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Aren't there two films? Then wouldn't it make sense that we won't see him until the second film? I mean, maybe we'll see him in the prologue explaining everything but I doubt we'll see him at all until film 2.
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Jun 1, 2012 18:31
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Octy posted:I guess we're going to get the next production video soon. Oh, hey, how many of those are there? I've only seen the first myself.
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Jun 6, 2012 04:46
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But then how will he distract the spiders? They only go after Bilbo because he whipped them into a blind rage after being called "attercop" (because as we all know, Attercop is the worst insult you can say to a spider)
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Jun 23, 2012 02:22
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Dan Didio posted:Bilbo straps a lawn-mower to his own chest, and, You know, with the bigger budget, he can probably beat his own world record of "most blood pumped during a single scene."
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Jun 29, 2012 04:22
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Yeah, I'd say there's no way he's gonna do a third film. I mean, we know the first one is gonna take us all the way to the barrel riding into long lake, so I can't image the second film will be lacking material, but a third film would have to stretch that material out quite a bit, even with the additional stuff from the appendixes.
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Jul 14, 2012 23:47
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I think the comedy was very much needed, both to add personality to the characters and to make the story flow better. Do you guys think Gollum would be as fondly remembered if he wasn't so innocent and funny? Would the Shire be such a idyllic place without stupidity like Merry and Pippin trying to steal a rocket? Cut out the comedy and you'd get 12 straight hours of movies as deadly serious as the endings of Return of the King. Need I remind you that the endings for Return of the King were easily the most boring part of the entire series? Comedy wasn't even the problem, really, it was deviating from the source material that really rubbed Chris wrong, and it was totally a necessary evil. I actually think the story told in the Two Towers is better than the one in the book, and Fellowship of the Ring is pretty drat faithful in exactly the ways it needed to be. Return of the King, eh, can't top the book thanks to cutting the scouring of the Shire, and even if they could work that in there's still a bunch of niggling details that makes the book far superior, but it's still a bloody fantastic movie. This is all moot anyway, the Hobbit as a book is much easier to translate to film than the "fate of the world" epic it's big brother was, much more kid friendly and funnier to boot. I would be shocked, shocked, if PJ and friends decided to radically alter any parts of the book, it's a very tight story that, with two 3 hour films worth of breathing room, can easily be put to screen with barely a hair on it's head harmed in the process. I mean, come on, one of the scenes they showed in the trailers had them singing the plate breaking song in Bilbo's kitchen, what more could you ask for?!
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Jul 20, 2012 11:06
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Jesto posted:Nono, you're misreading. Comedy is fine. Comedy at the expense of making your characters nothing more than "The Comic Relief" isn't. Well, that's a bad kind of comedy in any movie, so I don't see why the LotR trilogy should be singled out for that brand of comedy, particularly since they managed to avoid that for 99% of the series so what the hell?
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Jul 20, 2012 13:57
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I was able to buy the romance dealie between Faramir and Eowyn in the book because it was a courtship that took several weeks to play out.Wank posted:Denethor was awesome! The best thing about ROTK. I really hated his death scene in the film. The book did it pretty much perfectly; he's seen the armies that Sauron has, he knows that the army laying siege to Minas Tirith is just a fraction of Sauron's power, and that they have nothing to gain by fighting him, so he chooses to die amongst the kings of the past. Movie version? "Oh no, I am on fire! I guess I better run several miles so I can fall to my death from the top of the tallest balcony in the city!" gently caress poetry, gently caress character motivation, screw the written word, people wanna see an old man burning while he falls to his death because that's more "epic." Love the movies but with some scenes, yeah, yeah I get where Chris is coming from.
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Jul 23, 2012 03:25
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Oasx posted:There is a new Hobbit production video, not sure if there is a non-facebook version yet though : http://www.facebook.com/PeterJacksonNZ THEY SHOWED THE GIANT! THEY SHOWED THE GIANT! HOLY poo poo! HOLY poo poo! EDIT: Rest of the vid was pretty great, too. It didn't have much of a theme so it was kind of a organized mess, but it feels like that's what the final days of shooting was like so I'm cool with it. SatansBestBuddy fucked around with this message at 18:50 on Jul 23, 2012 |
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Jul 23, 2012 18:34
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Jerusalem posted:That giant looks amazing, I had completely forgotten that section of the book and now I'm absolutely stoked to see it. That reminds me, the scene in the book was two giants playing catch during the storm... which is another reason why this is so awesome that they're putting it in.
