The Azog thing became a lot clearer on a second viewing - its obvious that Thorin had convinced himself (consciously at least) that he'd killed Azog because Azog had killed his Grandfather & he had a duty to kill the perpetrator in revenge. The idea that he had failed to do so would have been an unbearable stain on his honour. Hence, he convinces himself that the blow he dealt Azog was fatal. Yet when he says that there's (unless my memory is flaky) a very doubtful look that crosses Balin's face (& Gandalf's) as if to say "Who're you kidding?" I got a strong sense that deep down Thorin doubted Azog's demise himself. Clearly this is a Thorin driven by a sense that he is not worthy of his inherited role & his failure to avenge Thror just adds to that. He feels he should have done that just as much as he feels that he is obliged to take back his Kingdom.

I think the fact that he has now taken Bilbo to his heart & feels him to be as loyal a companion as any of the others will make Bilbo's 'betrayal' of him on the eve of battle all the more painful for him - Thorin will feel he has finally achieved what he was obliged to do, attained to his birthright, only to be humiliated by someone he trusted & believed was loyal to him to the death. I think the end of this film has set up that event perfectly. I actually think that the fact that that confrontation & the final farewell between him & Bilbo has been foreshadowed by the ending of this one will add to the power of it at the end.

We at the Finnish end of things have named the thing Mothrandir. Always there when needed.

I spotted the 'look' too. That's one thing you can rely on, if someone in a Jackson film gives a 'look' then it means something ;)

This idea that seems to be going around that it's your *duty* to watch this film mutiple times, even if you weren't very impressed the first time- well, it seems very odd to me.

I don't think I've ever seen the same movie twice in a theater, but I have gone to see movies I first saw on TV or DVD that were re-released for the large screen, like Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With the Wind, and a few silent movies. You know, movies actually worth watching again.

I'm talking about the idea that you *need* to see a film twice or more during its theatrical run before you can even decide if you liked it or not.

Heh. You've certainly done some very creative reading ;)

Yeah, I watched it a second time too. Wanted to experience HFR (did 2D the original time) since I have my doubts we'll see anyone else doing it anytime soon, but my AUJ virgin companion insisted on regular 2D. Theatre was still full at this point in the run and the movie got an ovation afterwards (which didn't happen on my first viewing on opening day, just overheard some disgruntled comments about dragon-teasing). In all honesty, I think this trilogy may be better received by the casual viewer than LOTR - if the after-movie reactions of the casual crowd and the LOTR fanboys is anything to compare.

I enjoyed it a lot more the second time around. I appreciated the childish nature of many scenes, Bilbo's character arc and thought things were set up well for the trilogy. Bilbo's betrayal of Thorin, Throrin's self delusion and Fili and Kili's deaths will pay off in the end barring some major missteps. Action scenes remain the only thing I would cut down on.

My only apprehension is the third movie and a potential two hour Battle of Five Armies.

Curate's Egg
 

Hmm, Hoooom, indeed,

well at last I've seen it, and do you know, I quite enjoyed it overall.

Reading the present thread I find myself nodding along with or wincing painfully at many of the same points people have raised above.

But after all "He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom", or so some chap said once, so am not going to detail every niggle.

One thing I find very difficult is to try and imagine the film from the point of view of someone who doesn't know the book. I think this is all but impossible, The Hobbit has been with me for a very long time, as it has with most of you here. Perhaps this may explain some of the odder decisions, perhaps not.

My major frustrations with all the PJ films is that they have been astonishingly good at portraying the scenery, very good at finding the right actors to play the characters, and where they have stuck to the Book scenes and dialogue, have been wonderful. The divergent plots are generally the weakest in my view.

Certainly there was a choice to be made - go for the 'fairy' vibe with full on Tra-la-la-lallying or choose the 'Quest of Erebor' route. In my mind from a LoTR perspective this means choosing the real story rather than Frodo's bedtime tale. It had to be this way really.

People have commented that Thorin seems to have been more prominent than Bilbo. I wonder if that might have been the way to go all along? The Saga of Thorin.

I watched it some weeks ago and has since downloaded it because there is no way I'm buying that on dvd. I watched it once in the cinema and once at home, the only scene I have watched several times is the Gollum scene which is both hilarious and frightening at the same time. My two favorite scenes in the movie or let's make that three are.

-Gollum
-Gandalf/Galadriel chat on Bilbo
-Gandalf surrounded by happy dwarves and an upset hobbit at bag end

Everything is grey to me, it's just not interesting to watch. One can sum up this movie with few words:

CGI fest, New Zealand vacation commerical and RUN you fools! RUN! RUN! RUN! All they do is run with that theme playing in the background for almost 3 hours...a very bad movie, at least the fellowship of the ring didn't look plastic or fake like the hobbit does.

