The Big Picture: Is The Hobbit Too Long?

jFr[e]ak93

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I'm fairly convinced this could have had another hour and I would have still loved it.
The opening scene (which is the one that gets the most complaints) was perfect in my opinion.
Of course, I wish the extended cuts were the theatrical cuts for the original trilogy. So maybe I just like it long...
 

Metalrocks

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sure its long, but wile watching it,i was entertained and by the end of the movie, it felt like i watched a 90min movie.

im wondering how long the second part will be. when i think about lord of the rings 3, this was really too long. damn, the ending was just dragging on that even the people in the movies were crying out a bit because we all wanted it to end.
 

jovack22

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Yes the book was shortest, most light-hearted.. but I enjoyed the movie throughout and I for one am looking forward to the next in the series.

Another film that had a ton of empty space was "tree of life"... there's one movie I don't know if I liked or not...
 

Hekler

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Nov 13, 2012
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I have to disagree with Bob on this one.

Almost every scene felt too long.

Props to Jeffers,, he made a great post on page 3 that I agree with.
 

CAPTCHA

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I think that the goblin chase scene went on far too long. I was getting flash backs to that endless dinosaur stampeed scene from King Kong. The whole Rivendell scene could have been cut and nothing of importance would have been lost as well. It was just tying to forshadow the trilogy, which seems kind of pointless, because well, they already made those films and everyone's seen them already.

I actually liked the white orc subplot. It worked well for final battle, giving both the 'out of the frying pan into the fire' chapter from the book and upping the stakes for the continuation of the Azog/Thorin feud.
 

endtherapture

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Urh said:
Mangue Surfer said:
Is one Rivendell scene too long. Serious, the Rivendell "videodcast" really boring me.

"Look you stupid nerd fan boy, characters of the Lord of the Rings cameo, now you can masturbate!"

15 minutes wasted.
I completely agree. A lot of the Rivendell stuff is nothing more than a tie-in to the Lord of the Rings movies. While it's well-shot, interesting fan-wank, it is still pure fan-wank; it does nothing to service the plot of The Hobbit. That Morgul blade that they made such a big deal about will likely never be seen or talked about in the remaining two movies, and yet Gandalf can't seem to STFU about it. Whatever happened to Chekhov's gun? Christopher Lee and Cate Blanchett could have been cut from the movie entirely without any impact at all. I suppose Bob's defense would be "hey, people are paying to see shameless fan-wank! Gotta give people what they want!"
It sets up important plot development for the Necromancer storyline for the next two films, which a lot of people just completely don't understand at all. You being one of them.
 

MetalMagpie

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I'm a software developer, which means I pretty much sit down all day for a living. So it has to be a really long film (over five hours) for me to start feeling uncomfortable!

Which just leaves the question of whether I'm getting bored. I wasn't bored at any point watching The Hobbit, so it wasn't too long for me. But I'm a big fan (of the Hobbit specifically and fantasy in general) so I could watch this stuff all day.

pointless vandalism said:
Was it too long? Yes. Period. He is pulling stuff from the Similarion to pad the story on and milk money from the content. Star wars anyone?
Unfortunately, Peter Jackson could only get funding for The Hobbit if he made at least two films. So the padding out was pretty much essential.

It would have been interesting to see what Peter Jackson's one-film version of The Hobbit might have been, but we aren't getting that version. We're getting this version.
 

MetalMagpie

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scw55 said:
I heard the criticism that some people think it was money grabbing to make it into 3 movies.
I'm afraid it was absolutely money-grabbing!

Peter Jackson originally asked for funding to make a one-film version of The Hobbit. Probably thanks to his more recent films not doing so well (e.g. Kong) he was refused. The only way he could get the budget he wanted was if he made at least two films. Making two films does not cost twice as much as making one, but can still get twice as many ticket sales, so offers more profit for investors. Somewhere along the line, two films morphed into three (whether by pressure from producers or Jackson's own decision, it's hard to say).

So it's completely unfair to say that the decision to make a trilogy was money-grabbing on the part of Peter Jackson, but pretty fair to say that the decision was made on money terms rather than artistic terms.

Personally, I don't mind that we're getting a padded out version. I would have preferred a one-film version. But I'm interested to see what stuff gets added.
 

MetalMagpie

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Lord Hosk said:
There are only 12 dwarves, Fili Kili Thorin Dwalin Ori Gloin Nori Dori Oin Bombur and Balin make for 11, Bifur Bofur are the same dwarf everyone just kept forgetting if it was a I or a O in his name and called him by both names, even Tolkin screwed this up but no one wanted to admit their mistake, Good catch Bob.
Really? I always thought the entire reason for Bilbo coming along was that there were 13 dwarves! As I remember it, they don't want to have a party of 13 because it's an unlucky number. Gandalf isn't part of their party (as he isn't going to accompany them all the way) so he doesn't get counted. Adding Bilbo to the party brings it up to a nice, safe 14.

EDIT Well, there are certainly 13 in the film. Here are pictures of them all: http://americablog.com/2012/12/the-13-hobbit-dwarves-ranked-by-hotness.html
 

Hexley

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Mar 29, 2009
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I personally felt like the movie was playing out in a fashion that felt something like a tv show (albeit much shorter, since it all take place in the same movie), or perhaps some kind of miniseries. The bulk of the movie may be about the journey, but each separate section felt to me like an episode of a very short (very high budget) television episode..
 

smartalec

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Twilight_guy said:
It would take some epic story rewrites to make any of the characters at the council (aside from Gandalf) relevant. The movies have stayed more or less on target so far so I have no reason to think they're going to shoe-horn in some reworking here to make certain elements like Sauron relevant.
Oh, they will. That's certain.