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Jul 24, 2012 05:21
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I think it's a little early to call out having a third film as a bad idea, if only because we haven't even gotten the first film yet. For all we know, the first movie will only be an hour and a half and end just as Bilbo gets the ring. Leaves plenty of stuff for another two movies, and honestly I wouldn't mind slightly shorter movies at all. They can totally make three films, just like the original trilogy had enough material to make six or seven on their own. It all comes down to how much there's going to be in the first film, and how they handle the expanded material. So yeah, I'm not gonna call having a third film a good or bad idea until I see how they handle the first. They've still got half a year to get that thing ready, so let's just sit back and wait. Or speculate randomly, whatever floats your boat.
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Jul 25, 2012 15:45
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Mr. Gibbycrumbles posted:But Jackson said at Comicon that the first film we be "at least" 2.5 hours. He also said there was gonna be two films. If it's now gonna be three, then I don't see why they'd give the first film more content than the next two. It's all gonna be one story, anyway, they can cut it however they like.
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Jul 26, 2012 09:56
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drunkill posted:Well because the first film is probably done storywise and they know how they'll end it and now it's just editing and VFX work. Scripts are far from the only thing determining how long a movie is. I can easily think of several spots between Rivendell and their escape from Mrikwood via barrels that would work pretty easily as the ending of the first movie. And if they do edit down the first movie they'll be saving some VFX money, if only to spend it and more later. Seriously, if we get three movies then the first one is gonna be cut down to make room for them all, otherwise they won't have enough material from The Hobbit itself to cover all three movies and they'd have a hell of a time convincing people to see "the Hobbit trilogy" when 1/3 of that trilogy has nothing to do with The Hobbit. It's gonna happen, I would place money on it if it weren't for the fact that I'm still not sure we're actually gonna get three movies. (it's looking likely, but it's still rumours)
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Jul 26, 2012 17:48
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feedmyleg posted:Some fan will recut a version that sticks to the book, you can show that to your kids. I mean, hell, they made a shorter edit of King Kong, they'll definitely do this. Wait, what? Really? I need to watch this, what's it called?
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Sep 4, 2012 07:08
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The thing is, Jackson was aware that the extra material in the Extended Editions weren't working in the films and cut them for the theatrical runs so that everything flowed smoother. He realized those extra parts weren't working and would just bog the movie down, so he just cut them for the theatrical release and added them in later when the original version was already out for several months, so now people could choose which version they want. It was pretty smart if you ask me. I'm pretty sure that The Hobbit isn't gonna be as full of crappy, unneeded extras as we're all afraid it's going to be. It's gonna have a lot of stuff, yes, but I think Jackson is at least smart enough to know when to keep something because it's important to the movie and when to cut it and throw it in as a bonus scene for the special edition DVDs later.
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Sep 13, 2012 19:01
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Welp, vlog is down, though I can't read french so I can't tell if it's been pulled for good or just down due to traffic.
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Sep 19, 2012 02:22
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Thoughts after seeing the trailer five times; - OHGODOHGODOHGOD this movie is gonna be awesome!  - I'm liking the colours a lot. LOTR had great set designs and stuff but the colours didn't really pop all that much, made everything feel flat, but here you can tell they've put in a lot of effort to get the colours more vivid and brighter. I remember one of the production videos mentioned it's a side-effect of having to overcompensate for digital cameras being finicky about colours, but so far it looks like a positive side effect. - The music isn't very memorable, typical trailer fluff. Bit disappointing after the teaser's song. Speaking of, I couldn't help but notice a fiddle next to that pile of clean dishes, and if that means what I think it means...  - I find it odd that, even today, film makers can't figure out how to make CGI creatures look natural in film. I mean, Gollum's model is fine, he looks fine, great even, but the lighting, the shine, the way Bilbo looks falter than he is despite them both being in the same space... it's tricky to get this stuff right, but they did it in Two Towers/Return of the King, so what's different now? Particularly since they're using all digital stuff, should make adjusting lighting and colour to make him look like he has a physical presence easier than before. - I wish we'd get a "Meet the Dwarves" trailer or something. Even after reading up on the actors and seeing the costumes and watching the vlogs and everything I still can't tell who's who. The dwarves in the book were basically a hivemind with only Thorin (the leader) and Bombur (the fatty) managing to distinguish themselves with actual characterization, so giving them voices and personalities is arguably the biggest change to the source material and one of the main reasons I suspect we're getting three movies worth of movie. So it'd be nice to know if, you know, they actually worked well together? Will we care to watch these guys? Or is it gonna be Bilbo and 13 interchangeable dwarves? I doubt that's gonna happen, but I'd still like to get a little taste of what's probably gonna be the majority of the movie. (ie dwarves talking with Bilbo/each other) - "Because I'm afraid... and he gives me courage." ... when does Gandalf say this in the book? When does Gandalf say this about anyone ever? Just... that line really bugs me because it's one of those dreaded "additions" that don't actually add anything and, in fact, run the risk of ruining Gandalf as a character. You mean to tell me a wizard older than anything born during the third age, a being of mysterious origins and purpose who's main defining characteristic is seemingly always knowing or at least guessing the right thing to do at any given time... gets his courage from a mild mannered hobbit who's charged with helping 13 dwarves get a poo poo ton of gold? It's poo poo like this that people complain about when they say "they added stuff that's not in the book that I didn't like". Makes me actually pretty worried about how they're going to handle the ring now... I swear if they make Gandalf suspicious of the ring the second he finds it I'm gonna be so mad I might actually throw some popcorn at the screen or something. Overall, good trailer, looking forward to the movie, here's hoping they can successfully make a three part adventure series without it turning into a "save the world" epic, because we already have a LOTR and don't need it's prequel to repeat itself.
