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A movie about "Akallabeth" would be a hard sell even if it were allowed. The source material has very few specific characters, for one thing; it's pretty much just Sauron, Ar-Pharazon, Tar-Palantir, Isildur, Anarion, and maybe Umbar and Elrond. It would fall to the adapter to decide how these characters relate to each other, and to completely invent the entire supporting cast. Additionally, it would face the very significant marketing disadvantages of having no Gandalf and no Hobbits. It's one of the most filmable stories in The Silmarillion, but that's not saying much. "The Tale of Beren and Luthien" would be easier to adapt but is the least similar to the existing films, while The Children of Hurin has the most and richest existing material but is not suitable for younger audiences.
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Aug 22, 2013 07:53
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There's room in Middle-Earth for both Azog and Gothmog. Because Azog has motivation beyond being a minion of the Enemy, it's appropriate to make him more expressive and distinctive. Because he's got autonomy that the Mordor orcs and Uruk-Hai didn't, it's appropriate that his scars come more from battle and less from mutilation. Moreover, if these movies can't withstand Azog's appearance, then they definitely couldn't hold the Great Goblin. And if you're telling me you don't want the Great Goblin, then I guess you and I can't get along.
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Oct 27, 2013 20:29
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Aragorn's father was Arathorn, but wasn't he raised by Elrond?
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Nov 5, 2013 06:45
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Fatkraken posted:I kinda totally would be, for me The Hobbit is a book about a quest to slay a dragon, everything after that felt like Tolkien got to the end of his kids bedtime stories but they kept asking for more so he kept going. The quest isn't to slay the dragon, but to reclaim the mountain and the treasure underneath, and that isn't settled until the end of the Battle of Five Armies.
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Nov 18, 2013 00:40
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Until the end of the Third Age, everything civilized in Middle-Earth was derived the elvish civilization that developed in Valinor, who sent migrants back to Middle-Earth. In the First Age, those elves discovered that men had awoken in the east and had been living under the shadow of the Enemy, and so they were some mixture of primitive culture and enslavement by Morgoth. The Enemy, of course, has very little culture of its own, just a crude slave hierarchy. The Edain, men who fought alongside the elves to overthrow Morgoth at the end of the First Age, became the ancestors of the Numenoreans, who became the most advanced people in the world until their cataclysmic extermination, but the Edain were saved by the intercession of elves and Numenor became mighty by imitating elvish ways. Gondor was the last and vastly diminished remnant of Numenorean majesty, and every mannish nation that didn't acknowledge Gondor as its suzerain (and several of those that did) became either openly or secretly ruled by the Enemy. Additionally, throughout the Third Age, the elves were making their final mass migration to Valinor and retreating from Middle-Earth. What this adds up to is that there was no elvish culture uplifting men. In the Fourth Age, all the elves were gone and the Enemy was defeated, and that's what enabled men to finally develop a civilization of their own without being dominated by outside influences. Or, at least, that's one way of interpreting it.
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Nov 26, 2013 00:25
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Arglebargle III posted:I don't mind it. I mean, how else do you explain stuff like Fingolfin fighting Morgoth and not getting immediately killed, or Ecthelion fighting his way through three Balrogs during the fall of Gondolin? They have to be ridiculously badass. Legolas might be a filthy Sindarin who's genetically inferior to the Noldor Rank corresponds more strongly than race to rear end-kicking ability in Middle-Earth, and Legolas is, after all, a prince.
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Dec 8, 2013 07:59
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but he's in a class of being that can be simply so good at sword-fighing that they can kill Balrogs. Even if he's low down on that totem pole. I think an elephant should be within his power level.
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I think I'm finally coming around on Peter Jackson's over-the-top directing of action sequences, especially those involving elves. I get it now: of course they're constantly pulling outrageous stunts, because they're elves. You can really tell that the barrel escape scene was where the first film would've ended when it was still meant to be a duology. It would have provided a stronger contrast between the elves of Rivendell and those of Mirkwood (like how Fellowship contrasted Rivendell with Lorien), it marks the point where Azog stops his pursuit (Bolg presumably would have taken over later in that version), and it would mean that everything to do with Laketown and Smaug begins and ends in the same film. I like what they've done with Bard, making him sort of a reluctant champion of the people, sort of a pariah but with a compassion and sense of duty that justifies how things will go for him in part 3. Beorn... was so obviously cut from the theatrical release that I can't possibly judge him without seeing the extended cut. I bet he's a bit like Faramir, where the changes from the source material will all make sense when the film has more room to breathe. The whole thing could've done with a bit less running around. Tauriel's role in the film feels like it was originally conceived as a platonic admiration for the dwarves but was directed more like a conventional (and less interesting) infatuation with Kili.
