The Hobbit -Spoilers-

Bruce · Post by **Bruce** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 5:22 pm

Reminds me of the "X Totally Copied Y" days of TOP. :D

grayman · Post by **grayman** » Sat Dec 22, 2012 6:51 pm

Gollum At A Wedding

MrMonty · Post by **MrMonty** » Sun Dec 23, 2012 3:23 am

I saw the HFR (High Frame Rate) version today after seeing the normal frame rate last week. I think it was better. There were no downsides, it just looked better.

Personally, my biggest complaint is the useless 3D. Not worth it, adds nothing and the glasses start to pinch my head after hour 2.

Tiosylanyl · Post by **Tiosylanyl** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 12:30 am

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j191/ ... c36ebe.jpg

asthmatic camel · Post by **asthmatic camel** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 12:59 am

Heh. Yes, stick Frodo and ring on Gwaihir the Windlord, fly him to Mount Doom and the job's done.

Too easy for a learned lore-master like Gandalf.

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 2:33 am

MrMonty wrote:I saw the HFR (High Frame Rate) version today after seeing the normal frame rate last week. I think it was better. There were no downsides, it just looked better.

Personally, my biggest complaint is the useless 3D. Not worth it, adds nothing and the glasses start to pinch my head after hour 2.

On the contrary sir, the 3D added about two dollars to the ticket price. So there.

gnome · Post by **gnome** » Thu Jan 24, 2013 4:56 am

Ever since my old "view master" toy, I've sort of had a thing for 3-d imaging. It is rare, however, that it adds significantly to a cinema experience.

I mentioned in another thread an example of a trailer for a nature film. The 3-d effect while looking over a water surface added an incredible immersion. I'm hoping more filmmakers find ways to make it effective.

asthmatic camel · Post by **asthmatic camel** » Sun Jan 27, 2013 11:35 am

I've only seen one 3D movie, The Green Hornet. It wasn't worth it; the only effects that were any good were the credits at the end.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Sun Nov 03, 2013 1:47 am

[video][/video]

Pyrrho · Post by **Pyrrho** » Sun Dec 29, 2013 11:00 pm

Just saw Desolation of Smaug.

Impressive. Most impressive.

Tiosylanyl · Post by **Tiosylanyl** » Sun Dec 29, 2013 11:32 pm

I wanted to like it. I really wanted to like it. Unfortunately, it just doesn't measure up to Jackson's previous work, not to mention that I felt that they tried too hard to add in more material. The scenes with Smaug were the best part, if only because of the CG work and voice acting.

asthmatic camel · Post by **asthmatic camel** » Mon Dec 30, 2013 12:05 am

I suppose I'll have to watch it, just to be sure. I gave up on the first one when Radagast showed up on his rabbit-drawn sleigh, covered in bird shit.

Tiosylanyl · Post by **Tiosylanyl** » Mon Dec 30, 2013 12:24 am

asthmatic camel wrote:I suppose I'll have to watch it, just to be sure. I gave up on the first one when Radagast showed up on his rabbit-drawn sleigh, covered in bird shit.

You'll probably be disappointed then. Near the end I felt like I'd read a different book than Peter Jackson. Again, I understand that filmmaker sneed to have creative license with the material, but it felt like he was trying too hard to add material that just wasn't necessary.

asthmatic camel · Post by **asthmatic camel** » Mon Dec 30, 2013 1:11 am

That's the way I felt about the Lord of the Rings trilogy; too much added, too much left out.

Well made, certainly, but not true to the book.

Tiosylanyl · Post by **Tiosylanyl** » Mon Dec 30, 2013 1:37 am

I can forgive it more in LoTR than I can in The Hobbit.

asthmatic camel · Post by **asthmatic camel** » Mon Dec 30, 2013 1:45 am

As a humble servant of Ilúvatar, the one true God, I forgive nothing.

May Peter Jackson rot in the dungeons of Melkor and then be banished to join his master in the depths of space, chained and shackled until the end of time.