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Sep 20, 2012 01:07
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Viridiant posted:I don't know, I always remembered Balin as the old dwarf who seemed the fondest and most supportive of Bilbo. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but he at least stood out to me too. I was talking in more general terms. The book usually goes with "The dwarves gather in Bilbo's dining room" or "The dwarves and Bilbo go down into the mountain", always grouping them together. There are some scenes or lines that highlight that the dwarves are unique, I remember Fili had the best eyesight in Mirkwood and Balin was supportive of Bilbo, but the vast majority of the book refers to them as a unit, which is where the book and the movie will have the largest and most noticeable difference, since they'll need to characterize all of the dwarves in much more detail than the book ever delved into.
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Sep 20, 2012 02:17
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MANIFEST DESTINY posted:What was fine to good for LotR is not nearly sufficient for Hobbit, and it disappoints me that Jackson doesn't see that. Okay, I get where you're coming from now, but it's a bit much for just a trailer, isn't it? Yeah, the movie looks the same as LOTR, not surprising cause it's the same director and everything, but that doesn't mean the heart of the movie won't be vastly different from LOTR. We can only judge so much by a trailer, we can't say anything definitive until we see the full movie, which I think is why people are getting mad at you; you're talking about this movie like you've already seen it when really you've just seen a trailer. This is why I wanted to see more of the dwarves, because I want to know how they talk to each other. If they can capture that sense of comradeship between all 13 dwarves that the hobbits in Fellowship had with each other than a lot of my worries about this film would disappear, because that's the closest to the tone of the Hobbit that the film LOTR got, and if they can manage that across three films I will be a very happy viewer, but I probably won't know until the movie is out and I can see it myself.
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Sep 21, 2012 04:31
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That one shot where Rohan leaves their valley to go fight with Gondor? Looked terrible, never believed a single one of those horses were real. And let's not forget the warg fight...
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Sep 22, 2012 01:59
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Why did it need CGI again? Would have been perfectly fine if they'd just let Cate Blanchett act a little instead, you know, go for subtlety?
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Sep 22, 2012 04:37
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Mr. Gibbycrumbles posted:And they've brought him back in a slightly larger role for The Hobbit. He plays the Rivendell Elf "Lindir". The name means "singer", and yes it is a canon character. ... please, please, please let him sing tra-la-la-lally here down in the valley. That's seriously all he needs to show up for.
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Oct 21, 2012 03:26
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If you don't mind the quality, then you can pick up the DVD box set with all the Extras and get just the movies themselves on BluRay. It's what I'm gonna do when I get the cash and feel like rewatching the series again, since last time I tried I discovered the DVD version I have is at a 4:3 ratio with a huge ugly black border around the movie. Looked so ugly on my HDTV I couldn't watch more than the first disc. 
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Nov 9, 2012 03:33
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OP needs to update, still says there are just two movies. 
