The Hobbit Films: What worked? What didn't?

"As for myself," said Eomer, "I have little knowledge of these deep matters; but I need it not."
Wainrider
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Morning all! I know we've got a thread going about the upcoming LotR TV series coming out on Amazon, but I wanted to get this thread going about the Hobbit films as a bit of a retrospective.

What did people think worked about the Hobbit movies?
What were their most egregious sins?
What would you have changed?

Personally, I watched the first one in theaters, the second one streaming at home when it finally came out, and couldn't even bring myself to bother watching the third, and I still haven't seen it to this day. I just...couldn't get past the overwhelming use of CGI, the unnecessary plot additions, and just how much I didn't *care* about any of the characters. I mean, I loved the LotR books significantly more than The Hobbit, so that's probably part of it, but I've heard this criticism from others so it might be a more widespread opinion.

Khazad Elder
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The visuals worked. The visuals of the locals especially. Like Erebor. Just breathtaking. Seeing dwarves at work and Smaug attacking.
Benedict Cumberbatch was perfection. His voice fit Smaug so well. I also really liked the Battle for Khazad-Dum. Well told in the first book and epic. Also the Gollum scenes were great in my opinion. The music was great as well. Ohh and Dain Ironfoot was the best characater in the movie.

What didn’t work? The dwarves beards and costumes. They tried to hard to make each dwarf unique and it made them a little crazy and outside the box. The overall story was too long. Azog in the movie looked ridiculous. Goblin town was very weird. The Battle of Five Armies was.....ridiculous. I mean overall they did a lot of bad things where they stepped away from what made the Hobbit Great. They over complicated everything.

What would I change? I would cut it down to either one really long movie with intermission or two movies. I would cut out a lot of the extra stuff and keep it straight from the book almost. I really would keep most of the visuals. Revamp the dwarves a bit.

Overall the movie wasn’t terrible, just they tried to squeeze out too much. And i think Guillermo Del Toro’s fingerprints can be seen on a lot of the weird plots. It just didn’t fit as a movie. It felt rushed at times and slow at times. It was too much and the designs did not fit a Tolkien world a lot. And the Battle of Five Armies was atrocious.

Chieftain of The Mark
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The biggest mistake was running the book into three films. Unnecessary plot additions were always going to be a given. As you mention CGI was overused, but it really did bring Smaug (along with Cumberbatch's voicing) to magnificence. Goblin town was brilliant, Laketown and Erebor too. Balin, Bofur, Thorin are well cast, Bard too. The films have some flashes of brilliance - the dwarvish singing @ Bag End, springs to mind - but on the whole suffer from padding...

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One of the first threads I made on the Plaza, way back in February 2009, outlined my reasons for pessimism about the Hobbit movies: namely, that the filmmakers' statements indicated they were primarily interesting in making a prequel to PJ's LOTR rather than an adaptation of Tolkien's TH. A lot of stuff changed afterwards, most notably Guillermo del Toro leaving the project and a third film being added, but I think that remained the core issue. The Hobbit had many, many failures of execution, but its most fundamental flaws are in conception.

This is not simply to go on a purist rant about how PJ should have respected the book more. (I think he should have, but it's beside the point.) Theoretically, there could have been a great couple Hobbit movies that were fantastic, entertaining films while simultaneously being unfaithful adaptations. But the particular kind of unfaithfulness PJ attempted was a non-starter. The framework of The Hobbit simply can't support an epic fantasy tale of the sort they attempted to graft onto it. I love the book, but it's a very different sort of work from LOTR. The silliness, the reliance on contrivance, and the way the story unfolds in the shadow of more historically significant events (the White Council vs the Necromancer) all work in a fairy tale, but not in an epic fantasy.

PJ and co. tried to compensate for this, and they maybe could have gotten close, but in the end they tried to have it both ways. The White Council has an extended subplot, but remarkably little happens in it (especially in the second film). The Dwarves get action hero makeovers--Fili claims they are "fighters, all of us"--but one of them is morbidly obese and another refuses to use any weapon but a slingshot. The Quest of Erebor becomes a mission to reclaim the Dwarven homeland rather than achieving partial revenge through petty thievery, but it's still carried out by a mere 14 people + Gandalf, one of whom is a "burglar" despite the fact that their plan does not involve burglary.

It's perhaps unfair to compare The Hobbit films to their precursors--though it's hard not to make the comparison when the films are constantly shoving references in your face--but it's striking how efficiently FOTR characterizes it's huge cast vs how flat and bland most of Thorin's company are. This is partially because the Dwarves in the book operate largely as a unit, frequently blending together into the background. This works in a fairy tale, but since the films were attempting something different, I think they would have been better served reducing the size of the company so that the remainder could get more characterization. But this would have garnered the filmmakers more criticism than many of their more consequential changes did, so I can't necessarily blame them.

