yea that azog stuff kinda bugged me how it was just so CG. the Uruks in LOTR looked awesome because of wetas makeup and practical fx for the most part. Boromirs death would have been lame if sean bean was just thrashing around with nothing to react/act with. oh, 10 year old spoiler alert I guess.
and yea, smaug looked super generic/bad. I like the color pallete though for the trailer, but then again it reinforces the cartoon vibe.
So here's a little pet peeve of mine. It really bothers me, and maybe this is just because I'm a character artist, that they mess up the color of the eyebrows on these characters.
Way too dark relative to his hair color.
If I had one wish, I'd love to be the Eyebrow Czar on the Hobbit and set all the eyebrows straight.
I hate how disney it looks, overdone plastic designs and lack of convincing realism.
Im still looking forward to it, but i hope the way they filmed it is less.. adventureous as what they had done with the first, felt like watching a cartoon at times.
i saw this that trailer on IMAX the other day, and it looked fantastic. Even Smaug at the end doesn't look as CGish as the other trailer. I am really looking forward to the spiders!!! It's gonna be awesome!
I hate how disney it looks, overdone plastic designs and lack of convincing realism.
Im still looking forward to it, but i hope the way they filmed it is less.. adventureous as what they had done with the first, felt like watching a cartoon at times.
While I agree with you for the most part, the book itself was much more childish/cartoony than the Lord of the Rings was. I think Peter Jackson is just having a lot of fun with this one.
But did anyone notice the lack of Howard Shore's music in that trailer? Felt like generic epic music, IMO.
I hate how disney it looks, overdone plastic designs and lack of convincing realism.
Im still looking forward to it, but i hope the way they filmed it is less.. adventureous as what they had done with the first, felt like watching a cartoon at times.
I completely agree with you there. LOTR was awesome because it took orcs, elves and hobbits (which are more or less as comedic as it gets) and put them in a serious, believable world. The "believable world" oftentimes breaks down in the Hobbit movies.
But did anyone notice the lack of Howard Shore's music in that trailer? Felt like generic epic music, IMO.
One of the biggest shortcomings! LotR had a ton of musical themes that were all beautiful, epic, haunting and _distinct_. The Hobbit by comparison feels over saturated with the "Misty Mountains Cold" theme and not much else. Hopefully that will change as we get further in the story and the different factions get more screen time.
I had abit of time and with the second trailer coming out having a couple of the problems that the first movie had, here's a giant image:
But wait there's more! As I said before, huge swings in tone is what really baffle me in this movie. Goblin Town is a great example. Beside the overall VERY orange color theme and brightly lit caverns, our band of dwarves is introduced into this supposedly hostile enemy stronghold by a slip-n-slide! Fun! Then they meet a fat Goblin King who jokes around with them and laughs and has a lot of fun. You almost expect them to burst into song. Oh wait. That happens. While he does a little jig. I'm so sorry.
The frustrating part is that the Goblin King shows that he can be genuinly scary in the scene below. Before 1:45, it's his usual hijinks but after the 1:45 mark, you can see how much he enjoys the idea of delivering Thorin to Azog. You can see and hear all the malice and cunning that hides behind his fat body.
But when Uncle Goblin King see's Thorin's sword Orcrist he's all of a sudden reduced to a scared child and spouts two of the most laughable lines almost back to back:
"I know that sword! It is the Goblin cleaver! The Biter! The blade that sliced a thousand necks!"
and describing Gandalf's sword:
"He wields the Foehammer! The Beater! Bright as daylight!"
accompanied by the monst cliche hand motion ever.
So yeah, somehow 12 unarmed dwarves survive more than 2 seconds against thousands of heavily armed Goblins just in time for Gandalf to show up and for a sec, you think shit's about to get serious! Nope. This sequence happens:
Sidescroller type flat angle of a rock rolling perfectly down a narrow ledge while conveniently squishing Goblins. The whole escape sequence from Goblin Town has the "Phantom Menace" symptom of just throwing loads of small creatures at our heroes that that only engage 1 by 1 and are quickly and easily killed even while running! Convenient! Further ridiculous hijinks involving ladders aside, the scene ends with the Goblin King bursting out from underneath a walkway that we saw in the shot before had nothing underneath it. Also, at this point we're really, really not scared of the King anymore. The last time we saw him he was cowering and whimpering at the mere sight of the swords...