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Nov 14, 2012 07:25
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My initial reaction after seeing the movie was "Thank God they're making three movies!" See, going into the movie the thing I was worried about the most was the dwarves turning into background characters in their own movie. With the original three movies, Peter had the character arcs for the whole fellowship already there in the book, he just had to give the actors a little bit of direction and they'd flesh them out into some pretty great characters, which they all did. That's what made the original trilogy work, all the characters got their own unique personalities and character arcs and you gave a drat about them, you knew what their personal struggles were and you wanted to see them overcome and succeed. It made for a great storytelling, be it book or movie, and was the one thing that you could definitively say the movies improved upon over the books. But with The Hobbit, the 13 dwarves are mostly blank slates without individual personalities or character arcs, so Peter and crew need to create them from scratch, otherwise we'd be left with Thorin and 12 other dwarves who we can't tell apart. So it's pretty disappointing that the movie fully justified my worries. The one thing I was hoping they wouldn't screw up is the one thing they screw up the hardest; introducing the dwarves properly and making them all stand out. They don't. They don't even try. gently caress, I was worried that most of them would be given a couple of lines and then fade into the background, but it's even worse than that cause I'm pretty sure half the party don't even speak! Three loving hours and they don't manage to get a single line of onscreen dialogue! How much must that suck, to be cast as one of the main characters in a billion dollar movie and you don't even a single line during the whole three hours? And it's not like they couldn't characterize these dwarves if they tried. I mean, Radagast wasn't even in the book, so all of his scenes and lines are made from scratch, and he's a loving showstealer! Every scene he's in is just great. So why didn't they put as much effort into the dwarves as they did into Radagast? Maybe cause they were too busy trying to animate another pointless action scene. Speaking of action scenes, oh god there were a lot of them in this movie, and a lot of them were very, very repetitive. Like, do you remember Helm's Deep? Of course you do, that fight was great! There was an ebb and flow to it, it didn't feel repetitive because poo poo was changing all the time; the orcs would bring in a battering ram, the men would hold back the door, the orcs would bust a hole into it, then Gimli and Strider would sneak around to flank them and beat them back while the men barricaded the door. The fight was interesting because every action by one group would prompt a reaction by the other, which is how most of the fights in the original trilogy worked, and worked well. They also took breaks from the fighting to see what the other members of the fellowship were doing, which helped keep audience fatigue down. There's none of that in the Hobbit. Action scenes just go on and on and on and ON and it's all very same-y and bland and repetitive as gently caress. Jesus, the fight against the goblins was just constant running while fighting in wooden catwalks, for what felt like 15 solid minutes but what was probably just 10 all they did was fight while running on wooden catwalks. There's no ebb or flow, there's no change in the battle, there's no stakes there's no interesting choreography it's just running and slashing and running while slashing and GOD make it END! So that was a whole lot complaining, now let's talk about the good stuff: An Unexpected Party, Roast Mutton and Riddles in the Dark are all completely fantastic scenes. It's funny, really, you can tell that they've put the most work into making the action scenes and scenery and all this CGI pretty-ness, but it's the scenes that focus on dialogue and characters that they nail absolutely perfectly. An Unexpected Party really had me thinking that they'd written the dwarves well, but it was just for that scene, still for that one scene I really enjoyed everyone's dynamics; if the whole movie took more inspiration from that dinner party I would have much less to complain about regarding how the dwarves were handled. Roast Mutton is the scene with the trolls, fyi, and it's just perfect. Lots of laughs, great dialogue, the Fili and Kili watching the ponies bit was awesome, the three trolls talking to each other was awesome, Bilbo being the one to save the day by tricking the trolls into staying out too long was awesome, the fight scene was boring as hell and honestly, with the setup they had they could have just as easily done away with it and have all the dwarves get caught one at a time like in the books, but whatever the milks already spilled and the rest of the scene worked wonderfully so I guess I don't care. And Riddles in the Dark. Wow. I honestly don't think they could have done it any better than what they did. Maybe if Gollum went back to his island so his voice would echo better, but really I think it's just about perfect. Easily the best part of the film and makes it worth seeing almost wholly by itself. So... yeah, those are my thoughts on the film. Doesn't beat out any of the previous LotR movies by a longshot, but does well enough that I'd recommend it. SatansBestBuddy fucked around with this message at 08:48 on Dec 15, 2012 |
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Dec 15, 2012 08:42
