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Saturniid19 posted:Wasn't CG Azog a super-late addition to the movie? Like, summer 2012? They could have gone back to del Toro's designs for him, but I thought they scrapped all of that? Yeah, originally it was Sauron
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Oct 27, 2013 17:30
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Stay Out of FYAD posted:I know, but it's still such a slap in the face to the amount of work that was put into bringing the Orcs to life in the original trilogy. Those were real people wearing prosthetics & makeup along with full suits of armor with zero CGI. They looked MUCH more frightening, and just simply a lot more real. I disagree, no matter how good the practical effects are, the people in the first image are clearly regular humans wearing masks. Azog on the other hand is an Orc, he doesn't looks like a normal guy with makeup, he looks like a completely other creature. As much as i appreciate the practical effects in LotR, Azog is much better than any Orc in those movies.
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Oct 27, 2013 17:47
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He looks like something that doesn't exist in the physical world. Like if I put my hand up to his face, I'd just feel a glass screen in between.
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Oct 27, 2013 18:06
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To me it helped that whoever voiced Azog, whether his motion capture actor Manu Bennett or someone in post, was hamming it the gently caress up every time he talked. That bit when he was talking about the smell of fear was perilously close to being ridiculous, but didin't go over. On the flip side, the Great Goblin was funny as hell. "That'll do it" made laugh out loud and reminded me this was the brainchild of the same guy who did The Frighteners.
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Oct 27, 2013 19:18
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Stay Out of FYAD posted:I know, but it's still such a slap in the face to the amount of work that was put into bringing the Orcs to life in the original trilogy. Those were real people wearing prosthetics & makeup along with full suits of armor with zero CGI. They looked MUCH more frightening, and just simply a lot more real. The LOTR orcs are gross (in a good way). The clumps of hair, the dirt, the home-made 'stitches' in that photo all look repulsive and kinda smelly. Even the limitations of the prosthetics add to the effect for me - the fake teeth make the mouth an unnatural shape because they're too big, the contacts don't look comfortable, the latex probably feels icky to touch and all the orcs & goblins move in a clumsy, chaotic, believable way. Even though I know it's a person in a mask in the back of my mind, people in masks are unnerving and it triggers a gut reaction. I could be in a room with that guy, even if he is just a nice actor in a suit, and it'd be weird. I could never be in a room with Azog or the Great Goblin. I don't buy them. That said, I thought the cave troll worked great as a threat in Fellowship. I'm not sure if it's because of how he was handled or because the whole situation felt claustrophobic and tense. I 'believe' Gollum too and don't think he'd ever work as a guy in a suit or a puppet. Ach, maybe it just comes down to performance and that The Hobbit is a bit too shiny and choreographed for my tastes. The world of Labyrinth feels more real to me than AUJ and you can practically see the puppeteers' hands through the whole thing. Whether 'real' is the correct tone for The Hobbit's tall-tale is another matter and I totally see how a more exaggerated, cartoony look might be more appropriate. Pushing everything further into a more impressionistic or whimsical direction could make for a really interesting film (or, even better, animation). As it stands, I don't think they got it right. The Great Goblin is meant to be threatening and silly and scary and disgusting all at once and it just about works until they face him off against a po-faced dwarf and, I dunno, the tone gets all muddy.
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Oct 27, 2013 20:16
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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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Bongo Bill posted: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. I completely agree with this and couldn't have said it any better.
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Oct 27, 2013 20:36
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Maybe the nature of these boards precludes easy memes, but I didn't notice anywhere in this thread any mention of Dwalin's mohawk in the flashback to Azanulbizar. The geekiest part of me hopes that someone in the costume department took inspiration from Warhammer dwarves and snuck that in. In that vein, unless Billy Connoly is bullshitting, his Dain Ironfoot will have one too. That might be too far for me to take seriously, in some arbitrary line I set as a fan of fantasy.
