Current Events > Watching the hobbit

(+) Yeah! (+)

I watched this in theater when it released and never watched the others. I didn't care for it.

I'm reading the book with my kids and we decided to watch the movie together.

Wow, this is actually just as bad as I recall. I still don't understand all the changes. There were a lot of small changes that actually rewrite the character's attitudes and motivations. Then there are pretty big changes, like adding a big bad in the movie, as if the goblins in the mountains wouldn't be enough.

I will watch the next two, but don't expect it to be any better.

The events in the misty mountains really annoy me. I hate how they make it seem like it was just a matter of an hour they were there.

The behind the scenes stuff of the hobbit should be studied in film school on how NOT to make a movie.

This crapfest was made at the height of Hollywood's obsession with trilogies so of course they had to take a delightful children's novel and turn it into 9 hours of special effects wankery instead of just making a faithful adaptation.

Watch the cartoon, it's so much better.

The Hobbit is such a simple little story, its bewildering how they fucked it up so bad

https://youtu.be/UBnVL1Y2src?si=hJp2IdJUjO0cpaCr

I oldest kid is definitely peeved about the changes as well.

BewmHedshot posted...

This crapfest was made at the height of Hollywood's obsession with trilogies so of course they had to take a delightful children's novel and turn it into 9 hours of special effects wankery instead of just making a faithful adaptation.

Yes, I could take some of the changes if they were trying to fit it into a movie, but then they go and add a bunch of shit that isn't relevant to the hobbit story

El_Dustino posted...

Watch the cartoon, it's so much better.

I'll look into finding this

I threw the M4 fan-cut of The Hobbit on my plex server, haven't watched it yet though. I have to imagine it's better than the theatrical versions.

Whats the best fan-edit of the Hobbit?

Evolician posted...

Whats the best fan-edit of the Hobbit?

From what I hear? M4 Book Edit.

An Unexpected Journey is fantastic. The other 2 are lame but I'm tired of people treating the whole trilogy as trash!

Star Wars OT:Star Wars PT::PJ LOTR: PJ The Hobbit

lilORANG posted...

An Unexpected Journey is fantastic. The other 2 are lame but I'm tired of people treating the whole trilogy as trash!

It was just more Jackson awfulness, building on his previous awfulness.

https://youtu.be/g8fb6ctRZDA?si=En5jpeMMMzxHcoax

This channel does a good job showing how much the movies butchered the book. Amazingly they converted a chapter that takes an hour on audio book down to 15 minutes despite expanding so much else.

lilORANG posted...

An Unexpected Journey is fantastic. The other 2 are lame but I'm tired of people treating the whole trilogy as trash!

That's the only one I've watched and it's trash. IMO of course

Dat_Cracka_Jax posted...

That's the only one I've watched and it's trash. IMO of course

Oh god, you though AUJ was trash? IMO it's the only tolerable one of the trio, if only because it doesn't have fucking Legolas and the pointless OC elf in it.

Aside from unnecessarily stretching a short kid's story into an entire trilogy, the weird ass love triangle between Legolas, the fan-made female elf character, and the one dwarf is the biggest travesty to come from those movies. Like how can Pete Jackson have such reverence and respect when directing the original LotR and then completely shit on its prequel.

Awakened_Link posted...

Aside from unnecessarily stretching a short kid's story into an entire trilogy, the weird ass love triangle between Legolas, the fan-made female elf character, and the one dwarf is the biggest travesty to come from those movies. Like how can Pete Jackson have such reverence and respect when directing the original LotR and then completely shit on its prequel.

I'm guessing the studio was very much wanting a trilogy when in reality it should have been 1 MAYBE 2 movies.

I watched one of the fan edits. A lot of the stupid shit can't be removed but it was so much more tolerable than the full movies.

This is a good analysis.

https://youtu.be/uTRUQ-RKfUs?si=MQwWiumbQjPhj1Bm

lilORANG posted...

An Unexpected Journey is fantastic. The other 2 are lame but I'm tired of people treating the whole trilogy as trash!

