dimejinky99 wrote:I dunno how much you know about the business side of this McP but here's what I know
-Warners/MGM were both about to go under buy owning the rights to the hobbit since the 40s/50s decided that after the success of LOTR, this was their cash cow lifeboat
-costs have been cut in as far as possible. Hence all the cgi rather than full scale sets and extras (they didn't even make any if the bigatures which were the stars of the show in LOTR)
-most of that clipped cash is going into promotion for the releases
-PJ was very sternly supervised with regards how the story was food and what would feature, again, to get as many seats filled as possible.
Oh, Lord. I didn't know any of that.
You know, there were matte painting moments in the sequence where Frodo, Sam, and the Tweedle Dees are headed to Bree that were genuinely gorgeous. Sequenced with the big wide shots perfectly.
I've had a really hard time letting go of that over the years. Goddamn matte paintings.
Its no where near Phantom Menace terrible. Thats an absurd comparison. Phantom Menace is a broken piece of filmmaking on every level. If you can't behind a guy in a rabbit sleigh (the stupid driving around in circles notwithstanding), you're probably in the wrong movie.
I dont really care that much for the book, so I had low expectations for the Hobbit, but I was pleasantly surprised. The Goblin town climax was terrible, and none of it besides the outstanding Gollum scenes really moved me, but it was an entertaining and heartfelt little movie. I thought it was absolutely beautiful. The CG doesn't bother me in the slightest, though it did look more fantasy than the LOTR movies. Weta is incredible and are light years ahead of everyone else.
stip wrote:I remember about 30 minutes into seeing Fellowship for the first time my eyes teared up a little bit with joy, relief, and awe--with the realization that 'holy shit, they're going to pull it off'.
I had no opinion going in to that one. I'd read the books twice and never come away giving a fart (in fact, I remembered very little), and I had no intentions of seeing the Fellowship until friends started ranting about it to me. I can vividly remember sitting in the theater and seeing the opening sequence of that movie for the first time. I can't say stuff like that about very many movies.
Certainly nothing in the hobbit made me feel that way--but there are still moments that were great (unlike the star wars prequels, which lacked those entirely for three films). So here's hoping that those moments come to the fore.
The whole scene where Jar Jar rides his rabbit sleigh in a purposeless circle around the heroes, who never quite figure out what to do about that incredibly vexing scenario, and then it turns out they were like fifteen feet from the Elven city the whole time and all they had to do was crawl in this cave which turns out not to be a cave but sort of a cliff face but you couldn't see that from above so that's kind of weird.
That was pretty much Phantom Menace level for me.
There are a few secret entrances to rivendell known only to those who need to know.
That's stated a few times in the canon.
BurtReynolds wrote:If you can't behind a guy in a rabbit sleigh (the stupid driving around in circles notwithstanding), you're probably in the wrong movie.
Yes. That's exactly what I said there. Everything was fine but the rabbit sleigh, and the rabbit sleigh all by its powerful self made the entire scene Phantom Menace-bad.
Amazing, the heady sway the rabbit has on this world, really.
Actually I thought you said the movie was Phantom Menace bad, not just the scene. oops. Otherwise, you did seem to have a problem with the dude riding a rabbit sleigh, and I agreed the direction he took was pretty dumb).
But while we're on teh subject of animals: Fuck those goddamn eagles. The LOTR movies take a lot of shit for them, but I've argued that it kind of made sense not to use them to just fly to Mordor, but here they are inexcusable. Just weak writing.
The eagles were depicted in the books and canon as part of the world but separate also.
They were unwilling to take part in the wars of the ants below them and saw themselves as actually ruling all the surveyed, though without the need to enforce that.
Tolkien wrote them in as that and could never understand people asking 'why not just use the eagles to get to mount doom and the lonely mountain.?
It'd be a short shitty book were that to happen.
Then why write them in at all?
I don't believe he was ever asked that or answered it.
There's a pretty fascinating book, 'the letters of JRR Tolkien'
Which has years of correspondence between Tolkien, fans, friends and others.
It's basically him outlining motivations and reasons and histories and language but obviously in a much more digestible form, given that most of it is just replying to intelligent 'fan mail'.
BurtReynolds wrote:Otherwise, you did seem to have a problem with the dude riding a rabbit sleigh, and I agreed the direction he took was pretty dumb).
It was more about the way they presented the rabbit sleigh, yeah. Or Jar Jar in general. The sleigh sort of had the same touch applied to it that led them to go "okay, he lives in the woods with animals...how much poop can we put in the vicinity of his face before it becomes TOO camp?"