So here we go, Goblin King and gang have the heroes cornered on a narrow walkway. Surely this time, they wil strike before our heroes have a chance to formulate an escape plan, having learned from the incident not 2 minutes in the past. How's the situation resolved? Poke in the eye. Boop! Followed by Gandalf slicing the King's guts open. Which is punctuated by the King saying "That'll do it". See what I mean by huge swings in tone? Then the rules of physics are turned into a farce (if that whole rolling stone thing didn't already) when the whole walkway crashes down the cave walls, somehow staying perfectly oriented and delivering all heroes unharmed to the bottom. Such convenience, why even bother with stairs at that point?! The the dumbest line in the movie is said:
"That could have been worse"
Followed by the Goblin King smashing on top of them. Where again nobody is hurt. Then comes dumbest line number 2:
"You've got to be joking."
Yes, I wish that whole scene was a joke. Then we're supposed to be afraid of the couple of small goblins that come chasing down the side of the ravine and all of a sudden there's an urgency to get away from them when they JUST showed that they pose no threat to our heroes who are wearing plot armor a scene ago.
I can't feel anything in this scene. I'm watching brightly colored fast paced action but there's no tension. What's the tone supposed to be here? I CANT FEEL ANYTHING.
Sigh.
There's other sequences where the exact same happens:
A couple of veteran warg riders fail to notice the comically obvious, slow moving band of dwarves travelling across an open plain because they're chasing a stoner with poopy in his hair in a sled pulled by rabbits.
Again, zero tension.
One of the best scenes in the movie for me was the meeting of the white council.
The tension between the members was palpable without any action at all. We see some of the most powerful beings in Middle Earth scared shitless by a simple blade because of its implications. We learn of the greater world surrounding the quest of the dwarves. We learn of the relationship between the characters not because we're TOLD but because of how they ACT. We learn that even though Gandalf is a wizard he's still "human" in the sense that his actions are consequences of his emotions. he's not some weird space alien, he's somebody we can relate to.
Like I said, I'm a huge fan of the LotR movies and I wanna love these new Hobbit movies so badly. But there's thing like the those described above and many more that make it incredibly hard. It feels a bit like blasphemy even, because I'm usually a giant fan of Peter Jackson's work over the past decade but I just gotta get some of this stuff off my chest....
So yeah, somehow 12 unarmed dwarves survive more than 2 seconds against thousands of heavily armed Goblins just in time for Gandalf to show up and for a sec, you think shit's about to get serious! Nope. This sequence happens:
I've heard that criticism a lot. It's a valid one, but it just never bothered me. The reason being that it strikes me as this is the version that the heroes of the story tell. So naturally you'd embolden everything and exaggerate. I'm imagining that in "reality" they fought like 10 goblins tops. But when they're telling the story, they're exaggerating it and say how they fought like a million orcs and all this crazy shit happened.
Huge wall of text, but you're so very right. The Hobbit was enjoyable but it really didn't hold a candle to the LotR films, for exactly the sort of reasons you mentioned above.
I've heard that criticism a lot. It's a valid one, but it just never bothered me. The reason being that it strikes me as this is the version that the heroes of the story tell. So naturally you'd embolden everything and exaggerate. I'm imagining that in "reality" they fought like 10 goblins tops. But when they're telling the story, they're exaggerating it and say how they fought like a million orcs and all this crazy shit happened.
pretty much exactly this...
"There and Back Again, A Hobbits Tale.
By Bilbo Baggins"
Interesting point, gotta admit, I never really thought about it like that. But keep in mind, it's also:
"The Lord of the Rings,
by Frodo Baggins"
And I feel like using the argument that it's their imaginations going wild rather than what happened is a bit dangerous since you start to get into the "it was all a dream" cliche. The world is vastly less interesting if you look at it like the two Baggins "emboldened" their adventures. Again, for me the most compelling thing about the Middle Earth universe is the grand scale conflicts with lots of fleshed out history into which these small characters are thrust and have to deal with. I alluded to it earlier but I'll say it again, Hobbits are about as comical as it gets (fat, small, barefoot, lazy pipe weed lovers) and yet both times THEY are our heroes rather than the noble and stoic characters that live throughout the world.
