Escape to the Movies: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

[Nomanslander]

Personally, I absolutely loved the movie, it gave Lotr universe a more quaint feel to it that I felt was absent in the trilogy. There's no ...end of the world, war to end all wars grandioso showcasing in this movie, so even though we were getting less, I personally felt like like I got more of what I would want from it.

It was something different, not a matter of being better or worse, and it expanded on the universe that I already cared about.

To compare this to the trilogy I honestly feel would be a bit unfair and uncalled for. So I'm not even going to do that in my thoughts in the slightest.

 

[RTR]

OK, just came back from seeing it, so here's some general thoughts:
-If it weren't for The Avengers, Gandalf would be the best action hero of the year.
-If Middle-Earth were a real place, I would definitely hang out with the dwarves
-When the fuck is Andy Serkis going to get the credit he rightfully deserves? And by that, I mean when are the award people going to bite the bullet and give this man an award?
-I "get" the reasons for why this film isn't doing so hot with critics in general, but honestly, the things that can be seen as problems (too long, too much CGI, extended action scenes, scenes that "feel like a video game", dwarves are kind of indistinguishible, etc.) I don't mind them. I believe that Wingnut's work with CGI is, and has been, superb.
-You know the film has done its job well when you get to the end and you're thinking "wow, it's been three hours already?"
-The film starts pretty slow, but once we finally start the adventure, the whole thing is a blast.
-I cheered and shed tears for this movie. I don't think I've had a positive reaction at such a level as when I was watching this movie to anything in a very long time.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

I admit that the movie WAS long, but that's not such a big deal. I was entertained the entire time and only ever got curious as to how long I'd been sitting there because I was wondering how much more enjoyment I was going to get out of the film.

I enjoyed the Hobbit, start to finish. It's a completely different tone from LOTR, so it's wise that they didn't try to measure up. I enjoyed the inclusion of the Middle-earth lore to expand on the story, and didn't even mind the random 'Bilbo must prove himself to the dwarves' arc that was thrown in to help give the simplistic character some kind of arc. Whenever you decide to add/subtract something from a movie based on a book in order to better pace the film or keep an audience engaged, as long as the thing that is added/subtracted does not violate the spirit of the story, I'm okay with it.

I can see some of the valid complaints that people have leveled at the film, but maybe I was able to easily overlook them because I was able to sit back, relax, and enjoy the movie for what it was.

 

[Silverspetz]

Shameless money grubbing? The film is not just the Hobbit, The reason it's over three films is that they are covering other events that go on at the same time, so more then one story in a sense. See it for yourself and you will know what I mean.

Adding material from other books to extend the length of the story to three movies is a money grab. The story of the Hobbit is complete and could be artfully done in one long film. The new fashion of drawing out movies to multiple parts (Potter, Twilight, etc) is nothing but a way to wring more dough from people pockets. Apologize for Jackson all you want, but the book is the book. Jackson shoving more stuff in from other sources just because he can is blatant. The only reason to add 2 movies worth of extraneous material is to get more cash.

So what would you have preferred? That he only made the Hobbit and left out the other stuff that were part of Tolkien's mythos? That those things got their own movies even though that would only result in the same number of movies in the end only with that setup they don't fit together into 1 narrative? Nothing in this movie is pointless padding. It is all material from the Tolkien mythos that deserves to be put on screen and Jacksson has managed to make it all fit together nicely. It is clear that this was done with the intent of honoring ALL of Tolkien's work and not just to grab some extra cash.

On the topic of the movies itself. I liked it a lot. though I think there are a few too many one-liners. They are good one-liners mind you but I kinda doubt Tolkien envisioned that kind of humor for his whimsical adventure. It also feels like they didn't accomplish much in the end. They introduce 3 major threats and all of them are still around by the end of it, only now the party is closer to the Lonely Mountain than they were before. Still, I loved the characters, I loved the adventure and I got a lot of laughs out of it so I say it is still a great movie.

 

[honeybakedham]

I loved The Movie

I hated the 3D

 

[honeybakedham]

Someone delete the damn post

 

[MarsProbe]

Adding material from other books to extend the length of the story to three movies is a money grab. The story of the Hobbit is complete and could be artfully done in one long film. The new fashion of drawing out movies to multiple parts (Potter, Twilight, etc) is nothing but a way to wring more dough from people pockets. Apologize for Jackson all you want, but the book is the book. Jackson shoving more stuff in from other sources just because he can is blatant. The only reason to add 2 movies worth of extraneous material is to get more cash.