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sebmojo posted:Some sharp points, I like the bit about the ebb and flow of good action. I am certain we'll see that in the Battle of Five Armies at the end, because that's absolutely how it's written. All the other skirmishes follow the book - they're madcap scrambles, more akin to the FOTR battle with the Cave Troll. The Cave Troll fight in FotR was a better fight than anything they had in The Hobbit, because there was a definitive sense of progress to it; hear the goblins, prepare for them, fight in an enclosed space with the troll thrown in midway that they need to team up to take down, escape into the halls where they're surrounded, but saved(?) by a mysterious roar that sends them running for the stairs that lead to the bridge where Gandalf met his fate. Tense, dramatic, carried along extremely well from point to point, more than a few memorable moments for each character (Frodo getting stabbed, Merry and Pippin troll riding, "Not the beard!") it was a great action scene that was in service to the story and thus wasn't treated to the same excess that the Goblin City escape we're shown in The Hobbit falls victim to. You couldn't cut the that fight scene out of FotR without screwing up the plot. You could nearly completely remove the chase through Goblin City in the Hobbit and not miss a beat. And I do agree, the dwarves are well characterized, but only in the background, which is my complaint, this is their adventure, they should be in the spotlight. I know we'll get exactly that in Mirkwood and so on, but it's disappointing that the beginning doesn't take the time to establish them as well as the fellowship did for it's band of adventurers. Aphrodite posted:That scene isn't a battle. All good action scenes have an ebb and flow to them, you can't just have the good guys constantly winning during a fight or there'd be no tension, and similarly you can't just have the bad guys constantly winning or there'd be no chances to win the fight. Without that back and forth, any victory feels hollow because it never felt like they could possibly lose, which is what a lot of the action in The Hobbit suffers from; I was never convinced that there was a fight going on where one wrong move could mean life or death. All the fight scenes suffered from this, which just sucked the tension right out of the movie and worked wonders for making me not care what would happen next. Naet posted:Jackson also takes for granted that people are aware of The Hobbit, so there's zero explanation given for where the group is, how they got there, and why they went that way. I don't mind so much the lack of explanation for where the group is or how much time has passed, since that's how the LotR movies worked and it was alright there. Frankly, the only way they'd be able to get across where they are and how much time has passed would be little prompts popping up every so often to say "A week later", "Near the base of the Misty Mountains", "The other side of the Misty Mountains" and it would just be distracting. So long as it's clear they're making progress towards their goal, they don't need to bother with telling us where they are in each specific scene. If you wanna find out, read the book. It has a map and everything. Balqis posted:Another problem I have with it is that they just didn't know what sort of movie they were trying to make - “The Hobbit” or “The Prequel to the Lord of the Rings.” Perhaps I wouldn't have noticed this had this been a different fictional work altogether, but it really stuck out like a sore thumb to me because, as books, The Hobbit and LOTR have very, very different tones. The first is obviously meant to be a fun adventure novel, albeit with some serious moments, meant to introduce readers to Middle Earth before LOTR dumps you into the middle of this complex, nuanced world in the process of being rent asunder by the ultimate conflict between Good and Evil. Now, most of the scenes adapted from the novel contained heavy elements of the former's tone – the Goblin King (that scene really does remind me of Labyrinth) comes to mind, as does the Roast Mutton scene. However, a lot of other scenes (which include most of the ones they added) hearken forward to LOTR and carry that same darker, heavier tone. I felt a lot of whiplash when I was being pulled from scene to scene, and I think, overall, a little bit of consistency in this area could have done a lot for the film. What's funny about this is that the trailers for the movie got the idea across that this would be The Hobbit, heavily inspired and related to LotR but entirely it's own thing, so it's disappointing that the movie itself doesn't really get this point. It seems Peter fell into the lore trap with this one, which is something he mostly saved for the EE versions of the original trilogy. Honestly, he should have cut out most of Gandalf's scenes, like the book did. The book had it's focus on Bilbo alone, occasionally pulling away to fill in whatever gaps in the story Bilbo and company weren't present for, while the movie has it's focus on Bilbo, Thorin and Gandalf, so it's pulling itself in three different directions and can never seem to agree on which one to take. The climbing the trees to hide from the wargs part is a great example of this, trying to give big, climatic moments to Thorin, Bilbo and Gandalf all at the same time, so it felt bloated and confused like it couldn't decide on who's perspective to show next, so it showed all of them at the same time. It didn't work, and given that this is the climax of the film, that's probably why I left the theatre wondering if I'd see the next movie on opening night or if I'd wait a bit instead. So, yeah, movie has problems in deciding who's story it wants to tell; Bilbo's light hearted adventure to steal some dragon gold, Thorin's deadly serious adventure to reclaim his stolen home, or Gandalf's investigations and the preventive measures he takes to insure that the upcoming war of the ring doesn't go badly for the good side.