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Dec 29, 2013 09:06
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TinTower posted:Weren't the Orcs explained in the Silmarillion as Elves and Men corrupted and bred by Morgoth? Tolkien was famously conflicted about the origins of Orcs. In some early texts he describes them as Elves captured and corrupted by Morgoth, but he changed his mind later in life, without ever settling on something definitive. The moral and theological implications of the reasons why a whole race should be born evil troubled him: he was adamant that creating life was something Morgoth could never do, as that alone was Eru's prerogative and that was a major source of his jealousy; but it was just as important that the denizens of Middle-Earth should fall into the Enemy's service rather than that being their natural state. It was a dilemma that he never resolved to his satisfaction. Later fantasy writers influenced by him gave themselves an easier problem by saying that Orcs were only usually evil, but Tolkien set himself up with a harder problem because he said there were no good Orcs any more than there were elves who served the Enemy*. If you're looking for an innocent race corrupted by Morgoth's influence, the answer is Men. The cop-out he eventually settled on was that all of his texts were written by Elves, who have no idea where Orcs came from and have only racist rumors to go on. *I seem to recall there was one infamous Elf who did turn to the Shadow, but I can't look into it right now.
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Dec 30, 2013 03:27
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My favorite set was the crypt of the Nazgul; the narrow, crumbling walkways around that pitch black pit really sold it as a place that was meant to be forgotten about. The Master of Laketown's bedroom was excellent too, albeit for a different reason.
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Jan 2, 2014 10:47
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I doubt it.
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Apr 17, 2014 17:00
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I expect I'm going to like this trilogy better when I have the extended cuts, and I can pause The Desolation of Smaug right before they meet Bard and pretend that's the end of An Unexpected Journey and everything from that point forward is There and Back Again. It's good scenes assembled into an awkward structure. I think that it's a common and natural thing for viewers to take things they don't like and try to find explanations for why specific elements of them are the reason they're bad. As often as not these only serve as lightning rods that distract from noticing deeper shortcomings, though.
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May 1, 2014 22:56
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Octy posted:I still think it ought to have been called 'There and Back Again'. I thought it was called that. When did it change?
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Jul 23, 2014 23:37
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Man. I actually like these movies more than most people I run into, but the advertising is trying its hardest to make me want to hate them.
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Jul 23, 2014 23:46
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Crows Turn Off posted:I haven't read the books, but I had a question about the the events of Desolation of Smaug. I know that Tauriel is a character made-up explicitly for the movie. So, in the books: Neither of those events happen in the book. Legolas isn't even in it.
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Jul 24, 2014 00:12
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This trilogy is less an adaptation of The Hobbit and more an adaptation of the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, one of which describes all the things that were happening elsewhere at the time of Bilbo's adventure that he didn't know about because he was busy being afraid and uncomfortable in a succession of caves.
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Jul 24, 2014 00:17
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I like the scenes that are in these movies, so I'll probably pick up the extended editions, which have more scenes in them.
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Jul 24, 2014 18:39
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PassTheRemote posted:I hope that there is no adaptation of the Simarillion, because I do not know if I can stand another Jackson Middle Earth movie. Apparently, they're throwing in everything from the appendices because this is the last chance they'll have at making a Tolkien film, so they want to adapt as much as possible.
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Jul 25, 2014 21:21
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Star Wars prequel comparisons are misguided because that prequel trilogy has exactly the opposite problems to this one. However, I'd be willing to bet that in three years, they will be alike in that the most common complaints about both of them will be equally superficial.
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Jul 29, 2014 06:37
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You can see the seam in the middle of The Desolation of Smaug where the second half of The Hobbit Part 1 and the first half of The Hobbit Part 2 were sewn together. (It's when they meet Bard.) This also explains the arbitrariness of An Unexpected Journey's climax, but, oddly enough, gives a reason to expect that The Battle of Five Armies may be the strongest of the three. Frankenstories of that sort often leave viewers dissatisfied, because they tend to be structurally weak, tonally inconsistent, and most damningly, formally different than expected.
