I would, London's only a 45-minute train journey from here, but work just landed a giant shit on me.

These clowns have a go...

http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-b … d-journey/

I would like to welcome our new readers from various international law enforcement agencies, and hope you enjoy your visit to our little home.

(I'll preface this by saying I went to a 2D showing, so I can't speak to the HFR or the 3D.)

So, my 30 minutes after walking out of the theater review is that I am of 2 very distinct minds about this movie. The first mind went into the theater KNOWING, absolutely and without a doubt, that it was just going to have to accept the fact that this was basically going to be Hellboy 3 and just treat it for what it is on it's own terms. But the second half of me can't help but be intensely disappointed; because despite KNOWING for certain and without a doubt that they weren't, he still retained hope that they would treat this series with the same sense of reality and gravitas* that the Lord of The Rings was. So I walked out of the theater, an incredibly conflicted individual.

Now this isn't to say I didn't enjoy the movie, I did, and though I can understand the point of some people complaining about the length, when that credit popped up at the end, I said "Already?"

This one is gonna take some time to settle in my brain. I think at the end of the day, I'm just going to have to accept that this is not the same universe I came to love, it's some sort of weird parallel Hellboy-styled universe offshoot, and just move on from there.

I'll probably do a full write up for this one, I think I've got a lot to say, I just need to get it organized in my head.

*I don't mean gravitas in the GRAAAAVITTAAASS sense of it, but more in the fact that the universe of LoTR felt big and it felt detailed and it felt real, you got the sense that there was this entire universe of very real, very grounded... stuff out there, as well as everything you actually saw on screen.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2012-12-20 08:13:46)

Unless you're this guy:

Yeah, lots of the people are having these conflicted thoughts. It is a letdown after LOTR were so perfect.

Hopefully Radagast will pay off.

As for the long action fight scenes, they could definitely be trimmed, but they did look smoother in the 48fps version. T

Positives: score, Wargs, landscape porn, Thorin, Rivendell, Goblin King, Trolls, Riddles scene, lucious production design, finale was okay, second song
Negatives: almost none of the humour worked, excessive CG, childish tone, cockney villains, bland Martin Freeman performance, Pale Orc too cartoonish, contrived emotional arc, unrealistic action, dwarves indistinguishable, first song

Does this answer your question?

Also, the "Blunt the Knives" song was one of the things I really liked about the new movie. Upbeat and really catchy. Also, only like a minute long.

Last edited by Doctor Submarine (2012-12-21 01:56:22)

Radagast is a mixed bag. He works on some levels, and others he is clearly just out there.

I think someone said this, but it bears repeating-this story is far more child like than LOTR. So, while I had hoped for the same type of gravitas, as BDA talked about, I also when in with my cup of salt. The opening and attack by Smaug, was very much a prologue-like intro, showing Dwarves at their peak and the glory they longed to get back. The songs didn't bother me because it was introducing us to Dwarves and their culture, which we knew little of from LOTR.

The child like view comes from, I think, the fact that it is Bilbo's perspective. He is naive and uncertain in the world. A theme in this story is his growth and becoming more adult and experienced and seasoned. So, it takes a child like tone because I think the movie will grow with him.

Just a thought

So having had a day to think about it, my opinion still hasn't changed but I think I can put into words some of what I was trying to convey better now.

SO I've only rerally read aboput the first 2/3rds of The Hobbit book, and there's a couple things I think I need to address. I can understand where people who shield themselves behind the claim of "But it's a childrens book!!" are coming from, and I still call it bullshit. THe thing about the Hobbit is that it's told fromt he point of view of a narrator who already knows that everything is going to be fine, in fact there's almost an aire of nostalgic whimsy about the way the story is told. BUt the thing is, you look at the actual bare bones plot points and story of the Hobbit, and you look at it through the eyes of what the Universe of Middle Earth is actually like (Namely through the eyes of the Lord of The Rings), and you begin to realize just how FUCKING terrifying everything that's happening is.
For example, and the one that really stuck with me after coming out of the movie is the entire Goblin sequence. So we have gotten an idea of what Goblins are from the Lord Of The Rings, they are pretty fucking terrifying.

