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Everyone's complaining about the HFR, but to me the lighting almost ruined the movie for me. I don't know if it's that the HFR accentuates how fake movie lighting is, or if they just had an awful lighting director, but it was really terrible in some scenes. Also, the camerawork in some of the dialogue scenes seemed amateurish, like something out of a TV special. I wonder if it's just the difference between the first unit team and the second unit team?
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Dec 16, 2012 02:06
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Petr posted:Everyone's complaining about the HFR, but to me the lighting almost ruined the movie for me. I don't know if it's that the HFR accentuates how fake movie lighting is, or if they just had an awful lighting director, but it was really terrible in some scenes. I can promise you it was the HFR and post production brightness boosts, unless Andrew Lesnie randomly forgot how to be a master cinematographer, which I highly doubt
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Dec 16, 2012 02:12
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I have a question - since the prologue takes place *right* before the Fellowship of the Ring, how does Frodo know that Bilbo spared Gollum's life at one point? It seems clear that he hasn't read Bilbo's memoirs at that point of the story. I have to say I enjoy Bilbo as a protagonist much more than I enjoyed Frodo. Martin Freeman is just a far more watchable actor.
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Dec 16, 2012 02:14
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Loved the movie apart from the stone giants, that was so out of place in a world with talking trees. Also, I never really once got a sense of any danger throughout the film.
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Dec 16, 2012 02:15
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Deakul posted:Loved the movie apart from the stone giants, that was so out of place in a world with talking trees. Did you remember what happened in the book or read it? I completely forgot what happened in the book so I wasn't sure who would live or die so I had a sense of danger for everyone except gandalf and bilbo.
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Dec 16, 2012 02:21
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mr. unhsib posted:I have a question - since the prologue takes place *right* before the Fellowship of the Ring, how does Frodo know that Bilbo spared Gollum's life at one point? It seems clear that he hasn't read Bilbo's memoirs at that point of the story. Bilbo doesn't finish his memoirs until well after Frodo leaves with the Fellowship. He even says he needs time to finish it (at Rivendell, IIRC.)
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Dec 16, 2012 02:26
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AccountSupervisor posted:I can promise you it was the HFR and post production brightness boosts, unless Andrew Lesnie randomly forgot how to be a master cinematographer, which I highly doubt Firelight didn't flicker, night scenes switched randomly between real-looking darkness and day-for-night so bright that I could make out the audience in the front row, and some of the daytime outdoor scenes (like Lake-Town) almost looked lit with fluorescents. I dunno, I just spent most of the movie noticing the lighting.
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Dec 16, 2012 02:26
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Petr posted:Firelight didn't flicker, night scenes switched randomly between real-looking darkness and day-for-night so bright that I could make out the audience in the front row, and some of the daytime outdoor scenes (like Lake-Town) almost looked lit with fluorescents. I dunno, I just spent most of the movie noticing the lighting. For what it's worth I didn't have this at all and I saw it in 24fps IMAX. I'm going to go see the HFR version when I get the chance to do a comparison.
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Dec 16, 2012 02:29
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Deakul posted:Loved the movie apart from the stone giants, that was so out of place in a world with talking trees. There isn't much sense of danger in the book, either. It's pretty big on "adventure! hooray!" and a lot of deus ex machina moments. The movie is good, but not great. I feel like it was a bit of a missed opportunity and I'm already looking forward to The Desolation of Smaug to set right some of the problems in this movie: mainly, I feel that the volume is just cranked too loud. FOTR had great balance of downtempo, character and dialogue-only moments, and action set pieces. It gave the audience time to breathe and become invested in the quest, which isn't happening in The Hobbit. Like others have complained, the second half of the movie is exhausting, just action sequence after action sequence after action sequence. I'm hoping that Part Two mirrors The Two Towers in this respect, by being light on action and heavy on characterization, opting for tension and saving the majority of its energy for a huge burst with the introduction of Smaug near the end. edit: I don't mean to sound too down on it, because I did really, really, really enjoy myself. I think this trilogy is really promising, even if I feel like the first part missed the mark in a few places. Zoph fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 02:30
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Petr posted:Firelight didn't flicker, night scenes switched randomly between real-looking darkness and day-for-night so bright that I could make out the audience in the front row, and some of the daytime outdoor scenes (like Lake-Town) almost looked lit with fluorescents. I dunno, I just spent most of the movie noticing the lighting. Did you by chance see it in 2D? Using higher brightness levels to compensate for the way stereoscopic projection practically halves the value of every shot is a thing, and I'm not sure I believe anybody knows how to do it well yet. I'd rather they err on the sight of visibility, anyway.
