Red Mosquito

Finally saw this tonight, and it was... painful!

I went in with no expectations of a great story, justice paid to the book, or a groundbreaking idea. I was just there for the ride... the wrap-up of Peter Jackson's baby, which has kept me entertained for the better part of the last decade +...

It was a joke. A parody of itself. Some parts (*many) left me feeling like I was watching The Hobbit - Men In Tights, or The Naked Gun: The LOTR Prequel. Especially the Legolas scenes. Whether it be riding a horse, shooting an arrow, or running awkwardly UPHILL on falling debris in the sky... the Legolas scenes were so BAD... Bad acting, bad CGI, and bad ideas! I thought the battle scene btwn Thorin and that big badass Orc was also stupid, and extremely predictable. Floating beneath the ice like that was ridiculous, and the scenes just seemed hastily thrown together with not much attention to detail, as opposed to the LOTR trilogy, especially the first two. Squeezing three long movies out of this one book made for some horrendous vamping throughout the trilogy. Unlike LOTR, where they couldn't fit enough of the story into the three movies, the Hobbit trilogy left us with very little plot in the end, cheesy interactions between most of the characters, and lame attempts at humor. levity, or whatever the fuck!

I was, however, happy near the end when Gandalf and Bilbo shared a moment... when the Gray wizard was cleaning his pipe. It was lighthearted after a fierce time together, and left me with a sort of understanding that he knows the Hobbit found the ring, but we shouldn't discuss it. Later, as Bilbo returned to the Shire, my heart got all warm and fuzzy again, and I thought it segued nicely enough that it made me want to go watch The Fellowship...

I doubt very seriously that I'll ever watch any of this Hobbit trilogy ever again, but I'll always have the book if I ever want to return to the Lonely Mountain...



...and Good God, what a hottie!

It's a mostly joyless experience.
Don't even know where to begin on Gandalf knowing bilbo found the ring.

dimejinky99 wrote:It's a mostly joyless experience.
Don't even know where to begin on Gandalf knowing bilbo found the ring.

did they really retcon that? They even show Gandalf in Fellowship researching the ring after Bilbo leaves the Shire...

He knows bilbo found A ring. Not THE ring

What did you guys think of the scene where Bofur and Bifur fuck those kittens and then feed them to Bombur? It was a bit too 'Meet the Feebles' for me but at least it gave the dwarves something to do.

I'm remembering FOTR now and Gandalf 'there are many magic rings in this world bilbo baggins and none of them should be used lightly' after bilbo disappearin at his birthday party.
So I guess it's a match up.

I really wish I could find 9 hours to watch lotr

stip wrote:What did you guys think of the scene where Bofur and Bifur fuck those kittens and then feed them to Bombur? It was a bit too 'Meet the Feebles' for me but at least it gave the dwarves something to do.

stip wrote:What did you guys think of the scene where Bofur and Bifur fuck those kittens and then feed them to Bombur? It was a bit too 'Meet the Feebles' for me but at least it gave the dwarves something to do.

Maybe if they'd done something memorable, I'd know who these characters are.

Bombur's the fat one, right?

Yeah, there are way too many Dwarves. They should have had a bunch of them get food poisoning during that dinner scene in Bilbo's house.

stip wrote:I really wish I could find 9 hours to watch lotr

12 hours if you watch the extended editions

That's one of the places where I think the source material was working against Jackson, and that a shorter version of the films would have made this worse. It's not that there are too many characters (there are more in LOTR), but they're all basically dwarves, they are all introduced at the same time (every character gets their own solo reveal in LOTR), and they're most superfluous to the story, which means Jackson has to invent shit for them to do.

dimejinky99 wrote:

stip wrote:I really wish I could find 9 hours to watch lotr

12 hours if you watch the extended editions

you're not helping

I'm pretty sure LOTR, as a piece, is my favorite film of all time. My favorite trilogy to be sure.

you should read that article i posted a few days back....nails it.

Which one? I probably did, but before I saw the film

stip wrote:Which one? I probably did, but before I saw the film

dont think you did..you said you would once youd seen it..

here tis
http://popwatch.ew.com/2014/12/17/hobbi ... es-thorin/

It's a good read. I agree that when you think about the battle it falls apart, but it was fun to get swept along in. It may not hold up to repeat viewings. But I never thought the build up lagged, and I really liked the dol goldor sequence and the way he handled magic.

I agree the thorin/azog showdown was wonderful. Highlight of the film, as it should have been. And Hilary was crying her eye out when thorin died.


The iPhone autocorrect is murder on these names

Her only critique was the legolas cgi

We were just talking about the trilogy. Her take is she loves the world and loved almost everything that expanded it and gave you an excuse to linger