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 Corpsesarefun wrote:
Gandalf poked the Goblin King in the eye then slit his throat...

That'll do it...

The Hobbit was a great movie, but did it live up to the hype?
No.
I thought it was a good film all and all and Peter Jackson uses a combination of CGI and real life to his advantage to create a nice scenery that rivalled any other uses of CGI I have seen up to this point. The plot was great and Peter Jackson knew how to adapt and took time to make this film. The writing was really fascinating and it felt quite good. The Soundtrack was to die for (I loved how Jackson used the theme song off of Age of Empires and made it even better) and Golem scene was some of the best acting I've seen to date. The actors knew their job was to create a Fantasy element and I thought that they did a marvellous job of pulling it off and almost captured the Fantasy element.
But this is where the positive stops. As hard as it is, from my perspective it didn't capture that fantasy element. It didn't focus on the main element of the film: The Hobbit, Gandalf and the Dwarfs, but instead I thought they were drowned out by the actual scenery and the feel of the movie and I felt as if it diluted the plot and story.
It also didn't take that time to study the characters and their interactions, instead Jackson used too much fighting and not enough story and developing the characters.
There's a line between Real-life Fantasy and non-believable Fantasy and I think Jackson crossed that line a fraction. A way he crossed the line was when the Dwarf (Oaken Shield guy) got smashed beyond the point of life and died, and yet he came back. Another is when they found themselves in the middle of a Stone Giant battle and not one of them died and the same with Goblin Town.
Other than that, it was a great movie.
My rating system is with 3 stars for scenery, plot, characters, atmosphere and believability giving me a rating of 15 overall.
I give it 3 for scenery, 2 for plot, 2 for characters, 3 for atmosphere and 2 for believability, giving me a rating of 12/15
I was hoping after one of my favourite movie trilogy Peter Jackson would once again live up to the hype but it just wasn't there and it really has got to be a movie seen in the cinemas to have the best experience.

The part where they slid down the caverns on some wood and the rock giants bit stood out as stretching credulity a bit too far for me actually. They are heroes, and we don't expect them to come to harm, but they'd have to both be nearly indestructible and insanely lucky not to have suffered any injuries at all from either. The bit in the caves was just an extended part of the action, it didn't need to be that overblown. The bit with the rock giants just seemed to be there to show off the CGI and could be cut from the film entirely.

baxter123 wrote:The actors knew their job was to create a Fantasy element and I thought that they did a marvellous job of pulling it off and almost captured the Fantasy element.
from my perspective it didn't capture that fantasy element.

wait, what?

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
The part where they slid down the caverns on some wood and the rock giants bit stood out as stretching credulity a bit too far for me actually. They are heroes, and we don't expect them to come to harm, but they'd have to both be nearly indestructible and insanely lucky not to have suffered any injuries at all from either. The bit in the caves was just an extended part of the action, it didn't need to be that overblown. The bit with the rock giants just seemed to be there to show off the CGI and could be cut from the film entirely.

My thoughts exactly

 d-usa wrote:

 Corpsesarefun wrote:
Gandalf poked the Goblin King in the eye then slit his throat...

That'll do it...

Haha, subtle--perfect response and timing. Would read again!

 AgeOfEgos wrote:

 d-usa wrote:

 Corpsesarefun wrote:
Gandalf poked the Goblin King in the eye then slit his throat...

That'll do it...

Haha, subtle--perfect response and timing. Would read again!

Yep... stealing that as my canned response if I can...

Okay, having read a couple pages of this thread, I don't know what movie people were watching, but I think it was one that only resembled the one I watched...

The script felt like it was (and probably was)written by committee: no sense of flow; kids' comedy followed by gratuitous violence; ridiculous archetypes.

There's absolutely no reason a 3-hour movie should feel padded: you bring 1.5 hours up to 2, not 2 up to 3. The pacing dragged interminably, and, as with all (recent) Peter Jackson movies, it's 3 hours long, and will likely have a 4th on DVD.

The additions were, by and large, groan (or, occasionally, laugh)-worthy. Suffice to say that I could have died happy never having seen a rabbit sled pulling a hackneyed drug reference through a disney forest.

The film was neither consistent with the feel of (the book) the Hobbit (too dark and combat-oriented) nor the original movie trilogy (too technicolor and silly).

