IMO, 3D brought nothing to the movie. Thought it was a good movie, fitting nicely with the other LOTR movies. Could have done without the CGI giants doing their WWE routine though.
Your avatar just made me think, would Lanny's mustache be respected by the Dwarves? Wonder if somebody with some photoshop talent could put Lanny's head onto a Dwarf body.
The White Council long feared the power in Dol Guldur might be Sauron, but Saruman opposed assaulting it, because he knew that the Necromancer was Sauron, and he wanted to wait for him to grow in power until the One Ring revealed itself to him, so Saruman could then take it for himself. But in TA 2063 Gandalf went to Dol Guldur, and learned that the Necromancer was indeed Sauron. He then informed the White Council, and Saruman was unable to protest. The White Council attacked Dol Goldur, and Sauron, not yet powerful enough to challenge them, fled to Mordor. In TA 2460 Sauron returned there, just as the One Ring was found by Sméagol the Stoor Hobbit. However, the Ring disappeared with Sméagol under the Misty Mountains (Hithaeglir).
I find the history of Middle Earth to be so amazing. I could spend hours on the Middle Earth Wiki site.
The White Council long feared the power in Dol Guldur might be Sauron, but Saruman opposed assaulting it, because he knew that the Necromancer was Sauron, and he wanted to wait for him to grow in power until the One Ring revealed itself to him, so Saruman could then take it for himself. But in TA 2063 Gandalf went to Dol Guldur, and learned that the Necromancer was indeed Sauron. He then informed the White Council, and Saruman was unable to protest. The White Council attacked Dol Goldur, and Sauron, not yet powerful enough to challenge them, fled to Mordor. In TA 2460 Sauron returned there, just as the One Ring was found by Sméagol the Stoor Hobbit. However, the Ring disappeared with Sméagol under the Misty Mountains (Hithaeglir).
I find the history of Middle Earth to be so amazing. I could spend hours on the Middle Earth Wiki sight.
I did spend an hour on it last night!
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That's why if you're a Tolkein fan you really should read the Silmarillion. If they keep the money train rolling the big story they haven't done is Beren's. Tells you something that Tolkein's tombstone reads "John Ronald Reuel Tolkein - Beren" and his wife's, "Edith Mary Tolkein - Luthien".
That's why if you're a Tolkein fan you really should read the Silmarillion. If they keep the money train rolling the big story they haven't done is Beren's. Tells you something that Tolkein's tombstone reads "John Ronald Reuel Tolkein - Beren" and his wife's, "Edith Mary Tolkein - Luthien".
Just started it today. Fascinating so far.
I don't think they will ever make a movie out of it though. It would be a pretty big project.
Although, if the can adapt Game of Thrones into a TV show, why not the Simarillion?
The casting of bilbo is magnificient and the goblin king reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Homer goes to hell and a demon says:"So you like donuts, now you can have all the donuts in the world".
I do prefer this Martin Freeman's version although to be fair Bilbo is a more upbeat character in the Hobbit.
Just started it today. Fascinating so far.
I don't think they will ever make a movie out of it though. It would be a pretty big project.
Although, if the can adapt Game of Thrones into a TV show, why not the Simarillion?
Utterly impossible to movie-ize it. It would be ten movies. But individual stories within the larger text could be done, which is why I say Beren and Luthien is a good one - it's a pretty standard movie plot. There's a ton of context, though, that might require an excessively long prologue to set up. You could make it a follow on of the War of the Great Jewels which would take at least 2 movies but even that isn't a great stand-alone, because if you just jump into that, where the eff did Morgoth come from?
I love the mythology Tolkein created for Arda. The abstract elements (the creation of the world as a melody sung by the Gods for example) blend with the literal since those gods are physically present and have a physical location for their home. Makes the whole history extremely interesting.