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Dec 16, 2012 02:51
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Nope, HFR 3d.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:00
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So I just got back from watching this flick in 3D with the HFR and I don't know what some of you guys are talking about but thems some incredible visuals. It wasn't so much that the 3D was amazing but more so the look of everything. I'm not entirely sure if it was the HFR or what but I've never seen anything like it. Helped the that movie was entertaining as well.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:06
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mr. unhsib posted:I have a question - since the prologue takes place *right* before the Fellowship of the Ring, how does Frodo know that Bilbo spared Gollum's life at one point? It seems clear that he hasn't read Bilbo's memoirs at that point of the story. Bilbo has told parts of the stories many times, probably with many different variations (as seen by him telling the story of the trolls in Fellowship of the Ring to the Hobbit children) but this is the first time he has sat down to actually write everything down from start to finish. Forgetting that he's a Hobbit and lives in a fantasy world, it's actually a pretty common real world thing (or was, at least) for some old eccentric member of the family to sit down to write his memoirs as he got older and realized that time was running out and he won't always be around to "tell the one about the time you did the thing, Uncle Oddball!"
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Dec 16, 2012 03:10
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Two quick questions 1)Was it Thror (the grandfather) that was described as having gone "crazy with greed" during Bilbo's oral history of the Dwarves? 2)Did Thorin say, during his oral retelling of the battle of Moria, that his father, Thrain, went crazy with grief and left the battlefield after Thror (his father, Thorin's grandfather) was killed? thet0wer fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 03:10
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mr. unhsib posted:I have a question - since the prologue takes place *right* before the Fellowship of the Ring, how does Frodo know that Bilbo spared Gollum's life at one point? It seems clear that he hasn't read Bilbo's memoirs at that point of the story.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:13
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In Fellowship we see Bilbo telling part of the story to some adorable hobbit kids- presumably he did the same with Frodo, he's just now getting it on paper.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:29
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Bilbo has most absurdly told Frodo stories of his adventures in the past. Just not the complete unedited version. He tells kids at the party in fotr about the trolls, of course Frodo has heard these stories before. It's necessary to have it set this way so Frodo doesn't know everything like, the nature or the One Ring. But it's not a stretch to say that Bilbo talked about winning a riddles game with a monster and leaving out the ring bit.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:39
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Frodo definitely knew about the ring. Like Gandalf at the time, he just assumed that it was a cool magic ring, not The One Ring. Anyway, in the first minutes of the film Bilbo explicitly narrates that he told Frodo some of the story but not all of the story.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:57
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The Biggest Jerk posted:Did you remember what happened in the book or read it? I completely forgot what happened in the book so I wasn't sure who would live or die so I had a sense of danger for everyone except gandalf and bilbo. Literally just a tiny mention in the book, I figured Bilbo was just describing the sound of the thunder and earthquakes with hyperbole.
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Dec 16, 2012 03:58
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Most of the negative feedback this movie has gotten seems to come from people comparing it to Lord of the Rings, even though it did everything in its power to highlight what made The Hobbit an entirely different tale. Thank God, too. I didn't want to see Lord of the Rings: Episode I
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Dec 16, 2012 04:17
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In the first publication of The Hobbit, the Ring was just a magic ring. After LOTR was written, Tolkien rewrote The Hobbit so that the Ring is appropriately EVIIIL. The in-universe explanation is that all this stuff got written down and Tolkien is just a "translator". So the original version of Hobbit is one that has Bilbo lying about what happened with Gollum. The updated text is the true story. So in the film, Bilbo is writing the memoirs that will contain the true story of the Ring. Until that point, he'd kept the truth from everyone. But Gandalf figures it out on his own and tells Frodo to "keep it secret, keep it safe!" and all that jazz. It's a bit confusing if you don't know all the stupid lore.