Which brings me to the next point: 3D gives me a headache, so I watched it in ol' fashioned 2D, which made it clear how much it's just meant for 3D- the muted tones and brooding feel of the first trilogy (a step shy of "Look out, Bilbo! yo-yo's!")



One good thing came out of it, though-- my earlier moderate dissatisfaction with the LotR adaptation has become moderate respect. After seeing this, I look back and see what could have been done to books I like more than the Hobbit. I didn't agree with some of the choices in LotR, but that's not the same as watching this soulless shell of a movie.

Oh, and, yes, there were about 10 minutes of the movie I genuinely liked, and Martin Freeman did a solid performance, but that's not enough for me to sit through the rest of those 3 hours of garbage

spiralingcadaver wrote:The film was neither consistent with the feel of (the book) the Hobbit (too dark and combat-oriented) nor the original movie trilogy (too technicolor and silly).

wow, it's really not that bad- sure, it has it's flaws, but you have to understand with your complaints of too much grimdark and violence, or too childish- it's a children's book, adapted for film. Now, there's no way the hobbit can be 100%, U-rated and child-friendly with the killing of goblins and a dark evil necromancer threatening to destroy all that is good in the world, just like there's no way it can be 100% brooding and dark, what with it being a children's book.
I'm not even going to dignify the other points about 3D and padding with a response, seeing as it's been talked about numerous times before.
and, again, I've already said several times, if you go into the cinema expecting lord of the rings: the prequel, you're not going to like it- it's as simple as that. It's completely different- the only way they're the same is a few characters (Gollum, Gandalf, the ring) and the world it's set in (middle earth). The lord of the rings is an adult book, so of course it's going to be more serious than a children's book, which, by necessity, needs humour and light-heartedness.

 spiralingcadaver wrote:
Okay, having read a couple pages of this thread, I don't know what movie people were watching, but I think it was one that only resembled the one I watched...

The script felt like it was (and probably was)written by committee: no sense of flow; kids' comedy followed by gratuitous violence; ridiculous archetypes.

There's absolutely no reason a 3-hour movie should feel padded: you bring 1.5 hours up to 2, not 2 up to 3. The pacing dragged interminably, and, as with all (recent) Peter Jackson movies, it's 3 hours long, and will likely have a 4th on DVD.

The additions were, by and large, groan (or, occasionally, laugh)-worthy. Suffice to say that I could have died happy never having seen a rabbit sled pulling a hackneyed drug reference through a disney forest.

The film was neither consistent with the feel of (the book) the Hobbit (too dark and combat-oriented) nor the original movie trilogy (too technicolor and silly).

Which brings me to the next point: 3D gives me a headache, so I watched it in ol' fashioned 2D, which made it clear how much it's just meant for 3D- the muted tones and brooding feel of the first trilogy (a step shy of "Look out, Bilbo! yo-yo's!")



One good thing came out of it, though-- my earlier moderate dissatisfaction with the LotR adaptation has become moderate respect. After seeing this, I look back and see what could have been done to books I like more than the Hobbit. I didn't agree with some of the choices in LotR, but that's not the same as watching this soulless shell of a movie.

Oh, and, yes, there were about 10 minutes of the movie I genuinely liked, and Martin Freeman did a solid performance, but that's not enough for me to sit through the rest of those 3 hours of garbage

Yeah it's like a really long bedtime story; First, it's obviously for kids (childish humor, ridiculous combat scenes with not a drop of blood), second it doesn't really make sense all the time (those dwarfs should have been dead a dozen times each from all the beating they took) and third the story is really simple, not at all complex. They're just going on an old fashioned adventure, walking through some pretty scenery, killing the bad guys and trying to be funny. No complex character development, moral questions, anything!
Sure it's pretty to look at, but it's nowhere near the masterpiece people are making of it!

