Poll of the Day > Everyone thinks harambe getting shot put us on the darkest time-line but...

(+) Yeah! (+)

....consider what happened just a week prior to his death. She was the harbinger
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/8/8/AABpcEAAEe9c.jpg

The Bush/Gore outcome was wrong

The Hobbit Movies should have been one movie

I also distinctly remember that just before the 2016 election, Barry Allen caused Flashpoint.

Everyone knows is that Wally is the best Flash ever

People just had to pull their dicks out

Metalsonic66 posted...

The Hobbit Movies should have been one movie

I could have seen two. The first one was actually pretty decent, even if it could never really settle on whether it wanted to be a serious fantasy adventure or a goofy slapstick fantasy adventure and that dissonance was a little jarring at times. The second and especially third, however, were just stretched out waaaaay too far for the amount of actual content they had. Condensing them into two (and redistributing some stuff into the first as needed) would have been much more reasonable.

Metalsonic66 posted...

The Hobbit Movies should have been one movie

That would be impossible. The Hobbit isn't short enough for just one movie.

I've been telling people the times have been going noticeably downhill when we lost George Carlin and Elisabeth Sladen. I'm open to better suggestions.

Revelation34 posted...

That would be impossible. The Hobbit isn't short enough for just one movie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(1977_film)

ParanoidObsessive posted...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit_(1977_film)

Indeed. I did find that movie a little rushed, especially for anyone who didn't already know the story, but it hit all the necessary plot points in just 1:17. One 3-hour movie could pretty comfortably have covered it all, though again, I would have been happy with two based on how the first Jackson one turned out.

adjl posted...

I did find that movie a little rushed, especially for anyone who didn't already know the story, but it hit all the necessary plot points in just 1:17. One 3-hour movie could pretty comfortably have covered it all.

I even prefer some of the music.

Like, I don't care if the live-action version of the song is more realistic, or more somber, thematically appropriate, or epic - I'll always prefer this one over the Jackson version:

https://youtu.be/f4TysZL6YiA&t=57

But the thing to keep in mind about the animated film is that it was very much a product of its time. A lot of the stylistic aspects that some people dislike were less about it being a single short movie or being animated or being The Hobbit - and more about the fact that it was basically pure 70s, and made to appeal to what was left of the hippies who'd loved the fuck out of Tolkien.

If someone had made a Hobbit cartoon in the 2000s it would be a lot different.

Revelation34 posted...

That would be impossible. The Hobbit isn't short enough for just one movie.

You obviously haven't read the Hobbit

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/2/AABn1pAADmgE.png

pedro45 posted...

The Bush/Gore outcome was wrong

Honestly, this.

Imagine the utopia wed be living in if that idiot had never become president.

rexcrk posted...

Honestly, this.

Imagine the utopia wed be living in if that idiot had never become president.

Seriously. Al Gore was so conscious about things and would have prevented some climate troubles we are having. Things would have been more respectful as well, I bet.

Revelation34 posted...

That would be impossible. The Hobbit isn't short enough for just one movie.

The Hobbit is shorter than any of the Lord of the Rings books, yet each got their own 3 hour movie a piece.

rexcrk posted...

Honestly, this.

Imagine the utopia wed be living in if that idiot had never become president.

I mean obviously Bush was the worse outcome but Lieberman certainly wouldn't lead to utopia. He sucked

BADoglick posted...

I mean obviously Bush was the worse outcome but Lieberman certainly wouldn't lead to utopia. He sucked

Well it would certainly seem like a utopia compared to the wasteland were living now

DiScOrDtHeLuNaTiC posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/2/AABn1pAADmgE.png

+Jim Henson
+Bob Ross
+Steve Irwin

Some friends like to say that Christopher Lee was life's protagonist and the world is crumbling without him. He was after all the WW2 spy that inspired James Bond, the only member of the LOTR cast who met Tolkien, Dracula, a Sith Lord, a death metal singer . . .

Rotpar posted...

Some friends like to say that Christopher Lee was life's protagonist and the world is crumbling without him. He was after all the WW2 spy that inspired James Bond, the only member of the LOTR cast who met Tolkien, Dracula, a Sith Lord, a death metal singer . . .

He even tangled with gremlins

adjl posted...

I could have seen two. The first one was actually pretty decent, even if it could never really settle on whether it wanted to be a serious fantasy adventure or a goofy slapstick fantasy adventure and that dissonance was a little jarring at times. The second and especially third, however, were just stretched out waaaaay too far for the amount of actual content they had. Condensing them into two (and redistributing some stuff into the first as needed) would have been much more reasonable.

