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  • Locked thread
Mr. Gibbycrumbles
Aug 30, 2004

Do you think your paladin sword can defeat me?

En garde, I'll let you try my Wu-Tang style


The old thread was closed, so I've decided to make a new one.

:stare::derp::stare: THE TRAILER IS HERE :stare::derp::stare:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/wb/thehobbit/

THE ESSENTIALS
The Hobbit is coming. In fact we're going to be receiving two loads - An Unexpected Journey, in December 2012 and There and Back Again the year after that - and they're going to be right in our faces in glorious 3D and at 48 frames per second. In this particular inn, it most certainly comes in pints.

Peter Jackson is directing, it's being filmed in New Zealand, and most of the production team responsible for creating the LotR trilogy are back and working on the two films, including (obviously) WETA workshop/WETA digital, concept artists Alan Lee and John Howe, and composer Howard Shore. The script has been co-written by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Guillermo del Toro.

THE PLOT
The Hobbit takes place 60 years before the events in The Lord of the Rings, and it introduces us to the titular character of Bilbo Baggins, who is visited out of the blue by a mysterious wizard known as Gandalf The Grey. Gandalf tries to convince Bilbo to aid a band of thirteen Dwarves, led by the Dwarf Lord Thorin Oakenshield, who are on a quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor from the dragon Smaug. Whilst being swept up in this adventure, an unlikely twist of fate leads Bilbo to stumble upon a certain Ring.

For those of you not terribly familiar with Tolkien's works, The Hobbit was the first book that he published in his Middle Earth mythology, and The Lord of the Rings was penned afterwards as a sequel. If you want to know a more detailed version of the plot, go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit

For the films though, this leads to an interesting approach. Because the filmmakers have the luxury of adapting The Hobbit post-LotR, it means that as well as getting all the Hobbity goodness from the book, the films will feature a fair wallop of LotR material that you will not find if you just read The Hobbit book. I won't go into spoilers but the "appendices" at the end of the Return of the King book described a bunch of stuff that happened during the time of The Hobbit, and framed it within the wider context of The War of the Ring. We're gonna be seeing some of that stuff in the films. Yes, we are going to be seeing an attack on Dol Guldur, led by the White Council :gizz:

A (BRIEF) PRODUCTION HISTORY
After LotR and King Kong, Jackson was seemingly set to direct The Hobbit, but from 2005, a series of legal disputes and financial issues led to him stepping down and the project entered development hell until 2008, when Guillermo Del Toro was hired to direct with Jackson taking an executive producer role.

Ongoing financial trouble continued to delay the greenlighting of the film, and because of this, in 2010 Del Toro left the project. Jackson was eventually persuaded to step up to direct the film after all, leading us to where we are today. The films have been in principal photography since March 2011.

Although he is now no longer directly involved, Guillermo del Toro's contributions will remain in the script and we may possibly see his signature avant-garde visual style in some of the creature and environment designs, although to what extent is unknown at present. With the off-kilter appearance of many of the Dwarves, it's possible that we are already seeing his influence.

SPOILER POLICY
It is very hard to define a clear spoiler policy for a thread about a film adaptation of a book that was published in 1937, however I appreciate that not everyone reading this thread has read the book, and I don't want to spoil everything for them.

Basically I would suggest a spoiler policy of: just use common sense. If we had to black out every bit of text that describes something that happened in the book, then most of the thread would be a mess of black and everyone would be breaking the rules anyway. As a rule of thumb, just try to imagine yourself in the position of someone who hasn't read the book. Is it a spoiler to say "The major villain of the story is a gold-hoarding dragon named Smaug"? Not really, that's pretty generic and likely to be promoted in marketing before the film's release. Is it a spoiler to say Smaug throws a pissy fit and burns down Laketown before being shot and killed by Bard? Yes. Spoiler that poo poo.

THE CAST
Every LotR cast member that it makes sense to bring back, is being brought back, so again we're getting Ian McKellan's Gandalf, Andy Serkis' Gollum, Hugo Weaving's Elrond, Cate Blanchett's Galadriel, Christopher Lee's Saruman, with Ian Holm in a flashforward/bookend role as the old version of Bilbo along with Elijah Wood's Frodo. In addition, Orlando Bloom's Legolas will also be there doing some cool poo poo like tombstoning a Warg whilst leaping off The Lonely Mountain and then backflipping onto a passing Eagle just before hitting the ground.