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Oct 27, 2013 21:03
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I just watched this again last night and was reminded of all the stupid, stupid things they decided to do to make the story more "actiony". There were probably at least half a dozen moments where my suspension of disbelief was completely wrecked, including: - Stone Giant knee surfing - Scaffold bridge surfing - Gandalf holding 5 dwarfs or whatever on his staff - Frodo falling 300 feet, with a super sharp magic sword and not getting hurt - The eagles managing to grab Thorin, with his sword, but somehow missing the Oakenshield Somehow Legolas rail grinding the Mumakil's nose after tarzan swinging up its side and triple-arrow shooting it in the back of the head in ROTK was more believable than any of those moments. I'm also worried from the new trailers that they're going to give Legolas the role of shooting down Smaug, rather than leaving it for what's his name (Brand?) who becomes king of Dale. On that note, gently caress them for even putting Legolas into this just for commercial reasons. I'm sure he was probably around since he's Thranduil's son, but holy poo poo that's stupid.
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Oct 28, 2013 07:34
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Tenterhooks posted:That said, I thought the cave troll worked great as a threat in Fellowship. I'm not sure if it's because of how he was handled or because the whole situation felt claustrophobic and tense. Last time I rewatched Fellowship on tv the cave troll looked really fake and out of place. CG has come a long way. The prosthetics on the other hand looked fine. Azog will age just as badly. I think it looks bad now from a design standpoint, but in a few years it'll look crude too.
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Oct 28, 2013 13:15
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Watching the Appendices on the EE of Unexpected Journey, and it seems like, at least for the goblins, the choice to go CGI was done for practical reasons. The stunt actors wearing the costumes had masks, animatronics, the whole shebang, but the set was too hot for them to work for more than a few minutes at a time, and the masks and and animatronics threw off the rehearsed movements. I love a good practical effect, but in situations when it becomes more of a hassle, I don't begrudge the filmmakers from doing it later. Plus, I think the combo of real body suits and CGI heads was actually quite effective for the Goblins.
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Oct 28, 2013 14:16
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I hate Azog if only because his role prevented the Goblin King from waddling down the hill and singing "15 Birds" 
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Oct 28, 2013 14:35
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Kalenn Istarion posted:I just watched this again last night and was reminded of all the stupid, stupid things they decided to do to make the story more "actiony". There were probably at least half a dozen moments where my suspension of disbelief was completely wrecked, including: See all these things I loved about the movie. I thought the scaffold bridge surfing was a blast. I loved the mountain giant fight, I loved the whole scene with the trolls, I loved the Goblin King, I loved Radagast and his bunny drawn sled (I could've done without the constant bird poo poo on his face though, gross), Gollum's riddle scene, Azog the shark orc, the scene in Bilbo's house where the dwarves are singing, the telepathic talking with Gandalf and elf chick, etc. The Hobbit is a really fun and mostly lighthearted adventure movie and I love it for that. I haven't read the book so maybe it poops all over the book but I had a great time watching it.
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Oct 28, 2013 14:48
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Macaluso posted:See all these things I loved about the movie. I thought the scaffold bridge surfing was a blast. I loved the mountain giant fight, I loved the whole scene with the trolls, I loved the Goblin King, I loved Radagast and his bunny drawn sled (I could've done without the constant bird poo poo on his face though, gross), Gollum's riddle scene, Azog the shark orc, the scene in Bilbo's house where the dwarves are singing, the telepathic talking with Gandalf and elf chick, etc. Actually, the book seems really well represented in the movie. It just has lots of other stuff (which I enjoy as well) that fluff it out. Interestingly, I looked in the book and its around 300 pages, and the material in Unexpected Journey is about 100 pages of it. I wonder if the other two will have that same split.
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Oct 28, 2013 14:55
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Macaluso posted:See all these things I loved about the movie. I thought the scaffold bridge surfing was a blast. I loved the mountain giant fight, I loved the whole scene with the trolls, I loved the Goblin King, I loved Radagast and his bunny drawn sled (I could've done without the constant bird poo poo on his face though, gross), Gollum's riddle scene, Azog the shark orc, the scene in Bilbo's house where the dwarves are singing, the telepathic talking with Gandalf and elf chick, etc. Ugg. Did you love Jar Jar Binks too? Slapstick battles with lots of kills by accident? Some of your likes are good though like gollum riddles scene. But really, you " loved" the cartoony bits? Burp and fart jokes too? Did you love the Legolas shield surf from the original?