Sauron is a distraction since the villain is Smog talking about Mr. ominous only takes away form the story by taking the threat away from Smog since the big bad is no longer this dragon but this mystery guy who scares even Gandalf while smog only make him a little worried.
Smaug is the main villain of the story, but not for the whole story. I'm guessing they need something to keep things together after Smaug is taken out of the story - structurally, the book falls apart a bit at that point.

Also, I have no idea why they couldn't just identify Sting. Is there any reason for not naming it until later? What possible reason could they have for not identifying it when it is in the book, at the same time as the other swords.
It isn't identified at Rivendell; in the book, Bilbo's sword is genuinely nameless, as in the film. It is just a very old, well-made shortsword (it'd have to be well made; it's over 6000 years old!). Bilbo names it Sting himself after using it to fight the Spiders in Mirkwood. This is why the sword in the Hobbit movie is lacking the elven inscription of its name that it has in the Lord of the Rings movie - Bilbo hasn't had it added yet.
 
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I actually loved the inclusions from the Unfinished Tales and Silimarilion, as well as elements giving background scenes relating the whole thing to LotR. It changed the movie from "a group of dwarves and a hobbit go on an adventure" into something much more complex and inter-whined into the lore. Similarly, no scene that was a part of the original book felt unnecessary. There is no way the movie could make sense to people without the good introduction in the Shire. This is part of Tolkien's way of leading a story.

However, some things that could've been deleted:

- White orc. Really, now? Where did they pull that out from? It completely diminished the power of Uruk-hai. Why did Saruman even bother with genetics if something superior existed before?

- Storm giants. Taking the power of nature metaphor and changing it into a literal fight.

- Radagast. Way too long exposition of his craziness. We could've done without the part at his house and just shown dying forest and him finding the Necromancer's Lair.

With that said, the movie wasn't too long. It was just right.
 

Beliyal

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Jun 7, 2010
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I clearly remember my first thought when the movie ended and I was leaving the theatre. It was "... That was THREE HOURS LONG?!" I honestly couldn't believe how quickly those three hours have passed and the movie never felt like a drag. So, to me, it was not too long. Initially, I thought I'll get fossilized with the chair in the theatre, but in the end, the movie had a really good flow and pacing and I never actually felt like I was sitting for three hours.
 

endtherapture

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wsmieszek said:
- White orc. Really, now? Where did they pull that out from? It completely diminished the power of Uruk-hai. Why did Saruman even bother with genetics if something superior existed before?
Probably just mutations, there were always giant orcs like the Goblin king, Gothmog, Azog and Bolg, he just wanted an entire army of them.
 
Feb 28, 2008
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The part that needed to be cut was that awful opening sequence with Bilbo and Frodo, which served simply as an extended cameo sequence for Elijah Wood. I realise it serves the purpose of sayin "this was written by Biblo in retrospect", but it was so drawn out and ... awkward? Not certain the trip to Rivendell needed to be quite so long, and the flashback to the dwarven attack on Moria could have been accomplished in one scene.

... BUT I never got bored during the film, and I think Bob makes a good point. This is a really, really hard film to cut up and still present coherently. One film is too short, two doesn't cover the ending-then-ending structure and three... well we'll have to wait and see how that works out.
 

Lincoln Thurber

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Jun 6, 2012
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I don't think The Hobbit was too long, I enjoyed every moment of it and could not see much to cut that would not be just as much of a loss as a gain for brevity. I remember seeing Gandhi in 1982/83 when I was 14 years old and being totally engaged in the whole story for all 191 minutes w/intermission. The length as a number in minutes or hours is meaningless, the point is does the entire run time engage your mind or not.
 

Dimitriov

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May 24, 2010
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JoaoJatoba said:
Short answer: no. Long answer: nooooooooo.

To me the length of epic movies such as LotR and The Hobbit helps to create that feeling that the world is big and events take a lot of time to happen... Middle earth is huge, and it took 2 year (I think) to get the ring from the Shire to Mt. Doom.

So the length of such movies enhances that feel of adventure and "epicness".
FYI Frodo left Bag End on September 22nd and the Ring was destroyed on March 25 the following Spring. But I mean think how far you could travel in nearly 4 months (they lost about two months in Rivendell and Lothlorien).

As for the movie, it wasn't too long... it's just that a lot of the scenes were random made up crap fabricated by Peter Jackson for Illúvatar only knows what purpose.

Seriously that white orc chasing them was just stupid crap, and who knows why he felt it was necessary to stick the trees on the edge of a cliff. Yeah, no, being up trees surrounded by wolves, fire and an army of goblins isn't EXCITING enough -_-

j-e-f-f-e-r-s said:
Pretty much agree with everything this guy said.
 

Lord Hosk

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MetalMagpie said:
Lord Hosk said:
There are only 12 dwarves, Fili Kili Thorin Dwalin Ori Gloin Nori Dori Oin Bombur and Balin make for 11, Bifur Bofur are the same dwarf everyone just kept forgetting if it was a I or a O in his name and called him by both names, even Tolkin screwed this up but no one wanted to admit their mistake, Good catch Bob.
Really? I always thought the entire reason for Bilbo coming along was that there were 13 dwarves! As I remember it, they don't want to have a party of 13 because it's an unlucky number. Gandalf isn't part of their party (as he isn't going to accompany them all the way) so he doesn't get counted. Adding Bilbo to the party brings it up to a nice, safe 14.

EDIT Well, there are certainly 13 in the film. Here are pictures of them all: http://americablog.com/2012/12/the-13-hobbit-dwarves-ranked-by-hotness.html

I think you are mistaken, you just have to look at the crew photo to see the subtle trick they did to make you THINK there were 13 dwarves.



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