Peter Jackson's THE HOBBIT (Pts 1&2 in 2012/2013 - LOTR Prequel)

[TwoStep2888]

Seeing it next Tuesday, hope it's as fun as the first two Hobbit movies were.

[junior94]

I don't know I feel like I'm hearing it from both sides on this one. Several have seemed to say it's definitely the best of the trilogy (though which by itself doesn't necessarily equate to it being a "great film", as these are generally deemed nowhere near as good as LOTR was). but then others complain in particular -- and this is no big surprise, ultimately -- that the actual titular battle is an overly CGI'd bloated mess.

Not that it matters as far as my ticket, I'm hoping I'll have seen it myself by no later than Saturday afternoon.

[Seanieb]

Saw the 3rd one today

This should have been 2 movies, maybe even 1. Throughout the trilogy there were so many unnecessary scenes with the primary purpose of dragging this out into 3 movies.

Same problem with Mockingjay Part 1 and 2, should have been 1 movie.

Hate this trend

[ajc_1988]

saw it tuesday night...it did drag on a bit, but i expected that, so i didn't mind it. besides, the more time spent in middle earth the better. I definitely think they should've stuck to two movies, but I still thought it was above average.

[cry_minarets458]

This movie was so bad

[KevinTH]

I still haven't made it through the first two without falling asleep. I saw the first one in true IMAX & 3-D and STILL fell asleep. I rented the first two from Netflix and planned to give them another shot, but I started the first one and fell asleep again last night. Giving up and will just remain a fan of the LOTR Trilogy. 3 of these movies out of one book, which was also the shortest of them all, was an absolute waste and a complete cash grab.

[BAHHHTIWaC]

Saw this Wednesday night. I'd say a good 2/3 of the movie did nothing to tell the story of the Hobbit. I understand that people will say that Jackson brought in a lot of supplemental texts that Tolkien wrote, but the problem with that is that almost all of what was brought in did nothing to develop a more detailed story.

So the dwarf and the elf fall in love... it's wrong... oh hey, Legolas is here... dwarf dies... no emotions are felt.

Thorin dies... Bilbo cries... *audience tries to remember how close Thorin and Bilbo were before Thorin became a gold-obsessed ass*... audience can't remember... few emotions are felt, but Martin Freeman put on a good performance

Click the "Show Spoiler" Button to reveal hidden text.

Also, because Jackson spent too much time on supplemental texts, he basically ruined every scene that featured a dwarf whose name wasn't Thorin or Kili. This isn't completely Jackson's fault, this is more of me just comparing this film/book to LOTR and the way in which characters were introduced in that book. Whereas with LOTR slowly builds a story and brings in characters one or two at a time until Rivendale, the Hobbit just kind of throws these 12 new people at us from the start.

[BAHHHTIWaC]

Oh and also, every scene with the coward dude (Alfred?) was a complete waste of film. Just fucking stupid.

[fonzz41]

Originally Posted by BAHHHTIWaC

Saw this Wednesday night. I'd say a good 2/3 of the movie did nothing to tell the story of the Hobbit. I understand that people will say that Jackson brought in a lot of supplemental texts that Tolkien wrote, but the problem with that is that almost all of what was brought in did nothing to develop a more detailed story.

So the dwarf and the elf fall in love... it's wrong... oh hey, Legolas is here... dwarf dies... no emotions are felt.

Thorin dies... Bilbo cries... *audience tries to remember how close Thorin and Bilbo were before Thorin became a gold-obsessed ass*... audience can't remember... few emotions are felt, but Martin Freeman put on a good performance

Click the "Show Spoiler" Button to reveal hidden text.

Also, because Jackson spent too much time on supplemental texts, he basically ruined every scene that featured a dwarf whose name wasn't Thorin or Kili. This isn't completely Jackson's fault, this is more of me just comparing this film/book to LOTR and the way in which characters were introduced in that book. Whereas with LOTR slowly builds a story and brings in characters one or two at a time until Rivendale, the Hobbit just kind of throws these 12 new people at us from the start.

I agree with some of this.

Part of the problem of it not telling the story of the Hobbit was the decision they made to make the smallest of any of the books-made-films into THREE films. You just run out of Hobbit stuff to tell when you've got that much time.

It was disappointing to not get to know the dwarves better, but that's exactly the same thing I felt whenever I've read the Hobbit. I finish reading not knowing like 9 of the 13 dwarves any better than when I started.

