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Waaargh wrote: I enjoyed The Hobbit trilogy and am eager for the extended version of BotFA. Extended DoS is good you say? Must watch it then.
Very good. More Beorn, more Laketown, more Dol Guldur and more Mirkwood. The pacing of the first half improves dramatically once you add in the extra stuff; without it I thought it was a little rushed.
Interesting observations. If they'd put the stuff you mention in the original movie and dropped the overblown action sequences and Jackson-additions, they might have had a decent trio of pictures.
At some point I will probably rent the extended versions, but right now the theater versions have got me so sore on the whole trilogy that I'd rather get some distance (a few years should do it.) from the films before a second try.
I think the problem for me is the stark difference in my experience of the films. I went in to LoTR expecting a pretty good movie and was blown away. I loved it and didn't feel (despite some flaws) that the second two were at all a let down. 3 satisfying movies in a row is a pretty great run.
On the other hand, I went into the Hobbit expecting a good movie (as soon as I heard it was a trilogy, I never expected greatness) and got something less. The 2nd and 3rd films were even poorer experiences and the whole thing seems like a waste of $50.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/29 01:03:31
H.B.M.C. wrote: Can someone explain these "Jackson-additions" to me?
Basically the movies added a bunch of extraneous to a lot of scenes- cartoonish henchmen, Legolas and Filler Elf getting more screentime than the Dwarven party, and ridiculous stuff like Human bows, rivers of gold, barrel level, etc. At points it feels like it was a licenced game which had had extra playtime added.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Can someone explain these "Jackson-additions" to me?
Basically the movies added a bunch of extraneous to a lot of scenes- cartoonish henchmen, Legolas and Filler Elf getting more screentime than the Dwarven party, and ridiculous stuff like Human bows, rivers of gold, barrel level, etc. At points it feels like it was a licenced game which had had extra playtime added.
The last movie was terrible. What should have been 15 minutes at the end of #2 turned into 2.5 hours of plot-free fight and battle scenes that had no relevance to the book. Nor, really, did it make sense (how do a dozen dwarves defend the mountain, and why did their entering the battle have any impact on the final outcome :X
H.B.M.C. wrote: Can someone explain these "Jackson-additions" to me?
Basically the movies added a bunch of extraneous to a lot of scenes- cartoonish henchmen, Legolas and Filler Elf getting more screentime than the Dwarven party, and ridiculous stuff like Human bows, rivers of gold, barrel level, etc. At points it feels like it was a licenced game which had had extra playtime added.
I will not have you badmouth Hawt Redhead Elf. She's the best dang thing about this trilogy.
In other news my sister got me a gift vertificate so 'I would have not excuse' not to see it.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Can someone explain these "Jackson-additions" to me?
Basically the movies added a bunch of extraneous to a lot of scenes- cartoonish henchmen, Legolas and Filler Elf getting more screentime than the Dwarven party, and ridiculous stuff like Human bows, rivers of gold, barrel level, etc. At points it feels like it was a licenced game which had had extra playtime added.
I will not have you badmouth Hawt Redhead Elf. She's the best dang thing about this trilogy.
In other news my sister got me a gift vertificate so 'I would have not excuse' not to see it.
They should have rolled Tauriel and Levolas into their own trilogy, set in LoTR and occurring chronologically between the hobbit and fellowship. Would have been epic.
Talys wrote: They should have rolled Tauriel and Levolas into their own trilogy, set in LoTR and occurring chronologically between the hobbit and fellowship. Would have been epic.
And endure the further rantings of book-purists? No thanks.
They should have rolled Tauriel and Levolas into their own trilogy, set in LoTR and occurring chronologically between the hobbit and fellowship. Would have been epic.
I think Jackson made a dire mistake keeping the 13 short hairy guys. He should have jsut swapped them for 13 hawt redhead elf chicks and went from there.
They should have rolled Tauriel and Levolas into their own trilogy, set in LoTR and occurring chronologically between the hobbit and fellowship. Would have been epic.
