Hobbit 3 Talk

I've decided never to read reviews or discussions about Star Wars or the Hobbit or Lord the Ring. I'm going to the 3rd Hobbit and I 'm going to pretend I'm12 years old and that I've never seen Lord of the rings or read the books and I'm going to get my popcorn and enjoy the movie without the Nerd-ragefest. And I plan to do the same for Starwars 7.

That's probably the best approach.

I worked at Space Camp in the late 90's and the kids _loved_ Jar Jar. It was all the jaded counselors that were running him down.

Like my mention of the Stone Giants on the last page. I thought it was a bit much, but my son said 'Awesome' when he saw them battling. He also laughed when the Goblin King's body fell on the dwarfs. I am learning to accept these sort of things more in films. Mainly because as I watch more movies with children, we both can enjoy the same flick even if we have personal, different preferences.

I like that quote that Josh Look posted from some comic writer. Something about kids being able to accept the fantasy and go along with the story whereas adults over analyze. Wish I knew the exact phrase now.

This was the first of the trilogy where I left the theater completely satisfied. The first film I thought was awful, but grew on me watching it at home. The second just felt like so much filler and didn't really have an ending. With the third everything comes together as it should. The rescue of Gandalf was great with even Radagast somehow being cool, but especially Galadriel's outburst at the end of it. One of the best scenes in either trilogy actually. Smaug's attack and demise was okay. I haven't read the book in 30 years so forget the details, but it seemed the weakest of the action scenes to me. I'm going to go against the grain and say I ultimately like the Kili/Tauriel story and feel it adds more to the movie than most of the other characters do. The actor playing Thorin had weight, but I have to say Martin Freeman knocked it out of the park in this one. The titular battle was as grand as expected from Peter Jackson. Say what you want about him, but the man knows how to show massive CGI battles. Although he does falter, imo, with the smaller fight scenes and a seeming inability to pull the camera back even a little. Unlike RotK the ending was pretty short here, but does flow towards LotR nicely. I'm definitely looking forward to the extended edition as I've yet to see one I didn't prefer to the theatrical.

That has me pretty excited, thanks for the write up Mad Dog.. I have to say that the love story that bothers everyone so much... you know the ONE love story where so far 6 hours into it they haven't even kissed... It's not really being shoved down my throat and it's all pretty subtle so far.. in other words I have no problems with it and think it actually adds a nice touch. It adds some female presence to a sausage party that is sorely in need of female presence and it's not over the top or anything.

I'm also happy the ending is 'pretty short' in this one. The ending in ROTK was fucking excruciatingly long.

Haven't seen it yet, but my biggest problem with the second movie was ending with Smaug descending on the Laketown. What a tension killer. If Smaug is going to be dealt with at the beginning of the third movie, as a viewer I know everything and everyone is going to be OK.

Same thing with Two Towers and Shelob. In the books you have this big cliff hanger. OMG! Frodo's dead! Or is he? What will happen to the quest? etc. But in the movies it happens at the beginning of the Return of the King, I'm pretty sure the main character will not die in the first 15 mins of a movie that wraps up a trilogy.

JonJacob wrote: That has me pretty excited, thanks for the write up Mad Dog.. I have to say that the love story that bothers everyone so much... you know the ONE love story where so far 6 hours into it they haven't even kissed... It's not really being shoved down my throat and it's all pretty subtle so far.. in other words I have no problems with it and think it actually adds a nice touch. It adds some female presence to a sausage party that is sorely in need of female presence and it's not over the top or anything.

I'm also happy the ending is 'pretty short' in this one. The ending in ROTK was fucking excruciatingly long.

And yet the ending is still shorter than the book!

It was a fun film. How Thorin got Ocrist back was my favorite part. Being that it is a modern blockbuster, you have to go in an turn off parts of your mind to fully enjoy it. But it is a really fun film once you do that. And I had NO idea that was Billy Connolly as Dain.

The first two felt like drawn out videogames to me. I could sneak off and see the third by myself at Imax for 20 bucks, or see it on a smaller screen with Arabic subtitles and people loudly talking on their phones a week later. We saw the first two as a family on Christmas, so I'll probably do that again and won't hate it or love it. It's like a painful mandatory ritual, but different from circumcision.

Battle of Five Armies tomorrow, but Desolation of Smaug last weekend.

I've got to say...I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as An Unexpected Journey on second viewing. For me, there was simply too much action and 'out of the frying pan into the frier' type scenarios. In fact, it seemed like the party was running from each set to only get in more trouble in the next one.

Some random thoughts:

* Oddly enough, my favorite part was the elf/dwarf romance, because in those parts no one was running/being captured and there was actually some dialogue and character development.

* It took forever to get to Smaug, then the encounter wasn't resolved.

* Thorin and Co. gave up on the secret door _way_ too easy. Then, a bit later, Thorin was ready to kill Bilbo if he didn't go back in. Didn't make sense. Went from giving up the quest to wanting to kill for it. Odd

* The Smaug scene started out great, but once the dwarves got involved it became a video game. Thorin riding the barrel in the stream of lava/melted metal seemed to be tailor made for the video game adaptation...much like the conveyor belt scene in Attack of the Clones. Terrible.

* Guards seemed to have eyes all over Laketown...yet no one heard or saw this orc scout party raising a ruckus?

* In the first flick the dwarves sing on two occasions...we can't get a dwarf song in this one? Take out the orcs and elves in the barrel chase scene, and have the dwarves sing a celebratory song as they float the river. Add some comedy bits like a dwarf singing too high/low or not knowing the words. There seemed to be real missed opportunities in adding character to the dwarf party in favor of more action.