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Oct 28, 2013 14:58
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I really don't put Jar Jar Binks in the same category. I wouldn't even compare the two movies. I don't particularly like fart and burp jokes no, but that was not the majority of the humor anyway. Yes I liked the cartoony bits and Legolas' shield surfing was just kind of whatever. It's like a few seconds out of the movie it hardly registers. edit: Good thing I'm not a film critic!!! 
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Oct 28, 2013 15:03
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I too am curious why the EE BluRay without 3D is only three discs, but the 3D version is five discs. Is the 3d version on two discs? Does 3d take up more space, even with BluRays' framerate restriction? I just want to make sure that's the only difference between the two BluRay sets. Edit: I looked at the back of both boxes on Amazon. 3d is split on two discs. Commentary is only for the 2d disc. Looks like I'll order the set without 3d now. Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Oct 28, 2013 |
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Oct 28, 2013 15:10
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Echo Chamber posted:I too am curious why the EE BluRay without 3D is only three discs, but the 3D version is five discs. One disc for each eye.
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Oct 28, 2013 16:41
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Macaluso posted:See all these things I loved about the movie. I thought the scaffold bridge surfing was a blast. I loved the mountain giant fight, I loved the whole scene with the trolls, I loved the Goblin King, I loved Radagast and his bunny drawn sled (I could've done without the constant bird poo poo on his face though, gross), Gollum's riddle scene, Azog the shark orc, the scene in Bilbo's house where the dwarves are singing, the telepathic talking with Gandalf and elf chick, etc. Macaluso posted:The Hobbit is a really fun and mostly lighthearted adventure movie and I love it for that. I haven't read the book so maybe it poops all over the book but I had a great time watching it.
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Oct 28, 2013 16:53
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"It wasn't like the book!" or "It wasn't like what I imagined the movie should have been like!" do not seem like valid criticism of the movie to me.
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Oct 28, 2013 17:12
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euphronius posted:"It wasn't like the book!" or "It wasn't like what I imagined the movie should have been like!" do not seem like valid criticism of the movie to me. Especially since when it was like the book people criticize it for being tonally schizophrenic (because that's how the book is, never mind the appendices).
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Oct 28, 2013 17:16
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Macaluso posted:I loved Radagast and his bunny drawn sled Radagast makes this film for me, can't believe someone called him "this generation's Jar Jar Binks". You take that back, sir! I will say that the goblin town escape is this generation's droid factory sequence in Clones, though. Radagast acts a bit like a buffoon but you can tell he knows what's up when he has that serious conversation with Gandalf. I mean, he scares off giant spiders with magic, smacks down a ghost at the Fortress like a pro, discovers the necromancer, and does some cool sled manouevres to distract the wargs. Radagast is the best. Bird poo wasn't the best idea though. On the other hand, the movie grinds to a halt in Rivendell - surprise surprise, just like in Fellowship. The elves are just so dour.
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Oct 28, 2013 17:39
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Rabelais D posted:On the other hand, the movie grinds to a halt in Rivendell - surprise surprise, just like in Fellowship. The elves are just so dour. We should have had more cool elven songs.
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Oct 28, 2013 17:43
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euphronius posted:"It wasn't like the book!" or "It wasn't like what I imagined the movie should have been like!" do not seem like valid criticism of the movie to me. Not to worry, the movie has plenty of valid criticisms to be made against it without even bringing up the book!
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Oct 28, 2013 17:50
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Pureauthor posted:We should have had more cool elven songs. I wish the Rivendell elves were the flippant, carefree hippies of the book instead of the grim, stiff, boring elves we got in the movie. In other words, we totally needed this song in the movie.
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Oct 28, 2013 17:55
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I want the second film to be nothing but dwarven house parties and the third film to be about Gandalf taking on the Necromancer.
