The Hobbit movies discussion

[The_Chosen_1]

Wow, some scathing opinions about the film here. I actually really enjoyed it; it had an emotional core that was lacking a bit in the other films. And that ending was spot-on perfect. As my wife put it, "It made me want to watch Lord of the Rings again!".

[CMP]

The first half of the movie was great but the second half could not fulfill my expectations.

Pretty much.

I loved Thorin's slow spiral into madness, but didn't like how it concluded.

[Ultron]

Here's what I have to saw about the movie: Peg. Leg. Troll.

Yep. That about sums up my thoughts on the movie. Seriously though, about the only redeeming thing about the movie was Richard Armitage's performance as Thorin. He was pretty amazing. But I'd have to give the film a 1/5. It was so bad and I could just go on and on about why this trilogy sucked.

[SandMirror38]

Here's what I have to saw about the movie: Peg. Leg. Troll.

Yep. That about sums up my thoughts on the movie. Seriously though, about the only redeeming thing about the movie was Richard Armitage's performance as Thorin. He was pretty amazing. But I'd have to give the film a 1/5. It was so bad and I could just go on and on about why this trilogy sucked.

Wow bit harsh... Not even Martin Freeman or Ian McKellen make up for it?

And that ending was spot-on perfect. As my wife put it, "It made me want to watch Lord of the Rings again!".

That I did quite enjoy

Although I also would've liked to see the dawrves coming to Bag End again

[Ultron]

Wow bit harsh... Not even Martin Freeman or Ian McKellen make up for it?

I call it giving credit where credit is due. If they were good like the LotR trilogy, I'd be kinder toward them. Freeman and McKellen were good, but they were trampled over to be honest. Gandalf was featured for a collective 15 minutes maybe. Ya see, I grew up watching the cartoon Hobbit movie. Looking back that's not that accurate either but it feels like Tolkien. This just didn't at all. The tone of this trilogy is so vastly different from the lotr one that's it's palpable. It's not that it's lighter like it should be considering the hobbit is more of a kids book, but rather that it feels completely fake. Mainly due to the idiotic gags like deformed trolls, random rams that are conveniently there, jumping on falling rocks like in a mario game, peg legs, giant worms, stupid screaming children that add absolutely nothing, etc. All of which were piss poor cgi.

[Steph 104th]

My biggest gripe was not seeing Erebor rebuilt with Dain ruling and not seeing Thorin, Kili and Fili laid to rest.

[Jedi-Bendu]

I call it giving credit where credit is due. If they were good like the LotR trilogy, I'd be kinder toward them. Freeman and McKellen were good, but they were trampled over to be honest. Gandalf was featured for a collective 15 minutes maybe. Ya see, I grew up watching the cartoon Hobbit movie. Looking back that's not that accurate either but it feels like Tolkien. This just didn't at all. The tone of this trilogy is so vastly different from the lotr one that's it's palpable. It's not that it's lighter like it should be considering the hobbit is more of a kids book, but rather that it feels completely fake. Mainly due to the idiotic gags like deformed trolls, random rams that are conveniently there, jumping on falling rocks like in a mario game, peg legs, giant worms, stupid screaming children that add absolutely nothing, etc. All of which were piss poor cgi.

Dude....this EXACTLY sums up my thoughts. EXACTLY. And yes; its not that the animated movies are accurate but they 'breathe' Tolkien.

[Steph 104th]

I call it giving credit where credit is due. If they were good like the LotR trilogy, I'd be kinder toward them. Freeman and McKellen were good, but they were trampled over to be honest. Gandalf was featured for a collective 15 minutes maybe. Ya see, I grew up watching the cartoon Hobbit movie. Looking back that's not that accurate either but it feels like Tolkien. This just didn't at all. The tone of this trilogy is so vastly different from the lotr one that's it's palpable. It's not that it's lighter like it should be considering the hobbit is more of a kids book, but rather that it feels completely fake. Mainly due to the idiotic gags like deformed trolls, random rams that are conveniently there, jumping on falling rocks like in a mario game, peg legs, giant worms, stupid screaming children that add absolutely nothing, etc. All of which were piss poor cgi.