Martin Freeman is being played by playing Bilbo Baggins.


(Click to embiggen)

The Dwarves are being played by a motley crew of British and Kiwi actors.


From left to right: Jed Brophy as Nori, Dean O'Gorman as Fíli, Mark Hadlow as Dori, James Nesbitt as Bofur, Peter Hambleton as Glóin, Graham McTavish as Dwalin, Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, Ken Stott as Balin, John Callen as Óin, Stephen Hunter as Bombur, William Kircher as Bifur, Adam Brown as Ori, and finally Aidan Turner as Kíli.

Other notable cast members include:
  • Benedict Cumberbatch, who is voicing two major villains - both the dragon Smaug, and The Necromancer. It is reported that his work on Smaug also involves performance-capture, though I'm not sure how that is going to work with a dragon.
  • Mikael Persbrandt plays Beorn, a shape-shifter, who helps Gandalf, Bilbo and co.
  • Sylvester McCoy plays Radagast the Brown, one of the five Wizards, or "Istari", alongside Gandalf the Grey and Saruman the White. Radagast is a lover of flora and fauna, and seems to have close ties to Beorn.
  • Lee Pace is playing Thranduil the Elvenking, in a role that will really demonstrate the bitter tensions between Elves and Dwarves. Thranduil is also father to Legolas.
  • Evangeline Lilly from LOST is being introduced as a Silvan Elf named Tauriel. The Silvan (or Wood) Elves are a bit more practical and down-to-earth than the aloof, floaty elves that dominated the LotR trilogy. In The Hobbit, they party and get drunk pretty much all the time.
  • Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Concords had a bit part in the LotR trilogy as an unnamed Rivendell Elf later nicknamed "Figwit" by fans. He is being brought back in a slightly larger role this time around, and his character has the official name of "Lindir".
  • Luke Evans plays Bard the Bowman, a guardsman of Esgaroth with royal lineage. He plays a very pivotal role in the second film.
  • Stephen Fry is playing the Master of Lake-town, the greedy, cowardly Mayor of Esgaroth.
  • Barry Humphries is voicing and performance-capturing The Great Goblin, and is sure to be a memorable villain from the first film.
  • Conan Stevens plays Azog the Orc, a role which pretty much guarantees that we will be getting at least one flashback scene to the brutal "War of the Dwarves and Orcs".

If you want to see WHOPPING HI-RES images of each of the dwarves, then click here:


(L-R: Nori, Ori and Dori - Óin and Glóin - Fíli and Kíli)


(L-R: Bombur, Bofur and Bifur - Balin and Dwalin - Thorin Oakenshield (wielding Orcrist, The Goblin Cleaver))

While we're at it, here's some more delicious hi-res promotional pics:


(Bilbo and the Dwarves in Bag End)


(Gandalf looking somewhat pensive)


(Peter Jackson directing Martin Freeman)

And here is a glorious picture of Gandalf looking really Gandalfy:


Why are there women in my Hobbit?
The book is a complete sausage party, so to address this imbalance they are introducing a new female Elf character called Tauriel, played by LOST's Evangeline Lilly, and Galadriel is coming back for scenes that leverage the extra material found in the LotR books.

THE PRODUCTION DIARIES
If you want to be spoiled rotten, at least in terms of the look and feel of the movie, if not exactly major story spoilers, then be sure to follow Peter Jackson's production videos, of which four have currently been posted:

Production Video 1
Production Video 2
Production Video 3
Production Video 4
Production Video 5

The AICN Set Reports
Quint from Ain't It Cool News is a lucky sumbitch who not only gets to follow the entire production with the crew, but also has a bit part in the film where he plays a Hobbit fishmonger. He has been tickling us on a semi-regular basis with his series of set reports, which I will link to here. Warning - thar be spoilers ahead:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

WAIT, WHAT - 48 FPS?
Literally the least surprising thing about this production is that it is being filmed in 3D. However, somewhat more interesting is the fact that it is the first movie to be filmed and projected at 48 frames per second - twice that of the normal frame rate of 24 FPS. What this means is that the picture will display at an unprecedented level of smoothness and realism. It will feel as if you have been transported to Middle Earth itself. 24 FPS versions of the movie will also be shown where it is not practical to display in 48 FPS. To clear up a few questions about it, Peter Jackson has said this:

From here.

