THE HOBBIT MOVIE

MMP Mithril in Middle-Earth The Prancing Pony THE HOBBIT MOVIE

Viewing 20 posts - 821 through 840 (of 850 total)
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  • #31868
    Gavin
    Participant

      Well, my little filmmakers heart was very sad about it all.

      I bet I could have made the whole thing, even with most of the “crucial” side elements, into a single 3 1/2 hour film. Of course things would have been cut, but many of them really served no purpose – the Warg sequence in the first film, the stuff with the Nazgul, even much of the White Council bit. The whole bit after Gandalf banishes the Great Goblin could disappear and the Azog confrontation would have been shorter. The battle would have lasted maybe 20 minutes at the end. It would still have cameos, but less padding things out. Alas, this would have meant losing Tauriel or Bards kids.

      The idea of the Tauriel character was great, and probably could have been used instead of Legolas, as a point of identification character amongst the Elves. The actual execution of the character was less good. Saoirse Ronan was rumoured to have been considered for the part. She would have bought some otherworldly quality to the part, and you could do more, with less with such a casting.

      The whole thing needed to be filmed more like the Fellowship of the Ring or even Game of Thrones, with way more focus on the cast, and way less on spectacle. When spectacle was needed – Smaug’s fall, the battle, the Eagles, then use that spectacle. The rest of the time I kept thinking: wow, they are using this lot to justify the CGI and the 3d and the HFR. This idea of movie-as-theme park ride has been gathering some steam for a while.

      I had hoped the thing would be worth it for the costume designs, or the set designs, something that would inspire miniature gaming or scenery making. In the end, it all felt a bit sad, and a bit lost.

      #31890
      Turambar
      Participant

        Sorry for interrupting your Christmas-business.
        Just returned from the sofa- having some exclusive drinks, exclusive snacks, exclusive touching-moments by the missis- watching DOS, what is the second Hobbit movie.
        Excellent. I have to say that. And there was NO “Golden Dwarf” scene inside !!!!!!
        (maybe- why that edition is called “SPECIAL” edition!)
        So I am well prepared for the final part that weekend . . .

        #31891
        Barliman
        Participant

          No golden dwarf? I can’t believe there’s an edition with no golden dwarf. You’re teasing us, aren’t you Master Archer?

          #31892
          erchamion
          Participant

            Tomorrow is December Fool’s Day in this region of Middle Earth …. Perhaps the Master Archer has advanced a bit …….. but I recall that their area is held over the April Fools’ Day …… :)
            In all Spanish versions (extended or not) the golden figure appears …… :/

            #31893
            Gavin
            Participant

              Ah, so the Archer has found one of those fan edits? hmm, I am sort of looking forward to someone making a single fan edit of the entire trilogy – a single three and a half hour epic, rather than 8 hours of drudgery :)

              #31894
              Turambar
              Participant

                That´s seems to be a very good idea, Master Gavin.
                Did I mention, that I also posses the “SPECIAL” edition of part one- without that rabbit-thing inside . . . 😎

                #31896
                Barliman
                Participant

                  Interesting. But without the two mentioned elements such fan-edits must be very disjointed.

                  #31898
                  Thingol
                  Participant

                    Hm…. where is possible to find or see those fan edition movies without rabbits and goden dwarf….

                    #31899
                    Turambar
                    Participant

                      The missis gave me one of her famous extra long kisses . . . I have seen no Golden Dwarf. :rolleyes:
                      So I suppose I must have that “SPECIAL” edition ( ahem, how do I have to write “SPECIAL” that anybody know what is meant . . . ???????!!!!!!! )

                      Master Barliman- how many rat tails were in that last scrumpy you offered to them?

                      #31901
                      Barliman
                      Participant

                        How many were in the drink that made you imagine you’d seen a special edition in the first place?

                        #31903
                        Turambar
                        Participant

                          So- I visited my favourite cinema yesterday. And I have to say, that the movie is extraordinary amazing!
                          And I have to say, there is nothing that breakes my nerves . . .

                          For now I will stop- because there are members who did not see it yet.

                          #31904
                          Turambar
                          Participant

                            I would like to add something. I do have seen this charakter. Very shortly, but I have seen it !!!!!
                            For your memory: it is the first Bolg-design which was abandonned . . .

                            [imgz url=http://mmp.faerylands.eu/uploads/32_140724_bolg-son-of-azog-hobbit2.jpg]http://mmp.faerylands.eu/uploads/thumbs/32_140724_bolg-son-of-azog-hobbit2.jpg[/imgz]

                            #31905
                            ddaines
                            Participant

                              I’ve seen the movie twice now – enjoyed it more the second time round as I wasn’t disappointed when scenes didn’t quite match the book and my hopes.

                              I still think that there is a good film (adaption) waiting for the EV.