There and Back Again, was written by Bilbo as a gift to Frodo, and is considered (even in Tolkien lore) to be considered an embellishment. the Lord of the Rings became a historical document - the Red Book of Westmarch, and was more like a journal than a story.
Fair enough, but now we're treading in dangerous waters because the film =/= the book. The film includes a lot of backstory, side story and lore from Tolkie's letters and other literature such as the Silmarillion with the whole Dol Guldur being the obvious example. Here we have story that is to be taken at face value, since it was never experienced or told by either of the Bagginses and therefore can't be embellished. That's where the cognitive dissonance comes from for me in the first 'Hobbit'. If it were consistently completely or even slightly over the top, I'd be right there with you and say, "of course, it's Bilbo's PoV, he's having fun with the story" and I have a feeling that I would have enjoyed that more, even if it's not completely my cup of tea. But on the other hand, as mentioned, you have the parts that aren't over the top, that are to be taken seriously because they tie into the world as large and that Bilbo never experiences or knows of such as the meeting of the White Council. So we have two completely different approaches to telling the story that for me conflict enough to pull me out of the experience when for me, one of the most compelling things of the Middle Earth Universe is that ability to pull me IN because it's consistent.
In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
Seriously dude, lighten up a little. You'll live longer and enjoy life a little more.
@VelvetElvis
Did you read the wall of text? If you did, you would have noticed I take a pretty lighthearted approach to the whole thing.
When a filmmaker like Peter Jackson has a work like LotR that's damn good in his portfolio, you inadvertently compare everything that comes after it to that. So that's what I did more or less - as an exercise for myself primarily - to dissect what I thought didn't fit into what I've come to expect of PJ's work, stylistically and storytelling wise.
Besides, when I saw the Hobbit for the first time, I came out of the cinema quite satisfied, quite happy, had a great time talking about it with some fellow artists. The Hobbit is still a very good movie. That's why I titled this "Things that bug me" rather than "The Hobbit is the worst thing EVER"
yea... i actually agree with that whole wall of crits. I was engrossed and pulled into the LOTR movies in the theaters, and any time i re-watch the awesome bluray versions. I saw the hobbit in theaters and was pretty meh on it and have not had the desire to rewatch it since. just felt way too far into the kiddy realm.
Oh, found something interesting concerning the color grading:
Also, a clearer shot of Smaug.
EDIT: @gir
I found a comment on reddit that pretty much sums up what you and I were saying ^^
I think it's by intent.
In The Lord of the Rings all the colours felt a bit muted. Everything looked worn and used. Despite being set in a fantasy world the film tried to make the events look realistic, as though they're happening as you watch them.
With The Hobbit, the film is Bilbo telling a story. Everything looks more vibrant and colourful, and it all has an otherworldly feel not unlike 300. It's meant to look a bit less real. The film is the events as they're told by Bilbo rather than the events themselves.
It seems ironic then that Peter Jackson chose to film The Hobbit at 48fps to make it look more realistic. Had the technology been available back then, The Lord of the Rings might have benefited from 48fps. With The Hobbit it just clashes: the film is meant to look like a story but has been filmed in a way that's meant to make it look more realistic.
That said, I suspect/hope that the CGI in this trailer isn't finished. The elves in particular really stood out.
I cant wait for this. I think i might be in the minority but i preferred the first hobbit film to LotR tri because it was more lighthearted and playful. the crying/heavy emotion all the time towards the end of lotr trilogy became unbearable even though i love the films visually.
I also really love the lighting style in UEJ even though they do go down the blorange path with regards to pallet/grading. It feels how i think it should.
i feel like half the fx shots were not even finished...
the liquid gold looked terrible, the barrel scene was clearly cutting between cg and real life characters, using different types of cameras, recycling scenes where the only change is orc placement... the movie would have been great if they had just cut the unfinished shots.