Peter Jackson posted:

We will be completing a "normal" 24 frames per second version—in both digital and 35mm film prints. If we are able to get the Hobbit projected at 48 fps in selected cinemas, there will still be normal-looking 24 fps versions available in cinemas everywhere.

Converting a film shot at 48 fps down to 24 fps is not a hugely difficult process, but it requires testing to achieve the best results. Some of this involves digital processes during post-production. We are also shooting the film a slightly different way, which is a question several of you asked. Normally you shoot a movie with a 180-degree shutter angle. Changing the shutter angle affects the amount of motion blur captured during movement. Reducing the shutter angle gives you the stroby (or jerky) "Saving Private Ryan" look.

However, we're going the other way, shooting at 48 fps with a 270 degree shutter angle. This gives the 48 fps a lovely silky look, and creates a very pleasing look at 24 fps as well. In fact, our DP, Andrew Lesnie, and I prefer the look of 24 fps when it comes from a 48 fps master.

I'll be adding more to this post as developments transpire to develop.

Mr. Gibbycrumbles fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Dec 30, 2011

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high six
Feb 6, 2010
Really excited about this, definitely my most looked forward to film in the next year. I hope 48 FPS turns out to be a good choice. Also, there's a trailer coming out on December 20th!

Stare-Out
Mar 11, 2010

It's nice to have a new thread (with a great OP), but what will the spoiler policy be for the thread? In the last one it was pretty mixed, with some people covering even the smallest spoiler and others going with the whole "the book is a billion years old, everyone's read it so why spoiler the story" angle. I read the book when I was a kid, but honestly I've forgotten most of it, enough that I think I can go see the movie(s) pretty much clean. I'm sure I'm not the only person in this situation, so I'd prefer if there'd be some kind of policy set in stone for the thread about it.

Edit: VVV Much appreciated!

Stare-Out fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Dec 17, 2011

Mr. Gibbycrumbles
Aug 30, 2004

Do you think your paladin sword can defeat me?

En garde, I'll let you try my Wu-Tang style

Stare-Out posted:

It's nice to have a new thread (with a great OP), but what will the spoiler policy be for the thread? In the last one it was pretty mixed, with some people covering even the smallest spoiler and others going with the whole "the book is a billion years old, everyone's read it so why spoiler the story" angle. I read the book when I was a kid, but honestly I've forgotten most of it, enough that I think I can go see the movie(s) pretty much clean. I'm sure I'm not the only person in this situation, so I'd prefer if there'd be some kind of policy set in stone for the thread about it.

very good point - i have edited the op accordingly

Mr. Gibbycrumbles fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Dec 17, 2011

Ksrugi
Mar 21, 2010
I've been putting myself on a media blackout for anything concerning the Hobbit so I can be thoroughly surprised going into the theater. Those Dwarves though, they look top notch as does Bilbo. This'll be good.

Karpaw
Oct 29, 2011

by Cyrano4747
I'm mildly surprised that they kept all the dwarves in. I'd have expected them to exclude some for the sake of characterisation.

Grendels Dad
Mar 5, 2011

Popular culture has passed you by.
The dwarves look fantastic. I always felt that Gimli was a bit of the odd man out in LotR because we barely got to see any other dwarves, but this looks great and will give the dwarves some much-deserved love.

MIDWIFE CRISIS
Nov 5, 2008

Ta gueule, laisse-moi finir.

Karpaw posted:

I'm mildly surprised that they kept all the dwarves in. I'd have expected them to exclude some for the sake of characterisation.

But then the dwarves wouldn't amount to an unlucky number, meaning an extra expedition member wouldn't be needed :ohdear:

Sort of related book question: Does Gandalf ever explain more thoroughly why he chose Bilbo to go with the dwarves? And what will be the likely explanation in the movie?

