Film: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

[stip]

Please, be honest. Did anyone like Hobbit: Part One? And if so, why? I'm genuinely curious.

Full disclosure: I thought Fellowship was a GREAT movie. Twin Towers was fascinating and a worthy sequel. Return Of The King was so flawed it was distracting. Just a giant mess; full of cringe-worthy dialogue and character hiccups.

The Hobbit, to me, was just awful. A complete waste of time. And I watched it for free. On a plane from Paris. What a wretched piece of shit. God!

If you did like The Hobbit: Part One, what (if anything) honestly excites you about Part Two? I'll be honest. I LOVE Evangeline Lilly. She's talented. She's smoking hot. She's awesome. But even she can't entice me. This film looks just as laughable and forgettable and frustrating as Part One.

I liked it. I did not love it (and I LOVED The LOTR trilogy, including Return of the King, which had 3 moments where i literally cried), but I liked it. And I was disappointed because I didn't love it. There were parts that were poorly paced, and some scenes that just didn't need to be there, plus the dwarves are too interchangeable (that's a source material issue, I think). But I enjoyed the last hour or so (the goblins/gollum/the eagles, etc), and I just really enjoy lingering in the world. I will not be queing up for opening day, and I'm not nearly as excited as I was for the film, but I expect I'll enjoy it.

Plus the source material really picks up going forward. There is just not much exciting that happens in the first sequence of the story. So this was likely going to be the weakest installment.


In fairness, DcT, this would be a shitty movie to watch on a plane. It's very leisurely paced and the cinematography is pretty gorgeousl, but it needs a more expansive viewing environment than a plan to appreciate the strengths.

[stip]

as an aside, changes to the source material usually didn't bother me. Some I liked. Some I didn't. But I've read the books. this is someone else's interpretation of the story, and I'm happy to let them have it.

Plus, to be honest, the books are kinda shitty. A very imaginative world, but as literature they're just not very good.

[dimejinky99]

as an aside, changes to the source material usually didn't bother me. Some I liked. Some I didn't. But I've read the books. this is someone else's interpretation of the story, and I'm happy to let them have it.

Plus, to be honest, the books are kinda shitty. A very imaginative world, but as literature they're just not very good.

Dead. To. Me.

[stip]

Are you a fan of other fantasy authors, dime?

[epilogue]

In fairness, DcT, this would be a shitty movie to watch on a plane. It's very leisurely paced and the cinematography is pretty gorgeousl, but it needs a more expansive viewing environment than a plan to appreciate the strengths.

That's fair. I'll buy that. And maybe someday I'll give it a go in a more appropriate setting.

[epilogue]

as an aside, changes to the source material usually didn't bother me. Some I liked. Some I didn't. But I've read the books. this is someone else's interpretation of the story, and I'm happy to let them have it.

Plus, to be honest, the books are kinda shitty. A very imaginative world, but as literature they're just not very good.

Totally agree.

[bada]

It hurts when Stip calls Tolkien a bad writer. It hurts really bad.

[dimejinky99]

Are you a fan of other fantasy authors, dime?

Robin Hobb is the most wonderful writer. Her Farseer trilogy and the two ensuing trilogies are probably my favourite fantasy books. She not only writes beautifully but is addictive and she sure knows how to get lots of strands going and tie them all up brilliantly.

I want to like the game of thrones books but man, Martin needs an editor in a big way. Just too much going on and I'm not sure he even knows where it's all going.

Neil Gaiman is amazing. Neverwhere, Stardust and the new one, Ocean at the end of the lane are all incredible, but I think he's aiming for the masses and popularity with the new one. It's almost a little safe for him.

And of course Terry Prachett. I'm currently reading Good Omens, and its a great story and hilariously funny.

I enjoyed Feist when I was younger but he lost me along the way.

Those are mine.

You?

[harmless]

It hurts when Stip calls Tolkien a bad writer. It hurts really bad.

Tolkien can take it. He insulted C.S. Lewis' writing on more than one occasion.

[Sarah.]

Dime, it sounds like we have really similar taste. I loved the Farseer trilogy and of course Gaiman and Pratchett. Magician by Feist is one I regularly go back to, but he dropped off a bit in the last two or three books.

Have you read The Demon Cycle by Peter Brett? The first one is kind of awesome, the second one is not so great but it's still pretty good and I haven't started the third one yet, but I have it on my kindle. I've been caught up by the Rivers of London series and haven't done much reading over the summer. I'd recommend that one too. It's a police procedural with a supernatural spin.