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Just got back from watching this puppy. Spoilers in my post so don't read if you don't want key things ruined. In previous posts, I think I made it clear that LOTRs is in general, not my cup of tea. Thought I'd preface my review with that comment, but to be gentle I guess I'll throw in some good, because I didn't think it was just 100% bad.
We'll start with the good:
- the acting was great, and the characters well cast
- the story was solid, in spite of the random useless subplots
- the visuals of the country side and world in general are amazing, obviously. Truly beautiful scenes and sights in general.
- the 3D was actually not as distracting as everybody here is making it out to be. To me the 3D really is just a non-factor, if you will, it's irrelevant.
The bad:
- The 48fps makes it look like fast forward at first, as others have mentioned. I understand it's because my "brain isn't conditioned for it" as photon wrote, but I'm not sure what the need was to film the movie like this? Why take this risk that might turn off a few movie go'ers? It definitely isn't going to win over teh army of fans you've already got from the LOTR franchise... so just an odd decision to me, and yes distracting, terrible looking, cheesy, etc. etc.
- Specifically, as to the above, the scene with the unnecessary brown wizard rolling along the countryside with teh rabbits... (massive eyerolling on the horribleness of this scene) looked like one of the worst scenes visually that I have seen, literally, in my life. And that is saying something, considering I own the movie Ninja Terminator. To the point that I do wonder if they even watched this movie after filming, or just went straight from filming to distribution to the cinemas and sans any editing whatsoever. It was just astonishingly bad, that scene.
- the little rock giant fight that came without warning, reason, sense, or explanation. Nope, just a random fataing rock giant fight. Why are they fighting? Nobody knows, what are they? Nobody knows, nope. Just mountains getting up and fighting. Scene end. WTF?
- the beginning in the shire. It lasted like 45 minutes. You could literally cut the first... hmm... 40 minutes of this movie right out and it would be the exact same thing. The dancing dishes scene also was blood boilingly unnecessary and ridiculous. Jazz hands dwarves need to go.
- the jeopardy scene in the cave with Golum. Kind of cool, yeah yeah, I get it. Riddle this, riddle that..... riddle again... okay... riddle.... riddle.............riddle...................riddle .............. looking at the watch... riddle....... holy fata when does this #### end? Riddle... ? Riddle? ring? Golum rage, and we're back in business. Again, a scene that can be cut by about... ohhhh 15-20 minutes or so.
- Why is the hobbit such a dumbass? Many poor decisions, you have a sword man. It's glowing blue. Remember what that means? No? Probably something you should remember. Also all these sleeping dwarves are now screwed by the few seconds you could have warned them but instead sat there staring at your sword with that ridiculous Frodo scared look on your face. And why did the ground give out there?
- the eagles... this has been beaten to death but again, insert eagles page 1 on script and call it a day. I was hoping the eagles were bringing there guys back to their young but instead they just dropped them off on a massive precipice that they are now trapped on. Meanwhile the tiny bird flies all the way to Lonely Mtn... ??! Hey Eagles, get the fata back here and take us the whole way?? No short cuts dude and we'll give you some gold. The paper tiger explanations as to why the eagles couldn't fly them all the way are so weak it is laughable.
-"We have to go outside, there are too many goblins and they don't like daylight!" Meanwhile the orcs are outside, in the daylight. I suppose these are different creatures but... anyway ok fine I'll go with it. Wait a tick, it's nightime over the course of like what, 30 seconds here? wtf?
-then you're thinking, holy christ this thing is long and boring. They are making THREE movies from this thing?! How??? Good lord, this could be one amazing movie, instead, it is 3 insultingly drawn out eye rapings.
Meh, I could go on. Average at best, action scenes are neat, but these movies are obviously just not for me.
Last edited by Mr.Coffee; 12-28-2012 at 12:07 AM.
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Saw it. Liked it. Enjoyed the slower story-telling pace of it, much as I did the first LOTR movie - my favourite of the three.
