Red Mosquito

bada wrote:

stip wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:Ah that's great. Delighted you liked it Stip. I'm gonna go see it in 2D tomorrow, early in the day in my own. Get into it as much as possible.
The entire Laketown sequence will always suck the life out of the film though.


The Silmarillion is really a wonderful creation myth though.
And once you get it into your head that the endless elves names aren't really super important to remember, you'll fly through it.
The chapters dealing with the undying lands, the Avari, Gondolin, and Beren and luthien(and Morgoth) are really great.

If you want a tale from that time which is really expanded and complete in all senses, you should buy the Children of Hurin.
Immensely enjoyable and Tolkien at his best.

I like the mythology (and I've read it two or three times over the years. Maybe just twice). It's just a tough slog.

Stip I'm curious. I've seen you mention several times that you don't think Tolkien is a good writer. What makes you keep coming back to his books?

I like his mythology and I like LOTR as history. I'm a huge fantasy reader, and even though my favorite writers (Stephen Erikson, R Scott Baaker, Scott Lynch, Patrick Rothfuss) have moved past these tropes and can write circles around him (and manage to plot huge epic stories without the motivation for evil characters being that they are just evil), Tolkien was still first and I have a certain degree of respect for that. Plus D+D style fantasy, which I was once hugely into, is utterly in his debt.

McParadigm wrote:

dimejinky99 wrote:I think Lord of the rings was possibly the last great cinematic epic of our time.
These films are just a fun kids book turned into fun adventure films, and that's fine.

Is what I hope to be saying this time tomorrow after my second time seeing it.

I really think this was a step up from the last one. Sections of it were incredible, and I don't think I'd say that about anything in Unexpected Journey.

I just don't get why we packed insignificant and uninspired elf and human subplots in, failed to provide an ending that offered at least a contained resolution (see: Fellowship and Two Towers, Empire Strikes Back), and followed up a claustrophobic and powerful dragon scene with Bilbo with scene after scene of said dragon behaving like a complete halfwit during his confrontations with the dwarves. I also don't see how the next movie could successfully incorporate Bilbo in to any sizable degree, and I can't stress enough that he is 95% of what makes this movie good.

I think part of the idea behind dragons is that, for all their intelligence, they are vain, prone to anger, burn hot, can act irrationally if they are sufficiently provoked. I think the films covered that well--Smaug as an indestructible engine but one that can be goaded into making a mistake. that the dwarves grand strategy didn't work and then set him on laketown was good storytelling (that probably needed the time in Laketown to work).

And he's made of iron, but even iron can be melted down with a hot enough forge, and I'm prepared to believe that the mythic forges in the greatest of dwarven cities could create something hot enough to hurt Smaug. The fact that it didn't work makes him all the more terrible since there's now almost nothing other than the one shot with the arrow that can hurt him.

Like I said, it's a bunch of dwarves fighting a fire breathing dragon. If the logic of that universe tells us that Smaug can be burned by fire hot enough I'm prepared to accept that.

Congrats stip, reading that post just made my hymen grow back.

it's magic!

McParadigm wrote:So is trying to kill a fire breathing dragon with molten gold the stupidest idea in the world, or just close to it?

Who knew it could withstand high levels of heat? Garsh.

It's like they've never even seen Game of Thrones.

cutuphalfdead wrote:

McParadigm wrote:So is trying to kill a fire breathing dragon with molten gold the stupidest idea in the world, or just close to it?

Who knew it could withstand high levels of heat? Garsh.

It's like they've never even seen Game of Thrones.

What is thranduils face melting about does anyone know?

Ok. I've watched this again and left my fanboi head at home.

There are so many bad decisions in this film, they are almost beyond count.

I'm sitting over a Guinness. I'll gather my thoughts and come at it later.

Whatever. I loved it. It was stunning to me how much of it (probably things that critics of it have dismissed as being "silly") reflected things I've gone through both with myself and with my immediate family. But if not "getting it" means you've never dealt with any of this stuff, then I'm genuinely happy for you. For what it's worth, everyone I know who's dealt with the kind of issues addressed in the movie loved it as well.

We've all dealt with dwarf infestations, McP.

I've come to the heart of it. There's nobody likeable in this film. Not even bilbo.
You're at least supposed to have someone you can identify with that leads you through and you cheer them on. You don't get that here.
Thorin is too angry and paranoid. The other bumbling dwarves too stupid, except maybe Balin. They only seem to be good at getting caught, they're meant to be fierce warriors with a sense of honour tainted with an eye for coin. It's Laurel&Hardy times 6.