 MrMerlin wrote:
Yeah it's like a really long bedtime story; First, it's obviously for kids (childish humor, ridiculous combat scenes with not a drop of blood), second it doesn't really make sense all the time (those dwarfs should have been dead a dozen times each from all the beating they took) and third the story is really simple, not at all complex. They're just going on an old fashioned adventure, walking through some pretty scenery, killing the bad guys and trying to be funny. No complex character development, moral questions, anything!
Sure it's pretty to look at, but it's nowhere near the masterpiece people are making of it!

well, I admit, it is childish in the fight scenes and the main plot's quite simple, but there's also the white council stuff, which complicates it, and the cast isn't 100% two-dimensional- Thorin, Gandalf and Bilbo spring to mind, and I'm sure we'll have a couple more (Beorn maybe?).

 shrike wrote:

 MrMerlin wrote:
Yeah it's like a really long bedtime story; First, it's obviously for kids (childish humor, ridiculous combat scenes with not a drop of blood), second it doesn't really make sense all the time (those dwarfs should have been dead a dozen times each from all the beating they took) and third the story is really simple, not at all complex. They're just going on an old fashioned adventure, walking through some pretty scenery, killing the bad guys and trying to be funny. No complex character development, moral questions, anything!
Sure it's pretty to look at, but it's nowhere near the masterpiece people are making of it!

well, I admit, it is childish in the fight scenes and the main plot's quite simple, but there's also the white council stuff, which complicates it, and the cast isn't 100% two-dimensional- Thorin, Gandalf and Bilbo spring to mind, and I'm sure we'll have a couple more (Beorn maybe?).

Ok maybe I'm being a bit overly critical (subconciously, to compensate for all the overkill praise it's received) It's an okay movie, with a few flaws, and I might see it again if I don't have to pay for it, because the visuals were nice. But I'm more than a little annyoed by the large amount of people who say it's the best movie of all time... which it really, really isn't. I gave it a 6/10 on imdb, and imho it doesn't deserve an average of 8.6

 MrMerlin wrote:
Ok maybe I'm being a bit overly critical (subconciously, to compensate for all the overkill praise it's received) It's an okay movie, with a few flaws, and I might see it again if I don't have to pay for it, because the visuals were nice. But I'm more than a little annyoed by the large amount of people who say it's the best movie of all time... which it really, really isn't. I gave it a 6/10 on imdb, and imho it doesn't deserve an average of 8.6

Well, I don't think it's the best film of all time (not even my favourite), but I'd give it a solid 8 out of 10- if it didn't have the little moments like the riding down the slope in goblin town, cut out the rivendell knights or made the goblin king a little more frightening (he just seemed like an obnoxious ruler, rather than an almighty warlord), then it'd be a 9.
To me, those parts seem like they should be in the extended edition- they're quite nice and all, but don't really add anything).

 MrMerlin wrote:
subconciously, to compensate for all the overkill praise it's received

I didn't realize 65% on Rotten Tomatoes was considered 'overkill praise'. Plus isn't, essentially, being mean because others are being nice a bit of an odd reason to slam something?

 Ahtman wrote:

 MrMerlin wrote:
subconciously, to compensate for all the overkill praise it's received

I didn't realize 65% on Rotten Tomatoes was considered 'overkill praise'. Plus isn't, essentially, being mean because others are being nice a bit of an odd reason to slam something?

Maybe I was kidding? Don't worry, I'm not slamming it because so many others are loving it, dude.

A way he crossed the line was when the Dwarf (Oaken Shield guy) got smashed beyond the point of life and died, and yet he came back.

It helps when a Maiar like Gandalf can help revive you, too.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

A way he crossed the line was when the Dwarf (Oaken Shield guy) got smashed beyond the point of life and died, and yet he came back.

It helps when a Maiar like Gandalf can help revive you, too.

yeah, generally if you want to be healed from the brink of death, a demi-god is a pretty good guy to be hanging around with.

I don't think it was the best movie of the year, hell, Avengers was better (the best this year!). Batman too, even though the third Batman was overshadowed by Ledger's role/death in the second. I did think that The Hobbit was better than LOTR pt 1 though. I've seen both, and The Hobbit is superior. Which makes a degree of sense, as The Hobbit is Jackson's 4th Tolkien movie, while FOTR was his first. It should get better with time.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I don't think it was the best movie of the year, hell, Avengers was better (the best this year!). Batman too, even though the third Batman was overshadowed by Ledger's role/death in the second. I did think that The Hobbit was better than LOTR pt 1 though. I've seen both, and The Hobbit is superior. Which makes a degree of sense, as The Hobbit is Jackson's 4th Tolkien movie, while FOTR was his first. It should get better with time.

