no sound

And in other news, Chainpin is still working on something big.

When they first started making the LTR movies I was pretty sure they would screw them up. I have been very pleasantly surprised at how well they pulled them off. I liked the way the first Hobbit movie brought more of Tolkein's songs into it. Those were a big part of the books and you didn't see that in the LTR movies.

It is pretty cool to me that I have been reading and watching these stories for around 35 years and they are still some of my favorites.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I have not been able to make through one LTR movie with zonking out with in the 1st 10 minutes.

I've been disappointed. I always found the books to have a gritty realism to them, whereas the movies look cartoonish. I fully realize they probably wouldn't have been nearly as commercially successful but for me they should have been far darker, more medieval looking. In the LOTRs Jackson completely failed to capture the sense of the serious "end of the world" feel, not surprising when you turn a main character into a buffoonish comic relief part. Again, as it stands they basically look like a video game which of course isn't very realistic. They strike me as much more like the post-Tolkien D&D and sword & sorcery fiction phenomena.

Sometimes Jackson is just kitschy, which is a separate issue or maybe not.

There are a lot of little things in the Hobbit that you pick up on when you watch it numerous times. Some things LOTR nerds might only recognize.There are a couple of very subtle references to Narya one of which I picked up on in a scene that had an odd moment in it with another ring bearer.

In the Third Age, Círdan, recognizing Gandalf's true nature as one of the Maiar from Valinor, gave him the ring to aid him in his labours. It is described as having the power to inspire others to resist tyranny, domination, and despair (in other words, evoking hope in others around the wielder), as well as giving resistance to the weariness of time: "Take now this Ring," he said; "for thy labours and thy cares will be heavy, but in all it will support thee and defend thee from weariness. For this is the Ring of Fire, and herewith, maybe, thou shalt rekindle hearts to the valour of old in a world that grows chill" (Círdan the Shipwright to Gandalf).

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

I've been willing to give them more than a little leeway. I still remember going to see the animated LTR movie in the theater at a midnight showing. If I had only known that the only reason they made it was to keep their licensing agreement alive. And the animated Hobbit movie was just barely better.

I choose to ignore the parts that annoy me. Especially that entire Frodo waking up in Gondor sequence.

But I agree, Sam and Frodo are not whiny little babies. And you do lose a lot of sense of the coming apocalypse. That never feels like a real danger in the movies.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Jackson has done some weird things. I will never understand his treatment of Aragon and Gimli. Aragon is portrayed as a pussy much of the time and Gimli is the equivelant of C3P0. Why I have no idea. As I stated when the Hobbit came out the giant scene was horrific and once again I have no clue why he went that way.

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

This is the essence of it, without that, they can not be serious.

From a studio perspective Jackson was the right guy to make the movies, perfect Hollywood formulaic blockbusters, as art not so great.

The LOTR films cost something like $280 million to make. They've earned in the area of $4 billion.

He made those decisions because those are things that sell movie tickets to the widest range of viewers.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Oh I agree that you obviously have to add some fluff but the giant scene right out of the book would have been just fine and a lot less cheesy. A bad ass dwarf would have done fine and the main hero not being a pussy would have been fine. Humor could have been added because lets be honest and say that the book can be a downer at times.

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

I got it, but this is how it works. To reach the broadest audience, film makers try to include certain character types. Look at most of these big movie franchises, and you'll find the sensitive hero who has both a tough and a pussy side (Aragorn, Luke/Anakin, Will Turner). You'll find the comic relief duo (C3PO/R2D2, Gimli/Legolas, the two sidekick pirates in the Pirates of the Carribean movies), the strong heroine (Leia, Arwyn, Elizabeth swan).

These character types are familiar to audiences, and they help draw in viewers so the movies make a lot of money.

Obviously, the stories can be told without those characters types. LOTR was hugely successful in it's book forms, long before the movies were made. But studios spend millions on the movies, so they are less willing to depart from the winning formulas. Maybe the movies would have been successful if they were closer to the books. They were very likely to be successful if they were tweaked a bit to fit the formulas. So they tweak, and guarantee big box office numbers.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Very good analysis! But also a little depressing...
I find it sad that there's so little real novelty in film making. To a large part, you get the same story told over and over again with slightly different details and costumes.
Music is somewhat similar.

Now excuse me while I go looking for my bottle of Johnny Walker...


Cheers,
malte

Got my tickets for the 9:00pm- Midnight double feature for my little she-elf and myself! Should be fun.