Very good movie that I feel has alot more purpose around it than the first one. Though there were definitely some very spotty VFX parts of the movie(that gold vfx scared me!). Also in a couple of the scenes where it tries to provide POV from the barrel looks like they used a Go-pro and threw me off so much.
Something felt off about this movie to me, I mean everything from camera work to acting and script was as close to perfect as you can get.
But to me it seemed like the first and the third act was just set peices with seemingly random action scenes just for the sake of it.
It was literally 10 years since i read the book and i just read it once compared to Lord of The rings wich i read several during my childhood and teens and have a much moore fond memory of so i cant remember how this compares to the book.
It also felt a bit soulless. Much of the strength of LOTR (for me) came from the strong characters interacting, not just a bunch of dwarves with characteristics basicly indistinguishable from each other.
They tried to develop some of them a bit moore, like the old guy and the brotherly love between blackhair dude and blonde dude. ( i dont even remember their names )
Maybe this isnt so much of a problem with the movie but moore of a problem carrying over from the books? Does anyone remember ?
Also, i have a thought to share about HFR, why is this not a thing on bluray releases? Its just so much better.
Most monitors have 60hrts refreshrates anyhow and some even go up to 100.
This cant be a filesize issue right? Beacuse Blurays hold 50gb last time i checked. They cant fill a 1080p 3hrs movie on that, right?
1. Overused CGI Effects without added value
2. bad constructed love triangle for the crowd
3. no arc of suspense because the dwarfs are "immortal"
4. to much action killing CGI Orcs without value
5. pale characters, the dwarfs are boring like hell
Loved the movie, really liked the first one too but this one was far better still. I am completely amazed that Peter Jackson was able to get the same actors 10 years later for Legolas, Galadriel, etc. The scenes between Bilbo and Smaug was amazing and Benedict Cumberbatch's voice-acting was out of this world, such a cool voice!
I don't really get the people complaining, the movie for me was everything I hoped for and more. The bad VFX, if there was any which I doubt considering WETA Digital is awesome, was not something I took any notice to.
The bad VFX, if there was any which I doubt considering WETA Digital is awesome, was not something I took any notice to.
There was definitely plenty of sub-par vfx imho. The arrow to the knee and elf healing was basically exactly the same thing that happened with Frodo in the LOTR series. But overall, I really enjoyed it. Probably could have made it into just two movies, but I'm excited for the next!
I know a bunch of the Weta crew. They've been under the pump for months. Your average game crunches have got nothing on what those poor bastards have been put through. I dare say if they worked them any harder they'd literally start having artists dying on them.
If they're getting unpolished shots finding their way into the cinematic release, it'll be interesting to see what they do to rectify that for the third movie.
Also, i have a thought to share about HFR, why is this not a thing on bluray releases? Its just so much better.
Most monitors have 60hrts refreshrates anyhow and some even go up to 100.
This cant be a filesize issue right? Beacuse Blurays hold 50gb last time i checked. They cant fill a 1080p 3hrs movie on that, right?
on the HFR thing, remember that for the 3d version you have to output double the framerate. you'd only be able to watch it on a tv with minimum 96hz refresh rate and whatever is outputting would also need to support that (i'm sure that's just a firmware thing but who knows).
I know a bunch of the Weta crew. They've been under the pump for months. Your average game crunches have got nothing on what those poor bastards have been put through. I dare say if they worked them any harder they'd literally start having artists dying on them. If they're getting unpolished shots finding their way into the cinematic release, it'll be interesting to see what they do to rectify that for the third movie.
I assumed this was the case since splitting 2 movies into 3 means A LOT of extra/new/redone work so I guess I was very willing to forgive small issues here and there (not saying that I saw a whole lot). The only shots where I explicitly noticed it was VFX was the gold as stated above and the shots where Bombur's hands burst out of the barrel and he starts spinning around killing orcs. Oh yeah, and the GoPro shots, what was up with those O.o
As far as the characters go, I guess you really can't have 14 main characters and I think they found a nice middle ground by emphasizing some of the dwarves over the others (Balin, Thorin, Kili) which I think is a nice compromise.
no arc of suspense because the dwarfs are "immortal"
I does suffer a bit from that if you know the story, but I was pleasantly surprised with the whole Kili getting poisoned sideplott because it attempted to fix that a bit. Also introduced some difference amongst the company which went a long way in getting away from the "14 merry dwarves on a merry adventure where nothing can go wrong" thing
Definitely gonna go see it again with a bit more of an analytic eye.