I don't think so- I've noticed quite a few people saying things like that, and I'm just saying, it seems odd to me. Maybe some people find movies tend to grow on them with repeated viewing, or something. But I realise my earlier post sounds rather accusing, which wasn't my intention.

I dislike how the Wargs never get to kill anyone in these movies. They could surely have sacrificed a few of those Rivendell elves, no?

Not on here. I don't think anyone here would claim it was your duty to see the film multiple times - either see it or not! The only duty anyone has is paying their taxes ;)

I enjoyed it more the second time which is highly unusual, as the law of diminishing returns generally applies to films and TV. But I put it down to the absolute assault of stuff that seeing it for the first time involved. Plus those stupid 3D glasses. I now look at this icon ----> :cool: differently...

TH:AUJ is shut out of the big Oscar nominations, getting nominations only for Makeup and Hair Design, Production Design, and Visual Effects. Nothing for direction, music, acting, best film. 2013 Oscar Nominations

Oh yes and while Gollum is very well made, the alien in prometheus is also very well done. While some of the special effects in the hobbit looks fake...would be nice to see it get no oscars, then maybe jackson would step up his game for the next movies.

I will be seeing it again in regular 3D. That will make it 5 viewings. I concidered travelling to see it in IMAX again, but the combination of 3 hours in the car and 3 hours in the theater leaves my back sore.
As I have mentioned, I like the movie. I like the movie going experience, and that is part of the urgency to see it so many times. In a few short weeks, the only other choice for seeing it will be at home. Irregardless of how good a home theater one can have - dogs bark, cats want on laps, phone rings, etc. Because I will wait to buy the extended edition I may not see this again for almost a year, and right now that just seems too long.

I saw this movie once, and thought that I already had seen the extended edition. In light of this, the lack of an Oscar nomination for Film Editing seems perfectly rational to me.

I agree wholeheartedly! :D I would like to see a shorter version, not extended!

As to the music: there's no reason it should be nominated for an Oscar - most of it is warmed-up leftovers from LotR, and already won an Oscar there. :rolleyes:

I think that when all the three movies have been released they should sell a box set with all of them plus a one-film version with only the essential bits, Azogs and prolonged fight scenes and rabbit-sledgings cut out. That might become a pretty good one :P

Fortunately, as we concluded after seeing the film for the second time, the unnecessary parts will be easier to skip than in the LOTR films where they were more closely intertwined with the plot.

Having finally seen PJ's Erebor movie (Part I) my view is that if you haven't read
TH and liked his previous Middle Earth movies you'd like it overall, otherwise not
so much.

While aspects of scenary, casting, etc. are still well done the overall impression is
of a dark "adult" cartoonish feel (sort of like a "graphic novel" as opposed to a comic book. Battle scenes are too large and long, characters like the dwarves are too
non-dwarvish (unlike, physically, Gimli in the LotR movies), and individual scenes and persons are exaggerated. examples are showing in detail the stone giants tossing mountain bits, the trees in the concluding scene of the movie (leaning over the edge of a precipice--The Hell?), the absurd, and repetitive, scene in the Goblin underground city. This is a pointless repetition of Moria and even more absurd. A long serious of jerry rigged wood walks which wouldn't even hold up in an Indiana Jones escape. And at the end they fall waaaay down , say ouch, and jump right up, less believable then a Hollywood car chase where the car keeps on going no matter what. And the Goblin King goes from Tolkien's basically obese orc to a cartoonish figure of absurd size.

The point is not that it's a bad fantasy movie, but is a fail as an adaptation of The Hobbit. After leaving Bagend it has none of the charm of TH. As others have commented, PJ isn't bad when he adheres to Tolkien's work and words but 9 out of 10 times fails when trying to add/improve (whatever) his "vision". Oh, and Thorin has to have a mano-a-mano (okay a dwarf-a-orko) confrontation?

And what the heck is that about a tunnel leading to Rivendell?

Oh dear. Rarely have I been more disappointed by a film. It looks odd, even at 24 fps, and it's way too long. How PJ can justify spinning The Hobbit out to three films (apart from for monetary reasons) is beyond me.

One of the things that most annoys me about Jackson's Tolkien adaptations is the way he and the other writers feel the need to re-write so much of the original dialogue. So much so, in fact, that when they do use Tolkien's words, they stick out as being unlike those which surrounds them. I mean, who ever thought that they would hear a dwarf say that he was 'up for it' or that he would kick someone 'up the jacksie'?

One of the ways in which Tolkien establishes that the events in Middle Earth take place in a time very different from our own is in his use of quite archaic-sounding speech-patterns. How, then, do you expect an audience to suspend their disbelief when Gandalf talks about golf? Seriously? Unbelievably crass.

I very much doubt that I shall be going to see the second and third episodes.

