Topic: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

WARNING - Spoilers!

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I've now seen Hobbit 3 in both 24fps IMAX and 48fps HFR. Despite it being visually non-cinematic, I actually prefer the HFR version because you can see more detail, the action is smoother, the image sharper. You get used to the look pretty soon. The HFR doesn't suit every genre, but this trilogy that has so much over-the-top production design, HFR is worth a look.

Some observations about The Hobbit 3 & the trilogy in general:

•    The opening sequence of Smaug attacking Laketown was awesome, only undermined by a bit of lame humour with Stephen Fry. Stephen Fry is not a villain and the audience is not rooting for his death. The tone here should have been unrelenting menace from the impressive Smaug. This is a catastrophic blitz from a massive dragon as he strafes the wooden town. Throw-away gag humour is not needed at this point.
•    Alfrid (the deputy under Fry) is over-used "comic relief" and cringeworthy, dangerously close to becoming Jar Jar. Instead of one or two opportunities to tell us that Alfred is a slimy coward, Jackson gives us about seven. That's what editing is for! The humour wears thin. Bard cuts him way too much slack and Bard’s generosity is not justified by any redemptive (save the cat) moment by Alfrid.
•    Tauriel and Kili. Lilly does her best with the material and gives a great performance under the circumstances. Poise and elegance and cheekbones. But I don’t buy the ‘love’ story. It’s a pay-off that doesn’t work because it isn’t earned. Given that Tauriel is not canon and doesn’t appear in LOTR, perhaps her character should have been killed off, saving Kili or Legolas or Thranduil or someone.
•    Battle sequences: in short, fantastic. A couple of great moments e.g. the elves jumping over the in-formation dwarves in slow-mo, and the eagles swooping down on the second Orc army. Too little Beorn though. There's an extra 30 minutes coming in the EE November 2015. The actual hand-to-hand fighting gets pretty dull after a while, especially in this bloodless PG13 incarnation. Giant armoured Orcs seems to go down with just a tap.
•    CGI: overall it’s impressive what can be achieved given that 95% of this was on a green screen soundstage at Stone Street Studios. But nevertheless, there is an artificiality about it.
•    The boss Orcs (Azog and Bolg) have great physicality. Props to Lawrence Makoare, who was impressive in the original LOTR as head henchman wherever needed, and drove Bolg’s performance here. Bolg’s look with metal 'skin' grafts is imaginatively twisted. And when Azog dies, he looks completely solid.
•    The creature design of the giant trolls, (and 'sandworms'!), is great. As in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, WETA’s creature work can steal the limelight from the humans. A few great gags, such as headbutting the wall and falling over, which got a laugh. Thranduil's steed collecting five orcs for a mass decapitation was also a hoot.
•    Thranduil – haughty charisma, high camp. Lee Pace did a good job, but the final resolutions with Tauriel and Legolas were unsatisfying.
•    White Council swing into action – finally. Galadriel cranks it up to 11, but like a computer game her ‘manna’ is depleted rapidly by a god-spell.
•    Dwarves: most of the company get no speaking lines. We still don’t know them after more than 8 hours. No excuse for that. For some strange reason Dwalin gets an emotional scene with Thorin, when he’s supposed to be the strong silent type. That could have been better given to Balin or one of the others. Kili declares he's not going to stand around waiting out the battle, while standing around waiting out the battle.
•    Thorin – Richard Armitage imbues Thorin with presence. Great baritone voice, great look, great heavy metal hair (enhanced by slow mo and wind machines) and armoured costume. But the way the character is written throughout the trilogy is terrible. Now he’s a dick, now he’s a leader, now he’s a dick again, now he’s a leader. Especially his schizophrenic relationship with Bilbo. Why are we sad when he dies? Why is Bilbo sad? Thorin spent most of the trilogy trash-talking Bilbo.
Too much dragon-sickness moments with Thorin and how/why does he suddenly overcome it? Why does Thorin seem to give up just before Azog is driving the sword in?
•    Legolas – ascending on falling stones? Really? He’s an elf so that’s how. Whatever. But what is Legolas doing when Thorin has his final fight on the ice with Azog? Legloas has just defeated Bolg on the horizontal tower just below the ice lake, and should be now free to assist Thorin. But Thorin is left to fight Azog for the next ten minutes alone. What’s Legolas doing during this time? Having a beer?
And after six movies, the writers finally think they have to contrive some sort of character arc for Legolas... so they suddenly make him hung up over his mother, with a one-line set-up and a half-hearted one-line pay-off resolution.
•    Martin Freeman. I can’t read him. He’s opaque or repressed. Bilbo never seems to be enjoying himself, even at moments you’d expect him to. I suspect Freeman’s range is not that great and judging from the behind-the-scenes, he’s treating the whole experience as a bit of a joke. There’s a scene when he’s sitting next to Gandalf who’s lighting a pipe, and it’s just a sustained blank look. I’m surprised Freeman passed his audition tests, if he was given any.
•    Mithril vest – why doesn’t everyone wear one? Seems pretty handy. Thorin sure could have done with one.
•    Ring – why doesn’t Bilbo wear the (what he thinks is an) invisibility ring all the time during battle? And into Dale.
•      The ending - it in no way wraps up as nicely as Return of the King. We could have done without the silly auction. Hanging up some souvenirs from the journey would have been better (allowing flashbacks). But there's more still to come.
•      The score - mostly just dissonant battle music. Like the movies themselves, a pale imitation of the original trilogy.
•      No one last glimpse of Gollum? No bridging scenes between Hobbit and LOTR as originally speculated. That would have been more interesting. Nice to see Ian Holm's Bilbo one last time, who has a more more expressive face.