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Dec 16, 2012 04:41
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I watched in in 2d, and what I can only assume was 24fps, saw cigarette burns on the film and was in no way under the impression that it was home-movie like. Is the HFR version digital? Though I think my theatre also had technical difficulties, a lot of the panning shots were stuttery and out of focus. Was slapstick-ier than I like, but enjoyable. I thought the stone giants was the weakest part. Painfully obviouslly the quick-time even for The Hobbit:The Movie:The Game. I wouldn't have minded the stone giants hucking rocks in the distance, but however many minutes they spent running from armpit to crotch on various giants felt waaaaaay too long, and waaaay to video-gamey. Kind of felt that way about the Goblin warrens as well. Also not wild about a lot of the dwarf dialogue. When one of the idiot dwarves jumps up and shouts about stabbing smaug in the 'jaxy', I winced. I did like the singing, and the plate throwing, and the plate throwing chant quite a bit. I skipped everything in italics in the book, so having it done well in film was nice. One thing I think hurts is that we saw 7 hours of Rivendell already, so another loving council, in loving rivendell we've already seen 7 hours of, has a lot less impact. I like gazebos and waterfalls as well as the next guy, but it doesn't really have the wonderousness in the context of three other movies already. Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 04:41
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The only real issue I had with the HFR was when the shot focused on someone's hands and the shot from Bilbo's perspective when he was going through his trunk. For some reason those were the only things that threw my brain for a loop, making the movements look jerky and unnatural. Really wish there was a HFR with no 3D option though. The only change that broke the heart of my inner Tolkien nerd was the exclusion of 15 Birds. qbert posted:It's been a long time since I read The Hobbit, but I saw it last night with a friend who hadn't read the books. The first thing he asked me when we walked out was, "So...why are they going to the mountain? The movie never explained what they're going to do when they get there." While other people have covered how poor the plan was, it should be pointed out that he movie was very clear about the plan. Go to the Lonely Mountain, kill the dragon, move back in. In the defense of the dwarves, they also pointed out that Smaug's long absence was fueling rumors of a possibly unguarded dwarf kingdom full of gold and empty rooms. So half the reason for their Underpants Gnome planning outline is their need to be the first ones back. Besides, they've got a Wizard and a Burglar. Problem solved.
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Dec 16, 2012 04:58
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Gyges posted:The only real issue I had with the HFR was when the shot focused on someone's hands and the shot from Bilbo's perspective when he was going through his trunk. For some reason those were the only things that threw my brain for a loop, making the movements look jerky and unnatural. Really wish there was a HFR with no 3D option though. I noticed that, too. Whenever someone was going through stuff in a trunk (which happens a lot) I honestly thought it was in fast-forward or something.
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Dec 16, 2012 05:15
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HFR did not work for me at all. Every camera move felt like it was too fast. The RealD glasses made everything slightly green and made it feel even more like a documentary on the LotR. When I took the glasses off it looked a bit better. Still, HFR didn't add anything and IMO made the film worse than it already was. Even the color timing seemed to be oddly more cheap soap opera-ish but I'll have to watch it at 24fps to see if it wasn't just HFR loving with me. edit: here's my conversation with my wife when the credits were rolling wife: who directed this? me: peter jackson wife: who's that? Was that the guy who directed LotRs? me: yes wife: really? me: yes wife: this movie sucks Shaocaholica fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 05:22
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I had a lot of fun watching this movie. I think the dumber a given part of it was, the better it was. Probably the worst parts of The Hobbit were the super-generic drama and cliches inserted into the original story in order to fit some sort of action movie quota or something, like giving Thorin a spooky orc nemesis and making Thorin suddenly hate Bilbo during the mountain sequence and making Bilbo heroically tackle that really slow executioner so that he could be apologized to on a clifftop later. We would've gotten 15 Birds if not for that loving extra character! I don't want grim ancestral nemeses, I want more wackiness.