Though it's not Gandalf who says it, Bullroarer Took inventing golf is IN the Hobbit.

That is the case in The Lord of the Rings, but not so much in The Hobbit.
For example, in LotR, only Hobbits and Bree folk use casual speech with contractions; ancient and cultivated races and people like Elves, Dwarves, Gondorians and Gandalf never do!

But in The Hobbit, everyone, from Gandalf to Elves uses contractions! And the language is much more casual, especially in the beginning. ( you surely remember the silly songs of the Rivendell elves!) However, towards the end the direct speech of Dwarves and Elves get much more archaic and "noble", in contrast to Bilbo's speech.

Btw, the incident about the invention of golf is in the first chapter, it is told by the narrator:So in the book, there is lighthearted, comical stuff too, but it's mostly in the beginning, and as the story progresses it gets more serious.

In the movie, some things appeared to me too serious, right from the beginning (Thorin's & Azog and the whole vendetta) alternating with stuff that was just too comical (Radagast and his rabbit sledge) and all those chases were just not believable. Jackson's sense of humour is not the same as Professor Tolkien's .

OK, I stand corrected on the golf thing (in my defence, I'm much more familiar with LOTR and it is some time since I read The Hobbit). Another example of what I meant would be in the FotR film, where after the Coucil of Elrond, the company are leaving Rivendell and Frodo asks Gandalf if Moria is left or right. I just found it so irritating that, having gone to the effort of establishing the importance of the quest and building an atmosphere, it's then brought crashing down by such a daft piece of dialogue. If the director wants his audience to take it seriously, then he has to take it seriously too.

Perhaps the problem is that, coming after the LOTR films, The Hobbit will feel anticlimactic if it isn't done on an equally epic scale. But, of course, The Hobbit is a much slighter story, and the whole thing feels like butter scraped over too much bread.

I realise it's easy to have a knee-jerk reaction and say you don't like something merely because it doesn't tie in with your own mental picture, but I found the whole thing immensely cross-making.

Yeah: what Phillip Said
 

I could write a lengthy review or simply post this link -- the best review I've read of the film (written, incidentally, by one of the best writers of YA fantasy).

http://philipreeve.blogspot.co.uk/20...enjoyable.html

This weekend, the tribe voted and so we went to see this first installment of the Hobbit.

• My little one was expecting more dwarven flatulence, and so was disappointed.
• As the previews went on for seemingly 5 hours, the long run time of the movie bored her.
• The other three (all <14 years old) enjoyed the movie.
• They liked how Gandalf cracked the stone.
• Mom liked it as well, though had a thousand questions after the movie, to many I replied, "It wasn't in the Book."
• She also wanted to know why, after almost 3 hours, we hadn't killed a dragon yet.

For me, I wasn't excited about going but knew I'd end up going eventually, so gave in.

• Hated the Brown Wizard. The bird poop was stupid.
• Did anyone think that Azog looked cat-like, much like Panthro from Thundercats? Guess that PJ was playing on our collective thinking that cats are evil. ;)
• The goblins sure like to build platforms.
• When escaping the goblins, the sledding down the caverns was just silly and CG.
• Was there New Zealand law stating that the movie had to reference LotR in at least one short per ten?
• Didn't remember this kids' story being so violent.
• Lastly, m'eh.

I agree with a lot of things, but this is the problem with making a Hobbit movie. The book as it is, is a brilliant stand alone story. However, it is not brilliant as a prequel to LOTR. Only the last 1/3 of the book really can be directly translated. A lot of foolery of the dwarves does not really fit with their later portrayal. This is precisely why Tolkien considered rewriting the book.

This is why I feel that an adaptation of The Hobbit should really have come first. The more serious tone of The Lord of the Rings feels like a logical maturation of the later stages of The Hobbit, and in my opinion story elements like Gollum, the Ring and the Necromancer are far more dramatically effective in the original order. I don't know if that would have worked in Hollywood terms, though. It probably makes more sense to wow audiences with the big extravaganza first and then cash in on the other material later.
Also why do people online still think that elements of The Silmarillion and/or Unfinished Tales were used in The Hobbit? I keep seeing this notion getting bandied about as if it a) is true, and b) somehow automatically vindicates Peter Jackson from any source-material-butchery.

I've seen this too, all over the place- but oddly, nobody ever seems to specify *which* elements they're talking about. A "meme", I suppose.

Anyway, it can't be true- they'd get sued.

One's a book; the other's a book - the common elements are glaringly obvious. :D

I can only think of one reference - about the Blue Wizards. That was cleverly done and funny on two levels (haha Gandalf doesn't remember their names and haha what a nice way of avoiding saying what you have no rights to). But that's not enough to warrant the Sil claim, and - even goblins know how to count! - one is not "elements" in plural.