It may have been partially due to my placement in the front row, but did anyone else notice some serious perspective issues in quite a few shots? Ala major height variations in character from one sequence to the next, or environments seeming to switch camera angles during pan shots?
The problems with the dwarfes is they have no real character. Everyone has mostly 1 Ability/mood and thats a constant. 2-3 Main dwarfes dont help because the main dwarfes are plain too they have only more dialogs which underlines only the plain character sheet.
The most developed character in The Hobbit 2 is maybe Tauril, a character only created and burned for the boring love trangle. A character without book reference is maybe the best character and thats poor. Yes maybe the original book dont give more infos but hell, then invent some. The first target must be a good movie and not a bad movie from a bad template.
I respect tolkien for the invention of elfes,orcs etc. ... but his writing style is in my opinion only average.
I know a bunch of the Weta crew. They've been under the pump for months. Your average game crunches have got nothing on what those poor bastards have been put through. I dare say if they worked them any harder they'd literally start having artists dying on them. If they're getting unpolished shots finding their way into the cinematic release, it'll be interesting to see what they do to rectify that for the third movie.
no doubt about that, you just have to check a making-of interview with any of them to gauge the level of pressure these guys work under. there's actually quite a few shots in the LOTR trilogy as well that i remember stood out to me in the cinema as rushjobs.
problem is, a bad shot stands out like a sore thumb and most of these don't seem central to the movie. so much of the footage ends on the cutting room floor, you wonder why they don't do the same for CG work that just doesn't cut it and does not contribute more than a brief 'orc slash' or obvious greenscreen in some fight.
after all, a movie has to stand the test of time much more than a game which is an old hat after the initial drop in sales, downtalked by it's own creators by the time the sequel rolls around.
I swear when this movies trilogy is done, im going to edit everything together, delete the drawn out stupid bits, and shorten it to an hour and half. This series is way too long. Lotr made sence, this does not. The good bits are few and far between.
Did anyone else notice Peter Jackson walk across the screen literally in the first few seconds of the movie? To me that was like a Stan Lee Marvel movie cameo stunt they just pulled for the movie. I thought it was funny and amusing to see the director star in his own movie
Yep, I noticed Peter Jackson's cameo right away, I think people in the theater wondered why I was laughing.
Boy, people sure are picky. I really enjoyed it, I thought it was thoroughly captivating all of the way through. I like the lighter tone than the LOTR, makes it much more fun, which is appropriate given the source material, but there are definitely some pretty tense moments as well.
The liquid gold effects were a little cringe worthy. Dunno what happened there. Although it did look pretty cool when
Smaug was covered in the gold after climbing out of it
I dug the movie. You can tell that there is some serious filler in there to make it a 3 movie series though. I was surprised that the Mirkwood/Elf King sequence wasn't as long as it was in the book. That whole part felt rushed. Here's the woods, here's the trail, don't get lost, whoops spiders, whoops caught, weeeee escape!.
For me, the biggest question was when were they going to stop the movie for the 3rd part? I liked where they ended it, it leaves a good chunk of action for the 3rd part.
Replies
and yea, smaug looked super generic/bad. I like the color pallete though for the trailer, but then again it reinforces the cartoon vibe.
Way too dark relative to his hair color.
If I had one wish, I'd love to be the Eyebrow Czar on the Hobbit and set all the eyebrows straight.
[ame="
I´m in love with the environment colors!
Im still looking forward to it, but i hope the way they filmed it is less.. adventureous as what they had done with the first, felt like watching a cartoon at times.
While I agree with you for the most part, the book itself was much more childish/cartoony than the Lord of the Rings was. I think Peter Jackson is just having a lot of fun with this one.