I will admit there are some entertaining sequences in the Hobbit trilogy, but by the third film it could barely keep up the pretense that its own characters were interested in the story. Legolas claims that everyone who is anyone in Middle-earth will take an interest in the Battle of the Five Armies, yet Galadriel, Saruman, and Sauron have nothing to do with it, even though the Dol Guldur subplot was already resolved. The prologue to the first film establishes that Thranduil resents the Dwarves because they possessed gems that once belonged to his wife, but the resolution of this subplot--the reason for all of Thranduil's actions in the trilogy--did not even make it into the Extended Edition of the third film, being relegated to the outtakes reel in the special features.

As far as I'm concerned, that sums up the problems with PJ's Hobbit better than anything more I can say.

Wainrider
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I really do think the Hobbit movies suffered from the bloat of whoever's decision it was to make them into three movies. Two movies even, I think would've been stretching the source material a little far, but I think could've been managed much more easily than trying to fill an entire third film to make more money. It really did feel - from the initial outset - that they were trying to recapture lightning in a bottle from the success of the Lord of the Rings movies. The Hobbit is such a fundamentally different story that I think it was always doomed to failure if conceived in that way.

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What did people think worked about the Hobbit movies?

I enjoyed the first one, and for the most part the second. The third felt a bit like PJ saying: LOOK AT ALL THESE SHINY CGI TOYS without really getting to the heart of it. After Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith/Pelennor, the Battle of the Five Armies felt incredibly lacking. I *did* really like the scenes between Gandalf, Saruman, and Galadriel, even if they weren't exactly faithful to the text.

What were their most egregious sins?

The biggest sin to me was trying to make three movies out of a kid's book; turning what is really a light hearted story with a brief allusion to the great darkness of the Ring, into a full on, full story Lord of the Rings prequel. You can choose one or the other - a prequel trilogy or an adaptation of a kid's book, but you can't do both.

What would you have changed?

While I don't hate the idea of a prequel trilogy and may have elected to gone that root instead of THE HOBBIT, I probably would have gotten rid of the elf/dwarf romance - heck, I don't even remember Kili's elf girlfriend's name - as that, IMO, added absolutely nothing to the story other than introducing a female character for the sake of a female character. I get it, in 2010s representation norms are different than they were in the 1930s, but there are ways to have other women characters that don't get shoehorned into a romeo and juliet esque plot.

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FireroseArien wrote: Sat May 16, 2020 2:52 pmheck, I don't even remember Kili's elf girlfriend's name
Tauriel bargain basement @Baingíl Randír

Wainrider
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FireroseArien wrote: Sat May 16, 2020 2:52 pm ...there are ways to have other women characters that don't get shoehorned into a romeo and juliet esque plot.
Yes. This. A thousand times this. This whole thread was wildly unnecessary, as was brought up by Plazaites as soon as we discovered it was going to be a thing. Representation in media is important! But it's also important to be intentional with your choices. Look at Cara Dune in the Mandalorian TV show if you want to see a character - who happens to be a woman - done well. Tauriel? Not one of said characters.

Councillor of Imladris
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@Reikon Suchi-ru it's so frustrating because you'd think we'd come such a long way... like, they found a way to include Galadriel, who is canon and would have been alive and in the world at the time presented. They probably could have cameo'd Arwen in Imladris too, although maybe they offered and Liv Tyler said no?

Even if you did have to invent the character, you could have a hobbit woman with some actual lines for example, or if you're going to go so heavy with the Laketown bit, maybe a woman from there? None of these things necessitate having a love-triangle-relationship-thing. I mean, it's one of my gripes about movie Eowyn - she's pretty awesome as is, she doesn't really need to be pining after Aragorn...

Wainrider
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FireroseArien wrote: Sat May 16, 2020 3:29 pm @Reikon Suchi-ru it's so frustrating because you'd think we'd come such a long way... like, they found a way to include Galadriel, who is canon and would have been alive and in the world at the time presented. They probably could have cameo'd Arwen in Imladris too, although maybe they offered and Liv Tyler said no?

Even if you did have to invent the character, you could have a hobbit woman with some actual lines for example, or if you're going to go so heavy with the Laketown bit, maybe a woman from there? None of these things necessitate having a love-triangle-relationship-thing. I mean, it's one of my gripes about movie Eowyn - she's pretty awesome as is, she doesn't really need to be pining after Aragorn...
And then they completely cut out any scenes with Eowyn/Faramir and stick them in the Extended Editions. billferny.

But yeah, there are so many amazing woman characters in TV and film these days, The Hobbit really missed the boat in contributing to that legacy in Hollywood. I'm hopeful the upcoming LotR TV show will fare better in that regard...but I'm always worried they'll do the same they did with Hobbit.

Melkor
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What did people think worked about the Hobbit movies? The first movie of the bunch. I loved the portrayal of Bilbo, Thorin, and Balin in particular. It made me look forward to the other movies

What were their most egregious sins? assigning the film to del Toro, making it abundantly clear that he was only in it for the money, and leaving everyone high and dry when things seemed like they would be at their worst financially. If I was somehow related to him, I'd disown him from my family for his actions. When was the last time he read the book anyways?

Tauriel, Laketown antagonists, Azog, needed much more Dain, the Battle of Five Armies sequence. To me, the last two films were simply un-rewatchable, which is a sin because I could rewatch LOTR an infinite amount of times.