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Dec 15, 2012 20:23
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Fried Watermelon posted:I think everyone really needs to watch the Fellowship before watching this film to realize they are very similar and not that different in the way they were filmed. I'm not understanding how some are hating this while enjoying the originals. Remember the scene in the Shire when Frodo and friends first encounter the black riders ie the Nazgual? Remember the scene in Bree where the Nazgual are creeping in on the sleeping hobbits? Remember the scene on Weathertop when the Nazgual stab Frodo and nearly kill him? There, three scenes from the first of the original trilogy that had more tension and danger than that silly white orc in the Hobbit could ever hope to come close to approaching when it came to establishing him as a credible threat. That's just one small comparison between comparable elements where the originals come out on top, I can probably list off a dozen others if I actually watched the film again since the last time I saw it was in 2009. (and if I actually felt like being a  , which I don't cause I'm gonna sleep tonight)The Fellowship and The Hobbit are as similar as they are different, particularly in how they were filmed. Himuro posted:Sorry, by that I mean too long. Funny, those two scenes are probably the most faithful to the book in tone and pacing. At least I couldn't think of a way to cut Riddles in the Dark without making it feel slightly rushed. The Dinner Party, yeah could have been tighter but they needed to shoehorn the beginning of Thorin and Gandalf's storylines in there somewhere cause gently caress having one character to focus on, this trilogy needs at least three. SatansBestBuddy fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Dec 16, 2012 |
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Dec 16, 2012 09:55
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limeincoke posted:Thank you. I've always thought that Sting was a absolutely horrible sword to have. You'd think the elves would have thought of another way for it to alert it's user rather than making it completely impossible for the person to hide. It was probably intended to be sheathed at all times, only brought out when needing to check that orcs might be around, and only used when you know you could get the drop on them.
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Dec 17, 2012 02:15
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So, saw the Hobbit a second time (cause we were doing a LotR marathon and figured, hey, might as well include the new one), and on a second viewing a couple of things stand out to me. - CGI is a lot more noticeable when you're watching it in 2D. When I saw it in 3D I couldn't tell you what was and wasn't CGI, like the pale orc I thought that was makeup, but in 2D, with the higher brightness and no depth perception then yeah, yeah it's pretty obvious he's all CGI. Though the movie still looks great, CGI or no there's some visually impressive stuff going on here. - The pale orc went from being dumb to actively ruining the movie for me. Like, I'd just spent 6 or 7 hours being reminded just how drat perfectly the Nazgul were portrayed in the movies, scary and intimidating and constantly after the ring, every confrontation with them felt like a Big Deal. Hell, even the Urak-hi, seeing how they were created, and how huge they were, just fantastic at creating this impression of being dangerous before they even really do anything. Coming from that to the pale orc, and it's just no contest, he shouldn't be there. He's not intimidating, he's not scary, he's the textbook definition of a bland villain and he shouldn't have been added in to begin with. I get the idea that the Necromancer is gonna be responsible for him coming back to life and that he'll somehow be responsible for gathering the orc army for the battle for five armies. Which is just confusing. Why not have the Goblin King's death be the trigger like in the book? But that's just speculation, moving on. - I made a running count of scenes I thought were completely unneeded to tell the story and should have been cut. The count was at 3 when they made it to Goblin town, and then I lost count. The story is, for the most part, always moving, always building upon itself, there's more momentum here then I thought at first. But I still would have cut the scene where Galadriel talks with Gandalf alone. And that last third is just a huge block of noise that really needed to be tightened up, not forced to be MORE EPIC THEN ANYTHING EVER. Speaking of... - The action was even worse than I remember. I went in keeping an eye out of things I remember from the first viewing, only to completely miss them because there's just so much stuff happening during every fight scene that it's really hard to discern who's doing what to who and why... There's no cause and effect, no ebb and flow, it's just endless swarms of goblins falling and running and crumbling and breaking and I'm pretty sure when the DVD comes out I'm gonna take this scene, cut it all up, and edit it all together in a completely mixed up order, and try and see if anyone will notice where I made the cuts. - The Wilhelm scream is really well hidden, I didn't notice it the first time. - I love the size they gave Smaug. He's huge. Massive. It's awesome and I can't wait till December so we can see him in full. - The sets and locations are identical, I couldn't spot any differences between them at all, and they're all beautiful. There are some shots in here that could be paintings, and probably started as them, too. Same goes for costumes. gently caress it, cheers to the design of everything in this movie, it all looks wonderful. - Watching the original series, I was constantly surprised by all the neat little tricks they pulled to keep everything to scale with the hobbits in those movies. There were actually a couple of scenes where I couldn't tell what they did to give that impression of size. Here, well, they don't need to do it that often anymore, since Bilbo and the dwarves are all roughly the same height... but then I'd notice Gandalf is right there, and they're different sizes, and I don't even think to guess at how they did it anymore because it's so seamless. Like, in LotR, I could always tell "oh, they're using a composite here, this scene he's on his knees, here it's a size double, this one is a perspective trick", but with the Hobbit I've just given up. It's all magic to me now, and I love it. - This movie is actually rather relieving in a way. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is full of heavy, heavy stuff, lots of high emotion throughout the entire series and it just builds and builds and builds. Terror from the Nazgul, relief at Rivendell, sadness from Gandalf's death, grief at Lothlorien, then Boromir's death, then the Two Towers happens and nobody is happy ever, and it only gets worse in Return of the King... there's a lot of crying and sadness associated with LotR, and it's not unusual for people to actually cry during these movies. But with The Hobbit? Not even a sniffle. The thought that somebody would be sad watching this movie never crossed my mind. And honestly, I think that's how it should be. It's a feel good movie, which is a wonderful way to contrast with it's elder brothers. - Also worth pointing out is that it's definitely a sequel now rather than a prequel, so you can't really watch the series in chronological order since that would mean you'd be seeing the Shire and getting the explanation of what hobbits are and what's going on it Middle Earth in the middle of the series rather than at the beginning. The Hobbit works on the knowledge that you've seen the other films already, or at least flows better than trying to watch this one first, then every other one next. (and we couldn't do that for a marathon anyway, since only Part One is out so far, and was showing at night, and we started the marathon before noon) Overall, The Hobbit compares much more favorably to the movies than it does to the book. Yes, it suffers from being expanded to the point where's it not the same story anymore, and there are definitely pacing issues and more than a few scenes I would have just cut completely, but I came away from the second viewing just as excited to see the next film as I was the first time, and all the times I went to see the original LotR in theatres a decade ago.