I think Jackson made a dire mistake keeping the 13 short hairy guys. He should have jsut swapped them for 13 hawt redhead elf chicks and went from there.
It really would have been the best course of action.
Talys wrote: They should have rolled Tauriel and Levolas into their own trilogy, set in LoTR and occurring chronologically between the hobbit and fellowship. Would have been epic.
And endure the further rantings of book-purists? No thanks.
Book purists (like me!) have no problems with new fiction that adds to middle-earth lore. For example, shadows over morodor (the game) is great. However, when you butcher an iconic book, changing not only the content but the spirit in which it was written, that's horrible.
Hobbit was not about great battles, an epic adventure, armies, orcs, or necromancers. It was not a tale of the One Ring to rule them all, and in darkness bind them. It wasn't the tale of Galadriel, Elrond, Saruman, Legolas, and Radagast... The Hobbit was never intended to be "more of the cool kids in LoTR"... especially when it was written beforehand
They should have rolled Tauriel and Levolas into their own trilogy, set in LoTR and occurring chronologically between the hobbit and fellowship. Would have been epic.
I think Jackson made a dire mistake keeping the 13 short hairy guys. He should have jsut swapped them for 13 hawt redhead elf chicks and went from there.
It really would have been the best course of action.
I note that nowhere in the book does Bilbo ever deny having aided 13 hawt redhead elf chicks recover their clothing optional beach resort from a fire drake.
They should have rolled Tauriel and Levolas into their own trilogy, set in LoTR and occurring chronologically between the hobbit and fellowship. Would have been epic.
I think Jackson made a dire mistake keeping the 13 short hairy guys. He should have jsut swapped them for 13 hawt redhead elf chicks and went from there.
well its like what happened with GW's Lord of the Rings line, its hard to support a line when it is limited to a movie or book, and GW can only do so much to support it.
Thinks Palladium books screwed the pooch on the Robotech project.
Asterios wrote: well its like what happened with GW's Lord of the Rings line, its hard to support a line when it is limited to a movie or book, and GW can only do so much to support it.
Except you could hardly consider GW to be supporting The Hobbit line at all. There are models that should be in that are missing and there's a whole bunch of models that should be in cheap plastic so you can actually assemble a decent force instead of expensive failcast blister packs with minimal poses.
Asterios wrote: well its like what happened with GW's Lord of the Rings line, its hard to support a line when it is limited to a movie or book, and GW can only do so much to support it.
Except you could hardly consider GW to be supporting The Hobbit line at all. There are models that should be in that are missing and there's a whole bunch of models that should be in cheap plastic so you can actually assemble a decent force instead of expensive failcast blister packs with minimal poses.
well you know GW anything for a buck, and they can charge more for Finecrap then they could for plastic.
Thinks Palladium books screwed the pooch on the Robotech project.
Asterios wrote: well its like what happened with GW's Lord of the Rings line, its hard to support a line when it is limited to a movie or book, and GW can only do so much to support it.
Except you could hardly consider GW to be supporting The Hobbit line at all. There are models that should be in that are missing and there's a whole bunch of models that should be in cheap plastic so you can actually assemble a decent force instead of expensive failcast blister packs with minimal poses.
well you know GW anything for a buck, and they can charge more for Finecrap then they could for plastic.
But it doesn't really work out when you don't sell as much because far fewer people are willing to pay the absurdly high prices.
notprop wrote:There's actually an article in this months Wargames Soldier and Strategy about the I'm pact of Warhammer on Historicals. It's quite interesting but incorrectly indicates the Warhammer system being used for the plethora of Warhammer Historicals systems that actually used te LotRs system.
I wonder if there were different versions of it Notprop? I played one years ago that was basically WFB but without magic.
weeble1000 wrote:
Why do you think GW forced Priestly out of the design studio? GW got pissed about LotR when the bubble burst, and blamed it on Priestly, quite flagrantly ignoring the fact that it was a huge, unprecedentedly successful money earner for the company that GW eventually bungled with poor support after the hype from Return of the King died down.
