The Hobbit

[Fallen]

I couldn't find a topic on the movie. Watched it yesterday and loved it. I don't understand the criticism at all. The first LOTR movie was my favorite, and this film tied directly into it, giving the impression of a true prequel to the series. Anyone else enjoy it? I saw it in IMAX 3D, though no idea if it had the enhanced frame rate. If it did I didn't notice anything. Looked great, though loud as shit as all IMAX movies seem to be.

[Androidpk]

I saw it in IMAX 3D, really enjoyed it, wasn't bothered at all by the 48fps.

[BriarFox]

Just saw it in 2D yesterday. It very much carried over the aesthetic of the book, with its episodic battles and wondrous things. It was lots of fun. It did lack a bit of the overarching drama and importance of LotR, but so does the book.

[Tgo01]

What exactly do you mean by "good day"?

[Kuyuk]

I really enjoyed it. Saw the midnight showing with my son in one of those Film & Fork theatres where they bring food to your seat.

It was awkward because I snuck in two bottles of water and reeses candy - and they sold the opposite brand water there; so they knew I snuck it in.

Awk.

[Gsgeek]

Have to admit I also enjoyed the movie quite a bit. Saw some of the criticisms but I was pleasantly surprised with the movie itself. May have been just a bit too long but I didnt notice it because , at least for me, it flew by fairly fast.

[Gelston]

I saw it and liked it. It was what I expected aswell, a bit slow to start like Fellowship of the Ring. It was odd that half of the dwarves just looked like short humans, but I suppose that was for photogenic reasons. Who wants to watch a bunch of ugly midgets for 3 hours?

[Ker_Thwap]

Overall disliked it, just like I disliked the LOTR movies. I'm a Tolkien book purist though. I did like the Dwarven songs. The CGI heavy scenes made me twitch with the bad physics and pure Rube Goldberg machine timing. The plot deviations seemed like flimsy excuses to get certain actors more face time. Radagast would make an excellent spinoff children's show. I think I'd rather just watch a Radagast spinoff movie instead of seeing Tolkiens work continually butchered.

[Kastrel]

Overall disliked it, just like I disliked the LOTR movies. I'm a Tolkien book purist though. I did like the Dwarven songs. The CGI heavy scenes made me twitch with the bad physics and pure Rube Goldberg machine timing. The plot deviations seemed like flimsy excuses to get certain actors more face time. Radagast would make an excellent spinoff children's show. I think I'd rather just watch a Radagast spinoff movie instead of seeing Tolkiens work continually butchered.

Haven't seen it, but what are the criticisms in general? In what way did you find it to be butchered?

[Tenlaar]

Maybe it wasn't incredibly slow, boring, and hard to read like Tolkien's work.

[Kastrel]

Maybe it wasn't incredibly slow, boring, and hard to read like Tolkien's work.

Honestly? I read the Hobbit in 5th grade and ate it up. I tried to read Lord of the Rings in high school and I gave up when nothing had happened by page 80. I love the LotR movies, but I hated the books. I loved the Hobbit book, and I'm excited to see the movies, but I'm going to wait until they are all out and do it at once. No unnecessary cliff-hangers for me.

[Suppressed Poet]

I loved the books as the kid.

The movie actually added in things that were not in the book.

When I saw it last weekend, I was under the impression it was one movie and didn't know this was going to be part of a trilogy.

[TheEschaton]

Books will almost always be better than their movie adaptations. I think going into a movie and holding it to the standards of the books is somewhat disingenuous. How was it as a movie, and how did it reflect the books are valid critiques to give, but not conforming to the book whole cloth is a less valid critique, imo.

[Kastrel]

Books will almost always be better than their movie adaptations. I think going into a movie and holding it to the standards of the books is somewhat disingenuous. How was it as a movie, and how did it reflect the books are valid critiques to give, but not conforming to the book whole cloth is a less valid critique, imo.

I'm one of those people who tries to evaluate "the movie" for what it is, though I do consider what could have been if they forget important things. Personally, I enjoyed the film of V for Vendetta far more than the graphic novel. I also really enjoy the original Dune movie, in the way that it had its own personality distinct from the book.