[fonzz41]

The major redeeming quality of the whole series was Martin Freeman. I thought he was absolutely phenomenal in playing Bilbo.

[KevinTH]

Originally Posted by fonzz41

The major redeeming quality of the whole series was Martin Freeman. I thought he was absolutely phenomenal in playing Bilbo.

I love Martin Freeman. Not a Hobbit fan, but if you haven't seen Sherlock do yourself a favor and start watching. He's fantastic as Watson and Benedict Cumberbatch (the dragon) is great as Sherlock Holmes. They play off of each other perfectly.

[DMBCardinal]

I liked this a lot. Definitely the best of the trilogy. I agree that the Alfred character was a waste of time.

[junior94]

Originally Posted by DMBCardinal

I agree that the Alfred character was a waste of time.

that's the Dave Grohl-looking character who acts as like the personal valet of Stephen Fry's character? well it's since been pointed out to me he sort of does and doesn't exist in the book. That there's one fleeting sentence making reference to the Master having a whole group of servants like that, but that's really all, and certainly no specific names.
I did find the character to be the source of some rather contrived drama in film 2.

[BAHHHTIWaC]

Originally Posted by junior94

that's the Dave Grohl-looking character who acts as like the personal valet of Stephen Fry's character? well it's since been pointed out to me he sort of does and doesn't exist in the book. That there's one fleeting sentence making reference to the Master having a whole group of servants like that, but that's really all, and certainly no specific names.
I did find the character to be the source of some rather contrived drama in film 2.

He seemed like a poor attempt at bringing in a character who was just another shade of Grima Wormtongue. And every scene he was in in the third film was just a terrible attempt at humor that didn't work - both comedically and in terms of the flow of the film.

[DMBCardinal]

Yeah, that was one of my main problems with the movie. It was like the Alfred character was in the movie to make 12 year old boys laugh. The other was the Tauriel and Kili love story. I liked Tauriel just fine and I don't mind that Jackson added a few characters to appease a larger audience, but the romance with the Dwarf just seemed forced to me. Other than that, I thought it was a great movie. It obviously doesn't live up to the Lord of the Rings, but what does really? I'm surprised to see so many negative reviews on here. Even if you don't care for the story much, it was still a lot of fun and entertaining.

[Heyberto]

Haven't seen it yet... Loved LOTR, but have found the Hobbit movies to be pretty 'meh' so far... So much so I think I'll wait for this on video. You can tell these are just stretched out beyond their limits. So, am I wrong on this last one? should I get over it and go see it in the theater?

[cry_minarets458]

I'm not even a big Tolkien or LOTR fan, but I loved the first three movies. I still can't get over how bad this movie was. Fight scenes were forced, too many subplots that didn't matter going on, etc

[Rodey]

I think it's obvious Jackson went down the same path as Lucas (albeit not nearly as awful) with these three movies. I feel like he just got lazy in a lot of ways.

One of my biggest gripes with this trilogy was the overuse of bad CGI. Like, the CGI looked so much better 13 years ago.

[Seek#41Up]

I enjoyed the movie because I love Middle Earth but this should have been 2 movies. Every LOTR movie and the first 2 Hobbit movies had great beginnings to the movie. This one did not. So anti-climatic and rushed through. The beginning of this movie should have been the end of the 2nd and just open this movie with the aftermath of Smaug or open with Gandalf.

[jwehaeDMB]

Loved this film. The best of the 3, with the first coming in close second.

Thought the battle scenes were excellent. The emotions ran high.

[TheLastStop123]

Really enjoyed this. Obviously not as good as LOTR but still solid. My favorite scene in these movies is when Bilbo first meets Smaug and they talk for awhile. Just captivating stuff. That scene is better than any other in these three films, but overall I think I liked this movie the best. Cumbertach was just phenomenal and I agree with others that have said how good Freeman is. Just awesome.

[jwehaeDMB]

^ of all the acting, I find it hard to point out Cumberbatch as being phenomenal seeing as we just heard his voice, which is heavily altered with effects...

[DMBCardinal]

Freeman was great as always, but I thought Armitage (Thorin) did an excellent job in this movie.

[Heyberto]

Originally Posted by jwehaeDMB

^ of all the acting, I find it hard to point out Cumberbatch as being phenomenal seeing as we just heard his voice, which is heavily altered with effects...