What would you have changed? If I were Peter Jackson, I would never have hired del Toro for one, but would've assigned a up-and-coming Tolkien fanatic director who would've stuck it out and made the Hobbit more faithful to its source. I don't want the Hobbit to be a movie desecrated by the selfish creative desires of a money-grubbing kid, but someone who would make an accurate portrayal of the film.

Weathered Ent
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What did people think worked about the Hobbit movies? - Just my opinion - I thought the character Smaug done by Benedict Cumberbatch was very effective. He was powerful and very scary.
What were their most egregious sins? The Dwarves. They didn't even look like the Dwarves as I read them in the books. The books described them as having hoods of a specific color that distinguished each individual. I most egregious thing was the axe buried in Bifur's forehead.
What would you have changed? The thing I would specially change is to make the Dwarves more cannon in their appearance. Long flowing beards, none of the bizarre hair and beard styles. No close cropped beards either. They would have their colored hoods too.

Healer of Imladris
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It's been a while so it's hard to pinpoint too many details, but I did genuinely enjoy the first movie, and saw it more than once. It wasn't perfect, but it felt Hobbit-y to me and like Aodh mentioned, I loved the dwarf singing bit. It was just nice to be back in the familiar set of Bag-end, and while Radagast was absurd, I just couldn't make myself hate Sylvester McCoy and his rabbit sled.

The second and third kinda blend together for me...I remember sitting in the theater annoyed by how they handled Beorn, and then sometime during the river escape sequence I started giggling and really never stopped. The wanton CGI, that thing with dwarves sliding around on molten gold, the orc under the ice...it was all completely, utterly, awful and I was cackling like a maniac.

On the other hand, no amount ridiculousness was ever going to redeem Tauriel, even as comic relief. The dwarvish homeland melodrama annoyed me to no end, and whatever the deal was with Azog I didn't care about in the least.

I may voluntarily watch the first one again sometime, I barely have any memory of two, and three is only fit for drinking games. The special Denny's (quintessential mediocre American chain diner) menu was great though.

Councillor of Imladris
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So, I never even made it to the third film, because the second one had me PO'd so much that my friends warned me against even trying. Igfhs. From what I've heard in the last 6-7 years, that was the right decision.

What worked? Some of the major casting. Martin Freeman captures the adorable quirkiness of Bilbo quite well, as well as the courageous spirit underneath someone who's only ever been a homebody. And as others mentioned, Benedict Cumberbatch was a pretty solid choice for Smaug. His deep voice and affinity for playing villains and anti-heroes was an ideal choice for a sadistic dragon. And then Andy Serkis... I'm not even a fan of the Lord of the Rings films because I'm a rigid purist, but he masters the character so well, that casting anyone else would be a mistake.

What didn't work? Sigh... Them turning it into a fanfiction/prequel to LOTR rather than the journey of self-discovery, courage, loyalty, and friendship that it was meant to be. I would argue that they could have introduced the events leading into LOTR while still keeping the heart and soul of the story, but if it were in the hands of another creator. I actually argue that Peter Jackson missed many of Tolkien's pivotal themes in LOTR itself, and in The Hobbit, I believe many fans would agree with me that he missed the mark a lot there as well (even ones who disagree with my opinions about the LOTR trilogy films).

An additional issue I see is that The Hobbit tried to assimilate everything that was popular at the time the films came out. Game of Thrones? Cool, let's up the brutality and bring in more monsters. Hunger Games/Divergent/All the other dystopian series adapted into films with cringey love-triangles that only a fraction of their respective fandoms appreciated anyways? LOVE TRIANGLE! Forbidden love! Epic heroine! Let's make an Elf warrior woman with every damn power and ability an Elf could possibly have, even if some of them contradict each other! Also she's the most beautiful of her people, and the Elf-prince loves her! But wait, there's a Dwarf she falls for--the sworn enemy of her people! :smiley20: It's like that whole plot came off fanfiction.net from a middle schooler.

Granted, they could've taken popular tropes at the time and done them well, but my issue is they didn't try. They were trying to jump on board the hype train while they could, and didn't develop a good story. I'm actually of the opinion that if they wanted a love story, they could have either done flashbacks to Celebrian's life, captivity, rescue, and departure to Valinor, or even moved up the timeline so that it would happen during the same timeframe as the events in the film. While it would've likely had some cheesiness to it, it would also give some backstory as to why Elrond is overly-protective of Arwen in the LOTR movies.

I never re-watched either of the first two films, so some of my memory is faint, but I'm not willing to dive into the rabbit hole of re-watching (or attempting the third film) in order to give a full review. :smiley16:

Crafts Master
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What did people think worked about the Hobbit movies?
I think the decision to make the dwarves so distncit in their personalities did, on the whole, work. 13 Gimlis would have just been a mess creatively. They did, mainly, get the characters right. Martin Freeman just leapt off the page for me, as did most of the others. The only one who didn;t for me was Alfrid and I think that is because he has no basis in the book. I know the Master would, probably, have had a second like that but he does rather stand out for me. The prologues were great, the first 15 minutes of AUK are my favourites out of all the 6 movies.