In summary: it's a big-screen spectacle, with much to enjoy. But given the very high benchmark of the LOTR, the Hobbit trilogy ultimately disappoints, let down by poor characterization, bloat-scenes expanding a 300 page book into 8+ hours, and over-reliance on green-screen instead of locations.

Last edited by avatar (2014-12-20 12:32:41)

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

Wow.  I agree with (almost) every point.  We should hang out.

None of which is to say that I wasn't entertained by the whole thing - I absolutely was.  As you say, the bar was set so high with the first trilogy that we tend to take all the stuff that's still awesome for granted. 

Hobbit 3 didn't blow my mind, but it was fun and had numerous great moments and what the heck, that's all I really ask of a movie.

Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

avatar wrote:

•    Dwarves: most of the company get no speaking lines. We still don’t know them after more than 8 hours. No excuse for that. For some strange reason Dwalin gets an emotional scene with Thorin, when he’s supposed to be strong silent type. That could have been better given to Balin or one of the others. Fili declares he's not going to stand around waiting out the battle, while standing around waiting out the battle.

My memory of the book was that Balin was my favorite dwarf, which is what made the discovery in Moria so heartbreaking. Sad to hear the movie's not giving him much to do.

•    Ring – why doesn’t Bilbo wear the (what he thinks is an) invisibility ring all the time during battle? And into Dale.

In the book I thought he did, hiding for the entire battle until he's knocked unconscious. Or maybe that's just the old animated version.

I write stories! With words!
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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

I will add my thoughts here, with more to follow later.

First of all, it is a fun ride, and gets pretty intense from the beginning and moving in to the battle proper. There are several good character beats, especially for Thorin, who goes from more likable to being selfish and paranoid, which is honestly an interesting look in to the mental state of the character, something not really done in LOTR, save for Frodo. Balin and Dwalin have great moments too, in my opinion, showing their closeness and love of Thorin and their devastation at his fall like his grandfather.

The CGI is more polished, from what I could tell-I really don't have an idea on those things. The only glaring point was Legolas, but that was it. I echo avatar in that Azog and Bolg really came out well, as did Sauron and the Nazgul, which appear as specters.

I think that it is well done, and a lot of fun, but I am hoping the EE expands more upon Beorn, Dol Guldur and some other things. There was a lot that let me down, not in the diminished enjoyment, but things I would do differently. Kind of reflections upon the trilogy as a whole.

It's worth at least one watch, in my opinion.

God loves you!

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

Jackson made a big point about filming in 3D HFR, and "future-proofing" the Hobbit movies. I'm confident that 20 years from now, LOTR will hold up visually better than the Hobbit will. Was Dain CG? He looked so fake in his introduction that I wanted to just leave. Azog did look very real in his death scene, but I never thought Bolg looked any good. Just a silly cartoon.