MIDWIFE CRISIS fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Dec 17, 2011

mind the walrus
Sep 22, 2006

Grendels Dad posted:

The dwarves look fantastic. I always felt that Gimli was a bit of the odd man out in LotR because we barely got to see any other dwarves, but this looks great and will give the dwarves some much-deserved love.

I also love how visually distinct they made each dwarf look. I mean, yeah it's all for "action figure purposes" as well as visual distinction, but it'll make differentiating the characters super-easy for all audience members.

VelveetaAvenger
Nov 3, 2011

Boom!

Admiral Goodenough posted:

Sort of related book question: Does Gandalf ever explain more thoroughly why he chose Bilbo to go with the dwarves? And what will be the likely explanation in the movie?

It's been a while since I read the book, but I think they didn't have any other dwarves that would come along. Since they hate humans and elves Gandalf found them a hobbit. They also mention that some of his ancestors were a little adventurous for hobbits.

ChaosTheory
Oct 1, 2003

Pillbug
I hope the framerate thing doesnt make it look like TV. I never quite liked that 120hz smoothed out stuff.

iSheep
Feb 5, 2006

by R. Guyovich

ChaosTheory posted:

I hope the framerate thing doesnt make it look like TV. I never quite liked that 120hz smoothed out stuff.

There is a difference between 120hz and the "Smooth motion" feature that TVs have now.

Wolfsheim
Dec 23, 2003

"Ah," Ratz had said, at last, "the artiste."

Admiral Goodenough posted:

But then the dwarves wouldn't amount to an unlucky number, meaning an extra expedition member wouldn't be needed :ohdear:

Sort of related book question: Does Gandalf ever explain more thoroughly why he chose Bilbo to go with the dwarves? And what will be the likely explanation in the movie?

Didn't he say they needed a sneaky thiefy type, and Bilbo was essentially the best he could get on short notice, because (1)hobbits are crazy good at sneaking and (2)he's the only hobbit who might even consider doing it?

Crappy Jack
Nov 21, 2005

We got some serious shit to discuss.

ChaosTheory posted:

I hope the framerate thing doesnt make it look like TV. I never quite liked that 120hz smoothed out stuff.

The TV stuff looks weird because it wasn't filmed that way, it's just your TV filling in the gaps. If they do go with a higher frame rate, it'll be easier to handle because it was actually filmed that way instead of being done after the fact; it's like the difference between watching a movie filmed in 3D versus one made in 3D in post-production.

Supreme Allah
Oct 6, 2004

everybody relax, i'm here
Nap Ghost
Old Tomnoddy, all big body, Old Tomnoddy can't spy me! Attercop! Attercop! Down you drop! You'll never catch me up your tree!

I can't believe he went there.

kaworu
Jul 23, 2004

Admiral Goodenough posted:

But then the dwarves wouldn't amount to an unlucky number, meaning an extra expedition member wouldn't be needed :ohdear:

Sort of related book question: Does Gandalf ever explain more thoroughly why he chose Bilbo to go with the dwarves? And what will be the likely explanation in the movie?

That's an interesting question about the book. I don't believe that Gandalf necessarily does thoroughly explain why he chose Bilbo, but he has very good reasons. Gandalf was excellent friends with The Old Took, who was I believe one of the longest-lived hobbits ever before he got beaten by the magic-ring wielding Bilbo at the very end of LotR. The Old Took and his kin were known for going off on adventures with Gandalf, and so the wizard had a very high regard for that particular family of hobbits, feeling that they were considerably more brave and adventurous of spirit than much of their brethren. Of course, most in The Shire considered them to be "queer", in Tolkien's words. One of The Old Took's more notable children was named Belladonna, and Bilbo was her son, whom she had with Bungo Baggins (more of your average hobbit).

So I suppose the short answer would be that Gandalf chose Bilbo because he had an extremely high regard for his mother and grandfather, and very likely saw a great deal of potential in him that Bilbo didn't even see in himself - Gandalf, of course, would be able to see such things in certain individuals. I like to think that the "hands of destiny" or some such poetic nonsense would be involved, as well, whether Gandalf or Bilbo or the dwarves were aware of it.

