Has anyone else seen it yet? What did you make of it?
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Has anyone else seen it yet? What did you make of it?
The movie was excellent. The usual style of creating the world was maintained and immersive. The HFR was a poor choice, and I hope it dies quickly.
Apparently it's the wave of the wave of the future.
I saw it in 2D.
Good points: I thought the casting was excellent, especially Martin Freeman as Bilbo. The scenes that stuck close to the book were well done, including the whole opening—the dwarfs visit and the recruitment of our hero, that is. The finding of the ring and confrontation with Gollum was excellent as well. Another good element was the attempt to craft the movie as a prequel to the trilogy by introducing scenarios mentioned in passing in the trilogy but never developed there. For example, the first hints of the return of Sauron to Mirkwood, which were discussed retrospectively by Gandalf at the Council of Elrond, are featured, along with a meeting of the White Council in response to it (with appearances by Saruman and Galadriel). This adds some gravitas to the otherwise lighter tone of The Hobbit. There is also a less than thoroughly convincing attempt to explain Gandalf's seemingly arbitrary choice to send Bilbo on an adventure. The wizard Radagast is given a fair amount of screen time—a good idea in principal but, unfortunately, he came off as a kind of schizophrenic Santa Claus with rabbits pulling his sleigh instead of reindeer. It will come as no surprise that the scenery, costumes and some of the CGI work are wonderful.
Egregious stupidity and bad ideas: Jackson et alia apparently decided they needed some sort of personalized villain so they introduce a gigantic super orc with a grudge. (This has some justification in the family history of Thorin's ancestors, which doesn't help one bit.) Laughable and, unfortunately, destined to return throughout the whole three-movie cycle. Nearly all of the action scenes were abysmally bad, studies in how to make frenetic action meaningless and boring (not quite as bad as the Matrix sequels but bad nonetheless). After about ten seconds of fighting with goblins it becomes clear that the principals are impervious to all physical threats and indeed to the laws of physics, with the result that there is no sense of danger or suspense—like some hyperactive and asinine video game rather than real action. The worst bit of all was a battle of rock giants high in the Misty Mountains. In the book this scenario was vaguely guessed at, the perceptions of an unreliable narrator peering into the dark during a storm. In the movie it is interpreted in the most literalistic fashion, with huge, Transformer-like giants. The dwarfs end up on the knees of these beings during the battle and yet somehow come out unscathed. This whole bit is indescribably stupid. The realm of the goblins in the mountain looks like something out of Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom—huge bridges and elaborate structures built from wood and rope, despite the fact that the raw materials could not possibly exist in that locale. Moronic. What is depressing about this is that they could have made a much better movie for half the cost by simply making realistic action scenes.
How's Jackson getting away with making this a three-parter? It hardly needs 7-8 hours screen time to cover the book. Someone likes milking the ca$h.
I'm glad it's in 3 parts. It means 3x as much awesome dwarvish ***-kicking action :D
"The Hobbit" is a long journey, having been stretched into three films, but this is hardly "unexpected". The movie is called "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey". "Unexpected" -- simply ridiculous given the movie's publicity -- is not in the title of the book. The Book is entitled, "The Hobbit or There and Back Again". There and Back Again is perfect for the understated, conversational tone of the novel.
The entire tone of "The Hobbit" was wrong. One problem: because the movie came AFTER LOTR, instead of before, it made understatement practically impossible. In the novel, there is no intimation that Bilbo's magic ring is of earth-shaking importance. It's good for invisiblity -- but not much (as far as the reader is aware) beyond that. When Bilbo finds it, one sentence is devoted to the finding. In the movie, the ring spins in slow motion through space, while LOTR theme music surges. It's the wrong mood.
I won't even bother complaining about the endless battles scenes, that didn't even occur in the novel. Of course a short, children's book is going to last for hour after hour if it's padded like that. The movie looked like a video game, not a film.
ON the positive side, they got half of the riddles right -- and that's one of the best scenes in the book.
I think only 2 of the 3 movies are going to be adaptations of The Hobbit, the third film is going to function as a bridge between The Hobbit and LotR that will be based on the appendixes from the latter work.
I saw it last night. It was reasonable, though I did not think it quite held up to the other films. And I would much rather they had cut some of the padding - I was very concious of the fact that at several points it was clear they were simply stretching matters. I agree with a lot of the stuff Wyatt says up there, but I'll break it down slightly:
Good stuff: Martin Freeman is excellent as Bilbo, and some of the supporting cast turn in superb performances - including some superb acting from Ian McKellan and Andy Serkis. I was dreading Barry Humphries as the Goblin King, but actually his performance was a surprise highlight. The meeting of the White Council worked well: Saruman and Galadriel did not seem out of place and added some wonderful dimensions to Gandalf's character; Hugo Weaving's Elrond has improved dramatically since the first trilogy. Furthermore, the design of the film is superb, particularly the two large setpiece locations: Erebor and the Goblin settlement in the Misty Mountains are beautifully realised, and though only briefly seen the aesthetic of Dol Guldur was extremely effective. The fight between the storm giants, though rather overplayed, was also visually impressive. Finally, the 'Riddles in the Dark' section of the book was very well done, even if, as my friend remarked, it wasn't actually in the dark.
Bad stuff: This going to sound overcritical, but here I go. The two worst things about the film are Radagast and Azog. Radagast was portrayed as a hyperactive mushroom-addled cretin, who spent much of the movie performing a variety of crazed slapstick - not least of which was his ridiculous sled pulled by high-speed bunny rabbits; this was a departure too far from the legendarium for me. Radagast, though he may not posses Gandalf's sense of power or Saruman's imperiousness, is nevertheless dignified and wise, a suitable representative of the divine will he represents. Azog (who is mentioned only once in the novel, and is dead before it starts) is an orc with vendetta against Thorin - a substantial amount of the film is given over to him, and he is made into the chief antagonist; his presence adds nothing to the film, in no way develops any of the other characters, and is clearly just there to serve until Smaug (or indeed the Necromancer) have more active roles. The chap who plays Thorin seems a decent actor, but his characterisation is rather too different from the novel: he is too young and good looking, and very conciously shaped into an action hero; Thorin is old, proud and grim - this does not come across here sadly. Another substantial criticism is that the film is far too conciously aimed at children; whilst it is true that the novel is aimed at a younger audience than tLotR, it is still a sophisticated and subtle work of high intelligence - the film had too many over-the-top kiddie fight scenes and slapstick humour.
On the whole, not too bad - but there are important flaws that I hope they will address in the next film.
This sounds quite promising—can't wait to see how they screw it up.:) I would think there is plenty of material for this third of three in the back-stories aired at the Council of Elrond and elsewhere: The White Council and its dealings with the Necromancer, Gollum's interrogation in Mordor and his initial encounter with Shelob, Aragorn and Gandalf pursuing Gollum across Middle Earth, Balin et alia trying to reclaim Moria, Thrain's loss of one of the seven in Dol Guldur—no end of material.Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
When I came home from the movies I found my Hobbit book cause it's been years since I read it and went through a chunk of it and decided that the movie was good, not great but good. Martin Freeman was great and the dwarfs surprised me. I didn't like Radagast but I have to read the book again to give a complete answer as to why, I liked him in the book. There were a few things that seemed to be there just to add to the excitement and like in LotR a few to many shots of the ring, although it was kinda cool to see Bilbo in the exact same scene as Frodo with the ring. Gollum of course was cool. Cumberbatch (I have no idea if I spelled it right) is my favorite 'new' actor so I am looking forward to seeing his double part in this.