Avatar made great points, and I agree with most of them, but I actually thought Freeman's Bilbo was one of the best parts of this movie. He gave me my only chuckle: his reaction when Thranduil confronted him about the incidents in Mirkwood. Maybe he would have been a less fascinating part of a great movie, but this was no great movie.

I'm not a purist, but only a fraction of the events of this movie were represented in the book in any way. This isn't a problem if the movie turns out great, but in this case, it's just a crappy rewrite.

Mr. Shore, what happened? So many beats didn't land due to a score that couldn't find the right tone.

This movie was missing some establishing shots. Up on the pillar where Thorin went to meet Azog, the dwarves split up and they kept cutting between them; on the move, without establishing where they were. I didn't need a geolocation, but I needed more information than just a head shot with a sky in the background. In fact I found a lot of the editing choices in this film appalling. How many honest and trustworthy eyes saw cuts of this movie before its release?

All in all, I find myself a bit saddened by how these films turned out. I had hoped for the best, and I even had myself convinced for a while that AUJ was much better than it is (It's still the only one of the three I find tolerable). I was pretty young when Episode I came out, and I didn't grow up with Star Wars, so I guess I can say that Peter Jackson is my George Lucas. I spent most of BotFA pondering what happened to him– where his senses went. LOTR was certainly no fluke, so I've got no explanation for it all.

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

Sam F wrote:

Jackson made a big point about filming in 3D HFR, and "future-proofing" the Hobbit movies. I'm confident that 20 years from now, LOTR will hold up visually better than the Hobbit will. Was Dain CG? He looked so fake in his introduction that I wanted to just leave. Azog did look very real in his death scene, but I never thought Bolg looked any good. Just a silly cartoon.

Avatar made great points, and I agree with most of them, but I actually thought Freeman's Bilbo was one of the best parts of this movie. He gave me my only chuckle: his reaction when Thranduil confronted him about the incidents in Mirkwood. Maybe he would have been a less fascinating part of a great movie, but this was no great movie.

I'm not a purist, but only a fraction of the events of this movie were represented in the book in any way. This isn't a problem if the movie turns out great, but in this case, it's just a crappy rewrite.

Mr. Shore, what happened? So many beats didn't land due to a score that couldn't find the right tone.

This movie was missing some establishing shots. Up on the pillar where Thorin went to meet Azog, the dwarves split up and they kept cutting between them; on the move, without establishing where they were. I didn't need a geolocation, but I needed more information than just a head shot with a sky in the background. In fact I found a lot of the editing choices in this film appalling. How many honest and trustworthy eyes saw cuts of this movie before its release?

All in all, I find myself a bit saddened by how these films turned out. I had hoped for the best, and I even had myself convinced for a while that AUJ was much better than it is (It's still the only one of the three I find tolerable). I was pretty young when Episode I came out, and I didn't grow up with Star Wars, so I guess I can say that Peter Jackson is my George Lucas. I spent most of BotFA pondering what happened to him– where his senses went. LOTR was certainly no fluke, so I've got no explanation for it all.

Now that we've had time to digest the third one, we're just about ready for a post-mortem on what went wrong.

Here's a couple of suggestions:

1. The book. Having 13 dwarves (plus Bilbo and Gandalf) is just too many. Tolkien didn't flesh them out either. No screenwriter would assemble his protagonists like that. This wasn't aided by Jackson's adaptation that didn't attempt to give them special skills or their 'moment in the sun'. There was time enough to give them personalities. A good writer only needs a five minute scene to make someone memorable. 13 x 5 = 65 minutes (out of 8 hours). On top of that, half the dwarves didn't look like dwarves, but 'hot men'.
2. Tone difference between The Hobbit and LOTR books. One's for children, one's for adults. And The Hobbit was rewritten by Tolkien in a second edition to make it more a prequel to LOTR (it was never the original intention). In hindsight, one should have begun filming The Hobbit first and built up from there in stakes and epic scope. Having invincible heroes put through physics-free gag after gag throughout endless action sequences undermines any tension.
3. Jackson is now God, showered with umpteen Oscars, and unlimited budget and years of production time and his own private studios. Probably surrounded by a thousand 'yes men'. Carte blanche is never healthy in Hollywood, rarely ending well. Lucas had the same 'problem' - a victim of his own success. He's also in his 50s, rather than late 30s, so there's a loss of creativity with age (same with Howard Shore who literally phoned it in from Canada).
4. Judging by the behind-the-scenes, Jackson's film-making process now seems like an automated assembly line. Through sheer brute force (throw enough cameras & second-unit directors & takes & money & time) at a scene and you'll eventually get something useable.
5. From Fellowship to Battle of the Five Armies - the green-screen kept encroaching more and more.
6. The decision to expand the movies from two to three undermined the emotional beats and pacing.
7. The writing for Thorin just wasn't good enough. He needed to be more consistent and have an overall arc.
8. The acting from Freeman just didn't cut it (in my opinion anyway), compared with Frodo and Sam.
9. Tauriel turned out to not be a complete disaster, but the 'love story' with the dwarf didn't convince.
10. The return actors from LOTR didn't have enough to do for the plot: Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Gollum, Legolas.