And on a related note, looking at that picture of Martin Freeman makes me feel really excited. He is honestly the perfect choice for this role. He not only looks the part, but watching him in some of his other roles (most especially as Watson in Moffat's modern take on Sherlock Holmes) you can just see how he has the potential to truly embody the character, in the same sort of way that Ian McKellen embodied Gandalf. Everything about Freeman works as Bilbo - face, voice, comportment, attitude, style, etc. In many ways, LotR lacked that central, main protagonist for the audience to truly relate to and experience the journey with. I mean, you had Frodo, Aragorn, and Gandalf kind of sharing that role at various points. I think that worked against the LotR films in many ways. The Hobbit should be extremely well-served by having Freeman as a true, traditional protagonist who spends the entire time at the center of the action, more or less.

kaworu fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Dec 17, 2011

The Castro
Apr 28, 2010
I'm not that up to date on all of this, but I saw on Ian McKellen's IMDb that he was going to be in The Hobbit: There And Back Again in 2013.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005212/

So this is going to be told in two movies or something?

Cpt. Spring Types
Feb 19, 2004

Wait, what?

The Castro posted:

I'm not that up to date on all of this, but I saw on Ian McKellen's IMDb that he was going to be in The Hobbit: There And Back Again in 2013.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005212/

So this is going to be told in two movies or something?

Yeah. For more info, read this. It's pretty clearly stated in the section called The Essentials.

Supreme Allah
Oct 6, 2004

everybody relax, i'm here
Nap Ghost

The Castro posted:

I'm not that up to date on all of this, but I saw on Ian McKellen's IMDb that he was going to be in The Hobbit: There And Back Again in 2013.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005212/

So this is going to be told in two movies or something?

It's one of those things that made me roll my eyes at first, then I came around to it. The Hobbit as a book is less dense text-wise than any single LOTR trilogy volume. Yet the narrative covers a LOT of adventure in that time. The style of writing was just less dense, and you focused on a single viewpoint for basically the entire book.

Part of this makes me wish Tolkien had fleshed out some of the stuff that was only alluded to in the book.

Gandalf comes back and offhandedly mentions some massive dark adventure in The Necromancers lair? THAT SOUNDS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS. Maybe they touch these things in the movies.

keep punching joe
Jan 22, 2006

Die Satan!

Supreme Allah posted:

Gandalf comes back and offhandedly mentions some massive dark adventure in The Necromancers lair? THAT SOUNDS RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS. Maybe they touch these things in the movies.

It's irrelevant to Bilbo's story though, which is what the Hobbit is. Plus that section was inserted by Tolkien after he had written LOTR as a way to link the books, along with rewriting the Riddles in the Dark chapter.

MIDWIFE CRISIS
Nov 5, 2008

Ta gueule, laisse-moi finir.

kaworu posted:

And on a related note, looking at that picture of Martin Freeman makes me feel really excited. He is honestly the perfect choice for this role.

This cannot be stressed enough. Freeman looks crazy perfect as Bilbo, it's so exhilarating :)

ChaosTheory
Oct 1, 2003

Pillbug

Crappy Jack posted:

The TV stuff looks weird because it wasn't filmed that way, it's just your TV filling in the gaps. If they do go with a higher frame rate, it'll be easier to handle because it was actually filmed that way instead of being done after the fact; it's like the difference between watching a movie filmed in 3D versus one made in 3D in post-production.

Sure, but soap operas and other TV stuff is filmed at 30 fps, and they looks more fake than movies do. So when movies are smoothed by the filters they look like TV to me.

I'm not saying this will look fake, I just hope it doesn't. I may be old-fashioned, but I like 24 fps just the way it is.

ChaosTheory fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Dec 18, 2011

Relayer
Sep 18, 2002

ChaosTheory posted:

Sure, but soap operas and other TV stuff is filmed at 30 fps, and they looks more fake than movies do. So when movies are smoothed by the filters they look like TV to me.

I'm not saying this will look fake, I just hope it doesn't. I may be old-fashioned, but I like 24 fps just the way it is.

I agree. Whether 24 fps looks "right" as a byproduct of decades of adaptation to a technical limitation doesn't matter much to me personally. It's just so ingrained at this point that pretty much anything at 30fps or higher looks like it's cheap in some way to my eye. I'm not going to resist it though, cause I love these books and I have faith that it will work.