Yeah, there was a definite tone of Jackson trying to make it too much of a blockbuster, instead of more true to the source material.

Like he wants it to be like RotK with many awards.

[Captain Nemo]

Having not read the books, but enjoyed the LotR films and the other Hobbit ones, I thought this last film was great! It had lots of action and emotion, and seemed more fresh. I thought the beginning (the first 10 minutes or so) was a bit too quick, since despite how the last film ended, it seemed like the Lake-Town attack was just thrown on--and so the death of Smaug did not feel like a big deal; but after that the movie picked up. The "dragon madness" was the hightlight of the film; it was portrayed in a spectacular fashion. The battles were not what I was expecting--it was just block formations with no stragtegy. In all honesty seeing that movie, the orcs should have easily won; they were the only one with forethought to think before they just ran into a dead end battlefield. They only thing they should have done was put all force on the main army instead of making two fronts. But the battles nonetheless looked cool; especially the fights on top of the ice river.

But I don't get all the hate that the movie is getting from LotR fans--I don't know what you were expecting, but even with my little knowledge of the books themselves, I know the children's story of the Hobbit is not the same as the epic of the Rings. It was a good ending to Middle Earth for me, but I wasn't expecting it to be a line for line translation as some people might have been.

[Ultron]

You should read the book and then you might understand. The Hobbit isn't a hard read and it's totally worth it. My problem with these movies is that they are almost like Peter Jackson made the entire thing up. My dad read the hobbit to me when I was little and, like I said earlier, I grew up watching the cartoon hobbit movie. So the hobbit is really special to me. Peter Jackson deviated so far from the actual story adding in stupid romance and non-tolkien nonsense like that that it's really not the hobbit at all. I think some liberties are necessary to take, but he just went WAY too far to the point where these movies are just a crappy fan fiction. He trampled on the important parts of the book, Mirkwood, Smaug/Thorins death, and other parts so that he could add worthless, meaningless crud. And what's worse is that a lot of the cgi is terrible, making it even more unbearable to watch.

This trilogy did not, by any means, live up to the standards he set during the first trilogy. Disappointed is an understatement.

Dude....this EXACTLY sums up my thoughts. EXACTLY. And yes; its not that the animated movies are accurate but they 'breathe' Tolkien.

Plus I love the songs!

Yeah, there was a definite tone of Jackson trying to make it too much of a blockbuster, instead of more true to the source material.

Like he wants it to be like RotK with many awards.

RotK was a masterpiece. This was not And it totally could have been. The Hobbit is my favorite Tokien book so there was a lot of potential.

[Steph 104th]

RotK was a masterpiece. This was not And it totally could have been. The Hobbit is my favorite Tokien book so there was a lot of potential.

The Hobbit is my favorite Tolkien tale too, so I know exactly what you mean by the conjured up rubbish, he added so much unnecessary story that it took away from the real story.

I had so much hope for these films and the Unexpected journey may have been the best film for me, as it was the closest to the actual story and it made me believe we were going to get a more light hearted story that set itself apart from LotR but it became a 'wannabe' and that ruined it.

A lot of the last film became a LotR prequel, which is good to a point but not when it distracts from the true story.

[Jedi-Bendu]

Plus I love the songs!

Thanks for reminding me......now 'If there's a whip' from the animated RotK is (again) stuck in my head...

Edited December 18, 2014 by Jedi-Bendu

[The Brick King]

Honestly, I think this was the best of the Hobbit trilogy, almost on par with Fellowship. The trilogy as a whole is definitely not as good as LotR, but they are pretty good. The Hobbit is my favorite Tolkien book, and I wish the y did stick a little closer to the books (cutting Azog, violent barrel escape) and I wish they had only made one movie, but I do like some stuff they added in (Dol Guldur attack, Tauriel and Galadriel). So yeah.