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Dec 16, 2012 05:56
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Anybody else feel that the Thorin speech at the very end reminded you of this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkyoHohhCIA
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Dec 16, 2012 06:20
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Bombadilillo posted:Anybody else feel that the Thorin speech at the very end reminded you of this. I'd say so, given that I knew exactly what the clip was before I clicked it.
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Dec 16, 2012 06:21
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I saw this today and I have to say, I thought it was absolutely awful. I am no LOTR hater. I consider ROTK one of my favourite movies, top 3 easily. But this was just garbage. The pacing was so, so bad and whole scenes felt stretched to the point of being excruciating. I don't know who edited this but I feel sorry for them having to drag this mess into 3 full films. The cinematography was pretty woeful. I'm no fan of digital filming and I thought it really lacked the fantastical yet gritty look that the LOTR trilogy had. This was really noticeable in a fantasy film, where, as far as I'm concerned, it shouldn't look real. The acting was fine but everything else was just a mess. Incredibly disappointed.
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Dec 16, 2012 06:26
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Bombadilillo posted:Anybody else feel that the Thorin speech at the very end reminded you of this. I do now. I think they made the actor playing Thorin do one take set like that that they could cut from, but somehow ended up using the whole scene. Honestly I really liked the Hobbit. Even with the weirdness of 48 FPS I still enjoyed it. It's going to be a great kid's movie to put on in the future, especially if they're too young to read but old enough to comprehend a movie's ins and outs the way kids tend to do. A lot of the complaints in this thread are really valid, but going in knowing most of them I didn't mind. At worst it reminded me a bit of the ghost army in RotK--sure there's a lot of it I didn't like but I feel it still all hangs together and works, and it's a far more faithful adaptation than anything else we're ever likely to get in our or our children's or our grandchildren's lifetimes so it's ok to cut it some slack.
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Dec 16, 2012 06:27
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I was really disappointed as well. I love The Hobbit, and found the LotR films to be more entertaining than the novels. But this was just too bloated and too slow. I was excited about the inclusion of the Necromancer subplot when I heard about it, but found myself resenting its inclusion because it never felt relevant to the dwarfs' quest.
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Dec 16, 2012 06:36
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Ferrinus posted:I had a lot of fun watching this movie. I think the dumber a given part of it was, the better it was. Probably the worst parts of The Hobbit were the super-generic drama and cliches inserted into the original story in order to fit some sort of action movie quota or something, like giving Thorin a spooky orc nemesis and making Thorin suddenly hate Bilbo during the mountain sequence and making Bilbo heroically tackle that really slow executioner so that he could be apologized to on a clifftop later. We would've gotten 15 Birds if not for that loving extra character! I don't want grim ancestral nemeses, I want more wackiness. To be honest, to me it came more across as Thorin trying to get Bilbo to go home because Thorin didn't think he had any business being there. Also he doesn't trust outsiders and fears the consequences of letting this hired burglar get too close. Which gives it an added touch of a test to see if they could even count on Bilbo. The little speech after they got away from the goblins also seemed what he thought to be a useful fiction to keep everyone from charging back into Goblin Town to save what he was sure was a dead Bilbo. Or I could just be reading too much into Thorin's expressions when Bilbo's being Hobbity(asking for handkerchiefs and such) and the seen where Bilbo almost walks out of the cave.
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Dec 16, 2012 06:40
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Everyone who didn't like this movie is wrong. That is my review. Is it as good as Fellowship of the Ring? No, nor should it be. Is it exactly what you want from a Peter Jackson production of The Hobbit? Yes, yes it is.