You bastard.

ed · Post by ed » Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:11 am

Maybe it is like Sherlock. The reimagining is superior to the original. Maybe the Hobbit sucked hobo balls.

Pyrrho · Post by **Pyrrho** » Mon Dec 30, 2013 2:22 am

The movie was a fun 2.5 hours on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

The trailers for superhero movies all seemed alike.

This trailer was good for a chuckle.

Spoiler:

asthmatic camel · Post by **asthmatic camel** » Mon Dec 30, 2013 3:07 am

ed wrote:Maybe it is like Sherlock. The reimagining is superior to the original. Maybe the Hobbit sucked hobo balls.

I tend to disagree. If Peter Jackson and his team of writers were really creative, they'd have written their own story instead of fucking up two classics.

YMMV

Pyrrho · Post by **Pyrrho** » Tue Dec 31, 2013 8:00 pm

Spoiler:

Grammatron · Post by **Grammatron** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 5:30 am

Tiosylanyl wrote:I wanted to like it. I really wanted to like it. Unfortunately, it just doesn't measure up to Jackson's previous work, not to mention that I felt that they tried too hard to add in more material. The scenes with Smaug were the best part, if only because of the CG work and voice acting.

Very well put.

I also hate how they keep foreshadowing LOTR when it takes place decades later and has nothing to do with the current story.

whitefork · Post by **whitefork** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 11:27 am

Untestable claim: If Tolkien was still alive he would still be rewriting the books and tinkering with his languages.
Tell me this: what's the story with Lobelia Sackville-Baggins's son Lotho the Pimple? 2 passing mentions in Fellowship of the Ring and in the Scouring of the Shire he's suddenly The Chief under Saruman.
Tolkien needed an editor and a couple of rewrites. Now everything is Holy Writ.
Don't get me started on "Earendil was a mariner...".
I loved The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and read them many times since whenever. When The Silmarillion came out it was a terrible disappointment. There's stories in here but they're buried in crap. At that point the flaws in the Lord of the Rings became very hard for me to deal with.
The Lampoon parody is deadly accurate.

asthmatic camel · Post by **asthmatic camel** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 12:19 pm

Not all that untestable; Tolkien himself admitted that he saw many flaws in TLOR.

The most critical reader of all, myself, now finds many defects, minor and major, but being fortunately under no obligation either to review the book or to write it again, he will pass over these in silence, except one that has been noted by others: the book is too short.

I'd agree that the Silmarillion was disappointing, but it was largely cobbled together by Tolkien's son, Christopher and probably not what the great man would have wanted published. We shall never know.

I don't have a problem with Lotho and the Scouring of the Shire, neither did Tolkien. (Peter Jackson obviously did, disregarding that part of the book entirely.)

One has indeed personally to come under the shadow of war to feel fully its oppression; but as the years go by it seems now often forgotten that to be caught in youth by 1914 was no less hideous an experience than to be involved in 1939 and the following years. By 1918 all but one of my close friends were dead. Or to take a less grievous matter: it has been supposed by some that ‘The Scouring of the Shire’ reflects the situation in England at the time when I was finishing my tale. It does not. It is an essential part of the plot, foreseen from the outset, though in the event modified by the character of Saruman as developed in the story without, need I say, any allegorical significance or contemporary political reference whatsoever. It has indeed some basis in experience, though slender (for the economic situation was entirely different), and much further back. The country in which I lived in childhood was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when motor-cars were rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still building suburban railways.

whitefork · Post by **whitefork** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 12:44 pm

The Scouring of the Shire feels pretty tacked on for something Tolkien felt was essential. On every reading I asked "where the fuck did that come from? where's the foreshadowing?"
Jackson gave a lot of emphasis to the presence of pipe weed in Isengard but didn't do anything with it. I don't know, I guess my time for real enjoyment from Tolkien is long past.
I should probably read his Fall of Arthur and Sir Gawain translations, Sigurd and Gudrun.