But did anyone notice the lack of Howard Shore's music in that trailer? Felt like generic epic music, IMO.
While I think D&D / NWN has the best dragons visually, I never really liked their voices.
+1
I completely agree with you there. LOTR was awesome because it took orcs, elves and hobbits (which are more or less as comedic as it gets) and put them in a serious, believable world. The "believable world" oftentimes breaks down in the Hobbit movies.
One of the biggest shortcomings! LotR had a ton of musical themes that were all beautiful, epic, haunting and _distinct_. The Hobbit by comparison feels over saturated with the "Misty Mountains Cold" theme and not much else. Hopefully that will change as we get further in the story and the different factions get more screen time.
I had abit of time and with the second trailer coming out having a couple of the problems that the first movie had, here's a giant image:
But wait there's more! As I said before, huge swings in tone is what really baffle me in this movie. Goblin Town is a great example. Beside the overall VERY orange color theme and brightly lit caverns, our band of dwarves is introduced into this supposedly hostile enemy stronghold by a slip-n-slide! Fun! Then they meet a fat Goblin King who jokes around with them and laughs and has a lot of fun. You almost expect them to burst into song. Oh wait. That happens. While he does a little jig. I'm so sorry.
[ame="
The frustrating part is that the Goblin King shows that he can be genuinly scary in the scene below. Before 1:45, it's his usual hijinks but after the 1:45 mark, you can see how much he enjoys the idea of delivering Thorin to Azog. You can see and hear all the malice and cunning that hides behind his fat body.
[ame="
But when Uncle Goblin King see's Thorin's sword Orcrist he's all of a sudden reduced to a scared child and spouts two of the most laughable lines almost back to back:
"I know that sword! It is the Goblin cleaver! The Biter! The blade that sliced a thousand necks!"
and describing Gandalf's sword:
"He wields the Foehammer! The Beater! Bright as daylight!"
accompanied by the monst cliche hand motion ever.
So yeah, somehow 12 unarmed dwarves survive more than 2 seconds against thousands of heavily armed Goblins just in time for Gandalf to show up and for a sec, you think shit's about to get serious! Nope. This sequence happens:
[ame="
Sidescroller type flat angle of a rock rolling perfectly down a narrow ledge while conveniently squishing Goblins. The whole escape sequence from Goblin Town has the "Phantom Menace" symptom of just throwing loads of small creatures at our heroes that that only engage 1 by 1 and are quickly and easily killed even while running! Convenient! Further ridiculous hijinks involving ladders aside, the scene ends with the Goblin King bursting out from underneath a walkway that we saw in the shot before had nothing underneath it. Also, at this point we're really, really not scared of the King anymore. The last time we saw him he was cowering and whimpering at the mere sight of the swords...
[ame="
So here we go, Goblin King and gang have the heroes cornered on a narrow walkway. Surely this time, they wil strike before our heroes have a chance to formulate an escape plan, having learned from the incident not 2 minutes in the past. How's the situation resolved? Poke in the eye. Boop! Followed by Gandalf slicing the King's guts open. Which is punctuated by the King saying "That'll do it". See what I mean by huge swings in tone? Then the rules of physics are turned into a farce (if that whole rolling stone thing didn't already) when the whole walkway crashes down the cave walls, somehow staying perfectly oriented and delivering all heroes unharmed to the bottom. Such convenience, why even bother with stairs at that point?! The the dumbest line in the movie is said:
"That could have been worse"
Followed by the Goblin King smashing on top of them. Where again nobody is hurt. Then comes dumbest line number 2:
"You've got to be joking."
Yes, I wish that whole scene was a joke. Then we're supposed to be afraid of the couple of small goblins that come chasing down the side of the ravine and all of a sudden there's an urgency to get away from them when they JUST showed that they pose no threat to our heroes who are wearing plot armor a scene ago.
I can't feel anything in this scene. I'm watching brightly colored fast paced action but there's no tension. What's the tone supposed to be here? I CANT FEEL ANYTHING.
Sigh.