I had just heard that Priestly got promoted to a point within the company where he wasn't doing anything creative any more, and decided to leave on that basis. Certainly didn't hear there was any animosity towards him, the guy is practically the keystone for GW being where it is today after all.
Hobbit was not about great battles, an epic adventure, armies, orcs, or necromancers. It was not a tale of the One Ring to rule them all, and in darkness bind them. It wasn't the tale of Galadriel, Elrond, Saruman, Legolas, and Radagast... The Hobbit was never intended to be "more of the cool kids in LoTR"... especially when it was written beforehand
I disagree. The Hobbit itself may not have concerned these things, but only because Tolkien hadn't thought of them at the time. Look at RotK's appendices; almost every addition to the plot barring Tauriel and Azog is in there. This is all stuff from Tolkien's own pen, and I think to have just stuck to the book of the Hobbit would have led to a single, very boring film that totally threw away the richness of the setting that LotR established. Are you saying you'd prefer to have seen the Necromancer simply mentioned as an aside so Gandalf had a reason to dissappear so the Dwarves could get into trouble? Or have then entire cumularite battle have Bilbo being hit over the head after 5 minutes and waking up to find out who died?
Honestly, I think that would have been a waste. To stick to the skeleton of the book and leave out everything that makes it a part of Middle Earth rather than generic fantasy would have been a complete wasted opportunity, and I'm very glad it was expanded to a trilogy. The Hobbit as a book is rather a one-dimensional, linear and frankly weak (in comparison to the depth of LotR) story, it needed something adding to make it a compelling film, and in my opinion, succeedeed in this.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/29 11:32:35
I had just heard that Priestly got promoted to a point within the company where he wasn't doing anything creative any more, and decided to leave on that basis. Certainly didn't hear there was any animosity towards him, the guy is practically the keystone for GW being where it is today after all.
So far as I heard, he got put into a job that he would hate so that he would inevitably quit. That happens all of the time, and I am told that it is a typical course of action in the UK, but I don't really know about that.
In any case, I had the story from the man himself, so...if GW didn't think it was punitive, Priestly sure as heck thought it was.
GW doesn't give a about who or what was or is 'keystone'. One of my beefs with GW management is about the Priestly deal. The company forced out a creative game designer because he spear-headed one of the most profitable product lines GW ever had, and they needed someone to blame when the bubble burst after a rash of mishandling that had nothing to do with the designer himself. Who the heck does that? And the ultimate result is that said ex-employee walks across the street and starts working with your competition. Such idiocy.
Kirasu: Have we fallen so far that we are excited that GW is giving us the opportunity to spend 58$ for JUST the rules? Surprised it's not "Dataslate: Assault Phase"
AlexHolker: "The power loader is a forklift. The public doesn't complain about a forklift not having frontal armour protecting the crew compartment because the only enemy it is designed to face is the OHSA violation."
AlexHolker: "Allow me to put it this way: Paramount is Skynet, reboots are termination attempts, and your childhood is John Connor."
2014/12/29 13:53:23
Subject: Re:Free Hobbit rules, I assume no one cares
OK well in that case, your account trumps my second/third hand story!
That's a really sad thing to hear, but doesn't surprise me to be honest. What's also sad is that you sometimes read pretty disparaging comments about him on fan forums, I think more often than not just because he has now left GW and the corporate loyalty seems to come first. They don't stop to think that he was the creative heart of the company in its formative days, the first name on Rogue Trader, and without him you wouldn't have 40k or WHFBor the success of GW as a company.
On your one point it's certainly an issue in the UK in that employees are well protected and therefore very difficult to sack - even if someone is perceived as being bad at their job there has to be significant grievance procedures and it to be shown by employers that they have made large efforts to improve the work of the individual. Hence people get 'moved sideways', and actually promoted a lot of the time(!), simply because that is the easier course of action. This also happens if there is a 'clash of character' between individuals, as sometimes happens in the workplace and I would suspect probably happened here.