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Oct 28, 2013 18:07
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Kalenn Istarion posted:I just watched this again last night and was reminded of all the stupid, stupid things they decided to do to make the story more "actiony". There were probably at least half a dozen moments where my suspension of disbelief was completely wrecked, including: Personally, I just couldn't accept that someone would round-up 13 midgets to go hunt a dragon. Dragons aren't real, are all these people mentally ill? The film was very unclear about this. Also I don't think any of the places these people visited actually exist, what was up with that?
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Oct 28, 2013 19:16
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computer parts posted:Especially since when it was like the book people criticize it for being tonally schizophrenic (because that's how the book is, never mind the appendices). In our recent discussion about this movie I actually said that the most jarring tonal schizophrenia comes from combining the relatively light-hearted and easygoing Hobbit material with the bit darker Fellowship-esque premonitions (talking about the book here) and the RotK-styled battles and epic style. The movie blends Radagast's light and happy rabbit ride with Dol Guldur's not-really-scary-but-sortof-magical feeling and the carnage of battle of Moria. Aren't those mostly taken from different books? All of Gandalf's motives for joining Thorin's adventure are played relatively straight, even though one is "hey adventure and kill dragon" and another one is "slay the servant of the Dark Lord Sauron before the legions of Gorgoroth will rape the fertile fields of Pelennor". I don't know if it's me, but many of my gripes with this tonal inconsistency rise from the inability to convert LotR's overall message to one more closely approaching The Hobbit's. This is a movie and a story, and I feel that creating a more consistent feel, world and tone for a movie by far supercedes the established canon of several different books. The weird "not-quite-this-nor-that" direction leads to movie that feels both really busy and somewhat distant, since I always found myself trying to evaluate the process behind a scene, rather than let the story flow naturally. For those who appreciate slavish conversion of Tolkien's world to Jackson visuals it certainly works, but it really bothers me. I look at the movie, I see what they are trying to accomplish, and it just doesn't work.
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Oct 28, 2013 19:21
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GuyDudeBroMan posted:Ugg. Did you love Jar Jar Binks too? Slapstick battles with lots of kills by accident? Jar Jar is the best part of Phantom Menace, fyi. Also I don't recall any fart jokes in lotr or the hobbit, and the Legolas shieldsurf is cool. Lighten up nerd.
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Oct 28, 2013 19:50
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They mostly needed to play down Gandalf's role in everything, not play up. He's in more scenes and does more to drive the story forward than the title character does. Which, granted, happened in the first third of the book as well, but it's particularly bad here since they're including the Appendixes and Gandalf's the solely member of the group who's even present for most of that. I'm pretty sure once he gets his own story in the second movie he won't dominant as much of the screen time so the rest of the dwarves can have a chance at getting a spoken line oh no wait we're getting Legolas and his entirely for the film storyline and let's not forget the Lake Town political drama dealie and oh yeah we've got to set up that drat white orc's role in everything welp it's now officially too crowded for everyone to get a line in a three hour movie, poster presence be damned.
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Oct 28, 2013 19:57
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SatansBestBuddy posted:They mostly needed to play down Gandalf's role in everything, not play up. He's in more scenes and does more to drive the story forward than the title character does. Which, granted, happened in the first third of the book as well, but it's particularly bad here since they're including the Appendixes and Gandalf's the solely member of the group who's even present for most of that. I'm pretty sure once he gets his own story in the second movie he won't dominant as much of the screen time so the rest of the dwarves can have a chance at getting a spoken line oh no wait we're getting Legolas and his entirely for the film storyline and let's not forget the Lake Town political drama dealie and oh yeah we've got to set up that drat white orc's role in everything welp it's now officially too crowded for everyone to get a line in a three hour movie, poster presence be damned. The Hobbit is pretty poorly titled if you're using the justification of "title character must move most of the plot forward". Bilbo so far has done *more* than he did in the book, and really the only major thing he does for the remainder of the book is get the dwarves in the barrels and talk to Smaug. Everything else has other characters just pushing him and the dwarves along.