I think what surprised me most about their decision to shoot at a high framerate though is just how much it will set the movies apart from the LOTR film trilogy production-wise. They're going to be very consistent in most aspects (actors, set designers, Howard Shore, etc..) but they'll be at a (hopefully not distracting) considerably higher framerate? Just seems kinda odd. I'm trying to imagine a big grandiose musical score set to non-24fps and my brain cannot compute it.

Relayer fucked around with this message at 01:44 on Dec 18, 2011

sethsez
Jul 14, 2006

He's soooo dreamy...

ChaosTheory posted:

Sure, but soap operas and other TV stuff is filmed at 30 fps, and they looks more fake than movies do. So when movies are smoothed by the filters they look like TV to me.

I'm not saying this will look fake, I just hope it doesn't. I may be old-fashioned, but I like 24 fps just the way it is.

Soap operas also have remarkably lovely production values. News, sports and the like are broadcast at 30 FPS and look just fine.

kaworu
Jul 23, 2004

sethsez posted:

Soap operas also have remarkably lovely production values. News, sports and the like are broadcast at 30 FPS and look just fine.

Yeah, I'm sort of thinking about how gorgeous a baseball game or something looks when you watch it in HD on a nice TV with that framerate. It has this sort of incredibly crisp, smooth, hyper-real quality where it feels like you're almost looking into a window at something that's actually going on. It doesn't seem cheap at all - quite the opposite. It's just going to be really bizarre to see a film that has a similar visual quality.

The Castro
Apr 28, 2010

Cpt. Spring Types posted:

Yeah. For more info, read this. It's pretty clearly stated in the section called The Essentials.

I had a feeling I should have gone back and re-read everything.

ComposerGuy
Jul 28, 2007

Conspicuous Absinthe

Admiral Goodenough posted:

This cannot be stressed enough. Freeman looks crazy perfect as Bilbo, it's so exhilarating :)

It was literally the biggest "Oh, DUH!" moment for me when it was announced. I had been fretting about who they would pick. "Who do you get to play Middle-Earth Arthur Dent?"

Oh, wait...you loving get Arthur Dent.

Lizard Combatant
Sep 29, 2010

I have some notes.
Did someone in the old thread mention that a new production video was due soon?

TheBigBudgetSequel
Nov 25, 2008

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.

Lizard Combatant posted:

Did someone in the old thread mention that a new production video was due soon?

They hardly ever announce it until right before the post it, so...maybe? Maybe not?

Lizard Combatant
Sep 29, 2010

I have some notes.

TheBigBudgetSequel posted:

They hardly ever announce it until right before the post it, so...maybe? Maybe not?

It's entirely possible that I imagined it.

LoveisOver
Aug 8, 2011
The Hobbit is definitely going to be special. I think it's really neat that the LotR movies preceded these 2 by a decade, instead of the other way around. Although knowing Hollywood they would've wanted to get to the action-y blockbusters sooner. By doing the Hobbit afterwards i guess it gave PJ some time to rest and step back and look at his prior movies.

PateraOctopus
Oct 27, 2010

It's not enough to listen, it's not enough to see
When the hurricane is coming on, it's not enough to flee

Admiral Goodenough posted:

Sort of related book question: Does Gandalf ever explain more thoroughly why he chose Bilbo to go with the dwarves? And what will be the likely explanation in the movie?

There is an explanation SOMEWHERE, but damned if I know where--probably Unfinished Tales or one of the appendices or something. I remember reading it as a kid. As I recall, a large part of it was that Smaug would never have encountered a hobbit before, and thus if one entered his lair he'd be thrown off by the fact that he couldn't identify the smell. Also Thorin had such a low opinion of Hobbits in general that Gandalf figured he'd be more cautious if one was in his party, for fear that the hobbit would gently caress things up for him. As to why Bilbo specifically was chosen, kaworu's explanation is pretty much dead on.

wheatpuppy
Apr 25, 2008

YOU HAVE MY POST!
Looking at the production videos, Bilbo does look pretty Tookish.

Trump
Jul 16, 2003

Cute

ChaosTheory posted:

I'm not saying this will look fake, I just hope it doesn't. I may be old-fashioned, but I like 24 fps just the way it is.

I felt the same way as you before I actually saw how awesome it looks. And clips I've seen weren't from a fully developed pro level camera.