I noticed the visuals were often muddy though, and wonder if that's because, as others have said, the CGI can't keep up with the frame rate. There were multiple points along the way that I thought "this would look sharper on my plasma screen at home." In retrospect though, I think it had more to do with how the thing was filmed. Whatever it was, something was decidedly off during a lot of the action sequences and even simple camera-panning.
On the whole though, it was slightly better than I expected, and a good chaser for the disappointment that was the Dark Knight Rises that I watched last night.
If you watch the Blu-Ray LotR some of the special effects are very conspicuous for how poor they are as well (I'm looking at you digital Legolas), I think they just didn't put enough time into some things. Sounds like this might be the same.
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If you watch the Blu-Ray LotR some of the special effects are very conspicuous for how poor they are as well (I'm looking at you digital Legolas), I think they just didn't put enough time into some things. Sounds like this might be the same.
i tested out a new blu ray player on my old ROTK DVD, and even in that format the battle at Minas Tirith has some shaky moments. Legolas on the elephant was something I noticed even 9 years ago in the theatre, but also whenever a horse gets shot with an arrow or something it's now glaringly CG to me. The unnatural motion is what gives it away in all these cases, almost like the effect is sped up compared to everything else in the shot. maybe they can't slow it down because then other CG problems like simulated textures start popping out.
still, that moment with Theoden pumping up his troops and then charging down the hill remains one of the most goose bumpy moments in any movie for me. I didn't get anything close to that in the Hobbit, but I guess there's still a couple more chances.
I saw it today and I found it to be a bit slow moving at times. I was impressed by the clarity that comes with 48 fps.
The biggest piss-off about the whole thing? The dragon's closed eye appears on screen and they brought the house lights up in anticipation of the end of the movie. Thanks, knuckle draggers. Way to kill any energy the final scene might have had.
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The unnatural motion is what gives it away in all these cases, almost like the effect is sped up compared to everything else in the shot. maybe they can't slow it down because then other CG problems like simulated textures start popping out.
It's more like the part where the dwarves all fall down, it looks sped up but it isn't, you're just seeing the actual speed and clear frames of someone falling down rather than a few frames of blur. CG would in some cases be the same, it's actually done "right" in that the correct amount of natural motion given the amount of time, mass of what's moving, all that stuff that goes into what our brains think is normal, but it's bashing up against what we expect in movies so it triggers the "this isn't right" feeling.
That exact same CG could probably be in a video game trailer and no one would think it bad.
In other cases it probably is just bad animation and unnatural motions, and in those cases looks even worse because you get twice as many frames of unnatural motion and you can't hide poor CG or animation with blur.
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Just got back from it. Here's my roughly scene-by-scene review of what I liked and didn't.
Spoiler!
Prologue: loved this. The Erebor backstory is a great way to frame this in terms of the middle-earth universe, establish the scale of the story. Also, gorgeous scene to look at. And I love that it's told by the elder Bilbo. At bag-end: I struggled with this a bit. I was still getting used to the 48FPS, which honestly is most noticeable in a negative way in these relatively close-in scenes. Still, a great job of introducing the dwarfish cast, some decent comedy. Early travels: only part of the movie that felt really sluggish to me. The Trolls: sorry, hated this scene. It's pretty slapstick in the book too, as I recall it, so there's little way to do it any other way. Yet it doesn't really feel consistent with the trolls of LotR, which were pretty serious and badass. Radaghast: I would have preferred him a little less comical, but I loved his inclusion here. There's some obvious questions about the timing here: he seemed to get from Dol Guldar to the west in no time flat, even for a giant rabbit sled. But those are the sorts of liberties Jackson has always taken (Elves arriving at Helm's Deep about five minutes after Elrond and Galadriel decide to send them). Azog and the orc chase: Decent. I like the way they're using him as a consistent villain who pushes the tempo, similar to the Nazgul in LotR. Rivendale: I loved the way that they very subtly showed Bilbo falling in love with the place, without him saying one word to that effect. White Council was a good inclusion, especially since these are all characters we love from LotR. And while there wasn't much here, it's moreso what this means for the future movies. Stone Giants: This is where I really began to get the 48 FPS. The incredible sharp clarity of the wet, shattering stones was really gorgeous, and this was a great sequence. Goblin King: As with the trolls, I wasn't really a fan of the CGI here. His fleshiness didn't really look authentic. But the goblin city was great. Gollum: Best scene of the movie. It's one of the best scenes in the book, and will probably go down as one of the best scenes in the films. Escape from the goblins: One of the best action sequences Jackson has ever done, rivalling the dinosaur/Kong fight in King Kong or the elephants in RotK. Amazingly choreographed and brought to life. Into the fire: I really liked the changes to this from the book. The reason this whole movie worked for me is making the whole narrative about Bilbo's acceptance within the company. The book put more emphasis on the dwarves recognizing Bilbo's skill as a burglar, but here it's more about his bravery and loyalty to the company, which honestly makes a much better story. Epilogue: loved the thrush/dragon-eye. Great way to end the movie.