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

Surprisingly no illegal copies have shown up on the internet yet, at least none in the usual spots I would look. I am looking forward to this, might even go to a theater for it.

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Jim

**Note above poster works for a retailer selling bikes and related gear*

I know you mean your daughter, but to others that might sound a little kinky. Just as long as you call her that because of Rivendell and not because she is older, still believes in Santa, and is stupid.... :)

Lol yes its my daughter. She hasnt told her mom yet that shes missing school on Friday.

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

I made the mistake of taking my son a couple of friends last year, so now I'm on the hook for doing it again this year and the only time it works for us before we leave town for Christmas is Saturday. At least we're in the sticks so hopefully it won't be overly crowded for a matinee on Saturday.

Don't get me wrong, a part of me wants to see it, but not in a crowded theater on opening weekend and not schlepping a bunch of kids to it. My son and I would have been O.K. by me.

I think we're going to wait and catch a Sunday matinee. The crowds shouldn't be too bad.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

Normally I'd be there on Saturday morning, when there aren't many crowds, but this week is the Army/Navy game, so I'll probably not see it until next weekend.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Get your priorities straight!!!

Under two hours and counting . I am sporting my official wood elf uniform with extra snug insulated tights and +10 to coolness elf bow. Pictures to come later.

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

Guy in his late 40's dressed up as Galadriel. Its going to be a fun night.

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

But he earned that reputation *because* of LotR. Prior to that he was just a wacky Kiwi horror film maker. And as an aside with that background it's even more disappointing he never got the "Atmosphere of Doom" thing going properly. Since that's the whole essence of the horror genre.

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Citizen of the world, former drunkard. Resident Traumatic Brain Injury advocate.

I'm taking my daughter to the 12:01am show tonight. It's been a long week and I'm already tired. Gonna be a long day tomorrow.

Suck it up Princess. Got in at 530 this morning after being up for 24 hours, slept 3 , drove 1:15 to get my daughter then an hour to the theater and just sat through the hobbit which I've watched probably 20 times. After this In get to take her back home and then drive back. Tap into your inner elf and drive on!

The nerds were all well behaved during the first movie so hopefully that continues.

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

I'll say more later but just a warning to those who want to see the movie DO NOT see the high frame rate version. At times it is basically as bad as we were warned it would be.

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

Doesn't look like any high frame rate theaters in my area, but we did get tickets for IMAX 3D.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

all of the 3-d in this area is HFR. I dont need 3-d at all and I might go see the movie again in the regular version just to see the difference.

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

I got off work early today, and headed to do some shopping. I didn't see any line at the theater, so I figured I'd check it out. Got in to see the movie, and the theater wasn't even half full. No elves in line, no nerds waiting to be seated, etc.



SPOILERS BELOW


I have to say, I was very disappointed with the visuals. There were parts of that movie that compare to what I would expect to see on the SciFi channel. I don't remember any of the other movies looking that poor on the big screen. I don't know if it was a high frame rate issue (I didn't see it in 3D) but some of the movie had the Mexican Soap Opera look, some of the effects looked jarringly obviously CGI, some of the scenes did not do a good job of blending an obvious CG background with a live action character, etc. This was the worst movie I've seen in a long time, strictly from a visuals point of view. The biggest set piece, Smaug, sometimes looked great, and sometimes looked really bad.

Overall, the plot, acting, etc were all decent, and about what we've come to expect from Jackson. So long as you understand this isn't a movie of the book, as much as it's a movie based on the book, you'll be fine. There's the obvious inclusion of a hot elf and a romantic subplot that was not in the book. There's also the inclusion of Legolas, also not in the book. There's not much character development, and although the movie is basically told with Bilbo as the "hero," you don't even really find yourself quite as invested in his story as you might think. In general, this is like the rest of the movies. Group has to get from point A to point B within X amount of time, and surprise, obstacles lie in their way. Shockingly, Gandalf leaves in the middle to have his own little side story, while the rest of the group carries on without him. Sound familiar?

Overall, if it weren't for the fact that this is a big blockbuster and part of the trilogy and everyone loves the story, I'd have a hard time recommending it to anyone but the really Tolkien nerds.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

Will comment on the rest later but Jackson is really pushing the hfr so even though you didn't see it in 3D it is possible you were exposed to it. I am jot sure who the hell is telling Jackson and others that it looks good but they need to stop trying to change simply for the sake of change. Same goes for the plot but as I said I'll have to sit down for those comments.