Each of the LotR books were longer than the hobbit, and they got 1 movie each, they could have made 1 really good hobbit movie

Even adding a little more material from Unfinished or Sil, the Hobbit movie could have maybe been two films. Maybe make the brown wizard less of a buffoon with bird shit on his head, remove the love triangle, do away with unnecessary foreshadowing around events yet to come or develop in LotR, and shorten the clash of two mountains as the party witnessing it, making some jests in tune with the book where it wasn't even a whole sentence, and move on. But no, higher-ups messed with the movies until they were a mess that barely anyone enjoyed being a part of.

IMO they did a pretty good job with the Riddle Scene and the first Treasure Room scene

And I still think casting Arthur Dent-- I mean Martin Freeman as Young Bilbo was a great idea

Yeah Martin freeman is perfect casting, his Bilbo is amazing

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/5/AABpcEAAEfXz.jpg

Entity13 posted...

Even adding a little more material from Unfinished or Sil, the Hobbit movie could have maybe been two films. Maybe make the brown wizard less of a buffoon with bird shit on his head, remove the love triangle, do away with unnecessary foreshadowing around events yet to come or develop in LotR, and shorten the clash of two mountains as the party witnessing it, making some jests in tune with the book where it wasn't even a whole sentence, and move on. But no, higher-ups messed with the movies until they were a mess that barely anyone enjoyed being a part of.

I'd argue none of that was the "higher ups", though. At least not directly.

Basically, the movie was fucked the moment the execs told Jackson they wanted three movies. Because then they had to come up with enough extraneous bullshit to pad it out (while simultaneously not having the rights to all of Tolkien's writing, only specific parts of it). And as we've learned from Game of Thrones, what Hollywood hacks come up with to fill in the blanks is rarely as good as what the actual award-winning author came up with.

The other thing that hurt the movie was that Jackson didn't want to do it in the first place. He was tired and worn out and didn't really want to go through the chore of filming LotR all over again, so he was really only part of it as a producer with the intention of having Guillermo del Toro do the writing/directing/prep work. Then del Toro left the project and Jackson was forced to take over the whole thing with no time to prepare and absolutely no enthusiasm for the project. If anything, it's not surprising that the films were bad - what's more surprising is that they weren't dramatically worse.



FrozenBananas posted...

Yeah Martin freeman is perfect casting, his Bilbo is amazing

This sort of thing happens way too often in Hollywood. It's like how I really like Henry Cavill as Superman, but I hate literally every movie he's in. Or how Pierce Brosnan is my favorite Bond in spite of all but one of his movies stinking.

There's way too many cases where I can easily say "This movie is garbage but they cast this role perfectly." Which just makes the whole thing sadder, honestly. It just makes you mourn the lost potential even more.



Rotpar posted...

Some friends like to say that Christopher Lee was life's protagonist and the world is crumbling without him. He was after all the WW2 spy that inspired James Bond, the only member of the LOTR cast who met Tolkien, Dracula, a Sith Lord, a death metal singer . . .

https://youtu.be/2JS_OkDo4kI?t=8

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'd argue none of that was the "higher ups", though. At least not directly.

Basically, the movie was f***ed the moment the execs told Jackson they wanted three movies.

"It wasn't the higher-ups. The movie was doomed when the higher-ups made their demands." =)

The desire for a trilogy was part of it. The desire for a love triangle was part, and telling Jackson, et al., to wait on shooting on certain days, when everyone was made-up and ready to go, was another. For sure, Jackson being less invested in this project than the previous one didn't help, but the man was given a losing battle and told, like so many generals of Japanese emperors, to go out there and win regardless.

Entity13 posted...

"It wasn't the higher-ups. The movie was doomed when the higher-ups made their demands."

"It wasn't the higher ups making demands. It was one demand that cascaded into a massive domino effect of suck."

In other words, the higher-ups didn't mess with the movies (your words) as much as the movie was fucked from the word go because of a single demand - when they told Jackson they wanted three movies (my words). Everything else that followed after was just window dressing. And I'd argue that it's likely that literally none of the things you complained about specifically (Radagast in general, the bird shit, including the LotR links and stuff from the appendixes, expanding stuff way beyond what it originally was, etc) came from execs as much as it did from Jackson himself. Because he was desperately struggling to pad that fucker out and didn't really have time to come up with better ideas (his words).