What were their most egregious sins?
Billy Connolly. I love him and his comedy but they went too far with making Dain like him. He has at least two lines that are totally inappropriate for Middle Earth and were clearly put in there because they had Billy playing him. I think also TBOFA had more studio influence that it should have, no prologue, too much action etc. I still like it but Warner Brothers clearly turned the screws on that more than they should.

What would you have changed?
I would have made Thorin older. The argument was made that he was yuonger because of the action stuff he had to do but he does no more than Gandalf and Ian Mckellen managed all right. I would also have given him a bushier beard. He is, after all, a member of the Long Beards clan. I would also have dramatically lessened the Alfrid and Master stuff from the second two movies. Alfrid in particular adds very little to my mind.

I think ultimatley, The Hobbit movies were made under far more pressure than LOTR were. Del Toro leaving then PJ taking over and never really having the time to plan them as he would have had he been on the project from the word go.

Elven Enchanter
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I went to the midnight release of the first Hobbit movie and genuinely enjoyed it and ended up seeing it again in theatres, which I never do. I might have seen the second one in theaters as well, but I genuinely don't remember. As for the third, it was the only half-decent movie selection on an international flight. For the most part, I have chosen to block them from my memory, but I should go and rewatch the Samug scenes at some point, as I recall those to be the best part of the movies.

What did people think worked about the Hobbit movies? Smaug, you cannot beat Benedict Cumberbatch's excellent voice in that role.
What were their most egregious sins? Too much CGI, to the point where you could actually tell that it was CGI. That was the beauty of the LOTR series - the majority of the orcs, soldiers, etc. were extras in costumes. It felt a lot more real that way.
What would you have changed? Getting rid of the random female elf. I was talking with a friend about the Hobbit movies recently, and even though both of us would have prefered a shorter, stricter adaptation of the book, we both would have been more comfortable with gender bending a dwarf or two than adding a completely original character simply for the sake of female representation. After, it's supposed to be rather difficult to tell female dwarves apart from the male ones.

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Disclaimer: The only one I watched with any sense of excitement was the first. It ruined any desire for me to watch the rest, and I didn't for years. Since they've been on tv I will admit to having watched them, but the desire to take an editing tool and recreate the whole thing is strong.

What worked about the Hobbit movies?
I enjoyed all the little nods to the book - and the Dwarves' singing, surprisingly. One of the things in the book I could never bear!
Also, Howard Shore's score.
Thranduil. Oh my gosh, I wanted to explore his kingdom.

What were their most egregious sins?
Legolas' CGI'd face - whyyyyy?
Radagast. Everything.
Tauriel. As much as I like the actress, it was hard to see her as anything but self-insertion fanfiction on the part of the writers. Lúthien Tinúviel speaks great sense and appears to share my brain on this subject.
That Orc-with-a-grudge ... really? So unnecessary.

What would you have changed?
Too many famous faces ... employ unknowns, dude. I mean, 'Whoa, Stephen Fry's let himself go!' 'Kate from Lost!' 'It's that bloke from that show ...' I don't wanna be distracted from the story by my brain playing Who's Who!
Everything involving the enemy. Maybe that's harsh, but I don't recall any good bits involving orcs.
The battle. Since Bilbo sleeps through it in the book, there is clearly no need to show it!
Um, I know this is random and probably quite subjective, but Bilbo's feet in every scene always interrupt my suspension of disbelief. Clearly oversized to fit over his whole foot, since the toes don't move at all - it just looks like he's going about in flippers.
The Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars.

Healer of Imladris
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@Thorin Firehelm I watched all three movies in theaters but just had to look up who Alfrid was.
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Melkor
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Alfrid made me wonder whether I was watching a Monty Python movie instead of a Tolkien movie with his falsetto

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I saw the first one and liked bits of it, saw the second one and frankly have no memory of it other than it being a ridiculous barrage of CGI, and still haven't seen the third one. Is it worth watching at all, out of curiosity? I would like to see the end but I'm pretty sure I don't have the patience to sit through (I'm guessing) a comically long battle.

I loved seeing the Shire at the beginning, and Martin Freeman was a great Bilbo. Meeting the dwarves and especially hearing their song was great, setting out on the adventure was nice, and then...it was all downhill from there. I get that it was three movies because it made lots of money, but it's this endearing self-contained adventure story for kids that honestly could've been neatly told and well laid out in a couple of hours, so it's disappointing they went the exact opposite route instead.
they/them/actual hobbit in search of a merrier world

Enting
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The first movie was, for me, definitely the best one. There were still much cringy scenes but it felt more like the story from the book. The other two, well... We are going to watch them again soon and I'm wondering how my opinion maybe will change.

What did people think worked about the Hobbit movies?
I liked the vibe of it. The music, the great acting of Freeman, the dwarves... But then I realise I'm only talking about the first half of the first movie :smiley9: .