But there are positives. It wasn't an unmitigated cluster-fuck.

1. The Riddles in the Dark scene with Gollum was great.
2. Smaug was bloody impressive - both inside Erebor and over Laketown.
3. A few action gags were entertaining: barrel roll of the fat dwarf, etc.
4. Richard Armitage gave Thorin real screen presence.
5. The production design was, as usual, extremely high.
6. The spider sequence was well done.
7. The creature design: Goblin king, giant trolls, Gollum, Azog, Bolg, wargs, Beorn, etc were mostly solid.
8. In 8 hours of score, there are about 30-40 minutes of nice cues.

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

I had the strange impression during the opening Lake town scene of everyone trying to "get back in the groove", for lack of a better term. I haven't watched DOS since theaters but I just felt this strange air of none of the actors buying into the proceedings at all, which diminished after that point and I had also not felt in the previous installments. I don't know if it's just me or if I'm doing a terrible job of articulating this.

Overall, this one felt torturous. I was so thoroughly disappointed by AUJ, as I think most sane people were, that, with extremely lowered expectations, I did manage to enjoy DOS and all of its excesses. But this one seemed to crank of the issues of these films, and Jackson's filmmaking style in general up to 11. The most enjoyment I've gotten from these films is seeing Legolas perform ridiculous CGI stunts, as that seems to be one of the only qualities these films share with LOTR.

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

I plan on doing a full audio recording regarding my thoughts on Battle of Five Armies, and the Hobbit trilogy as a whole, but, in my opinion, AUJ is the least disappointing of the three, because I think it strikes the right tone of the books. DOS felt closer to LOTR in terms of tone, but added too many characters, and BOTFA became too clunky as a result.

There are some great character moments in BOTFA but there are too many characters for the story to be smooth sailing. In addition, and I'm no expert, but having to introduce Dain, and Gundubad and bats and sand worms-well, Avatar put it correctly-it feels bloated.

But, I will not hold against the Hobbit that it doesn't feel like LOTR. For me, those are two separate entities in terms of tone and style, at least based upon source material.

God loves you!

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

fireproof78 wrote:

I plan on doing a full audio recording regarding my thoughts on Battle of Five Armies, and the Hobbit trilogy as a whole, but, in my opinion, AUJ is the least disappointing of the three, because I think it strikes the right tone of the books.

Right on. I flipped on AUJ after seeing BotFA and it felt refreshing.

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

fireproof78 wrote:

I plan on doing a full audio recording regarding my thoughts on Battle of Five Armies, and the Hobbit trilogy as a whole,

I look forward to it. It'd be great if you can post a link here in this thread.

In the meantime, here's EMPIRE MAGAZINE's 90 minute 2-part spoiler special podcast...

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=42996

And the clowns from Red Letter Media have a go here...

http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-b … ve-armies/

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

Saw this today, and whilst I was entertained I agree with the general sentiments so far.

I was surprised that the Tauriel and Kili relationship, for all the time it spent up, ultimately meant nothing. At the end, I couldn't help but wonder what the point of it was. Since we'll never see Tauriel again, we don't know how it has affected her beyond the immediate. Was it to teach Thranduil to be a better person? For all its bloatedness, I felt the movie needed more endings. Except Bilbo, all the plot threads are just dropped. Bard in Dale and Dain under the mountain, the fate of most characters essentially, are left unresolved. The one character resolution we do get, Legolas, is unnecessary and bordered on cringe-inducing fan-service.