Gandalf is usually a touchstone, but here, he's almost devious and Machiavellian in his doings. He does at least put himself in danger and it doesn't work but that whole scene is cheapened by the fact that he very clearly states in LOTR that he has never been tested against the enemy but perhaps his time is coming and even that may happen.

The CGI looks AWFUL. The action is especially cheap. Cheerless. I wonder is it the higher frame rate exposing the effort?
The sets also look like bad TV sets from Star Trek. Not always but most of the time.

The elves. Utterly unlikeable. Despite it being explained they have different motivations, I still think PJ has made them out to be thus, in order for people to like Tauriel.

And then the editing. Worst offender? Bilbo being chased by Smaug, cut to a sick dwarf in laketown and another dwarf running around looking for a weed.


There's so much wrong with this film it breaks my heart but the storyline and its editing are chief among them.

I'm heartbroken.




Oh and the ending!?!?!

Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.

Looks like the curse of the "great trilogy spoiled by a shitty prequel" syndrome.

Oh and the score.

LOTR, each film had themes that spanned the epic to the heartbreaking but always memorable.

The music in this film was only noticeable because it was usually bad and annoying.

Such a shame. AUJ had a great score. I don't understand why this doesn't.

I vehemently disagree about Bilbo. I think he's the most likable character in any of the movies so far, original trilogy included. But he's kept out of the very large sections, so I will agree that there are lengthy areas of film where there's not really any character worth rooting for or worrying over. The old man is the only dwarf I wouldn't applaud watching die, and he's really built up in this movie in a way that suggests to me that they realize that the dwarves as a whole were pretty emotionless constructs in the first movie. Except Thorin, who is a little girl.

I thought that once he left the group Gandolf basically became just a plot point. Also the close-ups of his face and the drawnout nature of his "magic" battle with the shadow made me laugh.

Yeah the way it ends feels like they forgot to include the last five minutes.

Yeah I'm on team Bilbo here.

He was likeable in the first film. But he's the hero in this one, scraping them out of various difficult spots.

And then we have Thorin threatening him about the arkenstone?

He performs admirably but there's not enough of Bilbo and the effect of the ring is vastly overplayed and so early I can't even begin to describe it. It doesn't ever take that much hold on him. Ever. Not at any time in the whole history.

Maybe they just wanted to show that the ring is having an effect, but he's only had it about a week at this stage in the story. Hardly gobsmacking oh no what have I become territory.

I really liked that magic battle. And Bilbo is very likeable. Easily the best character in either trilogy. And Gandalf was always a schemer. He just feels bad about it sometimes.

Don't be discouraged Sarge. It was really good.

And the CGI was great. The elves are unlikeable, but then again, they're also dicks. The fact is that most people in these films are acting for selfish motives, which is what makes Bilbo so important.


I liked the laketown stuff, but if you didn't the editing complaint is certainly fair.



As a caveat, I saw this in an ultra modern 3d super sound system imax style screen. So every bell and whistle was there.

I've been telling everyone who might care how much I enjoyed this all day

I really enjoyed this and thought it was over too soon. That being said a few parts dragged, namely the barrels. I didn't get the feeling that the Laketown parts dragged like others have said, but the needless cutting away from Bilbo to show Kili reeling and Bofur searching for pig shit only served to cut away from the most interesting/tense part of the film.

I loved the fact that the film threw in a few moments that were so ridiculous it was funny: Bombur's barrel being vaulted onto land and him taking out all sorts of orcs with barrel armor, Legolas commenting that Gloin's son (Gimli) was ugly, Legolas kicking the orc from the balcony, catapulting the orc in the boat up to him and then slicing his head off. All of these got a big laugh from me, even though I doubt that last one intended it to be that way.

The forced love story between Tauriel and Kili was so saccharin and unbelievable.

Smaug has so many chances to kill every member of the party that it started getting annoying.

One of the biggest problems that I have with some of the scenes meant to be tense is that we know for a fact that Bilbo, Gandalf, Legolas, Balin (if you remember, Gimli thought they could pass through Moria because of Balin being there) all survive because they play a part in Lord of the Rings. It just distracts away from any impending danger.

this was terrible
just meaningless action.
actually thought the barrel scene was the best part, around there I was kinda enjoying it