* No downtime fun bits, like in AUJ when at Rivendale, Bifor threw the chicken leg to Bombur which added just enough weight to cause the elf char to snap. These sort of parts where JJ mentioned upthread of the characters being funny for each other. There didn't seem to be many light bits at all, so the tone of this one felt more grim.

* I think the LotR trilogy worked because the party was split up and each little group got some screen time. You got to recognize the faces and names. In this one they're all together all the time. One big glob of dwarves.

* Two Towers is my favorite of the LotR because I like the talking head bits. Convincing the ents, meeting with Theoden, etc. This second film didn't really have much of that outside of the minor love story. There was no great lines. No "The Ents are going to war. It is likely that we go to our doom. The last march of the Ents." or Theoden's 'Horse and Rider' speech (My favorite part of all these flicks).

* Unexpected Journey was better for me because it had lots of parts some would deem 'slow', but again I really enjoy those bits. It allows me to drink in the atmosphere of Jackson's middle earth...which is still a good version overall by the way.

* Return of the King is my least favorite of the LotR trilogy because all of the action, I expect I'll feel the same way about the Battle of Five Armies.

* I also dig Freeman's Bilbo, but I'm still partial to Sean Austin's Samwise Gamgee as the premier hobbit.

I dislike these Hobbit movies, but there's no question in my mind that Freeman does an amazing job as Bilbo. It says something about these movies that I love the main character actor and do not like the films. That's fairly rare.

The trilogy is saved!

This flick was great. The only major misstep (besides Smaug not getting the arrow put to him in the second one) was about 20mins where there were these one on one protagonist v antagonist battles. Go back to the battlefield!

Random thoughts:

* The fluidity of the wood elf army to move out of the way and reform whenever Thranduil and Bard would move through them was incredible. Great choreography.

* Thranduil was actually a pretty cool character in these films overall.

* The arrival of Dain was great. Hell, Dain was fantastic every time he was on camera. "Sod off!"

* I really dug how the dwarves formed up in formation to receive the orc charge, and yeah, I thought it was cool when the elves jumped in. This battle was as close as we've ever gotten to Warhammer Fantasy Battles on film. I wanted more of it!

* Richard Armitage did a great job completing Thorin's arc. Again, I find this character more compelling than Aragorn. I think I liked Bard better than Aragorn. I guess I should't be comparing, but I have been and Aragorn was always a bit flat for me.

* It was an odd feeling to be pulling for these dwarves through two films, then finding them on the 'bad guy' end of things for a bit there in the middle.

* Yep, Freeman nails it. The bit with the acorn is the sort of thing that I really dig in these films. The small things.

* Legolas...not sure what I can add to this, but all his antics were forgiven because he finished off Bolg with a ... hurricanrana! Viva La Lucha!

* For being an adaptation of a kid's story, this one was easily the most graphic. Plenty of slow motion deaths and some real horrific events (I'm thinking of Smuag roasting Laketown and its aftermath as well as the orcs attacking Dale where there's really just women and children).

* Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel and Radagst vs the Ring Wraiths was I nice setup for LotR, but what was even neater was how psychedelic it got. Almost like the old Bakshi flick with flashing colors, voices, etc. Just gonzo stuff. Thorin overcoming the dragon sickness was similar.

* This movie does fold very nicely into the LotR. From Frodo going out to meet Gandalf at the beginning of AUJ to Gandalf showing up at the door at the end of BoFA. Nothing lame like how the SW prequels ended (Luke keeping his last name...and hidden on his father's planet!).

I'm looking forward to seeing this one again, and likely I'll do it while it's at the theater.

As a trilogy overall, I'd still rate LotR just a bit higher, because of the huge gaff that is the second film. They really needed to go off the Hobbit book a bit more to make that film work. In the Two Towers the fellowship has been split up, so all the characters get a little face-time. In DoS, all the dwarves are together through most of the flick, so you still don't really get to know any of the others besides the fews main ones from AUJ.

If I had to rank all six at this point...hmmm...maybe:

Two Towers
Fellowship/An Unexpected Journey
Battle of Five Armies
Return of the King
Desolation of Smaug

I know it's cheating putting Fellowship and AUJ as a tie, but they're jocking at the moment. Battle of Five Armies may even move up behind Two Towers in the long run...if only it had some dwarven songs!

Mr. White wrote:
* The fluidity of the wood elf army to move out of the way and reform whenever Thranduil and Bard would move through them was incredible. Great choreography.

!

When your computer turns on and the little swirl appears behind the windows logo, do you find that well choreographed as well?


cool idea to rank the 6.

Fellowship
Return of the King
Two Towers
Desolation of Smaug
Five Armies
An Unexpected Journey

that's about right for me I think.

Black Barney wrote:

Mr. White wrote:
* The fluidity of the wood elf army to move out of the way and reform whenever Thranduil and Bard would move through them was incredible. Great choreography.

!

When your computer turns on and the little swirl appears behind the windows logo, do you find that well choreographed as well?

Ha!

C'mon, man...those weren't cgi elves when Bard walked through them in Dale.

ah, yeah that was their ONLY movement that didn't have CGI, I assumed you were talking about the rest. I liked it when they would switch on and off with their bows, CGI or no.

Thanks for your thoughts Jeff...

I can't rank them yet as I won't see part three until it's out on DVD, but to me... There are only two movies, not six... and if it's done right it may end up feeling like just one. Which is what it should do.