I had the opposite opinion - Unexpected Journey was awful, Desolation of Smaug was actually pretty solid, and Five Armies was just kinda boring.

i thought those movies sucked.

I liked it better than the LotR movies.

I don't mind AUJ, however I absolutely love the soundtrack, so it's probably just carrying a lot of the weight

And as sort of already pointed out - there's a lot of longish form behind the scenes/docus on YouTube that are really good watches

Also, I'm fairly certain the animated movie is free on YT, and it's absolutely worth watching

Dat_Cracka_Jax posted...

I will watch the next two, but don't expect it to be any better.

I'm afraid it's only down from here. Unexpected Journey has... likeable things. It's tolerable. Battle of Five Armies is legit a piece of shit with maybe one or two good scenes in it.

The Lord of the Rings movies were just as overlong, ugly, and boring so it's more of the same.

The weird 70s animated films were more interesting.

McmadnessV3 posted...

The behind the scenes stuff of the hobbit should be studied in film school on how NOT to make a movie.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f923d150.jpg

When I first heard they were making a trilogy out of the Hobbit, I remember being absolutely confused. There's no material in the story to justify three movies. Hell, if you told me to make two movies I'd be hard-pressed to stretch the content enough.

When I actually watched them I realized how they did it. Through adding a whole bunch of unnecessary stuff. But not all of the unnecessary stuff is equal.

Prolonged action scenes? Oh, fiiiine, I guess. Pointless filler added just for the sake of run time and catching casual viewers' attention? Ehhh, whatever. Stuff about lore that was going elsewhere in the story and not seen by Bilbo and co., e.g. the Dol Guldur stuff? Not something I would have touched in the movie, but OK, I guess?(and probably informative to casual Tolkien fans?)... But there was stuff that outright runs counter to canon lore in some cases which really rubbed me the wrong way. Not gonna enumerate every one of those here though(honestly don't remember much anyway, apart from my annoyance about them).

Anyway, the movies. First movie was... OK. Could be a bit better than OK if I'm being generous. The second movie... probably the best out of the three if you ask me, but maybe that's because I personally find the Erebor/Smaug scenes more enjoyable than they have any right to be.

The third movie... Ehhh.

In case of bad movies, I can brain-bleach myself so that I remember absolutely nothing about that movie afterwards, aside from a mental warning that it's a horrible experience. The third Hobbit movie holds distinction for being absolutely forgettable despite getting no such treatment from me. I literally cannot remember a SINGLE thing about the whole movie, apart from that Smaug gets shot down literally in the first five minutes(I at least remember being very confused upon seeing that, in a 'you're going to be badly hurting for material for this movie, and you go and do that??' way), vague recollections of forgettable characters fighting forgettable bad guys in a forgettable bland gray expanse of ruins, and the very last scene being a homage to the first LotR movie's scene where Bilbo meets Gandalf again, which did give a cute, warm feeling.

PS. By the way, whoever came up with the design for Thorin should be castigated. I literally laughed out loud when I realized this character in the poster was supposed to be Thorin. That is NOT a dwarf, and no level of suspension of disbelief is going to change that. What the hell is a midget human doing in this story?

Distant_Rainbow posted...

Prolonged action scenes? Oh, fiiiine, I guess.

If they weren't as childish and cartoony as the ones in the Hobbit movie, I'd agree. But they are some of the worst action scenes I've ever seen. The action is so cartoony and non-committal to the idea of there being any danger to characters means that it's really just a 5-10 minute roadrunner skit inserted into what is positioning itself to be part of a serious film franchise, with significant history of its world and depth of character. You could drop a 10 tonne anvil on one of the character and have them get up and be fine and that'd be in line with the tone these awful scenes are striking. The barrel scene in part 2 is much the same and don't even get me fucking started on the Mario jumping in part 3.

DodogamaRayBrst posted...

The action is so cartoony and non-committal to the idea of there being any danger to characters

This really sticks out too from the first one. In the mountains when they should be falling to their death or at least getting severely injured, they just pop back up.