What were their most egregious sins?
- The surfing scene. Felt very unnecessary...
- The fact Legolas looked older altho they wanted to make him younger. What was up with that cgi jaw? And always infinite arrows :smiley21:
- That they forced Tauriel into this. Also the love story..
- Also barrels that float with the open side up...

What would you have changed?
If they would have made the movie in 2 parts that would've been ok. The 3th one was not needed and only added more questionmarks in my opinion.
Lose the orc, lose Tauriel and keep the ending bit more true to the ending of the book.
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Khazad Elder
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@Menolly Martin Freeman truly captured the essence of being a Hobbit who did not want or like the idea of adventures but slowly grew into it. He was indeed a great Bilbo. And I would say watch the third one to get your own opinion, but it was the biggest CGI train wreck of the three. I personally did not mind how they closed out the story, but all it really did was add a battle to the end of the other two. There are some fun moments, lots of interesting action. Tharanduil is amazingly played by Pace. Overall enjoyable if you give up on caring if its good or not. Haha

Knight of The Mark
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I’m happy to discover I’m not alone in disliking these films. I’ve seen all three, but I was so unimpressed that I can’t recall if it was in a theater or at home.

Like others, I thought the introduction of Tauriel and the love story was unnecessary and unwanted. But my biggest turnoff was, if you’re going to have CGI-enhanced action scenes, at least keep them believable within the realm of your story. There’s a scene in the first movie with an absurd mine car escape that just pushes the boundaries of what is survivable too far. (At least I think it was mine cars—my memory is so hazy on these films because I could only bear to watch them once.)

I really did love Martin Freeman as Bilbo though. He was the perfect choice.

Wainrider
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@Eléowyn: Oh gosh, the mine cart escape. Boy was that outlandish and wholly unnecessary. That was the first concrete moment in watching any of the Hobbit movies that I thought to myself, "Uh...these movies might not be good."
Not all who wander are lost...except that guy. He's DEFINITELY lost.- JRR Tolkien, probably

Easterling
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Ugh. I was so excited for The Hobbit until I saw the first one and realized what utter joke it was. Three movies? The Pale Orc? Tauriel? Dwarven romance? All screamed for wanting to be epic like The Trilogy but almost trying too hard.

What also got me was the ridiculousness (imo) of the CG. The trilogy was partly so cool because they used real people and makeup and masks and etc .. to give the orcs life. I heard making the goblins and orcs with CG was actually more expensive. So why go that route? If it actually cost MORE and looked less lifelike then it felt like a poor decision.

I'm sure hard core fans of Tolkien would already be aware of this, but there's this fan edit that condenses the 3 movies into 1 and removes all mention of Tauriel and there's only a brief clip of the Pale Orc. I believe Galadriel is out of it too. They tried to keep the flow to be as close to the book as possible and trimmed the excess non canon as much as they could. That's the copy we have and watch :smiley10:

Warrior of Imladris
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That's a copy I'd like to have and watch. :smiley10:
The Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars.

Easterling
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Lirimaer wrote: Sun May 17, 2020 2:09 pm That's a copy I'd like to have and watch. :smiley10:
If you have Facebook, look me up on the plaza group name to person directory and PM me and I can share the link to where you can get it :)

Khazad Elder
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@Nessila Do you mind If I pm you as well? I would really appreciate to see that cut.

Easterling
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@Oro of course! Definitely a fan edit worth watching (and owning!)

Also, if you haven't seen the youtube clip mocking Tauriel and Kili's love tory, it's like 1 min and it's hilarious lol

Warrior of Imladris
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Oh how lovely ... expect a PM imminently, @Nessila thank you!
The Wood-elves lingered in the twilight of our Sun and Moon, but loved best the stars.

Wainrider
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I...just might have to investigate the internet to find this Hobbit fan cut. It sounds like they're doing us all a favor. :smiley9:
Not all who wander are lost...except that guy. He's DEFINITELY lost.- JRR Tolkien, probably

Archer of Lothlorien
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I will watch the movies anytime. I prefer the first one and the last one to the second which felt completely unnecessary, except the River scene which was fun. I won't even get started on Kili and Tauriel. I really wont lol. I love the tone of the movies, and the music. I like the actors. the Hobbit was the first novel I ever read, so I am more harsh on the films when it comes to adding things that didn't fit or weren't necessary. The end of this one didn't feel as epic, and probably shouldn't have been. But they tried to make it as epic as LOTR and that was a mistake.

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Speaking of the final battle, I will say that even after three films and two prior Extended Editions of Jackson's Hobbit, the third EE being given an R rating (and earning it through gore) was not something I expected. But perhaps I should have, since the final film having a higher MPAA rating than the previous two was necessary to complete PJ's Star Wars prequel bingo card. :smiley15:
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Elven Enchanter
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Really? I've only seen the theatrial of parts 2 and 3. Is there anything in the extend editions that I should watch or should I just keep pretending these movies don't exist?
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Artanis / Éomund / Brandor / Zarâm

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I think the Extended Editions of the first two films both included scenes that improved them, but there was already so much from the theatrical editions that I would have cut that I struggle to recommend either version. (And it's been so long that I don't remember many specifics.) I don't think the third film was improved by its EE, but if you want a taste of what it's like, the "Ride to Raven Hill" scene is broadly representative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aTPiShcm78
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Elven Enchanter
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What the fredegar did I just watch?