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Jul 29, 2014 07:02
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Even though these movies are different from the book, and also from the earlier movies they're the prequel to, and even though they have bad advertisements, I'm probably going to like most of the scenes this next one is made of.
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Nov 8, 2014 08:19
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The Hobbit trilogy has exactly the opposite problem that the Star Wars prequels did.
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Nov 18, 2014 02:40
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SHISHKABOB posted:And what exactly is the problem. Ambition. The events of the Star Wars prequels legitimately do make a bigger and more dramatic story than their predecessors, so much so that George Lucas stumbled trying to include everything he thought was important, and many elements of what people justifiably consider essential to the cinematic experience were neglected. Peter Jackson, meanwhile, is stuck trying to fill ten hours of hyped-to-the-max Major Motion Picture Event by adapting source material that's a fluffy little side story to what Prof. Tolkien rightly identified as the most important and powerful fictional event he ever invented.
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Nov 18, 2014 03:33
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I do not at all begrudge Peter Jackson using this trilogy as an opportunity to spend infinite money on pushing the envelope of cinematic technology as far as he can - even if it means some of his experiments are failures. It's very difficult for an adaptation of The Hobbit to not seem like chopped liver next to a comparable adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, which is a much more dramatic and important story. So I think that an extremely technical viewing is not only the best way, but also the most flattering way, to understand these films. I wish HFR would catch on, I loved every second of that stupid barrel chase sequence, and I'm expecting to enjoy watching the conclusion this week. (It helps that the thing I liked most about The Lord of the Rings is also the thing that has changed least in The Hobbit - the visual design of the sets, costumes, and props.) Probably not going to want to watch the theatrical cuts ever again once the extended cuts are released, however. Bongo Bill fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Dec 16, 2014 |
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Dec 16, 2014 21:30
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Vaall posted:
Complaining that it doesn't look like what you think a movie should look like misses the entire point of an experimental attempt to see how, why, and with what result a movie can be made to look different.
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Dec 17, 2014 01:01
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People already do and thats why they hate them. The visual effects are so over the top to the point where you don't even have to guess where the green screens are not to mention the video-game-esque action sequences. People wanted a solid script & acting, not goblins that look like something you'd see in an MMORPG.
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UoI posted:You've heard some wrong because whoever said that is either a fat man-child who's unhealthily into WoW or a twelve-year-old child. So roughly the same demographic. - a goon
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Dec 17, 2014 01:08
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They're both concerned with advancing the state of the art in special effects, and have excellent set design. The Star Wars prequels were far more confident and ambitious in all respects, while The Hobbit trilogy is stylistically experimental (attempting radical techniques seemingly for the sake of seeing what it would be like) but narratively pedestrian (being an adaptation of a less powerful story than its sequel, rather than an enriching recontextualization of its predecessor). The only thing that actually matters about The Hobbit is that it was shot in HFR. But that's a very big change that it tries to explore fully.
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Dec 17, 2014 21:30
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I love how far over-the-top every single stunt in this movie was, even though it didn't have anything that reached the heights of the barrel chase. My favorite was the troll with the hat. However, I feel like it would be bad form to say anything more substantial about it until they release the extended edition, because of the entire hexalogy, this one has the most obviously incomplete theatrical cut. It'd be like reviewing a movie based on the trailer.
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Dec 20, 2014 05:00
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:What I want to know is where did those rams come from? It was a bit jarring when they suddenly appeared basically in the middle of the battle. Probably also explained in the extended cut. This is kind of a problem.
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Dec 20, 2014 08:02
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You need to embrace the silliness. That every eccentric coward, every weird animal, every impossibly acrobatic elven stunt, every drop of melodrama, every enormous CGI ham - all of that is the point of this exercise as a piece of entertainment. It is a proudly absurd trilogy, so criticize it on the basis of how well it achieves that absurdity. (There's still plenty wrong with it.)
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Dec 21, 2014 03:27
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The biggest problem is that they made three movies from two scripts. You can see the exact point in The Desolation of Smaug where what would have been part 1 of 2 ends and what would have been part 2 of 2 begins.