Pacific wrote: OK well in that case, your account trumps my second/third hand story!
That's a really sad thing to hear, but doesn't surprise me to be honest. What's also sad is that you sometimes read pretty disparaging comments about him on fan forums, I think more often than not just because he has now left GW and the corporate loyalty seems to come first. They don't stop to think that he was the creative heart of the company in its formative days, the first name on Rogue Trader, and without him you wouldn't have 40k or WHFBor the success of GW as a company.
On your one point it's certainly an issue in the UK in that employees are well protected and therefore very difficult to sack - even if someone is perceived as being bad at their job there has to be significant grievance procedures and it to be shown by employers that they have made large efforts to improve the work of the individual. Hence people get 'moved sideways', and actually promoted a lot of the time(!), simply because that is the easier course of action. This also happens if there is a 'clash of character' between individuals, as sometimes happens in the workplace and I would suspect probably happened here.
That's definitely part of what it was, in my opinion, based on what I heard. I think folks like Priestly and Renton wanted to give more attention to specialist games like Mordheim, Blood Bowl, etc. That was against the GW corporate ethos. On a purely speculative basis, I also think that it was probably pretty boring churning out content for 40K/Fantasy over and over again.
Kirby is very anti-risk, anti-new. He likes to do the things that have worked in the past. That's not really what stimulates a game designer in my experience. You want to be making something new and different. You want to push boundaries and strive to give players a better and better experience.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/29 14:28:00
Kirasu: Have we fallen so far that we are excited that GW is giving us the opportunity to spend 58$ for JUST the rules? Surprised it's not "Dataslate: Assault Phase"
AlexHolker: "The power loader is a forklift. The public doesn't complain about a forklift not having frontal armour protecting the crew compartment because the only enemy it is designed to face is the OHSA violation."
AlexHolker: "Allow me to put it this way: Paramount is Skynet, reboots are termination attempts, and your childhood is John Connor."
Hobbit was not about great battles, an epic adventure, armies, orcs, or necromancers. It was not a tale of the One Ring to rule them all, and in darkness bind them. It wasn't the tale of Galadriel, Elrond, Saruman, Legolas, and Radagast... The Hobbit was never intended to be "more of the cool kids in LoTR"... especially when it was written beforehand
I disagree. The Hobbit itself may not have concerned these things, but only because Tolkien hadn't thought of them at the time.
Spoiler:
Look at RotK's appendices; almost every addition to the plot barring Tauriel and Azog is in there. This is all stuff from Tolkien's own pen, and I think to have just stuck to the book of the Hobbit would have led to a single, very boring film that totally threw away the richness of the setting that LotR established. Are you saying you'd prefer to have seen the Necromancer simply mentioned as an aside so Gandalf had a reason to dissappear so the Dwarves could get into trouble? Or have then entire cumularite battle have Bilbo being hit over the head after 5 minutes and waking up to find out who died?
Honestly, I think that would have been a waste. To stick to the skeleton of the book and leave out everything that makes it a part of Middle Earth rather than generic fantasy would have been a complete wasted opportunity, and I'm very glad it was expanded to a trilogy. The Hobbit as a book is rather a one-dimensional, linear and frankly weak (in comparison to the depth of LotR) story, it needed something adding to make it a compelling film, and in my opinion, succeedeed in this.
I agree that more was needed to fill a trilogy, but if Jackson had just stuck to one good movie, none (or very little) of the additional material -and almost none of the Jackson-additions- would have been necessary. The Hobbit is a splendid little adventure tale and would have made a very good little movie. With Jackson and Weta behind the project it could have been an Extremely good little movie. Unfortunately Petey seems less and less capable or willing to make a "little movie".
Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
H.B.M.C. wrote: Can someone explain these "Jackson-additions" to me?
Basically the movies added a bunch of extraneous to a lot of scenes- cartoonish henchmen, Legolas and Filler Elf getting more screentime than the Dwarven party, and ridiculous stuff like Human bows, rivers of gold, barrel level, etc. At points it feels like it was a licenced game which had had extra playtime added.
This exactly. Though not unique to the Hobbit films (it started in the first trilogy), they take to a whole new level, the addition of non-Tolkien characters, scenes actions, etc.
It's just far more noticeable in The Hobbit because he had to do so much of it to make a series of films that take longer to watch than the Hobbit takes to read.
weeble1000 wrote: [
That's definitely part of what it was, in my opinion, based on what I heard. I think folks like Priestly and Renton wanted to give more attention to specialist games like Mordheim, Blood Bowl, etc. That was against the GW corporate ethos. On a purely speculative basis, I also think that it was probably pretty boring churning out content for 40K/Fantasy over and over again.
Kirby is very anti-risk, anti-new. He likes to do the things that have worked in the past. That's not really what stimulates a game designer in my experience. You want to be making something new and different. You want to push boundaries and strive to give players a better and better experience.
Is that part of the problem any company experiences as it grows larger?
In the case of GW, the free wheeling 'Let's design something that we think is fun and cool" types that started the ball rolling found that they needed business types to run the empire as it grew. Then the business types stop the creatives because that 'fun and cool something' might be risky as regards the accounting.
Hence all the creatives are now having fun being Mantic or Warlord Games while GW is slipping.
Hobbit was not about great battles, an epic adventure, armies, orcs, or necromancers. It was not a tale of the One Ring to rule them all, and in darkness bind them. It wasn't the tale of Galadriel, Elrond, Saruman, Legolas, and Radagast... The Hobbit was never intended to be "more of the cool kids in LoTR"... especially when it was written beforehand
I disagree. The Hobbit itself may not have concerned these things, but only because Tolkien hadn't thought of them at the time.
Spoiler:
Look at RotK's appendices; almost every addition to the plot barring Tauriel and Azog is in there. This is all stuff from Tolkien's own pen, and I think to have just stuck to the book of the Hobbit would have led to a single, very boring film that totally threw away the richness of the setting that LotR established. Are you saying you'd prefer to have seen the Necromancer simply mentioned as an aside so Gandalf had a reason to dissappear so the Dwarves could get into trouble? Or have then entire cumularite battle have Bilbo being hit over the head after 5 minutes and waking up to find out who died?
Honestly, I think that would have been a waste. To stick to the skeleton of the book and leave out everything that makes it a part of Middle Earth rather than generic fantasy would have been a complete wasted opportunity, and I'm very glad it was expanded to a trilogy. The Hobbit as a book is rather a one-dimensional, linear and frankly weak (in comparison to the depth of LotR) story, it needed something adding to make it a compelling film, and in my opinion, succeedeed in this.
I agree that more was needed to fill a trilogy, but if Jackson had just stuck to one good movie, none (or very little) of the additional material -and almost none of the Jackson-additions- would have been necessary. The Hobbit is a splendid little adventure tale and would have made a very good little movie. With Jackson and Weta behind the project it could have been an Extremely good little movie. Unfortunately Petey seems less and less capable or willing to make a "little movie".
I would still rather have a prequel trilogy to LotR of the same scale, scope and class than "a little adventure movie". Just differering taste, I guess, but I don't think of these films as a movie-version of The Hobbit novel, but rather another chapter in the history of Middle Earth established in LotR films. Everything that makes the Hobbit good is still there and capitalised on, but at the same time, all the little strands that lead into the story told in LotR add so much to the film for me. From Legolas's dig at the portrait of Gimli in DoS to the entirity of the Necromancer stuff and the theory-to-fact of his identity, it all makes it a part of something greater, and makes the most of the opportunity to expand the greatest trilogy of films ever made into something even grander, richer and deeper.