I'm kind of on the fence about whether I prefer the fellowship or unexpected journey- I think Jackson introduced the story better in the hobbit, but the fight scenes, though awesome, are just a tad too unrealistic for my liking (plus Boromir's death is badass as hell), but I'm a sucker for camaraderie, and there is spades of it in the hobbit (plus I much prefer Martin to Elijah, much more likeable and three-dimensional (no joke intended).

The series should have been one movie, or two tops, and shorter movies.

I felt like the chase through the goblin caves was too cartoonish. Then when they fight bigger orcs it gets all serious.

However, overall I liked the movie well enough. The beginning with Erabor and the Shire was cool imho.

 AgeOfEgos wrote:
I was pretty let down.

A couple of things stuck out at me.

One, was the humor--most times it appeared so intentionally injected into the story--that it reminded me of a joke that needs to be explained or somewhat artificial (After the dinner scene, I was waiting for a fart joke). The dinner aside--as an example, the Goblin King's punchline death just seemed strange and out of place with the music/scene--and it made it hard to take the moment serious. The campfire fight scene echoed this as well.

Second--and I'm unsure what the term is--but several scenes 'appeared' to be scenes. It was almost like you could hear Jackson yelling "Action!" as the camera zoomed in--with everyone sitting/standing in their assigned spots. I think I might have noticed this as the Fellowship always seemed so natural to me. You just happened to have glimpse at something exciting happening--but it didn't feel like someone intentionally set the table for you.

And perhaps that's the overall disappointment I felt. Seemed like everything was being force fed to me (the humor, the reiteration on how morally altruistic hobbits are, how fun loving/courageous the dwarfs were, etc). Oh well--as someone that has had the Hobbit read to them as a small child and done the same with my own--I'm sure I'll buy the darn thing when it gets released.

To end on a good note--gah was it a gorgeous film or what? I think it's set the standard for CGI--just jaw dropping scenes (the cave riddles for example). Wowzer.

Saw it last night (normal 3D). It was good but not great. I didn't really like any of the injected portions that were nonHobbit related. I didn't get the Azog thing, and kept wondering why the ork/goblins looked so different than LOTR. The Azog thing REALLY undercut the Hobbit stuff. You could tell they were all computerized. I really did like the initial scene with Dwarves and Smaug, and gollum was excellently done.

Although I liked Radagast in LOTR I didn't like him much. Too much comic relief.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Testify wrote:
^Please use actual quotes instead of injecting bright blue words into other peoples' quotes.

Does anyone else think the introduction of the pale orc was contrived and unnessesary? Seems pointless to add in an antagonist for no good reason, and someone that we know will fail and die anyway.

Yea it was stupid.

 btr75 wrote:
The series should have been one movie, or two tops, and shorter movies.

I felt like the chase through the goblin caves was too cartoonish. Then when they fight bigger orcs it gets all serious.

However, overall I liked the movie well enough. The beginning with Erabor and the Shire was cool imho.

Well, if you add in the white council and the in-depth stuff about Erebor and Thorin, 3 films isn't really that much- Jackson had to cram in lord of the rings to 3 films, and could have easily made it 5 or 6 films- with the hobbit, he has the same amount of time and budget money with a much smaller book, so he can afford to take his time doing it all, which is, to me, not only fine, but a good thing.
the whole goblin town scene wasn't cartoonish- I think by that you mean childish- and I'll say this as many times as I have to- the hobbit is a CHILDREN'S BOOK. Having 100% realism and blood and guts spilling everywhere isn't suited to the target audience, which is younger than the lord of the rings was.
The comparison between the goblin and the orc fights isn't bad directing, or trying to be two things at once- the goblins are shown to be weaker, but make up for it with sheer numbers, while the orcs are kind of shown as being an even match for the dwarves, and so the fights are more serious. Plus, Thorin is mortally wounded. He can hardly get that badly hurt by the main antagonist in an almost comically childish fight, can he?

If you are complaining about the Hobbit having too much light humor you obviously havn't read the book. Its quite a lighthearted book.

I think it perfectly captured the book's feel and everything.