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Jan 12, 2013 04:29
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I'm pretty sure Viggo kissed everyone full on the mouth at some point during shooting. The little minx. I honestly think my favourite part of The Hobbit was watching the production blogs as they came out. Each one got a little more clever, a little more well edited, a little more behind the scenes showing off (like seeing Beron's house despite movie 2 being a year off still), and just a little more detailed with how things worked. I actually think I wouldn't get lost if I ever visited the set now, I've seen so much of it. Plus the blogs have the added advantage of being online so I can share them with friends without having to invite them over and explain, "no, we're not actually gonna watch the movie, we're gonna watch the making of the movie!"
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Jan 18, 2013 02:57
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computer parts posted:This literally happened in Game of Thrones and the reaction was what you expected. Oh, gently caress, I remember that. I thought it was hilarious. Then again, I read the book after watching the show, so I didn't realize what I'd be missing. It's still funny as gently caress.
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Mar 16, 2013 19:13
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sassassin posted:The movie does a poor job of indicating any of these things. Yeah, I'd rank that as one of the scenes that badly needed to be cut down if not outright removed. It's just not very well planned out, there's no landmarks for us to get our bearings so we can't tell how much distance they're covering or what objective they're advancing towards, no tension because we can't tell if the party is hidden from view or if the rabbits are getting tired or really if anything about the situation is changing from shot to shot, and no consistency on where either group is relative to one another, first they'll be close to each other, then they'll be far away from one another, then they'll be multiple wargs two hills over while the party heads the opposite direction, only they have to stop because now they're cut off by a bunch of wargs running in front of them. I don't doubt for a second the cast and crew showed up to the site, did three days worth of shooting of the group running around the fields in random directions, then calling it a wrap and packed up the raw film for Peter to open months later and realize he'd have to make a coherent scene out of 20+ hours of literal random running around. I imagine he had to do that a lot. PJ is normally pretty good at giving the audience some spacial awareness so we know where everybody is at any given time, or at least I can't think of any scenes in the LotR that were even half as spatially confusing as most of The Hobbit was. Like, remember the final battle in Fellowship, when Boromir blew his horn, and the camera followed the orcs from where Strider was fighting all the way down to where Boromir was? Yeah, pay attention and you'd realize that entire final area the film takes place in is used so well you could make a map of it just from footage in the film, all the way from the top of the hill to the beach. And this is consistent throughout all three films, every fight, from the Mines of Moria to Helm's Deep to Minas Tirith, are all filmed in such a way that you can tell who is where in any given shot. And this just isn't true for The Hobbit. Go ahead and try to map out where the party is during the warg chase, or in goblin town, you'll see that they just didn't bother building scenes that way, and that hurts the action a lot.
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Apr 14, 2013 09:56
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Yes I'm sure he used Terrence Malick-Thin Red Line amounts of footage for a five minute scene with enormous amounts of expensive effects shots. Yes. That's very likely. He didn't scout any locations or prepare any shots, he just had everyone run around in circles and ran film all day. Well, he did exactly this in Two Towers warg attack, so I guess I should have specified that no, I'm not discounting the massive amount of work the cast and crew and PJ did prepping for this movie. PJ is not lazy. He also wasn't everywhere at once, and I'd bet the warg chase was done by the second or third unit, and that they didn't have nearly as good a sense for keeping the scene consistent because it's not exactly an easy job, in fact it's very hard and quite possible that whoever was directing that scene on site wasn't even aware that he should be keeping the area consistent between shots. I'm not calling anyone lazy. But I will gladly call the director of the warg chase inexperienced. He did lots of fancy landscape shots and lots of running and hiding around rocks but didn't keep the area they were shooting in consistent. A mistake anyone could make.