It was Tolkien who get me interested in linguistics. I am grateful for that. (going beyond "vowels good, consonants bad").

ed · Post by ed » Fri Jan 03, 2014 1:09 pm

whitefork wrote:The Scouring of the Shire feels pretty tacked on for something Tolkien felt was essential. On every reading I asked "where the fuck did that come from? where's the foreshadowing?"
Jackson gave a lot of emphasis to the presence of pipe weed in Isengard but didn't do anything with it. I don't know, I guess my time for real enjoyment from Tolkien is long past.
I should probably read his Fall of Arthur and Sir Gawain translations, Sigurd and Gudrun.

It was Tolkien who get me interested in linguistics. I am grateful for that. (going beyond "vowels good, consonants bad").

I re-read LOTR recently and still enjoyed it. I think that it is a question of keeping your expectations in line.

whitefork · Post by **whitefork** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 1:29 pm

very true but It should have been much better. That's my complaint.

MrMonty · Post by **MrMonty** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 1:50 pm

I agree with Pyrrho, an enjoyable 2.5 hours. I'm trying to learn to stop being so critical so I can simply enjoy the movie.

That being said. My biggest beef was with the total disregard for thermodynamics with respect to the heating of molten metal and the transference of that heat into nearby dwarf flesh.

whitefork wrote:The Scouring of the Shire feels pretty tacked on for something Tolkien felt was essential. On every reading I asked "where the fuck did that come from? where's the foreshadowing?"
Jackson gave a lot of emphasis to the presence of pipe weed in Isengard but didn't do anything with it. I don't know, I guess my time for real enjoyment from Tolkien is long past.

Didn't Sam foresee the Scouring of the Shire in the Mirror of Galadriel? I believe he said something like "What's old Sandyman chopping down trees for?"
Wasn't the whole point of pipe weed in Isengard an indication that Saruman has had connections in the Shire for some time, foreshadowing his appearance there later?

I still enjoy rereading Tolkien, and other fantasy. Kind of glad I do. Makes me feel not quite so old.

ed · Post by ed » Fri Jan 03, 2014 1:59 pm

asthmatic camel wrote:
ed wrote:Maybe it is like Sherlock. The reimagining is superior to the original. Maybe the Hobbit sucked hobo balls.
I tend to disagree. If Peter Jackson and his team of writers were really creative, they'd have written their own story instead of fucking up two classics.

YMMV

See, I don't think that they fucked them up. I think that they clarified, streamlined and enhanced the storyline. Thats what happens to stories, they get built upon. Look at Beowulf. In the last 15 years or so there were 3 versions and each one was different and different from the original. They were all good. Same with Sherlock Holmes. Got no problem with a different take if the quality is good.

Jackson is a businessman whose area of expertise is film manufacturing. It would have been madness for him to go off on his own if he had access to the rights to LOTR. He should be proud of his take on LOTR, the Hobbit, not so much.

whitefork · Post by **whitefork** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 2:13 pm

let's talk fucking with a real classic: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1959490/

asthmatic camel · Post by **asthmatic camel** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 2:35 pm

whitefork wrote:The Scouring of the Shire feels pretty tacked on for something Tolkien felt was essential. On every reading I asked "where the fuck did that come from? where's the foreshadowing?"
Jackson gave a lot of emphasis to the presence of pipe weed in Isengard but didn't do anything with it. I don't know, I guess my time for real enjoyment from Tolkien is long past.
I should probably read his Fall of Arthur and Sir Gawain translations, Sigurd and Gudrun.

It was Tolkien who get me interested in linguistics. I am grateful for that. (going beyond "vowels good, consonants bad").

Aragorn becomes concerned at finding pipeweed from the Shire at Isengard and mentions it to Gandalf. Elrond doesn't want Merry and Pippin to go on the quest as he is also concerned that all is not well in the Shire and would have preferred them to go home with a warning. And yes, Sam does foresee shenanigans in Galadriel's mirror.