There's other sequences where the exact same happens:
A couple of veteran warg riders fail to notice the comically obvious, slow moving band of dwarves travelling across an open plain because they're chasing a stoner with poopy in his hair in a sled pulled by rabbits.
Again, zero tension.
One of the best scenes in the movie for me was the meeting of the white council.
[ame="
[ame="
The tension between the members was palpable without any action at all. We see some of the most powerful beings in Middle Earth scared shitless by a simple blade because of its implications. We learn of the greater world surrounding the quest of the dwarves. We learn of the relationship between the characters not because we're TOLD but because of how they ACT. We learn that even though Gandalf is a wizard he's still "human" in the sense that his actions are consequences of his emotions. he's not some weird space alien, he's somebody we can relate to.
Like I said, I'm a huge fan of the LotR movies and I wanna love these new Hobbit movies so badly. But there's thing like the those described above and many more that make it incredibly hard.
/end rant
/end wall of text
I've heard that criticism a lot. It's a valid one, but it just never bothered me. The reason being that it strikes me as this is the version that the heroes of the story tell. So naturally you'd embolden everything and exaggerate. I'm imagining that in "reality" they fought like 10 goblins tops. But when they're telling the story, they're exaggerating it and say how they fought like a million orcs and all this crazy shit happened.
pretty much exactly this...
"There and Back Again, A Hobbits Tale.
By Bilbo Baggins"
"The Lord of the Rings,
by Frodo Baggins"
And I feel like using the argument that it's their imaginations going wild rather than what happened is a bit dangerous since you start to get into the "it was all a dream" cliche. The world is vastly less interesting if you look at it like the two Baggins "emboldened" their adventures. Again, for me the most compelling thing about the Middle Earth universe is the grand scale conflicts with lots of fleshed out history into which these small characters are thrust and have to deal with. I alluded to it earlier but I'll say it again, Hobbits are about as comical as it gets (fat, small, barefoot, lazy pipe weed lovers) and yet both times THEY are our heroes rather than the noble and stoic characters that live throughout the world.
There and Back Again, was written by Bilbo as a gift to Frodo, and is considered (even in Tolkien lore) to be considered an embellishment. the Lord of the Rings became a historical document - the Red Book of Westmarch, and was more like a journal than a story.
In episode 2F09 when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
Seriously dude, lighten up a little. You'll live longer and enjoy life a little more.
Did you read the wall of text? If you did, you would have noticed I take a pretty lighthearted approach to the whole thing.
When a filmmaker like Peter Jackson has a work like LotR that's damn good in his portfolio, you inadvertently compare everything that comes after it to that. So that's what I did more or less - as an exercise for myself primarily - to dissect what I thought didn't fit into what I've come to expect of PJ's work, stylistically and storytelling wise.
Besides, when I saw the Hobbit for the first time, I came out of the cinema quite satisfied, quite happy, had a great time talking about it with some fellow artists. The Hobbit is still a very good movie. That's why I titled this "Things that bug me" rather than "The Hobbit is the worst thing EVER"
Also, a clearer shot of Smaug.
EDIT:
@gir
I found a comment on reddit that pretty much sums up what you and I were saying ^^
[ame="
I also really love the lighting style in UEJ even though they do go down the blorange path with regards to pallet/grading. It feels how i think it should.
As for the rest,
I AM KING UNDER THE MOUNTAIN
It wil be pretty epic
the liquid gold looked terrible, the barrel scene was clearly cutting between cg and real life characters, using different types of cameras, recycling scenes where the only change is orc placement... the movie would have been great if they had just cut the unfinished shots.
Glad I'm not the only one who thought that. There was a few shots like that with noticeable "bad" vfx.
Otherwise great movie. Can't wait for the third one to hopefully tie it all together. Really liked the side storys with Gandalf and Legolas.
Something felt off about this movie to me, I mean everything from camera work to acting and script was as close to perfect as you can get.
But to me it seemed like the first and the third act was just set peices with seemingly random action scenes just for the sake of it.
It was literally 10 years since i read the book and i just read it once compared to Lord of The rings wich i read several during my childhood and teens and have a much moore fond memory of so i cant remember how this compares to the book.