[Clone OPatra]

Of the three Hobbit films, Battle of the Five Armies felt the most consistent to me. Peter Jackson finally settled on a single tone for the film, whereas Unexpected Journey's tone changed in nearly every scene between comedically stupid and darkly brooding, Desolation of Smaug was also a bit all over the place (though moving towards consistently dark in general). This film also felt the tightest, without too much unnecessary filler thrown in for no reason other than padding out running time. The Smaug scene at the beginning and the White Council fight scene were both particularly well-done and enjoyable.

I have read all of the books, including multiple readings of the Hobbit, but reading the books hasn't influenced my opinions of the films too much. I don't mind when things are added or subtracted if they're done well, and in fact I thought that the Gandalf scenes in Desolation of Smaug were the best parts of the film. On the whole, I disliked the Hobbit films because they feel sloppy, with lots of unnecessary (and pretty bad) CGI and additional characters that make no sense. Not only was Azog a terrible-looking piece of CGI garbage, but his character had so little to it. Gothmog in RotK was worlds, and I mean worlds better. Gothmog was funky, evil, and cool-looking, while Azog, who is supposed to be much more of a fleshed-out character, is a dumb cartoon. And since he's CGI, Peter Jackson thinks that orcs can just have chunks of metal embedded in their bodies. Like, Bolg, literally one of the dumbest CG designs I have ever seen. Every time he appeared on screen I just wanted to laugh.

All of that being said, Battle of the Five Armies finally felt deservedly epic, unlike the other two Hobbit films. Peter Jackson still made some horrible choices over all, but this film didn't have any scenes to make one laugh out loud at the stupidity, so that puts it a cut above.

This trilogy would have been much better as two three-hour films, mostly being about the Dwarves (though montaging parts of their journey) and having a solid side plot about Gandalf. As it became, the trilogy is bloated and extremely excessive.

[rodiziorobs]

Of the three Hobbit films, Battle of the Five Armies felt the most consistent to me. Peter Jackson finally settled on a single tone for the film, whereas Unexpected Journey's tone changed in nearly every scene between comedically stupid and darkly brooding, Desolation of Smaug was also a bit all over the place (though moving towards consistently dark in general). This film also felt the tightest, without too much unnecessary filler thrown in for no reason other than padding out running time. The Smaug scene at the beginning and the White Council fight scene were both particularly well-done and enjoyable.

I have read all of the books, including multiple readings of the Hobbit, but reading the books hasn't influenced my opinions of the films too much. I don't mind when things are added or subtracted if they're done well, and in fact I thought that the Gandalf scenes in Desolation of Smaug were the best parts of the film. On the whole, I disliked the Hobbit films because they feel sloppy, with lots of unnecessary (and pretty bad) CGI and additional characters that make no sense. Not only was Azog a terrible-looking piece of CGI garbage, but his character had so little to it. Gothmog in RotK was worlds, and I mean worlds better. Gothmog was funky, evil, and cool-looking, while Azog, who is supposed to be much more of a fleshed-out character, is a dumb cartoon. And since he's CGI, Peter Jackson thinks that orcs can just have chunks of metal embedded in their bodies. Like, Bolg, literally one of the dumbest CG designs I have ever seen. Every time he appeared on screen I just wanted to laugh.

All of that being said, Battle of the Five Armies finally felt deservedly epic, unlike the other two Hobbit films. Peter Jackson still made some horrible choices over all, but this film didn't have any scenes to make one laugh out loud at the stupidity, so that puts it a cut above.

This trilogy would have been much better as two three-hour films, mostly being about the Dwarves (though montaging parts of their journey) and having a solid side plot about Gandalf. As it became, the trilogy is bloated and extremely excessive.

I have not seen Bof5A yet, but I agree wholeheartedly with your comments about the first two Hobbit films. I don't mind at all if a movie strays from it's original book version, so long as the movie itself is still good. For me that was not the case with AUJ or DoS.