I watched the double feature and within about 3 minutes I was thinking "oh shit. This is the 48fps version" because it SAS very obvious since I've watched the hobbit so many times. I didn't tell my daughter because Incident want her focusing on it but it was the first thing she mentioned when DOS ended. The barrel riding scene was really bad. Your comparison is pretty dead on.

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"You lie!" The Prophet Joe Wilson

I didn't notice any of the visual short-comings so I guess I must have seen a normal version of it. I thought the spiders, Beorn (sp?) and the dragon were well done visually, beyond that it was like the rest of his films. Little realism, mostly cartoonish. I was bored for the first half but the action at the end was entertaining. Overall, same shortcomings (IMO) as the rest; basically the acting isn't great, nor is the dialogue, no character development, it's all sort of stilted and seriously over-acted at times (which I can only blame on the director as it happens with lots of different actors). I find the music annoying and over the top melodramatic, in fact, I'd say in the place of quality acting and story-telling the music is used to try to get some sort of emotional response. Why he feels the need to use silly comic relief in what are suppose to be life and death situations I have no idea?

Overall it's Hollywood kitschy "action" film-making, relying on formula (e.g. the requisite "love" story) and visuals rather than quality story-telling, acting, dialogue, etc.

Kids' loved it, which I guess is really the target audience.

Shame they couldn't have made these and then also licensed it to be made by a serious director and made an "adult" version (really applies more to LOTR since The Hobbit was a kid's story). Never going to happen but I would have loved to have seen it made more in line with the books' tone, realism and epic nature.

I went with my daughter and husband to the 10:20 show Saturday night. The only seats we could get were in the 5th row of IMAX 3D. It sucked because we were way too close. For most of the action, it was just blurry.

The movie was so-so, IMO. Some fun and interesting parts, but I found it pretty boring for the most part. Way too much plot addition that I think was added solely to stretch the story out to 3 movies. Bilbo and the Dragon were the best parts, I think. Hated the ending. What a crappy place to end it. I feel a bit cheated.

We took the kids to a Sunday matinee IMAX 3D. Waste of money, IMAX 3D didn't add anything to the experience IMO. My son preferred to watch without the glasses anyway so that'll be his last 3D flick.

Overall I found the movie entertaining, though a few parts I don't recall being in the book (Gandalf being imprisoned at Dol Gudoor and the whole dwarfs being imprisoned by the elves). Guess I need to re-read the book.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

I'm convinced a quality director rather than a Hollywood hack could have made a single movie following the arc of the book more faithfully and made it a character piece about Bilbo that would have been great. I agree Bilbo and the Dragon were probably the best part. Bilbo gets lost in this telling and you ultimately couldn't care less about him (or for that matter any of the other characters) as Jackson fills the screen with CGI fluff and action scenes, some of which just looked ridiculous. The whole barrel scene looked like something from a Six Flags Amusement park water flume ride.

"The whole barrel scene looked like something from a Six Flags Amusement park water flume ride."

Totally agree, although half of it I couldn't follow because everything was so blurry in the 5th row. <sigh>

I also agree with how much better this movie would have been had it been made into a single movie focused on Bilbo. I just love the actor that plays Bilbo (he's also in Sherlock and I love him there too), but he's relegated to a minor role in this movie. Really too bad and a real missed opportunity to make an amazing movie.

I couldn't remember either so I picked up the book on Saturday afternoon and read the few chapters that pertain to this movie. The whole Gandalf/Dol Guldor story line, obviously the female elf/love story thing, essentially the stuff about Bard, the whole being chased by Orcs/Elves chasing them, that scene at the beginning in Bree, Smaug chasing the Dwarves around was added.

So basically the book story line would have been Beorn's house, Gandalf leaves them (not to be heard from again in this movie), get lost in Mirkwood, fight the spiders, captured and imprisoned by Elves, Bilbo gets them out and they float to Laketown, appeal to the Master for help, he gives it, they go to the mountain, Bilbo sneaks in and interacts with Smaug a couple of times, Smaug flies out and destroys the secret door entrance, so now Dwarves/hobbit stuck inside between the blocked entrance and what they think is a waiting dragon below, Dragon flies off to deal with Laketown...the end.

This leaves only a few chapters to go (Dragon killed by Bard who enters the story for the first time here and then a big battle as they all fight over the spoils) which somehow Jackson is going to stretch into another 2.5 hour movie I presume.