And on that note, would there be some way to do a Mystery Science Theatre 3000/Rifftrax of any of the Hobbit movies? I think this group could offer some excellent commentary.
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Artanis / Éomund / Brandor / Zarâm

Wainrider
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Ooh Rifftrax of the Hobbit movies would be fantastic. I mean, the commentaries for the Lord of the Rings movies were fantastic, but those movies were fantastic, so I don't think we can expect the actors for these Hobbit movies to be too enthused to do a commentary for them. :smiley9:
Not all who wander are lost...except that guy. He's DEFINITELY lost.- JRR Tolkien, probably

Melkor
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Here's an egregious sin. In the first Hobbit movie, the Battle of Azanulbizar, the dwarves are not given enough justification to launch an attack on Moria. In the appendices of LOTR, Thror is murdered with a diplomatic insult attached, which resulted in the cassus belli of the dwarves launching a war against the orcs. No such thing in The Hobbit. For all we know, the dwarves were the clear aggressors in the war!

Chef
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I have so many questions about that ride to Raven Hill scene. Who thought that much random extra gore was a good idea after six movies of PG-13 level violence? Why is there a troll (I think, who knows, he could be a giant orc since the character designs are so generic) with weird axe hands? And most egregiously, how does the CGI look worse than Jurassic Park, which came out more than 20 years prior?
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Balrog
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What did people think worked about the Hobbit movies? Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen, and Andy Serkis. They all knocked their roles out of the park. I may be in the minority but I didn't like Martin Freeman as Bilbo, maybe I've seen him in too many things, but I can't see him as Bilbo, he doesn't scream reluctant adventurer to reluctant hero to me.
What were their most egregious sins? Shoving a ton of meh CGI in our faces over and over and over, doing a very poor job of representation through the inclusion of whatshername (I actively can't remember her name) as a bit of tokenism, bloating the story that could have been convincingly told in a long single film or two normal length films into a trilogy because... reasons, filling said trilogy with fanfiction and nonsense like Legolas and Radagast (I love Sylvester McCoy but they turned Radagast into a buffoon with no heart), the over specialization of the dwarven characters only to fail to use any of them aside from Thorin properly
What would you have changed? As bad as it was, I would just stick with the Rankin/Bass adaptation
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That Ride to Raven Hill clip is a disaster, but it reminded me that one of by bigger problems with the movies was that Thorin didn't look like Thorin, at least to me. Not Armitage's fault, but he just didn't look like a dwarf! I think it was the short beard and too-flowy hair. Which...nevermind about Kili then.
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Elven Enchanter
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Yeah, there was a bit of a problem with many of the dwarves being too cute/hot.

@Reikon Suchi-ru I loved the LOTR commentaries, but yeah, it might be difficult for the actors to give an enthusiastic commentary. Which is why the book fans should provide a ridiculous commentary to purely make fun of the movie(s).
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Artanis / Éomund / Brandor / Zarâm

Farmer
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I actually enjoyed the LotR trilogy, and was genuinely excited about The Hobbit when it was originally announced as two movies. I thought it had potential to be really great. Then the summer before AUJ was announced, they revealed it was going to be a trilogy, and I had my fears about it turning into the Star Wars prequel trilogies, which ended up coming true.

What did people think worked about the Hobbit movies? I thought a lot of the casting worked - Ian McKellan as always with Gandalf, Andy Serkis as Gollum of course. I thought Martin Freeman did a good job as Bilbo with a lot of his "quirky" acting throughout the movies. Smaug was excellent, both visually and with Benedict Cumberbatch as his voice. I thought Richard Armitage as Thorin worked.

The first movie worked and I thought was a pretty decent adaptation of the Hobbit - you had a lot of the lighter atmosphere in it, especially the scene in Bag End, and the Rivendell bit (as much as I cringed at the nekkid dwarves in the EE) worked as well.

Also, though I don't like to think about the third movie - the very end of it, when Bilbo returns to the Shire worked perfectly for me. Especially the very last scene. It was exactly how I imagined it to wrap up.

What were their most egregious sins? Too many to count. The stretching it to a trilogy. The whole having Smaug chase them throughout Erebor. All of The Battle of the Five Armies (and that atrocious Ride to Ravenhill scene). The fact the "major secondary" characters I was really looking forward to seeing (Dain Ironfoot, Beorn, Radagast) didn't amount to much. The fact they lost a lot of that spirit from the first movie in the other two. The unnecessary Legolas and Tauriel going to Gundabad. Alfrid. Azog still being alive and seeking revenge for his... arm being cut off? And that's about all off of the top of my head.

What would you have changed? Kept it as two. I am not sure if I would have done one movie as strictly The Hobbit, and the second as the tie-in, or kept it at two parts with the tie-ins sprinkled throughout. But it is painfully obvious that the trilogy did not work. Keeping it to two would have also (hopefully) kept a lot of the unnecessary bloat out. There is so much to change to correct, though that I am not sure if it could be done short of a complete remake. Which probably won't happen in our lifetime.