Hardly "tacked on".

whitefork · Post by **whitefork** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 2:53 pm

I'll take all that back.

Cool Hand · Post by **Cool Hand** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 3:18 pm

whitefork wrote:very true but It should have been much better. That's my complaint.

Shit, that's my complaint about virtually everything I enjoy.

CH

whitefork · Post by **whitefork** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 3:50 pm

maybe this will serve as a counterexample. in my opinion the clarinet quintet is unimprovable.
http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Clarinet-Q ... T+CLARINET

DrMatt · Post by **DrMatt** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 4:53 pm

I thought 3D was for pron, same as the internet.

whitefork · Post by **whitefork** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 5:25 pm

I don't know what the theatres are like in Ann Arbor but we don't get that much here.

And today being JRRT's birthday, I'll back off on my criticism.

MrMonty · Post by **MrMonty** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 7:44 pm

btw, with this being the second time I've seen an HFR movie. I again highly recommend the HFR version. To me it's almost like going from SD to HD.

HFR == "High Frame Rate" for you Luddites who can't bother to Google it.

asthmatic camel · Post by **asthmatic camel** » Fri Jan 03, 2014 10:10 pm

ed wrote:
asthmatic camel wrote:
ed wrote:Maybe it is like Sherlock. The reimagining is superior to the original. Maybe the Hobbit sucked hobo balls.
I tend to disagree. If Peter Jackson and his team of writers were really creative, they'd have written their own story instead of fucking up two classics.

YMMV

See, I don't think that they fucked them up. I think that they clarified, streamlined and enhanced the storyline. Thats what happens to stories, they get built upon. Look at Beowulf. In the last 15 years or so there were 3 versions and each one was different and different from the original. They were all good. Same with Sherlock Holmes. Got no problem with a different take if the quality is good.

Jackson is a businessman whose area of expertise is film manufacturing. It would have been madness for him to go off on his own if he had access to the rights to LOTR. He should be proud of his take on LOTR, the Hobbit, not so much.

For a really good listen, I highly recommend the BBC radio play by Brian Sibley and Michael Bakewell. There are some outstanding performances from first-rate actors, especially Peter Woodthorpe as Smeagol. It remains very close to the book, although even Sibley and Bakewell left out the Old Forest, Bombadil and the barrow wight, which is a shame. Next to this, Peter Jackson's efforts appear amateurish.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 11:30 am

I saw The Hobbit a couple days ago. (Not the Desolation of Smaug, the first one) Rented the blu-ray.

Then my son wanted me to rent The Fellowship of the Ring again. Just watched that again today. I have to say I still like that one better than The Hobbit. (Only talking about the movies, not the books here, which I read long ago).

It was kind of meh imho. I guess it was faithful enough to the book, although Radaghast with the bird shit on his face and the sled pulled by fucking rabbits was a bit weird. The escape from the goblins was also a bit too overwrought. The part with Gollum was almost completely in the dark in the book. I suppose that doesn't work on a movie screen so they added lighting.

I did like the bits in The Shire and Rivendell.

Doctor X · Post by **Doctor X** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 11:34 am

But were there homicidal lolis?

Oh . . . sorry . . . wrong thread.

--J.D.

Anaxagoras · Post by **Anaxagoras** » Sun Jan 05, 2014 11:34 am

asthmatic camel wrote:For a really good listen, I highly recommend the BBC radio play by Brian Sibley and Michael Bakewell. There are some outstanding performances from first-rate actors, especially Peter Woodthorpe as Smeagol. It remains very close to the book, although even Sibley and Bakewell left out the Old Forest, Bombadil and the barrow wight, which is a shame. Next to this, Peter Jackson's efforts appear amateurish.

Apples and oranges. Radio vs. a movie.

As far as LOTR or The Hobbit movies go, I think Jackson's efforts are the best I've seen.