The trilogy has moments of utter brilliance/beauty, where it hits the spot perfectly, but too often it seems like a child with an overactive imagination is smashing toys together or the writers are rewriting their story so often they can't remember what notes they hit before and what to hit next. So often there's an entire plot thread that goes nowhere, doesn't really make much sense from the outset or isn't shown to make sense with what is shown.

Sam F wrote:

This movie was missing some establishing shots. Up on the pillar where Thorin went to meet Azog, the dwarves split up and they kept cutting between them; on the move, without establishing where they were. I didn't need a geolocation, but I needed more information than just a head shot with a sky in the background. In fact I found a lot of the editing choices in this film appalling. How many honest and trustworthy eyes saw cuts of this movie before its release?

I agree. The editing in all of these Tolkien movies hasn't been very good (IMHO). Dwalin disappears for a good portion of the climax on the pillar for instance.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

I can't wait to see a good fanedit of Hobbit...

Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

^^

I know one can be made, for certain.

God loves you!

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

I think some guy called Token wrote a novelization of the fan-edit that's supposed to be pretty decent, aside from a couple of unnecessary musical numbers.

Disclaimer: if you dislike the tone of a post I make, re-read it in a North/East London accent until it sounds sufficiently playful smile

Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

If you ever listen to some of the music, it doesn't all qualify as unnecessary wink

God loves you!

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

Yeah, Shore.

Disclaimer: if you dislike the tone of a post I make, re-read it in a North/East London accent until it sounds sufficiently playful smile

Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

fireproof78 wrote:

But, I will not hold against the Hobbit that it doesn't feel like LOTR. For me, those are two separate entities in terms of tone and style, at least based upon source material.

I think a comparison is warranted, if for no other reason than the success of the adaptation of LOTR. Though, I guess the real lesson is that condensing rather than expanding is what makes for a better film.

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

telexandroid wrote:
fireproof78 wrote:

But, I will not hold against the Hobbit that it doesn't feel like LOTR. For me, those are two separate entities in terms of tone and style, at least based upon source material.

I think a comparison is warranted, if for no other reason than the success of the adaptation of LOTR. Though, I guess the real lesson is that condensing rather than expanding is what makes for a better film.

I think they were constrained with what material they could legally harvest from non-LOTR/Hobbit sources. Initially there was speculation about a bridging movie between Hobbit and LOTR using other published material, but Saul Zaentz didn't have the rights to that, and the Tolkien estate aren't enthusiastic about participating in these Jackson adaptations. New Line probably offered them a blank cheque but the Estate must have enough (1) principles (2) money.

The books will become public domain sometime in the mid-21st century, so expect a remake from scratch of everything around December 2060. Choose between ordinary 2D and high-frame rate 128fps 4D hologram neural-implant.

not long to go now...

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

telexandroid wrote:
fireproof78 wrote:

But, I will not hold against the Hobbit that it doesn't feel like LOTR. For me, those are two separate entities in terms of tone and style, at least based upon source material.

I think a comparison is warranted, if for no other reason than the success of the adaptation of LOTR. Though, I guess the real lesson is that condensing rather than expanding is what makes for a better film.

And many do, and I'll not argue that one is the better approach. Simply, for my own purposes, I do not compare the two trilogies because I don't compare the two books. It really isn't a fair comparison, but now that the LOTR films have been made, the Hobbit film (whether as one, two or three) would forever live in its shadow...of MORDOR! (Couldn't resist wink). I would rather enjoy the films as a stand-alone work, rather than have constant reminders of another film series. 

Ok, I will save remaining thoughts for my audio recording. It will all make sense when I can speak it out loud, rather than trying to condense it in to text.

God loves you!

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

fireproof78 wrote:

I would rather enjoy the films as a stand-alone work, rather than have constant reminders of another film series.

Fire, obviously we've talked about this a lot, you and I, but there's something I've never understood about this argument.

The way I understand things, The Hobbit book is, inside the text, a direct prequel to the Lord of The Rings, the characters have the same names, the places have the same names, the world is supposed to BE Middle-Earth. It's not some third party novel that they decided to appropriate into the Middle Earth canon. The Hobbit has always been and will always be a part of Middle Earth.