So yeah, I saw this with the family today -- in 2D. That, evidently, was a wise choice. I already knew that I wanted no part of HFR and 3D.

Overall I see the weaknesses in these Hobbit movies more so than the LOTR series. LOTR wasn't centered around just one character like the Hobbit should be centered around Bilbo. Jackson has a great actor there IMO, he just hasn't come through with the story telling. I definitely agree with the other posters about this issue.

I continue to have issues with Jacksonian action. It's all unbelievable -- even in the context of the movie. Why doesn't Legolas and a couple of elf friends just go out and kill every single Orc that walks the earth? There's no danger in it for them. Orcs are like bumbling idiots and key stone cops compared to the elves with their "feel the force" ability to anticipate every Orc battle move. Would it just be too boring and that's why the elves don't do it? What else are they doing with eternity that's so exciting?

By the same token Smaug is supposed to be BAD-ASS and evil to the core. This is an ancient Dragon, spawn of Melkor. The more he puts off killing Bilbo, and the more he chases a bunch of dwarves all over that cave (without hurting any) the more ridiculous he seemed to me. Smaug is going to destroy miserable lake town? With Bilbo standing RIGHT in front of him? What?

I like to bitch, but I still liked the movie. I always appreciate Jackson's interpretation of how monsters and characters must have looked -- Smaug here, the Balrog in LOTR, and Sauron the Necromancer here -- some of these other items I like to complain about, but overall I'm still a fan.

Funny, my wife asked me if I enjoyed the movie, and after a bit of thought, I said "no." There was so much added that just didn't "happen" that it was very annoying. Why introduce a goblin named the same as the son of Azog (Bolg)? Why does the only female character outside of Galadriel have to have a love interest? Why have a comic scene with Bilbo chasing after the Arkenstone while talking to Smaug? Why? Because Jackson could, I guess.

That said, there is material that describes events during the time of The Hobbit that is not in that book (think Unfinished Tales), that enabled Jackson to make three movies. Included in this material is the description by Gandalf of his "chance meeting" in Bree with Thorin (I believe he told this story to the hobbits after the Ring was destroyed):


In addition, the Dol Guldur incident did occur, but totally different than what Jackson portrayed. It was the White Council (Gandalf, Saruman, Elrond, Galadriel) that combined power to drive the Necromancer out of Dol Guldur (indeed, this is why Gandalf was absent from the company when they went into Mirkwood). Gandalf was no match for Sauron, and he knew it, and so the idea that he would have gone into Dol Guldur alone, knowing that Sauron was there is silly (although he did go there by himself much earlier: that's actually where he got the map and key!)

(delving into way too much detail)

Sauron allowed himself to be driven from Dol Guldur because his preparations in Mordor (Barad-dur complete, etc.) were done. Saruman agreed to do it because he was worried that Sauron was looking for the Ring near the Gladden Fields, and Saruman was worried Sauron might find it before he did. This is all in the Tolkien "gospel".

I'd guess that Hobbit III contains

• Destruction of Laketown/death of Smaug
• White Council battling to free Gandalf from his cage
• Bilbo conspiring with the Elves/Gandalf over the Arkenstone
• Battle of the Five Armies
• Funeral of Thorin/distribution of loot (expect lots of Irish dirge-y music)
• Return journey of Bilbo (hence the "There and Back Again" title)
• Possible other scenes of Sauron/ringwraiths setting up in Morder to foreshadow the Lord of the Rings books/movies

I don't think they'll go into the Aragorn/Gollum/Mordor stories (no Viggo), or Balin's return to Moria. There is an unexpected name in the imdb entry for Hobbit III with some speculation as to whether it is actually the character so named. Left to the curious for more info (hint: the character had been dead for about 6,000 years before the events of the Hobbit).

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"Go yell at an M&M"

So you're, like, really into Tolkien, huh?

Seriously though, I haven't seen the movie, no real desire unfortunately. I enjoyed the three LOTR movies, love everything about the books, but man was the first Hobbit bad imo. I'll eventually see this one, I'm just dreading the experience because I feel like a bad movie experience takes away from the novels.

Wild conjectures...

The unexpected name in the credits will be involved in a flashback concerning the mingling of the kindreds, which will be relevant because Tauriel and Kili get together sometime during Hobbit 3.

or...

The unexpected name in the credits will be involved in a flashback concerning Elrond's lack a enthusiasm for Arwen's love for Aragorn -- no one should marry their cousin!