But while we're on teh subject of animals: Fuck those goddamn eagles. The LOTR movies take a lot of shit for them, but I've argued that it kind of made sense not to use them to just fly to Mordor, but here they are inexcusable. Just weak writing.
As much as I understand the desire to create a focus villain that could appear in the first movie (and would have welcomed a good one), Azog and everything to do with or that has resulted from him has been tragically stupid. What a tired, silly stereotype of a villain he is written to be. The whole sequence where he is talking with his minions in the moonlight, delivering every line Cobra Commander ever dreamed to say and killing his own follower to establish how sinister he is just because the scriptwriter probably did most of his writing during his night classes, really established a sickening amount of who cares for me.
dimejinky99 wrote:The eagles were depicted in the books and canon as part of the world but separate also.
They were unwilling to take part in the wars of the ants below them and saw themselves as actually ruling all the surveyed, though without the need to enforce that.
Tolkien wrote them in as that and could never understand people asking 'why not just use the eagles to get to mount doom and the lonely mountain.?
It'd be a short shitty book were that to happen.
Then why write them in at all?
I don't believe he was ever asked that or answered it.
I figured it was something like that. Plus, even though they seem to handle the Fell Beasts easily enough, it might be a lot tougher trying to fight them with a hobbit not falling off. I also maybe figured Sauron could eyefuck them to death or something if they got to close. I'm speaking as someone who went into the movies without knowing the books. The movies should assume that.
In The Hobbit movie, they are just used to get the heroes out of trouble again. lame. Except this time there is no real reason they wouldn't bother flying them to their destination. There is no explanation for why they are nice enough to help out a little, but too douchebag to do a tiny bit more.
BurtReynolds wrote:Otherwise, you did seem to have a problem with the dude riding a rabbit sleigh, and I agreed the direction he took was pretty dumb).
It was more about the way they presented the rabbit sleigh, yeah. Or Jar Jar in general. The sleigh sort of had the same touch applied to it that led them to go "okay, he lives in the woods with animals...how much poop can we put in the vicinity of his face before it becomes TOO camp?"
I just don't see why they felt the need to push him so hard in the direction of lowbrow humor. He can be a lighter or more playful character without being such a shining beacon of cheeseball jokery.
It's almost like they were trying to offset some other factor that they worried might weigh down the tone of the film, but I can't say what that might have b-
stip wrote:I remember about 30 minutes into seeing Fellowship for the first time my eyes teared up a little bit with joy, relief, and awe--with the realization that 'holy shit, they're going to pull it off'.
I had no opinion going in to that one. I'd read the books twice and never come away giving a fart (in fact, I remembered very little), and I had no intentions of seeing the Fellowship until friends started ranting about it to me. I can vividly remember sitting in the theater and seeing the opening sequence of that movie for the first time. I can't say stuff like that about very many movies.
Certainly nothing in the hobbit made me feel that way--but there are still moments that were great (unlike the star wars prequels, which lacked those entirely for three films). So here's hoping that those moments come to the fore.
The whole scene where Jar Jar rides his rabbit sleigh in a purposeless circle around the heroes, who never quite figure out what to do about that incredibly vexing scenario, and then it turns out they were like fifteen feet from the Elven city the whole time and all they had to do was crawl in this cave which turns out not to be a cave but sort of a cliff face but you couldn't see that from above so that's kind of weird.
That was pretty much Phantom Menace level for me.
totally. But I thought the scene in the flaming trees was nicely done, the golumn exchange was excellent, and bilbo in general was quite strong. So if they build off that, and less the other stuff, we'll be okay
Martin Freeman's great. I like him in pretty much everything. Early in this movie, Gandalf mentions an adventure and Bilbo suggests he try some other town down the way (I forget which. Bree?). Martin's delivery of that line is so perfect, so exactly small town scorn and done in such an endearing way, that I momentarily thought everything was going to turn out alright afte-
BurtReynolds wrote:
In The Hobbit movie, they are just used to get the heroes out of trouble again. lame. Except this time there is no real reason they wouldn't bother flying them to their destination. There is no explanation for why they are nice enough to help out a little, but too douchebag to do a tiny bit more.
But thats the point. We'll give you a hand. Were not taking you there. We so not want a furnace with wings coming after us and burning us and our homes. This is also the Elves reason for not helping(though that is a plot device in the films, and no mention of it ever took place in the books IIRC.