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Dec 16, 2012 06:45
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I will say this about the Hobbit versus Lord of the Rings, the tone whiplash from going directly from The Hobbit back to Fellowship is magnificent. The Good: The amount of detail in Bilbo's wardrobe is so exact that it makes me feel great about the continuity. Even the show of Ian Holm in the cave features an identical wardrobe to what Martin Freeman wears. My inner nerd is pleased. The decay of Gandalf's hat from his days in the Hobbit--where I noticed it was fresh and new and stiff--is very enjoyable. The Bad: The tone of LotR is immediately that of "we are treating Middle-Earth as real with all of the lived-in appearances that necessitates", which is gorgeous but only makes The Hobbit's bright palette stand in contrast. I just hope there's more of a segue come part three, at least in the sense that when Bilbo is done we pull back and can see the more muted colors of LotR on display. The odd: Frodo looks so much older in The Hobbit. Can't do anything about it, but it remains fun to notice. I wonder if I'd ever notice that if I were a kid watching all the movies in sequence.
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Dec 16, 2012 07:16
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I saw it on opening night in 2d non-HFR and today with my brother in 3D HFR. The 3D I can do without because 3D in general gives me a headache (but I cannot for the life of me find any 2D HFR showings in my area  ).I don't really understand the complaints about the HFR. I thought it had a really nice aesthetic and was substantially different from the way films have been traditionally shot in a very pleasing way. I thought it added a sort of "vivid-dream" quality, which was very fitting because there's a good argument to be made that the entire thing is actually to be viewed through the lens of Frodo's imagination while reading Bilbo's story. mind the walrus posted:The Bad: The tone of LotR is immediately that of "we are treating Middle-Earth as real with all of the lived-in appearances that necessitates", which is gorgeous but only makes The Hobbit's bright palette stand in contrast. I just hope there's more of a segue come part three, at least in the sense that when Bilbo is done we pull back and can see the more muted colors of LotR on display. This is a thing I like, though. Because Lord of the Rings is a grim reality check for Frodo. The real world and adventuring are a lot more dangerous and bleak than he imagined. Orcs aren't cartoonish, they're flesh and blood monsters. Trolls are more animalistic. "Every good story deserves embellishments" is the paramount line in this film. Bilbo is taking some liberties. NomChompsky fucked around with this message at 07:27 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 07:23
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mind the walrus posted:I will say this about the Hobbit versus Lord of the Rings, the tone whiplash from going directly from The Hobbit back to Fellowship is magnificent. This makes sense tonally, though, since LotR is all about decay and the passing of an age, where the Hobbit isn't. It's Middle Earth at its Middle Earthiest.
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Dec 16, 2012 07:26
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Maxwell Lord posted:This makes sense tonally, though, since LotR is all about decay and the passing of an age, where the Hobbit isn't. It's Middle Earth at its Middle Earthiest. It's not a bad thing, but man going from Hobbit 1 to LotR 1 is a huge case of whiplash. Really, try it. Also Ian Holm looks remarkably like Martin Freeman, and Freeman clearly channels Holm well in his acting.
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Dec 16, 2012 07:28
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mind the walrus posted:It's not a bad thing, but man going from Hobbit 1 to LotR 1 is a huge case of whiplash. Really, try it. I actually did, and yeah, it is different- though I felt it arguably could have been even more so. It'd be interesting to see a version of this where the filmmakers aren't beholden to an older film's relatively "real" aesthetics and can go even more stylized, like the woodcut look of the cartoon.
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Dec 16, 2012 07:31
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Here's a little detail in the Hobbit that works as great foreshadowing and I loved: When Gandalf calls the Eagles, their arrival is pretty close to when he calls them. In Fellowship, as someone who hadn't read the books at the time of the movie's release, I had no idea what the moth meant. Now if you watch the movies "in order" the moth acts as an extra treat for those who paid attention and not just for those who read the books.
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Dec 16, 2012 08:17
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Did anyone else feel that after they left Rivendell, when all the action started to happen, that the film became a mad dash to the finish line? I swear I just became immediately disinterested in anything that was happening on screen and more and more confused at how this movie could possibly end at any sort of logical conclusion. It really took all of the thrill out of the Dwarves' escape through Goblin town. And, while I thought the Riddles in the Dark scene was excellent, it seemed to come in at such an awkward time that I really couldn't appreciate that scene's importance as much as it needed to be. I don't want to get into the problems with tone because I came in expecting it to be a little off, but, honestly, something makes me think that this first part really suffered from the decision to release The Hobbit in three parts rather than two.
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Dec 16, 2012 08:19
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