So what would you have preferred? That he only made the Hobbit and left out the other stuff that were part of Tolkien's mythos? That those things got their own movies even though that would only result in the same number of movies in the end only with that setup they don't fit together into 1 narrative? Nothing in this movie is pointless padding. It is all material from the Tolkien mythos that deserves to be put on screen and Jacksson has managed to make it all fit together nicely. It is clear that this was done with the intent of honoring ALL of Tolkien's work and not just to grab some extra cash.

On the topic of the movies itself. I liked it a lot. though I think there are a few too many one-liners. They are good one-liners mind you but I kinda doubt Tolkien envisioned that kind of humor for his whimsical adventure. It also feels like they didn't accomplish much in the end. They introduce 3 major threats and all of them are still around by the end of it, only now the party is closer to the Lonely Mountain than they were before. Still, I loved the characters, I loved the adventure and I got a lot of laughs out of it so I say it is still a great movie.[/quote]

Weird - I got a notification in my inbox saying I got this as a reply to my earlier post and I'm thinking "this response doesn't seem to relate to what I said earlier" then when I get here it leads me to the same post, but as a reply to somebody else's post. Guessing you maybe picked the wrong post to quote then edited it? Or maybe the forums just goofed it up....

 

[Scow2]

I think a lot of the complaints about 48 vs. 24 FPS is people complaining about problems they're told to complain about.

 

[IronMit]

i just saw the film in IMAX 3D- wasn't in 48fps-if that's important...


I have watched a few of this guy's reviews, and i find I don't often agree with him.....but this is spot on!
It is a great movie. I enjoyed every minute of it. It's not the same epic scale, but there's something special about it.It's long but it never dragged for me...in fact it was was just the right length.

Honestly the reviewer who said this was too long the 'P.Jackson dragged out every single comma in the book' type reviewers, sound like impatient 15 year olds to me that have grown up on fast paced action movies. I found myself annoyed at the amount of action and wanted the dialogue scenes to last for longer....and I have become pretty impatient of late myself after watching all these spoon feeding films.


My biggest complaint was the same as this reviewer...that area's where action happened was over done. crazy CGI unrealistic action. I read the book 8 years ago..and i'm pretty sure the 'action' didn't pan out like that...it's forgiveable because it's hollywood and it was expected,but I don't think it was needed...give the audience some more credit...or maybe not lol

also a thank you to the reviewer of mentioning where the extra material came from.
I know some fans may say this in unneccesary ..but the more material the better. I can't get enough of it. Adding extra hints of LOTR's build up from other material is awesome.

 

[dragonburner]

It was good, but it was too damn long. I noticed the length several times during the movie.

 

[Ewyx]

Guess I'm going to chime in. I seem to be the only one here, who wasn't impressed. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It was OK at best. Didn't read the book (Read two LOTR books), never was a huge fan.

I felt like in the 3 hours that I spent in the theater, nothing of substance happened. Some scenes were so annoyingly drawn out, that the CGI seriously started bothering me (The scene with Gollum and Bilbo comes to mind, that was painful to watch really). I couldn't muster up any emotion to care for the dwarves, or their silly quest. Bilbo was the only character that was ok. The rest could die at one point, and I would not care at all. I mean, I know it's hard to characterize 14 dwarves... but still, you have 3 movies. Explore at least a few of those little fuckers. The fight scenes... well they might as well be Bollywood song and dance routines. The ending scene was painful. I really felt the whole movie looked kitschy, again this is because the scenes were drawn out for more than they had to be.

I often felt the movie was trying to be funnier than it was, and I felt that the whole freaking trilogy would be much better as a standalone movie, two parts at best.

 

[bootz]

THIRTEEN DWARFS! There are thirteen Dwarfs MovieBob, not twelve, thirteen. I haven't read the book in years and I know that, they always go on about how Bilbo ups the Dwarfs from thirteen to fourteen in order to avoid the unlucky number.

Also, you're worried about them running out of action for the next two movies? Five words. The Battle of Five Armies.

Ugh, nerd bitching aside, I'm glad to hear that the movie is actually pretty good.

Gandalf isn't a Dwarf!

 

[Daemonate]

-snip-

This is a discussion I would like to have, and I wish more of my friends were as into Tolkien lore as I was.