Take the eagles all the way and you miss out on Beorn and Gandalf 'leaving on important business to the south' (to investigate Dol Goldur-this does happen in the books)
Freeman and McKellan, but especially Freeman, could probably carry these off single handedly if he was allowed shine a bit and didn't have Thorin overbearing and doubting him. (Again Armitage overplaying it). We see him say he's sorry he ever doubted him at the end of the first film and in the new trailer, calling him a mere burglar. Shitting in him again.
All a bit much and I don't think it happens anywhere near that scales in the canon.
Tolkien wrote a whole story about Gandalf who does visit Thorin and the Dwarves and with his usual honeyed manipulation, encourages them to go to reclaim their kingdom (this serves his own end as he suspects Sauron is rising again and sees Smaug as potentially a huge weapon at Saurons disposal.) so he ' suggests' and encourages they try take back their kingdom but insists they take someone with them, a burglar he knows. 'Smaug knows the smell of Dwarves elves and men, but he has never encountered hobbits'
This was meant to be in the book I think at least initially but never made it and is now to be found in one if the history of middle earth books.
Where all the really good stuff is sadly.
Including Frodos escape and chase from the Shire but told from the Nazguls point of view
BurtReynolds wrote:
In The Hobbit movie, they are just used to get the heroes out of trouble again. lame. Except this time there is no real reason they wouldn't bother flying them to their destination. There is no explanation for why they are nice enough to help out a little, but too douchebag to do a tiny bit more.
But thats the point. We'll give you a hand. Were not taking you there. We so not want a furnace with wings coming after us and burning us and our homes. This is also the Elves reason for not helping(though that is a plot device in the films, and no mention of it ever took place in the books IIRC.
Take the eagles all the way and you miss out on Beorn and Gandalf 'leaving on important business to the south' (to investigate Dol Goldur-this does happen in the books)
Fear of being dragon food is valid I guess, though I never get the idea they are worried about it in the movies. But anyway they've gone to the "bailed out by eagles" plot device way too many times.
Simply saying "the story would be a lot shorter" isn't going to cut it. There are a million ways to write the heroes out of trouble without adding gigantic plot holes or recycled plot devices. If you need the characters to walk to tell the story you want, don't introduce a way they could easily avoid it and then have them inexplicably not take it.
BurtReynolds wrote:
In The Hobbit movie, they are just used to get the heroes out of trouble again. lame. Except this time there is no real reason they wouldn't bother flying them to their destination. There is no explanation for why they are nice enough to help out a little, but too douchebag to do a tiny bit more.
But thats the point. We'll give you a hand. Were not taking you there. We so not want a furnace with wings coming after us and burning us and our homes. This is also the Elves reason for not helping(though that is a plot device in the films, and no mention of it ever took place in the books IIRC.
Take the eagles all the way and you miss out on Beorn and Gandalf 'leaving on important business to the south' (to investigate Dol Goldur-this does happen in the books)
Fear of being dragon food is valid I guess, though I never get the idea they are worried about it in the movies. But anyway they've gone to the "bailed out by eagles" plot device way too many times.
Simply saying "the story would be a lot shorter" isn't going to cut it. There are a million ways to write the heroes out of trouble without adding gigantic plot holes or recycled plot devices that render. If you need the characters to walk to tell the story you want, don't introduce a way they could easily avoid it and then have them inexplicably not take it.
Have you read the books? It's a much more palletable strain of the story, in the books.
BurtReynolds wrote:
In The Hobbit movie, they are just used to get the heroes out of trouble again. lame. Except this time there is no real reason they wouldn't bother flying them to their destination. There is no explanation for why they are nice enough to help out a little, but too douchebag to do a tiny bit more.
But thats the point. We'll give you a hand. Were not taking you there. We so not want a furnace with wings coming after us and burning us and our homes. This is also the Elves reason for not helping(though that is a plot device in the films, and no mention of it ever took place in the books IIRC.
Take the eagles all the way and you miss out on Beorn and Gandalf 'leaving on important business to the south' (to investigate Dol Goldur-this does happen in the books)
Fear of being dragon food is valid I guess, though I never get the idea they are worried about it in the movies. But anyway they've gone to the "bailed out by eagles" plot device way too many times.
Simply saying "the story would be a lot shorter" isn't going to cut it. There are a million ways to write the heroes out of trouble without adding gigantic plot holes or recycled plot devices. If you need the characters to walk to tell the story you want, don't introduce a way they could easily avoid it and then have them inexplicably not take it.
Have you read the books? It's a much more palletable strain of the story, in the books.
I've only read a little. I'm sure it makes more sense in the books. I'm just talking about the movies, though. Even a simple line of dialog would make it go down easier. Still... three times now?