Wainrider
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Welp. I watched Battle of the Five Armies for the first time today. Whoof. That was awful on so many levels. But I think this dialog perfectly sums up my feelings:

Tauriel: Why does it hurt so much?
Thranduil: Because it was real.

:smiley16:
Not all who wander are lost...except that guy. He's DEFINITELY lost.- JRR Tolkien, probably

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My condolences.
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Balrog
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@Reikon Suchi-ru why would you do that to yourself?! That's masochism on a high level
Strange Fruit got holes in the flesh but it ain't gonn' spoil cause it never was fresh

Weathered Ent
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@Aerlinn

I have to agree. Thorin looks too young. He doesn't have enough of a beard. He looks more like a medieval knight with that short beard and that flowing hair rather than a Dwarf. Kili looks even less like a dwarf...
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Thain of The Mark
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I mean, the book is called The Hobbit for a reason, and then we get three bloated films that are obviously just a cash grab, and which totally lose focus of what the source material is *about*

A lot of the casting is pitch perfect--you couldn't ask for a better Bilbo than Martin Freeman, but he ends up getting relatively little screentime in *his own narrative*. I loved what they did to elevate Dwarvish culture and life after LotR primarily uses Gimli for comic relief, but it all got super muddled as they still fell back on a lot of the characterization I found jarring about Gimli. And for goodness' sake, could fantasy stop using CGI unless there's LITERALLY NO WAY to achieve what you want otherwise???
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I’m certainly not going to be the first (nor last) person to say that the main problem was dragging the story out into three rather long films, rather than having it be one concise masterpiece, like I don’t know, the book that it is based on ? All that subplot with the Orc hunt and the ridiculous love affair could have been avoided and we’d all be better off for it.

That said, I didn’t mind Tauriel, as a character per se. The insight of life in Mirkwood could have been capably covered though without making her in love with Kili/adored by Legolas/and then we would have been spared the cringeworthy healing scene in Laketown. Honestly, the Athelas thing was rather a big deal to do with Aragorn in the books, to the extent of having a piece of Gondorian folklore and the name itself ... KINGsfoil. So I felt more than a little annoyed that it had been ripped off as though any old elf was capable of using the apparently underestimated herb to reclaim the dying to life.

There was a lot of very good in the trilogy which unfortunately only made the weak points stand out more so by contrast. The general look and atmosphere was as mesmerising as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, except for when it became an apparent video game. Examples when it was horrifically noticeable included the Dwarves and Gandalf fleeing through Goblintown, Bombur bouncing around in his barrel escape/attack and of course Legolas during some of his battle vs Bolg and leaping up a ‘staircase’ of falling stones during the climactic battle, to mention just a few. Even the face-slap reaction to seeing TTT Legolas slide down a staircase on a shield seems epic in comparison !

The portrayal of Bilbo and Balin and Thranduil to mention a few though, were awesome, and indeed the only time I sighed for any of those was when the latter gave his ‘Go and find Strider’ speech to his son toward the end. The best nods to the original trilogy were the subtle ones, such as where Thorin threw down an elvish arrow in distaste just outside Imladris, in an almost spot-on impersonation of Legolas throwing down a Goblin arrow just outside Moria in FOTR. At times it was all too obvious that the director was trying too hard to link things and then it would take away from the natural pace of the scene, being quite clearly injected for no other reason than because they could’.

Martin Freeman, to me, was incredible and I can’t think of a single scene when I didn’t believe that he ‘was’ Bilbo. He was perfect. He was the best thing about the whole thing. Gandalf, Elrond, Gollum and Galadriel all slid seamlessly over from their appearances in the first trilogy though I feel Legolas failed on that count. This was not the fault of Orlando Bloom who was virtually a fresh-faced unknown before the LOTR films, and then was expected to play a ‘younger’ version of his character after he had noticeably grown more confident and filled out his ‘manly’ stature. I don’t expect that any mortal man could pull off a complete ageless transference, but in his case the difference was a little too obvious.

Some of the other characters were largely underused in the films although to be fair, we don’t get a huge amount of development for every one of the Dwarven company even from Tolkien himself. But given the runtime of the entire second trilogy, I would much rather have seen some more creative fleshing out of the main group instead of wondering why I was trying to care about rock giants.

The spiders were satisfyingly creepy, the landscapes inspired, and the trolls again, suitably fitting with both the earlier films AND the book.

I feel they went a little overboard though in clarifying good vs bad guys amongst the Laketown characters. Yes, Bard is the hero of his people, but that doesn’t mean there had to be an undercurrent of obstacles such as spies and prison sentences to make things even harder for him. Killing a dragon is impressive at the best of times and that should have stood alone as more of a significant impact to the plot. His stand out moment as it were. Whereas we were force fed the impression of him already established as the people’s hero’ even before he actually was.