                              #31906
                              Gildor
                              MMP Elder

                                well this confirms my opinion it seems… this third movie is far more acceptable and pleasant an adaptation than the second movie was…

                                All in all, indeed this is an adaptation, but the main plots and subthemes were quite true to the original I think (except for small little things like Tauriel indeed…)

                                I personnally enjoyed the Galadriel “show”…. (but can’t say more or I’d spoil) … still, even this part is true to the reports from the appendices and what is said of the attack of Dol Guldur, Galadriel rocks…

                                #31907
                                Mornedhel
                                Participant

                                  My feeling as a Tolkien addict I was left with a totally new story that only extracts the source material as a façade for the Hollywood kind movie looking for the largest as possible public and income.

                                  So I watch the Hobbit trilogy as a Warhammer player instead of a Mithril collector.

                                  #31908
                                  Mornedhel
                                  Participant

                                    I still cannot find out what was the worst in this trilogy, wood elves fighting as 1st age Noldorin warriors, Geographical aberrations, giant worms digging tunnels, love between a dwarf and an elf, radagast and his rabbits, Radagast himself, Beorn role in the battle, the battle itself not at all representative of the book, orc coming back to life as in very bad horror films …
                                    The list is too long

                                    #31909
                                    Mornedhel
                                    Participant

                                      Peter Jackson would have based his movies on the book “The Wobbit”.

                                      #31910
                                      Turambar
                                      Participant

                                        😆 😆 😆 “The Wobbit” 😆 😆 😆
                                        Looks like something inside “Burger King”: I would like to have a Wobbit, please. With double cheese . . .
                                        So you are disappointed in general, Master M.? I can understand that. Though I am not . . . but that´s another story.

                                        #31912
                                        Barliman
                                        Participant

                                          We now serve Wobbit in the Taproom, Master Archer.

                                          #31914
                                          Gavin
                                          Participant

                                            The Galadriel sequence does sort of raise the notion that the War of the Ring was not “the White Council make a last desperate play to banish Sauron once and for all” but rather Galadriel saying “don’t make me come down there and beat the snot out of you, you vile little lickspittle.” :D

                                            I’d also echo what Turambar says: it is a film heavily influenced by 1980s fantasy. Warhammer is itself an outgrowth of Dungeons and Dragons. Dungeons and Dragons started as a weird “piss take” which gleefully stole from any material that wasn’t nailed down. It stole just enough from Middle-earth to create a sort of mainstream concept of fantasy which had little enough to do with Tolkien, but created a cultural archetype of what Tolkien-like fantasy should look like. Ever since: Orcs and Goblins are somehow different, are sometimes green, Elves are pretty Vulcan things that live in woods, Dwarves have Scottish accents. In Tolkien Orcs and Goblins are the same thing, Elves are recovering genocidal demi-gods, and Dwarves are a sort of group of Jewish vikings. The Fellowship of the Ring, as a film, was both highly respectful of the source material and able to look past the “D+D-mainstream” fantasy concepts. It married the storyline to historical war films. In set design and scene construction, it went for something grounded, earthy and even dirty. It had Gladiator and Braveheart in its DNA. When the fantastic occurred, it soared out of the grounded world into the ethereal and did so very effectively. It was like nothing else before or since. It was respectful, controlled, creative.

                                            What was harder to spot, even though its pretty obvious now, is that the films borrowed very heavily from that sort of D+D mainstream set of conceits, in much the same way as Warcraft or Warhammer might. Cultures could not be subtly different. They had to be very, clearly, obviously different. In Return of the King, we see a 7th Century Vendel culture live right alongside an almost Renaissance one. The effect was jarring, but maybe it was a once off. Or perhaps a twice off: note how Saruman’s armies are created as an industrial process. These jarring effects served the source material somewhat, and there was no need to linger. But now, after six films, we can look back and see how everything is created in a very broad strokes fashion, and how it heavily relies on D+D esque visual tropes to draw those broad strokes. Thorin gives Bilbo a mithril mail shirt…while he himself dons armour from high fantasy illustrations. Traditional weapon design in the Fellowship becomes iconic and impractical, a way of visually differentiating the Dwarves in the Hobbit films. Holistically designed Mordor orcs wearing scraps become tyrannical armies of identically armoured villains in the Hobbit. All the tricks D+D/Warhammer/Warcraft et al use to differentiate scenes and cultures are in full force in the films; it seems the Fellowship of the Ring was a glorious exception.

                                            While I can appreciate the sort of pressures that drove these decisions, it does strike me that some opportunity for something greater and more timeless was lost. In twenty years, Fellowship of the Ring will still stand as an example of fantasy film making at its absolute finest; I doubt the Hobbit films will be so loved.

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                                          MMP Mithril in Middle-Earth The Prancing Pony THE HOBBIT MOVIE