So to my ears, saying that you want to view the Hobbit as a stand alone work is like saying I'd like to view Harry Potter and the Sorcerers stone as a separate work from the rest of the novels. It doesn't make sense, it is as much a part of the series as the rest of them are.

The only real difference between the Hobbit and LOTR is the intended audience on Tolkeins part. But in terms of the actual story of Middle Earth, there is no difference between The Hobbit and LOTR. And that is only amplified even further when Peter Jackson makes his Hobbit movies and says "We are going to connect these movies to my LOTR trilogy.". He has specifically gone out of his way to nail it into our heads that THIS IS THE SAME SERIES, adding the whole Sauron thing, bringing back Ian Holm and Frodo. Directly tying the end of the Hobbit to the start of Fellowship. You can not watch these movies without being constantly slammed in the head with how much this is supposed to be the first part of this 6 movie universe.

So just then saying, "I choose to view it as a separate series", seems...no offense here....asinine.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2014-12-29 01:34:52)

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

Well, like I said, I will attempt to spell it out in a way that doesn't come across asinine. I make no promises.

I get it, Hobbit is supposed to flow in to LOTR. I get that. It isn't that they are not connected, because they obviously are a story that has elements that flow together and build one from another. Ok? This isn't me saying it occurs in another world or a different version of ME.

My point is that matter of point of view (cue Obi-Wan, here, obviously). The Hobbit is told, especially the book, from Bilbo's point of view, and takes on a much more child-like tone in terms of episodic stories and adventures that climaxes with the Battle of the Five Armies. So, regardless of intention by PJ, the source material still carries with it a certain attitude, a more child like perspective, that lends itself towards a more fantastic point of view, and a more incredible  experience, by both reader and Bilbo.

I have no problem accepting them as one story-I really don't. What I won't do is compare one film's production values to another film's production values, regardless of intention. I, personally, right wrong or anal retentive, will take the film as how well it tells its part of the story. The Hobbit, while connected to LOTR, still tells a self-contained story. Because, it honestly does tell a story that contains characters, arcs, and has pay-offs and conclusions.

Ok, was that a better explanation? I'm not saying it is unconnected, or that one does not build on the other. I am just saying that I look at the Hobbit series as telling me one story, and then the other is telling me another story.

I hope that makes sense.

God loves you!

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

It does make more sense. I disagree completely and entirely with you. But I at least get where you're coming from.

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

Like I said, this is my perspective. Tell me a story that is self-contained, and I will judge that story accordingly. I don't judge Chronicles of Riddick against Pitch Black, or vice versa.

Keep in mind, my perspective on film is regarding characters and story, with the rest being trappings. The Hobbit will succeed, or fail, based upon its ability to establish characters and carry their story through. It establishes new characters (Thorin, namely) with a story that does not connect to LOTR save for the fact that Bilbo and Gandalf are involved.

Obviously, Jackson has woven more pieces from LOTR that Tolkien intended, so I will regard those characters  accordingly. Really, the only impact that has on me is that Gandalf, Legolas, Elrond, Galadriel and Bilbo won't die.

God loves you!

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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

I think Jackson is trolling the world. He took the Star Wars prequels badly and is trying to make a worse prequel trilogy to redeem Lucas'.   L O L .

Kidding aside, the best of the lot, to me, is Fellowship. Each movie afterward, it seems Jackson takes more liberties and puts more of himself into the movie [ie: The ghost army rescue of The Return of the King is not in the book and is a terrible Deus Ex Machina. In the book, the army only destroys the reinforcements to in the south.]

I can understand if someone feels The Hobbit trilogy is supposed to be more whimsical. But, I think PJ (LOL) is doing a lot more than just a bit of whimsy. Moreover, he's brought characters from the very-not-whimsical LotR trilogy into this wacky-silly multi-massacre trilogy. It's hard to feel like it is supposed to be more childish and fun when it mostly just feels more lazy to me. For example, the Tauriel and Kili relationship undermines the significance of Legolas and Gimli's friendship.

Someone get one the fanedit ASAP. Please.

I post because I care.
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Re: Hobbit 3 - Battle of the Bloated Trilogy (Soilers)

But how are Jackson's Hobbit films in any way "child-like"? They're attempting to be just as grim and mature as LOTR. And the violence in The Hobbit is far more gruesome than anything in LOTR. There's like a million beheadings on-screen in The Hobbit.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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