The fear and threat of the dragon Itself felt rushed, considering the amount of work that was done to lay the ground for him as the main villain. Smaug of course looked amazing on screen, and Benedict Cumberbatch caught his personality to a tee, which was no mean feat through a mere voice portrayal. Although again, the scene where the Dwarves led him on an unnecessary chase through Erebor was entirely unnecessary. They should have spent more shots of his supreme awesomeness during the destruction of Laketown.

The tying in of Gundabad (and tombs ?) and Legolas’s mother was all very unnecessary, as though they’d literally thrown ideas in a hat of what else could possibly earn a place to pad the runtime ! Even though Azog was a bonafide backstory, it seemed as though he had been contorted to fit the film’s personal needs. The argument for the characters to seem in ‘constant peril’ sort of falls apart when they managed to successfully evade that same ‘very real’ danger so often throughout the trilogy that it can hardly be viewed as more than an occasional inconvenience.

An awful lot of the actual Battle of Five Armies was wonderfully done. Thorin’s final words and death effectively moved me. But if you blinked you would have missed Beorn, whereas a huge dramatic entrance was allowed for the ‘earth-eaters’ before they effectively disappeared. Having neither been explained nor fully utilised, it begs the question of why bother with them at all. A lot of details in the battle made only slightly more sense after the release of the extended scenes, the goats which initially had seemed to arrive out of nowhere had me scratching my head in the cinema.

And then there was the ending. I loved Bilbo’s return to the Shire, looking as brilliantly comical in his Dwarvish armour as ever I could have hoped for. The inclusion of the auction was wonderful and only goes to prove that an inclusion of The Scouring would not have hampered the conclusion of LOTR. At the end of the day heroes go home to their ordinary lives for the most part and the desperation which Bilbo demonstrated in seizing his belongings and his home only hammered home to me what the adventure he had just been on was all about.


Edit : Gah ! The typos ! Lol *fixed*
All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost
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What did people think worked about the Hobbit movies?

Well, for me, not a lot. A few minor scenes were enjoyable and mostly they were from the first movie. 2 and 3 as much as an effort as I gave them I found little to believe worked in them.

Some of the small things that did though...

-Ken Stott as Balin. I think it was the best done character. Maybe looks a little comical, but I thought he nailed the Balin-Bilbo relationship that I get from the book.
-The music scenes during the Unexpected Party. I really liked how it appeared the dwarves were pulling instruments out of nowhere, it captured some of the magic of the description in the book. Wish Thorin's harp made an appearance though.
-The Great Goblin's reaction to seeing Glamdring and Orcrist.
-The Riddles in the Dark
-The still of Smaug's death was a nice resemblance to Tolkien's drawing.

And a guilty pleasure like, as much as it wasn't the Elven King. I did rather enjoy Lee Pace's take on Thranduil. Had a David Bowie/Goblin-King feel to it, which if nothing else amused me. (Labyrinth is a guilty pleasure classic for me)

What were their most egregious sins?

Oh my...I'm not sure if I would put the entire script here or not, but I think I'll save that for the last question. A lot of the egregious sins have to deal with characters, because I like character-driven movies and The Hobbit films have a host of poorly written or stereotyped characters. Tauriel is the major one that sticks out the most but others...

-Bard. Orlando Bloom look alike and he spent the Battle of Five Armies running around trying to find his kids. Completely opposite of a composed leader in a battle.
-Alfrid and Moneybags. I appreciated Stephen Frye's over-the-top portrayal, but there was no need for a Grima-clone.
-Smaug. Not Benedict Cumberbatch and not Smaug's conversation with Bilbo. The aftermath of Smaug shooting fireballs at dwarves for 20 minutes, with the accuracy that would make a storm trooper cringe. The entire farce diminished Smaug's threat and made him a villain that I could not take seriously.
-Azog and Bolg. The comical orcs, in general. For as often as some character says "no one can enter/leave here without the King's consent/without the Master knowing about it." The orcs come and go as they please just whenever PJ wants to have a useless fight scene and display 1001 ways to kill an orc.
-The Kili getting shot with a "morgul" arrow and Tauriel being the only one who can save him plot line.
-The ram/goat things that appear and disappear. Dain's war pig.

What would you have changed?
-First and foremost the script. Completely unrecognizable from Tolkien/Middle-earth. "These bats were bred for a single purpose. *dramatic pause and music* For war" "What if it's a trap!?" "It is, undoubtedly....a trap!"
Reikon, that "Why does it hurt so much?" is 100 times worse than Sam's REEEAAACHHH!

-Secondly the over reliance on CGI/the weird frame rate PJ was trying made a lot of the locations/sets (which was a strength for the LOTR movies) look super fake
-Since those are probably too much to ask for. Can I just get the minor change Thorin/Fili/Kili's deaths? The description in the book of Beorn fighting through Bolg's guard to get to Thorin's body and Fili/Kili's bodies lying next to their king is a perfect made-for-movie moment. It's set up on a silver platter for PJ to have a great movie moment. Nope, we get Fili and Kili's deaths which I don't care about at all, because there's nothing about them to make me care about their characters. And Thorin's battle on the ice lake with Azog.

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