...one you didn't touch on that really bugged me. Why did Gandalf seem to understand the importance of the ring? When Bilbo is about to pull it out, Gandalf gets his "concerned face" on and changes the subject suddenly. Now, I haven't read the book in a while (yeeears!), but I don't recall that bit at all. I recall Gandalf assuming that it was one of the minor rings forged as a sort of practice in the craft taught by Annatar. I understand why the movie had to recognize the importance of the ring, but why did Gandalf?

Ok I'll bite.

This scene makes perfect sense.

1) As Gandalf implies in the Lord of the Rings - all magic rings, even the ones with minor cantrips invested in them, are all the works of the Noldori and Sauron, and so fairly significant artifacts in their own right.

2) One of Gandalf's abilities was to detect a person lying. When Bilbo compulsively inaccurately related the story about how he acquired the ring, for no real reason, Gandalf's spider-sense alarm bells started ringing.

3) The above is reconfirmed in the Prologue to Fellowship which has Tolkien state that Gandalf "disbelieved Bilbo's story..." and that he "continued to be very curious about the ring..."

4) This makes even more sense when you realise Gandalf was starting to become more deeply enmeshed in ringlore with every passing month, as Saruman was pushing this issue constantly at Council, and the possibility the Nazgul had re-arisen in Dol Guldur was raised, and so forth.

And never forget Gandalf himself was a Ringbearer...

 

[Daemonate]

d

Saw it last night, it was OK not too bad. However, the Tolkien nerd in me was disappointed (once again) at the amount of dramatic license taken with parts of the material. In some cases I sort of get it, and the inclusion of material outside The Hobbit is cool, but other times I'm just left wondering why.

- Radagast never meets Bilbo or the Dwarves - I knew he was going to be in the movie and that's fine, but I was surprised Jackson had them meet up like this.

Radagast was done well. There is almost nothing in the source to go off, but a general vibe which Jackson nailed perfectly.

- Not everybody knows this, and I'll concede it's easy to confuse without extra reading, but goblins and orcs are the same thing. Goblins was just another name applied to the race of Orcs, "Orc" being there proper name. It's why they couldn't go out in the sun, orcs hate that shit (and Sauron wasn't back to his full power). Goblins MIGHT be a name applied to a smaller breed of Orc, but that's debatable.

It's made clear a number of times in the primary works that 'mountain goblins' and 'hobo-goblins' refer to a hardier breed of orc, toughened by their long survival in the wild. They are usually larger in stature to the 'rat-folk' orcs that were bred en-masse in the various war efforts of the Nazgul and Sauron (though of course not to be compared to Uruk-Hai). But yes, they are still orcs.

Other than that I agree, I dislike arbitrary change for change's sake, but I don't mind some tweaks for clarity or the conversion to the visual medium.

ie I lament, but understood and accepted, Tom Bombadil's excision from Fellowship (although I was mollified to learn that Jackson fought to keep him in), but I was appalled at what they did Denethor, Faramir and some other characters.

I differ with you with regard to Legolas, however. I loved what they did with him in the trilogy films. He made the point just how awesome elves actually are meant to be. They aren't faggity-men-folk with pointy ears (in fact I'm not really sure Tolkien elves have pointy ears, but I digress). They simply a higher and more powerful kind of humanity - of strength, ability wisdom and stature simply superior to all other sentient beings. They don't age, die, or suffer disease of any sort. They have a natural affinity with the elements and animals that no other living thing save maybe the ents can compare.

So when Legolas, merely a Silvan elf, drinks Gimli under the table, attains acts of martial and acrobatic prowess beyond the comprehension of other races, and does it all while being more scholarly and learned than anyone except Gandalf, well, that's right folk. Elves are just that awesome. He's a boy-prince, but he's still older than Aragorn by centuries.

Remember, the really impressive elves, the Noldor, performed feats like defeating Balrogs in single combat, creating works of craftsmanship that rival heaven's, or wounding the god of Darkness himself.

 

[Silverspetz]

Weird - I got a notification in my inbox saying I got this as a reply to my earlier post and I'm thinking "this response doesn't seem to relate to what I said earlier" then when I get here it leads me to the same post, but as a reply to somebody else's post. Guessing you maybe picked the wrong post to quote then edited it? Or maybe the forums just goofed it up....

Yeah sorry, that was my blunder. I accidentally pushed the wrong quote button when I was trying to quote the guy above you. I corrected it afterwards and that is why you got a mail saying I had quoted you.