I liked the addition of Azog. Yes its a change but a good one. Its the addition of more of the background fluff that you really have to dig deep for normally.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
The part where they slid down the caverns on some wood and the rock giants bit stood out as stretching credulity a bit too far for me actually. They are heroes, and we don't expect them to come to harm, but they'd have to both be nearly indestructible and insanely lucky not to have suffered any injuries at all from either. The bit in the caves was just an extended part of the action, it didn't need to be that overblown. The bit with the rock giants just seemed to be there to show off the CGI and could be cut from the film entirely.

Except the Storm Giants were a part of the book that was totally awsome.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Except the Storm Giants were a part of the book that was totally awsome.

well, in the book the stone giants were throwing the boulders playfully, while in the film they're having a full-on fight, though that's a good thing- having ridiculously huge monsters messing around is going a bit too far into kid's territory.

For all we know about Storm Giants, they were playfully throwing the boulders.

 Grey Templar wrote:
For all we know about Storm Giants, they were playfully throwing the boulders.

well, while throwing in some uppercuts and throwing one down the mountain, they must play pretty hard

 shrike wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
For all we know about Storm Giants, they were playfully throwing the boulders.

well, while throwing in some uppercuts and throwing one down the mountain, they must play pretty hard

Arn't you the country that plays Rugby?

 Grey Templar wrote:

 shrike wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
For all we know about Storm Giants, they were playfully throwing the boulders.

well, while throwing in some uppercuts and throwing one down the mountain, they must play pretty hard

Arn't you the country that plays Rugby?

hah, true...
plus the hobbit's written in england, filmed in new zealand, so they could well be rugby players...

I just went to see it with my girlfriend. I originally read the Hobbit when I was nine or ten and read the Lord of the Rings soon afterwards. They were my introduction to fantasy.

I enjoyed PJ's LOTR trilogy, though I felt the first film was the strongest, keeping the essentials of the story and the characters while converting it for screen by cutting things that wouldn't work. I hope I am not a rabid fanboy who expects it to be word for word the same as the book, I just expect the same essential message or tone to be set.

For that reason, I hated the Two Towers when I saw it first, and only was able to like it after a few re-watches. To my mind, the changes to Faramir, the addition of elves at Helms Deep, and the cutting of the excellent cliffhanger ending were big mistakes.

I expected some mistakes to be made with the Hobbit, and I expected some padding.
But what really got me:
- Platformer fight scenes- so many times I was watching these ludicrous platform game style fight scenes and thinking "I am totally out of the movie now, this is stupid".
- Gandalf having "set" powers. So, Gandalf breaks rock in FOTR and summons an Eagle for help using a moth, and can be big and scary and make bright lights. Okay. But now, he has Break Rock, Level 2 and Summon Plot Device, Level 6. They seem to have tried to jam in ways to make his magic more codified and linked to what was in LOTR. I felt that was pretty lazy writing and I wasn' impressed.
- Padding. Well, I was expecting the white council stuff and I'm happy for it to be there, to provide a wider context. I have an issue with how it was done. The bunny sled was too far, for me. Radagast showing up in the middle of the dwarves trek and the benny hill chase scene was awful. Just in general, the way it was handled was ham fisted. Likewise, Azog was a pretty terrible bad guy and the way he was involved was really pretty bad.
- Character changes: The alterations to Bilbos character are irritating, making him pointlessly more indecisive and also pointlessly more aggressive and fighty to add "drama". It could have been done much more subtly, if they had to do it. As it was, it was incredibly ham fisted and groan-worthy. Thorin was also altered, and not in a good way, as were the dwarves, in a more subtle way. Freeman was largely wasted as he was underused and made to act in nonsensical ways.

My last point is about tone. This film didn't know if it was an action romp along the lines of pirates of the Caribbean, a comedy, or a serious drama. It chopped and changed way too much and ruined any semblance of flow or coherence the film might have had.

All of this is a shame because they did a lot right. The costumes and casting is great, making the dwarves visually distinctive was a great move, the idea of including the council plotline is not bad if it were handled well. I just feel like they've taken flaws and hubris from their adaption of the LOTR and magnified them massively. Not impressed.

I saw it yesterday, and I really enjoyed it!

Certainly wasn't the best movie of 2012, but it was still a great movie!