As an aside, I love the Silent Hill movie, even though most Silent Hill buffs hate it.

[Androidpk]

Books will almost always be better than their movie adaptations. I think going into a movie and holding it to the standards of the books is somewhat disingenuous. How was it as a movie, and how did it reflect the books are valid critiques to give, but not conforming to the book whole cloth is a less valid critique, imo.

This. It always amazes me when people complain about the differences between books and movies or TV shows. Of course they are going to be different. Why on earth would you want the adaptation to be 100% identical? Naturally some things will be lost in translation while other things are added to fit the different format. There is nothing wrong with that. It's not like they are changing the key plot points around.

[diethx]

I loved reading The Hobbit when I was a kid. I tried to read the LOTR books and I remember getting very bored, very easily. Never did make it through the first one. I can't wait to see this, even if they added shit. It's been so long since I read the book, anyway, so...

[Pulsegiver]

I saw it in 3d with the enhanced frame rate. I'd heard that it made some people sick, but I liked the 3d aspect. I started getting a headache at the end from all the 3d stuff, but it was worth it!

[Kastrel]

When I saw Silent Hill Revelations in 3D (it was almost impossible to see it NOT in 3D, about 6 showings a day in 3D and one at 1 PM in regular), I got a headache. It was such a waste, the movie had a HANDFUL of 3D effects, the only one of any consistancy being the raining ash. Most of the time, you could take off the glasses and the visual was normal.

[Fallen]

The second Silent Hill was god awful. First one was great, though.

[Suppressed Poet]

Lotr was an excellent adaption of the book. I mean it followed it faithfully and visually captured the stunning imagery. True you can't compare the satisfaction of a book vs a film, but I think it's fair to critique the way a script and film adapts from the origins of a novel. LOTR was excellent. I thought the hobit was very good but I did get the feeling it added unnecisary content in an effort to make it into a trilogy for the $$$. The hobit was short. Lotr was a big thick novel.

[Jayvn]

They did 'extend' the hobbit and added some extra info that wasn't anywhere to be found, but they pulled a bit of it from the silmarillion. I'm not sure if anyone touched on that yet or not. It wasn't like they were just bullshitting out of their ass to add some extra play time to the movie. Tolkien had constructed an entire world, not just a few stories, complete with languages. I've seen the hobbit twice now and wish the other 2 parts were out already.. I'm actually looking forward to the directors cut... The riddle scene with gollum was fucking amazing.

[Kastrel]

When are parts 2 and 3 coming out? I'm just going to buy full on extended/directions cuts of all three DVDs and hardcore marathon it up.

[Jayvn]

dec of the next 2 years :(

[Kastrel]

Well. I'll get back to you on my opinion in two years then. Damn.

[Ker_Thwap]

At the risk of adding spoiler information.

The book was about Bilbo finding his worth in his own self, being accepted by the Dwarves eventually on his own terms for his own abilities. It's a coming of age story that shows the value of the every day man where strength of heart and perseverance is shown to be the equal to the task of righting wrongs. In the movie he's only accepted after he inexplicably turns into a master swordsman for a scene, and is thus accepted for changing who he is so that he fits in on Thorin's terms.

The Dwarves, even fat Bombur, are all flawless warrior acrobats killing several hundred orcs in one scene, yet in the next scene they turn into infomercial spaz'es unable to to do some simple climbing, then in the next scene they're jumping from moving stone ledges like video game characters.

The scene progression was all over the place, requiring excessive narrative to explain why the plot was progressing in the haphazard manner that it was.

The insertion of Saruman into the Rivendell scene, and Radagast into the plot seemed like a contrived way to introduce the Necromancer into the plot (one would assume into the second installment) Azog brought back to life in an attempt to give a face to the evil of the orc threat. (Not a terrible idea, but I can't help but think the motive was to sell action figures.)

Overall, this came across as a bad fan fiction episode that was just set in Tolkien's universe. I felt like I was watching a sales pitch with some huckster reaching for my wallet.

[Drinin]

Saw it. Liked it. It's not a 100% pure adaptation of the Hobbit, but that's ok. For 2 and a half hours I was entertained and look forward to the next two.