All the fuck-ups more or less stem from that singular bad decision early on - but it was still Jackson himself making most of them. It's not like with Wild Wild West where an insane exec was constantly making weird nonsensical demands and forcing them to put a giant mechanical spider into the movie.

Realistically, even wanting to put a romance subplot in hangs on that mistake. There'd be more room to push-back on it if it was just one movie (or even two movies), because there wouldn't necessarily be room for it otherwise. But when you're already struggling to come up with extra shit to fill time, having diversions into the White Council or weird Radagast stuff or "Dwarfeo and Julielf" subplots or "Hey, we need to get Orlando Bloom back because the female fans love him" are hard to say no to because "Hell, at least it uses up another 30 minutes or so!"

If it was one movie or two shorter movies (basically between 2-4 hours total content), and Jackson had been able to delegate to a different director who in turn had the necessary lead time to develop things, I think 95% of the problems with the movie would never have occurred, regardless of what the execs wanted. Jackson was too tired and unenthusiastic to care enough to push back, and didn't have an excuse to do so because he was already being forced to make shit up anyway.

Jacksons Hobbit movies work fine the way they are. But you have to watch them with an open mind instead of the I dont want to like these because its supposed to be one movie mindset.

Besides, if youre going to act like the liberties from the book for that are a heinous crime, I dont want to hear about how amazing the LotR movies are, which took even more (and in some cases, even worse, liberties from the source material looking at you, Return of the King).

whatever chewbacca lady was wonderful

rexcrk posted...

Jacksons Hobbit movies work fine the way they are. But you have to watch them with an open mind instead of the I dont want to like these because its supposed to be one movie mindset.

That's not even remotely the reason I don't like them, though.

I went in with an open mind, and they were bad in multiple ways. Talking about how the problem is too many movies is the answer that came afterward to explain why they were bad, not the expectation beforehand that poisoned the well. I didn't go into them expecting to hate them or wanting to hate them.

Jackson's movies might work fine the way they are if you know nothing about The Hobbit. But they're a terrible adaptation.



rexcrk posted...

Besides, if youre going to act like the liberties from the book for that are a heinous crime, I dont want to hear about how amazing the LotR movies are, which took even more (and in some cases, even worse, liberties from the source material looking at you, Return of the King).

Not even close.

Unless you're counting dropping Tom Bombadil and the Scouring of the Shire. But arguably both of those changes were improvements. The only real problem I have is that dropping the Scouring screwed up Saruman's conclusion in the films (especially in the theatrical version versus the extended edition)..

It's like when people talked about the original Spider-Man movie changing Peter's web-shooters from something he invented himself to an organic part of him. Yes, it was a change from the comics (and purists were going to complain no matter what), but it made sense in the context of the film. Having him invent web-shooters as a poor teenage kid would overcomplicate the story - making them a natural part of him simplified it Like it or not, some things work better in comics than they would on film (like putting all the X-Men in black leather instead of yellow spandex). Same with Spider-Man being bit by a genetically engineered spider versus a radioactive one - radiation was the catch-all source of power in the 60s, but by the 2000s it feels much more ridiculous. Genetic engineering is a much more modern fear, though - and thus works better in the modern context.

You CAN change elements from the original source in an adaptation. But those changes need to be things that make the story better, or at least make it work better on film than it otherwise would. Most of the LotR change are positive. Most of the Hobbit ones aren't. The problem isn't that the Hobbit films added or changed things. It's that the changes were bad.

rexcrk posted...

Jacksons Hobbit movies work fine the way they are. But you have to watch them with an open mind instead of the I dont want to like these because its supposed to be one movie mindset.

I did. At the time I didnt care that we were getting 3 movies. In fact, being a big fan of the LotR trilogy, I was still hyped for the Hobbit movies. I even read the book for the first time because I was so excited.

They still sucked.

rexcrk posted...

Jacksons Hobbit movies work fine the way they are. But you have to watch them with an open mind instead of the I dont want to like these because its supposed to be one movie mindset.

I did watch them with an open mind. I mostly enjoyed the first one, found the second dragged a bit, and as soon as the second ended with Smaug flying to Laketown and I realized the only content left for the final movie was killing the dragon and one battle scene, any expectations I had for it were pretty much shot and I watched it mostly out of a sense of obligation. It was still alright, but there definitely was not enough content there for three movies, and the third very obviously suffered the most for it.

SeahorseCpt89 posted...

The Hobbit is shorter than any of the Lord of the Rings books, yet each got their own 3 hour movie a piece.

It didn't need to be 3 movies. 2 would have been perfect.