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Dec 21, 2014 05:34
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MajorB posted:There is no filler in The Hobbit Trilogy. I think that a few of the shots of the dwarves leading Smaug on a Scooby Doo chase through Erebor were a bit superfluous. (Note: I think this while approving of the concept of the dwarves leading Smaug on a Scooby--Doo chase through Erebor)
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Dec 21, 2014 06:24
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48FPS is actually good. I'm still not convinced that stereoscopic display technology is quite at the quality level it needs to be in order to justify the loss of techniques like forced perspective that don't work in 3D, however.
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Dec 21, 2014 07:58
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Is it even possible for a movie to not look like itself? These HFR productions have revealed some of the strengths and weaknesses of the format. I hope the technology sticks around so that other directors can refine it. The "looks cheap" problem, I think, is simply a matter of familiarity, and is less of a factor the more non-cheap >30FPS footage the viewer has seen (I think that sports and video games have already started making people accustomed to the benefits of higher framerates). Being able to see more detail in the image, which is literally what's going on when you have twice as many frames, does introduce the risk of revealing more of the flaws in props, sets, and costumes. But in that case, it's not the framerate that's making the objects look fake, but the fact that the objects are fake. Like matte paintings and miniatures, the higher the image quality, the higher construction quality is needed. I personally think that the reduction in motion blur, and consequent increase in the mobility of the camera, outweighs any other drawbacks.
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Dec 21, 2014 08:16
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Cartoons are good.Dystram posted:Certainly not. They just wheeled a dumptruck full of cash up to his house and offered an opportunity to play with some new toys - HFR, new CGI tech - on a throw-away cynical cash-in that would capitalize on audiences love for three other, superior films that draw upon the same source material. It reminds me of another trilogy, another prequel trilogy... You've described The Hobbit, but that's actually the opposite of what happened with that other trilogy, which, like it or not, was absolutely a labor of love.
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Dec 21, 2014 20:48
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The creativity went into the technology, which is cutting-edge and often experimental.
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Dec 22, 2014 02:03
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BigglesSWE posted:Not a great way to go if you want something to last though. Especially since there's nothing really innovative in the way CGI or the HFR was used in these movies. HFR doesn't seem to catch on so as an experiment it should be seen as a failure, and the CGI is always improving anyway across the industry at large. The CGI in these movies were pretty uninspiring for the most part. Few things really blew me out of the seat in amazement. Gravity from last year was much more interesting in that regard. The use of HFR is a novelty in and of itself; the decision to commit to filming everything at that framerate is highly instructive in regards to what effects it has generally. Some existing techniques were used in conjunction with it, including slow-motion and temporarily dropping the framerate. The rapid movements of the camera in the Goblin Town chase and barrel chase, and to a lesser extent rapidly-moving objects throughout, would not have been possible at 24 frames per second. Tons of characters are wholly CGI, and they interact physically with the characters played by actors; hell, they even had to replace one of the characters (Dain) with CGI on short notice because the actor fell ill, or so I've heard. Different-scale sets are composited together in 3D with green screen. The facial motion capture was quite extensive especially in the case of trolls, and the use of mocap for a non-humanoid character was also fairly novel. None of those are really big crowd-pleaser effects except for the chaotic tracking chase shots, and in fact a lot of people are complaining about them (some of them even have a better reason than just disliking things that are different! not the ones who dislike HFR itself, though, those people are just plain wrong) but they do represent definite advancements in the state of the art.
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Dec 22, 2014 03:15
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CelticPredator posted:HFR is no different than your parents leaving on the TruMotion on their HDTV. That's like saying that a photograph captured at a higher resolution is no different than scaling it up in Photoshop. Interpolation doesn't double the fidelity of the video. TruMotion and other such algorithms add nothing to the video in the most literal, mathematical sense possible; all they're doing is blowing it up, except in time instead of space. (It also fucks with motion blur, which is still present in the source video.) HFR is filmed at the higher framerate, so it actually does add information. You wouldn't expect someone to notice that the first time they see it, however. Especially if the only video that they'd previously seen captured at a higher framerate is a recording of something ugly.
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Dec 22, 2014 03:38
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therealjon_ posted:Also Dain was pretty drat cool. I haven't read the book since I was young, but what happens with him? Does he die? Did I just miss it? He succeeds Thorin and becomes King Under the Mountain. His people help keep Sauron's forces occupied during the War of the Ring, on a front that is never actually shown or mentioned during the text proper.
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Dec 22, 2014 06:21
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The best troll was the one with the hat.
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Dec 22, 2014 06:34
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I love cheese.
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Dec 24, 2014 19:06
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