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Oct 28, 2013 20:01
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S-Alpha posted:I wish the Rivendell elves were the flippant, carefree hippies of the book instead of the grim, stiff, boring elves we got in the movie. Counterpoint, it would never have topped this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5vu8vU9yCw
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Oct 28, 2013 20:07
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effectual posted:. Also I don't recall any fart jokes in lotr or the hobbit, and the Legolas shieldsurf is cool. Lighten up nerd.
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Oct 28, 2013 20:25
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I'm just annoyed at all the padding. The scene with Frodo and Old Bilbo was tedious, the warg chase scene was tedious, the White Council scene was tedious, the stone giants were tedious, the chase through the goblin mines was tedious. Too much crap that wasn't engaging or interesting but ate up the time so that the movie ends up being 3 hours long. You could cut ALL of that stuff, including Azog, and the film would be about an hour and a half shorter, allowing you to include Beorn and the spiders if you still wanted the film to be 3 hours. I still say that Bilbo killing the spider and rescuing the dwarves would've made a better climax for the first film, because then you would have a film where Gandalf saves their butts every time there's trouble and then suddenly he's absent for the climax and its up to Bilbo, whom everyone has been underestimating. It would end on a cliffhanger with the dwarves all getting captured by the elves. But the film still could have worked the way it was as long as all the fat was trimmed. I still can't get over that bit with Frodo and the sign. C'mon, Jackson, that's the sort of poo poo you save for the extended edition.
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Oct 28, 2013 21:10
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All of those scenes, except possibly the goblin king chase scene, include important characterization and thematic elements. Cutting Azog would completely change the movie as it would radically change Thorin. The climax of AUJ was excellent and satisfying as it got the group through a literal roadblock (the mountains) and a metaphorical roadblock (Thorin's distrust of Bilbo). It also showed that Thorin's past and his true character will be the downfall of him and that Bilbo is best hope of not being destroyed. Thorin's relationship with Bilbo will have a huge payoff in the end. euphronius fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Oct 28, 2013 |
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Oct 28, 2013 21:15
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I didn't like Goblintown at the time, but my opinion shifted after I read that post (I forget by whom) that described it as a sequence in which the characters are trapped in a nonsensical, weightless CGI setpiece, and only after confronting and slaying a character who looks exactly like George Lucas are they able to escape.
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Oct 29, 2013 00:16
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effectual posted:Jar Jar is the best part of Phantom Menace, fyi. Also I don't recall any fart jokes in lotr or the hobbit, and the Legolas shieldsurf is cool. Lighten up nerd. in the 12 or so hours of the original trilogy, there are a total of two jokes that can fall in the "fart joke" category. One in Fellowship's Extended and one in Return of the King's Extended. Two brief moments in 540 minutes of movie. In The Hobbit, two characters burp in one scene, and then nothing else for the rest of the film. People who harp on "Fart jokes" are really dumb.
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Oct 29, 2013 00:54
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If you guys think CGI orcs & cartoon Smaug are bad, just wait until we get cartoon/CGI Nazgul in the third movie. 
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Oct 29, 2013 06:06
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Stay Out of FYAD posted:If you guys think CGI orcs & cartoon Smaug are bad, just wait until we get cartoon/CGI Nazgul in the third movie. Were the Nazgul not CGI in LOTR?
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Oct 29, 2013 07:12
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s0meb0dy0 posted:Were the Nazgul not CGI in LOTR? It probably depends on which scene you're talking about. When you'd see them in the "shadow world" or whatever when someone would stick on the Ring, then yeah that was CGI. But when they were riding around on their horses no I'm pretty sure that was just dudes with black cloaks and horses (or other situations where it was just the Nazgul). When they were flying around on the flying beasts I would imagine that that was CGI yeah, but maybe a few scenes where you'd see the Witch King up close on his flying beast that could have been split? Stay Out of FYAD posted:If you guys think CGI orcs & cartoon Smaug are bad, just wait until we get cartoon/CGI Nazgul in the third movie. I think you might be overreacting a little bit about this.
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