[dimejinky99]

Cool thanks for the recommendations! I'll look em up.
Currently trying to get through some classics and standards(or things I really should have read but haven't, Bradbury, Vonnegut, the Gormenghast trilogy, Raymond Chandler)
I'll make a start once I finish Good Omens

[Sarah.]

Cool thanks for the recommendations! I'll look em up.
Currently trying to get through some classics and standards(or things I really should have read but haven't, Bradbury, Vonnegut, the Gormenghast trilogy, Raymond Chandler)
I'll make a start once I finish Good Omens

I have tried Gormenghast so many times. I just can't get past the first few chapters. I loved the TV adaptation to death, but I keep putting the book down and not going back to it. So let me know how that goes.

[dimejinky99]

You too?? I tried a few times but it was years ago. And with the same result.
It's a challenging read but not in a good way. It's kind of too up its own arse, if that makes sense?

[Sarah.]

You too?? I tried a few times but it was years ago. And with the same result.
It's a challenging read but not in a good way. It's kind of too up its own arse, if that makes sense?

Yep. Funnily enough me and another friend had exactly the same discussion on FB about it a couple of weeks ago. She decided to try and power through to see if she could crack it. I decided that I don't have time to read all the books I WANT to read so I cut my losses and went back to my fluffier ones

[dimejinky99]

You too?? I tried a few times but it was years ago. And with the same result.
It's a challenging read but not in a good way. It's kind of too up its own arse, if that makes sense?

Yep. Funnily enough me and another friend had exactly the same discussion on FB about it a couple of weeks ago. She decided to try and power through to see if she could crack it. I decided that I don't have time to read all the books I WANT to read so I cut my losses and went back to my fluffier ones

No blame to you. It's a wilfully obtuse book.

[dimejinky99]

Sarah, recently I read the whole Wool omnibus by Hugh Howey. It dragged in a few places but it was pretty great if you're interested in dystopian future settings.

Also read The year of the flood by Margaret Atwood. I'm told she has a fine series involving Oryx and Crake but I haven't gotten around to those yet.

[stip]

Are you a fan of other fantasy authors, dime?

Robin Hobb is the most wonderful writer. Her Farseer trilogy and the two ensuing trilogies are probably my favourite fantasy books. She not only writes beautifully but is addictive and she sure knows how to get lots of strands going and tie them all up brilliantly.

I want to like the game of thrones books but man, Martin needs an editor in a big way. Just too much going on and I'm not sure he even knows where it's all going.

Neil Gaiman is amazing. Neverwhere, Stardust and the new one, Ocean at the end of the lane are all incredible, but I think he's aiming for the masses and popularity with the new one. It's almost a little safe for him.

And of course Terry Prachett. I'm currently reading Good Omens, and its a great story and hilariously funny.

I enjoyed Feist when I was younger but he lost me along the way.

Those are mine.

You?

Terry Pratchett is my favorite writer of all time (and I'm an American so I only get half the jokes anyway). Other favorites are Stephen Erikson (The Malazan Book of the Fallen--which is one of the few things I've ever read that dwarfs tolkien in scope), George R Martin (but the quality of that series is slowing down), Patrick Rothfuss (the Name of the Wind may very well be the greatest fantasy series of all time when it's over), R Scott Baaker, Scott Lynch, Joe Abercrombie...

These are all people who can WRITE. Intricate plots, moral complexity, real characterization, dialogue that can make you laugh, cry, think. Tolkien built a marvelous world, and outlined a simplistic but incredibly epic story within it, and then really failed to tell it well. Reading Tolkien is like reading a history text. I think Jackson's interpretation is the far superior story

[Sarah.]

I'm excited for the new Pratchett book. Although every time I finish one I have a little cry in case it's the last one he writes

[dimejinky99]

That's an interesting way of looking at it. It is odd that in such a vast tome, there's almost no depth to any of the characters. Aragorn, Galadriel and to a degree Gandalf have depth, but he sort of makes the assumption that because he knows all their backstory and history, you do too. I've read most of the appendices and history of middle earth books, and they do add so much to the whole, but you're right, it's a shame that material couldn't have been worked into the books.
Rather that than entire pages describing a valley down to what the petals look like on the flowers.

[dimejinky99]

Also while I think Jackson had to make some changes and try streamline LOTR, he's gotten a bit drunk with power and lost the run of himself with these films.
But we'll see in December. I have a feeling this new one is going to be epic in all the right ways. As Stip said, there's really not much to work with in the first film, so PJ made a mistake and followed the FOTR template with the company being hunted.

It's all about the dragon for me at this point. And to a lesser extent Beorn.