It also felt a bit soulless. Much of the strength of LOTR (for me) came from the strong characters interacting, not just a bunch of dwarves with characteristics basicly indistinguishable from each other.
They tried to develop some of them a bit moore, like the old guy and the brotherly love between blackhair dude and blonde dude. ( i dont even remember their names )
Maybe this isnt so much of a problem with the movie but moore of a problem carrying over from the books? Does anyone remember ?
Also, i have a thought to share about HFR, why is this not a thing on bluray releases? Its just so much better.
Most monitors have 60hrts refreshrates anyhow and some even go up to 100.
This cant be a filesize issue right? Beacuse Blurays hold 50gb last time i checked. They cant fill a 1080p 3hrs movie on that, right?
1. Overused CGI Effects without added value
2. bad constructed love triangle for the crowd
3. no arc of suspense because the dwarfs are "immortal"
4. to much action killing CGI Orcs without value
5. pale characters, the dwarfs are boring like hell
I don't really get the people complaining, the movie for me was everything I hoped for and more. The bad VFX, if there was any which I doubt considering WETA Digital is awesome, was not something I took any notice to.
There was definitely plenty of sub-par vfx imho. The arrow to the knee and elf healing was basically exactly the same thing that happened with Frodo in the LOTR series. But overall, I really enjoyed it. Probably could have made it into just two movies, but I'm excited for the next!
If they're getting unpolished shots finding their way into the cinematic release, it'll be interesting to see what they do to rectify that for the third movie.
on the HFR thing, remember that for the 3d version you have to output double the framerate. you'd only be able to watch it on a tv with minimum 96hz refresh rate and whatever is outputting would also need to support that (i'm sure that's just a firmware thing but who knows).
I assumed this was the case since splitting 2 movies into 3 means A LOT of extra/new/redone work so I guess I was very willing to forgive small issues here and there (not saying that I saw a whole lot). The only shots where I explicitly noticed it was VFX was the gold as stated above and the shots where Bombur's hands burst out of the barrel and he starts spinning around killing orcs. Oh yeah, and the GoPro shots, what was up with those O.o
As far as the characters go, I guess you really can't have 14 main characters and I think they found a nice middle ground by emphasizing some of the dwarves over the others (Balin, Thorin, Kili) which I think is a nice compromise.
I does suffer a bit from that if you know the story, but I was pleasantly surprised with the whole Kili getting poisoned sideplott because it attempted to fix that a bit. Also introduced some difference amongst the company which went a long way in getting away from the "14 merry dwarves on a merry adventure where nothing can go wrong" thing
Definitely gonna go see it again with a bit more of an analytic eye.
The most developed character in The Hobbit 2 is maybe Tauril, a character only created and burned for the boring love trangle. A character without book reference is maybe the best character and thats poor. Yes maybe the original book dont give more infos but hell, then invent some. The first target must be a good movie and not a bad movie from a bad template.
I respect tolkien for the invention of elfes,orcs etc. ... but his writing style is in my opinion only average.
no doubt about that, you just have to check a making-of interview with any of them to gauge the level of pressure these guys work under. there's actually quite a few shots in the LOTR trilogy as well that i remember stood out to me in the cinema as rushjobs.
problem is, a bad shot stands out like a sore thumb and most of these don't seem central to the movie. so much of the footage ends on the cutting room floor, you wonder why they don't do the same for CG work that just doesn't cut it and does not contribute more than a brief 'orc slash' or obvious greenscreen in some fight.
after all, a movie has to stand the test of time much more than a game which is an old hat after the initial drop in sales, downtalked by it's own creators by the time the sequel rolls around.
Boy, people sure are picky. I really enjoyed it, I thought it was thoroughly captivating all of the way through. I like the lighter tone than the LOTR, makes it much more fun, which is appropriate given the source material, but there are definitely some pretty tense moments as well.
The liquid gold effects were a little cringe worthy. Dunno what happened there. Although it did look pretty cool when
For me, the biggest question was when were they going to stop the movie for the 3rd part? I liked where they ended it, it leaves a good chunk of action for the 3rd part.