I do wish Jackson had at least kept with the tone of The Hobbit; I feel like LOTR (books) are an epic battle of good an evil, while Tolkien's prose in the Hobbit is much more lighthearted and playful. Jackson, however, transported the LOTR epicness directly to The Hobbit and tried to make it stick. The movie could still have had the darkness while being playful, which makes me sad because if Guillermo del Toro had stayed on the project, I think we would have gotten that and the movies would have been better because of it.

Edited December 20, 2014 by rodiziorobs

[AFOLguy1970]

I did not think it was too bad, but there were some things missing that hopefully the inevitable extended version will cover.

To get the bad out of the way first, I did not care for the Legolas ninja/jedi tricks. Using enemy bats and being faster than falling stones are quite the stretch. If he could ride a bat like that, why didn't he just use of one them to take the ring to Mt. Doom in LOTR? If he is that fast and is that good a shot with arrows or Orcrist, he could have easily taken down Bolg and Azog together. They were MUCH slower and clumsier than our favorite superhero elf. I was hoping Legolas would not get an exaggerated role in the Hobbit, but we all knew it was coming. Dont get me wrong, I like the character in LOTR, but it just is not the time and place here.

What I would like to see in the extended edition:

(1) Thorin, Kili, and Fili laid to rest as Steph 104th indicated.

(2) Dain becoming king

(3) The arkenstone and perhaps Orcrist laid to rest with Thorin as in the book

(4) Something indicating the survival and recovery of the people of Esgaroth, perhaps Bard alluding to the restoration of Dale

(5) The treasure begin shared. Thranduil finally gets his clear gems, and the people of Dale getting some.

(6) A little more regarding Bilbo's return journey. In one scene, he is saying bye to the dwarves, and suddenly he is on the edge of the Shire

(7) In the end, when back in Bag End, maybe a flashback scene to where the company of Thorin was in his home. I can't believe PJ passed that up in the theatrical version along with 1-3.

Edited December 28, 2014 by AFOLguy1970

[The Legonater]

I'm admittedly surprised. Given what I've read here I went into the movie expecting it to be worse than the original DoS was, but personally this was the best of the trilogy. Sure it left out a few things, but nothing I felt was absolutely necessary for the plot. The emotions ran the highest they have in this trilogy, and the battle felt heavy enough to matter while still light enough to fit in with the rest of the Hobbit. I liked what they did with a lot of the characters, and all the acting was amazing. I will admit the battle seemed to slow a bit once Ravenhill was introduced - suddenly it was all about Thorin, Fili, Kili, Tauriel and Legolas instead of everyone down in Dale and Erebor. Still, I really enjoyed it, and felt it a fitting end to the Hobbit.

[Jedi-Bendu]

Went to see it today......and I must admit it was the best of the 3.

I let go of the idea I was going to see The Hobbit' but instead I thought 'I'm going to see a movie about an adventure in Middle-Earth'.

That helped.

STill: Legolas' skills (running on falling rocks....WTF?) are way over the top.

Edited December 28, 2014 by Jedi-Bendu

[Darth Punk]

Starting to sound like Lucas directed this film.

[bachamn]

Should come as no surprise, but I liked the film. Possibly because I went into it knowing what to expect. I did feel like the film started off very powerfully and didn't reach much of a crescendo after that. I mean, there was definitely an overall plot arc, but that Galadriel v.Sauron scene early on was one of the coolest sequences from any of the Middle Earth films. Gave me chills and made my eyes water. I probably would have moved that further back into the film a bit, but I'm not going to complain because I absolutely loved the whole Council v. Dol Guldur plot.

[Infernum]

Was how Gandalf ends up with Radagast's staff in LoTR ever addressed?

[CMP]

Was how Gandalf ends up with Radagast's staff in LoTR ever addressed?

His own staff gets melted in DoS, but now that I think about it, no.

[Krulis]

His own staff gets melted in DoS, but now that I think about it, no.

The part when Radagast gives Gandalf his staff was propably left for Extanded Edition (like entire Thrain presence in DoS).

[DuckBricks]

I personally wanted to see what happened to Saruman... He said he would handle Sauron, and wasn't heard from since...

[Steph 104th]

Well we know how he comes out of it...