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Apr 14, 2013 22:11
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Went and saw Gravity today (evaluation: really loving good, do yourself a favour and watch it in theaters) and they had the new trailer for the Hobbit running in 3D. It moves pretty drat fast, but I did notice more ambient effects going on with the 3D that I wouldn't have noticed without, like butterflies in the foreground and snow and such. Lake Town is going to look loving fantastic with it snowing like that, and the 3D actually helps to mesh the animation with the live action stuff a lot better, since they're all given depth now. Albino Troll doesn't look nearly as fake when seen with 3D glasses on. And Holy poo poo does Smaug sound FANTASTIC with a proper theatre speaker system. I was half worried that Peter, in all his infinate wisdom, would have Smaug go without speaking, and I'm so glad I was wrong. So yeah, that trailer is hyping me up for this movie all over again.
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Oct 5, 2013 23:20
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Hedrigall posted:So did anyone buy it? I want to know how good the appendices are I'll get it when I get paid. Next week. 
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Oct 25, 2013 05:56
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It's interesting how rough and unpolished that first image looks now. It's contrasted by using black and white, but both colours are muted to make the whole scene look kinda gray, it's pretty obvious they were using a day shoot scene so there's only so much colour correction you can do and I don't think they tried super hard to make things really "pop", just shade everything a bit and call it a day. Compare that to the white orc picture using the more colourful orange/blue contrasts, both colours being so vibrant that you can hold your hand up to cut off his face and he'll almost have two different expressions, solely because of the way the lighting makes him look. But there is no actual lighting, he's a CG character so his scenes are completely under the animator's control, so they can have perfected lighting and poo poo and it'll look super ultra polished. I'm not actually going anywhere with this, I just noticed both pictures used contrast in the exact same way, to highlight the bad guy and make him look bad, with completely different results. EDIT: You know what, I am going somewhere with this: LOTR did a good job at using contrast as a way to highlight the villain in their shot so they can separate him from the crowd and make him look big, menacing and mean, but AUJ's shot does none of that and instead makes him two-faced, both burning with a vengeful orange rage, yet also highlighted with a cold and cool and calculating blue. LOTR is simple, effective and gets the point across that this is a big bad man in charge of these smaller bad men, while AUJ is trying to make their big bad deeper than he appears and if the script had as much care and thought and attention to detail as the framework and lighting and CGI had then I might have actually bought it. SatansBestBuddy fucked around with this message at 11:31 on Oct 27, 2013 |
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Oct 27, 2013 10:14
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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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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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SHISHKABOB posted: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. Nope, masks. The blur effect was CGI but the actual characters were costumes. quote: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). Yep, the vast majority of scenes with Nazgul had them in black clocks on set. And they were intimidating as gently caress. Way, way better than the white orc in every single respect. quote: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? When seen at a distance they were CGI but if the camera was close enough then they'd use real actors and CGI the fell beast around them. I think the most obvious example of this was the first reveal of the fell beasts in the swamp, it starts real close and it's pretty clearly a guy in costume and it's not till the next edit that he switches to CGI because he's so far zoomed out by then that you can't tell anyway.
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Oct 29, 2013 10:03
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Watched the extended editions. Noticed that during the fight with the trolls, you can see the big pot get knocked over, but the very next cut you can see it's back over the fire. Actual impressions conclude that it's considerably more enjoyable on a second viewing. The extended scenes are all quite welcome, if anything I wouldn't have minded if they'd cut some of the overly long ones from the original release, like the one with Biblo and Frodo, it's still about twice as long as it actually needs to be to serve it's purpose, and the Goblin Town chase is still just dreadful. Also, somebody needs to tell the colour correction team that there are more colours than orange and teal. Black/white, yellow/violet, red/green, can you imagine how Goblin Town would look with red/green contrasts? Trailers for the next movie have me hopeful that they realized this, though I'm not holding my breath. All in all, I'm far more forgiving now than when I first saw the movie. I suppose it's because I've already seen it before, so I saw the individual scenes working incredibly well by themselves, but I already know they don't add up to a satisfying whole.
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Nov 11, 2013 04:23
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