 

[DA_MAISTA]

I saw the movie yesterday, in glorious 24fps 2D, so no issues there. Much to my surprise and contrary to many reviews I found the movie quite enjoyable and not boring at all. A welcome addition to the overall depiction of Middle earth. However, it is certainly true that almost every scene could be shaken vigorously to shorten the movie for about 30 minutes without losing something.

The thing that made me mad (remember, it didn't ruin the movie for me, so I must be really old) was that apparently no director is able to do action scenes anymore.

Radagast was fine, the chase scene utter rubbish, almost as bad as the dark knight rises batwing-atrocity

There is also a certain scene reminiscent of watching a let's play from God of War 3. I'm certain it was filled with lots of inventive and satisfying violence, but I couldn't make out a single bit. And if you take action to outlandish levels, all feeling of jeopardy are lost.

Finally, Gollum was fine. I know Gollum, I love Gollum. He looked better than he ever did. The other CGI characters looked like Shrek. Gothmog was a believable threat, Azog... not so much, And the less is said about the Goblin King, the better.


Overall, quite nice. Kills a sunday afternoon.

 

[freakonaleash]

That is why I have been trying to avoid as much of the Lord of the Rings as possible this year. I have been trying not to go into it with the wrong expectations. I want to see Peter Jackson adaptation of the Hobbit rather than the prequel to the Lord of the Rings if that makes sense.

Some critics have also complained about the heavier use of CGI and lack of practical effects. Is it as much of a problem as some people say?

This might be too late because you might have gone and seen it, but I heard those complaints about the CGI and it did not bother me one bit since the CGI is pretty decent.

 

[The_State]

-snip-

This is a discussion I would like to have, and I wish more of my friends were as into Tolkien lore as I was.

...one you didn't touch on that really bugged me. Why did Gandalf seem to understand the importance of the ring? When Bilbo is about to pull it out, Gandalf gets his "concerned face" on and changes the subject suddenly. Now, I haven't read the book in a while (yeeears!), but I don't recall that bit at all. I recall Gandalf assuming that it was one of the minor rings forged as a sort of practice in the craft taught by Annatar. I understand why the movie had to recognize the importance of the ring, but why did Gandalf?

Ok I'll bite.

This scene makes perfect sense.

1) As Gandalf implies in the Lord of the Rings - all magic rings, even the ones with minor cantrips invested in them, are all the works of the Noldori and Sauron, and so fairly significant artifacts in their own right.

2) One of Gandalf's abilities was to detect a person lying. When Bilbo compulsively inaccurately related the story about how he acquired the ring, for no real reason, Gandalf's spider-sense alarm bells started ringing.

3) The above is reconfirmed in the Prologue to Fellowship which has Tolkien state that Gandalf "disbelieved Bilbo's story..." and that he "continued to be very curious about the ring..."

4) This makes even more sense when you realise Gandalf was starting to become more deeply enmeshed in ringlore with every passing month, as Saruman was pushing this issue constantly at Council, and the possibility the Nazgul had re-arisen in Dol Guldur was raised, and so forth.

And never forget Gandalf himself was a Ringbearer...

Very good points, all, actually. And they all make sense in retrospect. In that brief moment, however, I don't think Bilbo even shows the actual ring. He fumbles in his pocket for a second, then Gandalf interrupts. Now, if he is detecting deception and feels that Bilbo should keep whatever secret he has, that's fine and I'll leave it there.

And I'm not sure if Gandalf counts as a Ringbearer ringbearer, since he never possessed The One. He has Narya, one of The Three, which was not made by Sauron but by Celebrimbor alone.

 

[Furbyz]

So, I was pleasantly surprised that there were...musical numbers. I didn't expect that and thought it was completely awesome. I haven't read much of either the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings (I just can't stand Tolkien's writing style), I do recall that at times they did sing, which is something I never expected to see in the movies.

Now I want to see full on Broadway versions of LOTR...Sondheim get on it.

 

[Daemonate]

-snip-

And I'm not sure if Gandalf counts as a Ringbearer ringbearer, since he never possessed The One. He has Narya, one of The Three, which was not made by Sauron but by Celebrimbor alone.

Well, what I mean is he knows the burden that goes with bearing a Ring of Power, it's bound to make you have a more than passing curiosity in magic rings.

But in the book, I don't believe Gandalf ever saw the ring, but he figured out where Bilbo got his sudden stealth skills out in very short order. The film makes the scene little more ambiguous, doesn't it?