It's going to look great, have no doubts about it.

Baron von Eevl
Jan 24, 2005

WHITE NOISE
GENERATOR

🔊😴

kaworu posted:

Yeah, I'm sort of thinking about how gorgeous a baseball game or something looks when you watch it in HD on a nice TV with that framerate. It has this sort of incredibly crisp, smooth, hyper-real quality where it feels like you're almost looking into a window at something that's actually going on. It doesn't seem cheap at all - quite the opposite. It's just going to be really bizarre to see a film that has a similar visual quality.

You guys worried about framerate should keep in mind that each one of your eyes is going to be seeing at 24 fps itself. The whole idea of the 3D is, as I understand it, that each frame is alternating which lens of the 3D glasses it enters.

Dolphin
Dec 5, 2008

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Does anyone know if the trailer going to be 48 FPS?

Baron von Eevl posted:

You guys worried about framerate should keep in mind that each one of your eyes is going to be seeing at 24 fps itself. The whole idea of the 3D is, as I understand it, that each frame is alternating which lens of the 3D glasses it enters.
I'm not worried about the 48 FPS, but I'm hoping there's a 2D version because I hate 3D movies.

Baron von Eevl
Jan 24, 2005

WHITE NOISE
GENERATOR

🔊😴

Dolphin posted:

Does anyone know if the trailer going to be 48 FPS?

I'm not worried about the 48 FPS, but I'm hoping there's a 2D version because I hate 3D movies.

I'm pretty sure there will be, but it'll probably be like Avatar at the multiplexes where 9/10 showings are 3D.

CerealCrunch
Jun 23, 2007

PateraOctopus posted:

There is an explanation SOMEWHERE, but damned if I know where--probably Unfinished Tales or one of the appendices or something. I remember reading it as a kid. As I recall, a large part of it was that Smaug would never have encountered a hobbit before, and thus if one entered his lair he'd be thrown off by the fact that he couldn't identify the smell. Also Thorin had such a low opinion of Hobbits in general that Gandalf figured he'd be more cautious if one was in his party, for fear that the hobbit would gently caress things up for him. As to why Bilbo specifically was chosen, kaworu's explanation is pretty much dead on.

I'm reading through appendix A of Lord of the Rings right now, and Gandalf and Thorin get together in Bree before the Hobbit.

Basically, Gandalf is sitting around worried about how Sauron might use Smaug to kick the poo poo out of Middle Earth. Thorin shows up by chance and asks Gandalf to come to his halls to talk about how he might get his inheritance that Smaug is sitting on. This meeting with Thorin is elaborated on in "The Quest of Erebor" which is found in the appendix of some versions of the Hobbit, or it can be found in Unfinished Tales.

Gandalf wants to use Bilbo because he feels it's important to include Hobbits in the affairs of the world. He needed to teach the Hobbits enough to understand the world, but he did not have time, so he insisted Thorin include him in his quest to get rid of the dragon. He says the dragon might not recognize Hobbit scent, but that was mainly so he would agree to take Bilbo.

Thorin really doesn't think much of Hobbits, but Gandalf says they can walk quietly and are courageous in a pinch. It is actually Thorin who suggests that Bilbo is a thief (how else could they have nice silverware and jewelry). This pisses off Gandalf and he says, fine, Bilbo is a thief. Now take him and succeed, or leave him behind and fail.

El Duodenum
Dec 27, 2004


Baron von Eevl posted:

You guys worried about framerate should keep in mind that each one of your eyes is going to be seeing at 24 fps itself. The whole idea of the 3D is, as I understand it, that each frame is alternating which lens of the 3D glasses it enters.

Not quite. Movie theaters use passive, polarized 3D; both the left and the right images are present and changing simultaneously, each with (in this case) 48 distinct frames per second.

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keep punching joe
Jan 22, 2006

Die Satan!
My eyes can't focus on 3D and trying to watch it always leaves me with a headache so I really hope that this is shot in such a way that the 3D is just there as an added effect and not lots of things getting thrown towards the camera to justify the fact that it is in 3D.

It kinda annoys me that the 3D gimmick is still hanging on, at least Christopher Nolan saw sense and just shoots in Imax format instead.

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