I would still rather have a prequel trilogy to LotR of the same scale, scope and class than "a little adventure movie". Just differering taste, I guess, but I don't think of these films as a movie-version of The Hobbit novel, but rather another chapter in the history of Middle Earth established in LotR films. Everything that makes the Hobbit good is still there and capitalised on, but at the same time, all the little strands that lead into the story told in LotR add so much to the film for me. From Legolas's dig at the portrait of Gimli in DoS to the entirity of the Necromancer stuff and the theory-to-fact of his identity, it all makes it a part of something greater, and makes the most of the opportunity to expand the greatest trilogy of films ever made into something even grander, richer and deeper.
I agree that the expanding of what was happening in the background of The Hobbit was a good move and links the movies to the LOTR trilogy but there are certain elements to the Hobbit movies that I don't like.
The main one for me was the almost sidelining of Bilbo in the spiders sequence. In the book, he is the one who recues the party and draws the spiders off allowing an escape. In the film it becomes another "Aren't Elves cool?" scene. I don't insist that films are necessarily slaves to the source material but that change, to me, undermines Bilbo's growth as a hero.
I found the Alfrid scenes in the final movie particularly grating.
Boooooooooring. Oh...my...god...boring. And the film was so damn long that we only got to see one preview!
Spoiler:
There's that guy again. No, it isn't funny anymore. Ah, need to lighten the mood again after an hour of mind-numbing action, there's that guy again, and he still isn't funny, even when you put him in a dress.
Oh, now Legolas gets to fight that guy...and now Tauriel gets to fight him...and now...that dwarf? gets to fight him...and now Legolas fights him again...oh, he's finally dead...no, Legolas gets to fight him again...You know it is a terrible movie when you want the mini-boss to die so that the movie can end!
Enter Sauron.gif...hope you don't get seizures. Movie not long enough? Let's add 10 minutes of smash cuts while Thorin decides whether to fight in the battle.
The dwarves put on a bunch of armor...sit around in Erebor wearing it...then take it all off before actually joining the battle!
Cheesy lines are cheesy. "There's only 100 of them, we'll handle it." Wait, what?. The two of you are going to kill 100 goblin scouts...even though there are only 20 extras playing those scouts, and even though we cut away for any of your fight with them...then cut back to the same 20 extras dead on the ground. So...what was the point of telling us there were 100 of them...so that we would all know how bad- you are? WTF PETER JACKSON?!? 180 minutes of non-stop action and you don't show any of the impossible 2 v 100 fight of ultimate badassery?
Kirasu: Have we fallen so far that we are excited that GW is giving us the opportunity to spend 58$ for JUST the rules? Surprised it's not "Dataslate: Assault Phase"
AlexHolker: "The power loader is a forklift. The public doesn't complain about a forklift not having frontal armour protecting the crew compartment because the only enemy it is designed to face is the OHSA violation."
AlexHolker: "Allow me to put it this way: Paramount is Skynet, reboots are termination attempts, and your childhood is John Connor."
Yeah some odd weaknesses, like trolls out in the sun and um sand worms? Sand worms?
But the Justice League of Middle Earth brought a smile to my face.
I'll have to do a more thorough review in the OT forum but it did briefly make me wish GW was still all in on this, I'd love some of the trolls from the final battle.
I may even get the extended editions for this 'trilogy' after all.
And y'know, if they are smart and if they like money, a year from now they'll put out Hobbit - the single movie edition cutting the 3 films into one 2 hour one thus getting our money agian, and shutting up critics
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/12/31 02:40:26
to a lot of scenes- cartoonish henchmen, Legolas and Filler Elf getting more screentime than the Dwarven party, and ridiculous stuff like Human bows, rivers of gold, barrel level, etc. At points it feels like it was a licenced game which had had extra playtime added.
5250 pts
3850 pts
2500 pts 
Thought for the day 