Overall: Honestly, I didn't feel any of the problems with the pace that others mentioned. For me there were only a few minutes in the movie where I was really aware of any pacing issues, and those were early on. Some of the CGI villains were a little too cartoony, like the goblin king and trolls. I've raved before about the character design of the dwarves, and the way their different personalities are developed is also very well done. Martin Freeman as Bilbo is great, and all the returning characters did their job well.
Given that the rest of the story calls for fewer trolls/goblins, and more orcs/spiders/dragons and possibly nazgul, I'm excited about how the next two are going to go, as for me the relatively weak and silly monsters were the only failing of this film.
They should rename the hobbit "the eagles" and the lord of the rings movies can have cool names too like "the eagles strike back" and "return of the eagles". They seem to be the real hero's of these stories- can always be counted on to come to the rescue at the last minute.
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for those who have watched the Hobbit and/or the earlier trilogy, I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but don't you think all the quests would have been way easier if the eagles just flew them from the Shire straight to the final goal? just thinking out loud.
for those who have watched the Hobbit and/or the earlier trilogy, I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but don't you think all the quests would have been way easier if the eagles just flew them from the Shire straight to the final goal? just thinking out loud.
I also thought the Matrix would have made more sense if the machines just used nuclear power, but it wouldn't be a very entertaining movie.
It was brought up earlier that the eagles are not a puppet of Gandalf.
for those who have watched the Hobbit and/or the earlier trilogy, I don't know if this has been brought up yet, but don't you think all the quests would have been way easier if the eagles just flew them from the Shire straight to the final goal? just thinking out loud.
Oh Geez! Why didn't Tolkien think of that!
__________________ "In brightest day, in blackest night / No evil shall escape my sight / Let those who worship evil's might / Beware my power, Green Lantern's light!"
Just saw it in 48fps 3D, loved it. I found the high frame rate was near perfect except for a few moments here and there where things just didn't look quite right. But overall I thought the HFR was great, it makes high action scenes so, so much more clear and easy on the eyes. The 3D was also the best I've seen. Given the numerous negative reviews out there, I was expecting some substantial flaws and problems with the film, but for me there were only a few minor parts that I thought either dragged, or were a bit childish. But overall, excellent movie I will be seeing it again for sure.
To expand on the HFR and 3D, it is most certainly a different experience. I would imagine is makes it more difficult to hide visual flaws, a grainy 24fps film covers up a lot, and can give an otherwise bland scene some character. I personally enjoyed the hell out of it combined with the 3D, and think that as film makers become more adept at the process, it will just get better and better.
But in the wrong hands I can see it being a complete disaster.
Mr.Coffee I disagree with just about everything you posted, I can only guess that this type of movie is just not for you, I can't see how the movie could have been done much better.
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