Yeah.. he's got a great voice, and he's great for that character, but it's more of a collective performance between his voice and the animators. I don't imagine he did motion capture.

[Heyberto]

Originally Posted by Rodey

I think it's obvious Jackson went down the same path as Lucas (albeit not nearly as awful) with these three movies. I feel like he just got lazy in a lot of ways.

One of my biggest gripes with this trilogy was the overuse of bad CGI. Like, the CGI looked so much better 13 years ago.

I agree, but I think his laziness is relative. He took on three movies and made an intense workload for himself there.. but I do think he took a lot of shortcuts, particularly in the storytelling aspect, too many big set pieces and not enough story/plot to keep these films going narratively. The first trilogy had that in spades.

But the cinematography and CGI is the biggest letdown of the whole thing, bar none. I think the reason it looks so bad is the overly pristine quality of the digitally sourced footage. The Hobbit Trilogy does not look like a real world.. it looks animated, so that makes the CGI look glaringly fake. I haven't seen it in 48 fps, but since it was sourced at that frame rate, it makes me think that it does have an overall effect on the images we see at 24 fps as well. Either way, it just comes off as too perfect of an image, and too inflated of a color palette.. I'd think that mimicking the CGI to match that would affect it too. The two things that I find glaringly distracting is some of the river/barrel scenes in the second film, and any footage of the gold in the lonely mountain.

I think the CGI worked so much better in the first film because it was meshed with film and looked beautiful as a result. Some scenes in the new trilogy look better than others.. I think the low-light stuff like Gollum's cave is pretty damn great, but it's one of those things that just because you can do something, it doesn't mean that you should. It was an interesting experiment, but I can't believe anyone thought it was good to go ahead with this when they came out of the testing phase.

[fonzz41]

Originally Posted by RobbtheRevelatr

I agree, but I think his laziness is relative. He took on three movies and made an intense workload for himself there.. but I do think he took a lot of shortcuts, particularly in the storytelling aspect, too many big set pieces and not the thrust of the story to keep it moving forward.

But the cinematography and CGI is the biggest letdown of the whole thing, bar none. I think the reason it looks so bad is the overly pristine quality of the digitally sourced footage, and the LOTR was shot on film. The Hobbit Trilogy does not look like a real world.. it looks animated, so that makes the CGI look glaringly fake. I haven't seen it in 48 fps, but since it was sources at that frame rate, it makes me think that it does have an overall effect on the images we see at 24 fps as well. Either way, it just comes off as too perfect of an image, and too inflated of a color palette.. I'd think that mimicking the CGI to match that would affect it to. The two things that I find glaringly distracting is some of the river/barrel scenes in the second film, and any footage of the gold in the lonely mountain.

I think the CGI worked so much better in the first film because it was meshed with film and looked beautiful as a result. Some scenes in the new trilogy look better than others.. I think the low-light stuff like Gollum's cave is pretty damn great, but it's one of those things that just because you can do something, it doesn't mean that you should. It was an interesting experiment, but I can't believe anyone thought it was good to go ahead with this when they came out of the testing phase.

Totally agree. In most cases, the CGI in LOTR was used to simply enhance a scene and make it look even better. It is absolutely relied on in The Hobbit, and it's noticeable.

[Rodey]

Like, the Orcs looked atrocious and cartoony in this trilogy, especially the leader. It looked like a video game, which isn't good. In the LOTR trilogy, the Orcs looked awesome.

[Heyberto]

Originally Posted by fonzz41

Totally agree. In most cases, the CGI in LOTR was used to simply enhance a scene and make it look even better. It is absolutely relied on in The Hobbit, and it's noticeable.

The work they did with Gollum .... It's not that they made him realistic, it's that they made him believable in the environment, but the rendering of so much else just doesn't look believable, and there's some pretty bad stuff you see when real actors switch to a digital character. Awful really.

[Seek#41Up]

Originally Posted by jwehaeDMB

^ of all the acting, I find it hard to point out Cumberbatch as being phenomenal seeing as we just heard his voice, which is heavily altered with effects...

Watch the special features on the DVD. That was his voice. There was some altering but that was really him. He did what Andy Serkis did for Gollum in LOTR in acting out the parts. Really cool to see.

[parks3923]

Not sure if it was the 3D, but I would recommend you stay away from 3D. The movie looked horrible, almost like a video game. The movie was alright in itself.