human city, so I assumed those were human females, but clearly they are dwarf females.

 

[craigdbfan]

Good catch. I didn't really notice anything, but part of it was the city of Dale (just outside the gates of Erabor) was a human city, so I assumed those were human females, but clearly they are dwarf females.

Thanks. I think they (humans and dwarves)cohabited Dale in the movie. You see a couple Dwarf women talking with some of the humans in the beginning of Bilbo's story and then you also see them escaping Erebor.

 

[Infinity9999x]

Don't agree. It is the first film in a trilogy. It is self-contained, edited masterfully with a true beginning, middle and end. The reason this even comes up is how dependent RotK is. Both FotR and TTT work on their own merit.

I disagree. It leaves open huge plot threads that carry through to the next two films. Because it's the first part of one giant movie. It has a beginning middle and end of a sort, yet ends on a giant cliffhanger and does not resolve the overall plot that it begins. Therefore, I don't consider it a complete film.

...But it's not meant to be one. It's meant to be the first part of a story. So I don't consider that a negative.

However, I will say FOTR did a better job at not drawing out the story the way I felt the Hobbit did at times. So in that sense I think it was better made. However, it doesn't take away the fact that it feels like the first part of a story, and not a complete story in and of itself. Because it isn't.

 

[Excel]

Glad to know you think the Dark Knight Rises bombed.

Disappointed in comparison to expectations, though that has a genuinely viable explanation.

 

[Tony Stark]

Disappointed in comparison to expectations, though that has a genuinely viable explanation.

The point is that no one thinks the Dark Knight Rises is a bomb, and no one thinks this movie is as bomb. Its going to be a billion dollar film WW, so to call it a bomb is laughable. It's not like this is John Carter.

 

[Marvolo]

Disappointed in comparison to expectations, though that has a genuinely viable explanation.

The Dark Knight Rises passed the The Dark Knight's box office and the billion dollar mark so it did really good especially considering its runtime. Far from a bomb.

And the Hobbit has already passed the $100 million mark so considering the total budget for all three films was a little over $200 million if this film makes only $700million-$1 billion it alone will have made back the entire budget of all three films and their marketing campaigns. Also not a bomb.

 

[04nbod]

That is how tolkien wrote it. Its a kids book. Things like this happen in children's books. Jackson did change it up some tho. In Goblin Town for instance they resist and fight back. In the book they are captured and whipped and driven to the Goblin King and Gandalf saves them almost immediately then they jist run into the tunnels with very little fighting described.

Also, Jackson completely changed the motivation for wanting to return to Erabor. Tolkein had the dwarves want the gold more than anything which is standard adventure fare, a treasure hunt. Jackson gives them a more likable motivation for wanting to go back. Hopefully the lesson on greed isn't diminished.

Truth be told Boromirs death effected me more then any other in Rings because he showed sarrow for Gimli's pain

Legolas looked confused and thus like most elves are not comforting in tragedy.

Of course Legolas is confused, he's an elf he doesn't understand death.

 

[Marvolo]

Also, Jackson completely changed the motivation for wanting to return to Erabor. Tolkein had the dwarves want the gold more than anything which is standard adventure fare, a treasure hunt. Jackson gives them a more likable motivation for wanting to go back. Hopefully the lesson on greed isn't diminished.



Of course Legolas is confused, he's an elf he doesn't understand death.

He understands death. Elves just cant relate as well to death and mortality the way humans can. Its not in their day to day lives. Humans experience death routinely and are a very empathetic caring species. Elves are somewhat removed from all that. Orlando did a good job portraying how foreign it is to Legolas. Im not sure if it effected how Orlando played Legolas after that but he did become a more warm and brotherly caring character over the course of the three films so I do think his interactions with the humans and the dwarves and the Hobbits gave him a greater understanding of the different emotions and ways of life he doesnt experience as an elf.

 

[Slushy]

the Riddles in the Dark scene is perfect

That's all I needed to know!

Glad to know you think the Dark Knight Rises bombed.

I think he meant to say a critical failure.

 

[Liam_H]

And the Hobbit has already passed the $100 million mark so considering the total budget for all three films was a little over $200 million if this film makes only $700million-$1 billion it alone will have made back the entire budget of all three films and their marketing campaigns. Also not a bomb.

I'm pretty sure he means expectations relative to ROTK which made $1.1 billion 9 years ago while this movie based on current projections might not reach that amount.

 

[ericadawn16]

I want to see Tauriel. I missed the strong female influences from the last two. Galadriel's few scenes weren't enough.

 

[DarkSovereignty]

yeah, the hobbit was a major sword fest

 

[Doctor Jones]

That's actually one of the reasons why I loved The Hobbit. I didn't realize there was only one female character in it until my friend pointed this out. It's just about a bunch of bros adventuring and ****. Just a cool boys adventure. You don't really see that anymore and I liked seeing that here.

 

[X Knight]

I heard that there are some talking ravens who are friends with the dwarves in the Hobbit story.

do any of them appear in this film?

 

[cabel]

Sean Bean was truly one of the trilogy's highlights.

Everything could use some more Sean Bean.