Smile pretty for the camera. (Which btw, look absolutely nothing like the Goblins of the Hobbit. Call me crazy but an entire race doesn't go from that /\ to the staypuft marshmallow man in 60 years, magic or not)

They are a race distinctly known for being great at designing and building all sorts of mechanical devices, namely, torture devices. Really really good, torture devices. So we have our entire gang of heroes, trapped in the underground lair of a race of beings known for being awesome at toture devices, calling out for thier best and most horrible torture devices to be brought out and used on our heroes.

Fucking.

Terrifying.

The problem is that the movie decided to take the point of view of our narrator freind back there that knows everything is alright and is actually kinda missing those days of excitement and danger instead of actually living in the real Middle Earth and showing us what actually happened.

This. Does. Not. Make. For. Good. Movie.

And before everyone starts screaming at me me "But oh, that's what the book was so they had to do it like that! Wha." Shut the fuck up.

No they god damn well didn't, and you know it. Jackson has shown us that he was perfectly willing to mess with the structure of the book and rip it apart and assemble it back together into something else. He also went into this project in the complete knowledge that this movie was going to have to fit into the Lord of The Rings canon.

HE COULD HAVE FUCKING FIXED THE BOOK. This is not a new concept, DiF mentions it often, a movie needs to be able to stand on it's own apart from the book, and with the Hobbit, doubley so since it also needs to fit together with the already established universe of Lord of the Rings.

It wouldn't have been that hard, all he would have had to do was treat it with the same sense of reality and world building that he did with Lord of The Rings. But instead he chose to sit back on his laurels and "do the book".

And that is my major issue with The Hobbit. It feels lazy and Jackson feels like a wimp. It's as though he cared so little about the universe he had built that when it came time to build more into it, he didn't have the balls to go, "No, the tone of the book is wrong for the movies I need to make and for the universe that has been built, and I need to fix this."

(If you wanna get a little depressed, imagine the entire Goblin sequence set in a Mines of Moria type setting, The Goblins (The real ones, the fucking terrifying ones, not the staypuft marshmallow ones) are crawling over the rocks hissing and spitting thier song out as the giant creaking sounds of some unknown torture devices is beings wheeled in as our heroes are tied helpless at the base of a giant throne, the Goblin King surveying the scene with a bemused and evil smile.... then imagine the entire movie like that. Goddammit that would have been amazing.)

(*Yes, I know Orcs and Goblins mean the same thing in the Tolkein-verse, substitute where necessary to placate your conscience)

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2012-12-21 07:29:27)

Yes, I would have liked a MA or R rating too, for all these movies, a chilling dark tone with real stakes. Same with TDKR. The economics is such that if the budget is over $100M, then it's gotta be PG13 these days. There were exceptions in the 80s and 90s (e.g.  Starship Troopers) but not so much now.

Yeah, I confess I completely forgot about a few of the dwarves, so little did they have to do or were on screen (Oin? Bifur?) and assigning functions like the above to each of them make sense and would go some way to distinguishing them. Kili functions as their archer, and that's pretty much it. Instead, I felt they relied too much on costume, make-up and hairstyle (with increasing bizarreness as you'd expect).

Further, the ensemble would benefit from establishing groups within the party. Kili is paired with Fili, and that's great, and to a certain extent Balin, Dwalin and Thorin are a group, but I felt the others just disappeared into the background. The sheer number and variety of obstacles they come across present numerous opportunities to show the strengths and weaknesses of each of the characters, e.g., to show 2 dwarves working together to solve one problem whilst another 3 take care of something else.

Perhaps they do this quite a bit in the movie and I'm just too old to catch it all. Again, I wish this movie would just relax and slow down.