I've avoided this the way undergraduates avoid essays they don't want to write. But I might as well get it over with before I forget any more of what I didn't like about it.

I saw TH the same weekend Alatar did, and with similar company, my family, whose treat it was to take me to the movie and a second breakfast (High Tea). Like Estelyn, I needed time to consider exactly what to say about it.

Let me begin by saying that I can appreciate action/adventures flicks. ET is high up there as one of my favs, as are the first three (original) Star Wars epics. I had fun watching Transformers. I thoroughly enjoyed Joss Whedon's The Avengers and thought the earlier movies in that series were a fun watch. I'm a sucker for an Indiana Jones movie. I adored Labyrinth. But I don't seem able to enjoy Peter Jackson's stuff.

I grant that every artist has the right to his or her own interpretation of a work. Usually, that means an interpretation that opens up new avenues for appreciating or understanding the original work, or seeing it in a new context which liberates thought. Jackson doesn't do that. He simply misappropriates Tolkien in a mishmash of styles and genres. And doesn't even produce a movie that is consistent. It's nothing more than a constant hit of visual images that are supposed to have an impact but which don't add up to a whole vision.

First off, TH doesn't know if it is a prequel or a sequel or a standalone. Viewers who don't know the book won't really appreciate how Bilbo grows. Yes, they will get that he must undergo change, but there's not really much to justify or explain why or what he leaves behind. Partly this is because the opening scenes are dedicated to dwarven history. I have always liked Tolkien's dwarves, whether in The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings or elsewhere, partly I think because I have a soft spot for the forsaken and the downtrodden and partly because they are simply interesting. The dwarven history is of course how Jackson attempts to link his TH with his movie trilogy and the unmentionable Legendarium. Yet it comes at the expense of explicating Bilbo's life and hobbit values. Freeman does a credible job with Bilbo but I don't think his Arthur Dent housecoat really does much to characterise him, except to link the actor with a previous role, which is a sleazy marketing ploy rather than an enlightening allusion. This really has become not The Hobbit but The Thirteen Dwarves and How They Grew Wealthy.

And it's not really the dwarves I know and love. Guinevere on Facebook pointed out that Tolkien's dwarves are tinkers and tailers, craftsmen who take up warfare only to recover their homeland. Their approach to Bilbo's home and entry is civil and their love of music is part of their craftsmanship. Jackson's dwarves are uncooth goons who run roughshod over Bilbo, almost bullies, a stereotype male adolescence. (The fact that they leave Bag End tidy is extraneous, an awkward filler inconsistent with their first presentation.) Jackson does not really understand Faramir's line about loving the bright sword not for itself but for what it defends and so all his battle scenes and action bits are little more than spectacle and gore fest. And like the final scene where the goblins--excuse me, orcs--attack the group before the eagles save them, they go on too long. Or contain such silly exaggerations that they ruin narrative coherence. So my complaint is not simply that this is hardly faithful to The Hobbit, but also it is hardly a unified, coherent story on its own.

The tone and tenor violate Tolkien. I'm not interested in watching The Hobbit turned into a computer game. But obviously I'm not in the target audience.

Like Estelyn, I was disappointed with the music, so much rewarmed. I tired very quickly of all the scenes that were supposed to allude to the movie trilogy. Again, sequel or prequel? Why not simply tell this story?

Radagast left me cold and I had wanted to like him. Again, so much of his depiction is devoted simply to cheap action shots. I'm reminded of a comment Mr. Underhill once made to me, that Whedon always starts with character and the action develops from that. Jackson starts with action and rarely gets around to character. And yet it is character that provides so much of the significance in story and narrative.

I couldn't shake my sense that Azog--who? what? where? why?--was the Michelin Man. And if I heard "Fili, Kili" one more time, I was ready to stand up and yell," okay, I get it, we are supposed to know that something is in store for them."

One person I attended with, who has not read The Hobbit, asked about 3/4 of the way through how far along in the book we were. When you start wondering how much longer you have to sit through the movie, it's too long.

Will I see the remaining two movies? I'm not sure. I certainly don't feel like giving Jackson/NewLine/whoever any more money because that simply perpetuates their ability to produce dross.

I probably have no business posting here, because I still haven't seen TH. I really have no desire to do so.
Beth however, seems to make it perfectly clear that Jackson and Co. either were unable to fix the issues Tolkien fans expressed of the LOTR movies, or simply were not interested in trying. Whichever, you can keep it, Mr. Jackson.

My daughter actually said, "They should make a sequel."

Thanks PJ! :rolleyes:

"Maybe they should even make a book."

Galadriel55, you jest, but consider seeing The Hobbit aside THE HOBBIT TUJ, DOS and MEH (Middle Earth Havoc): Super Extended Trilogy Addition in your favorite bookstore (should an actual book store exist in these times). For your gold, do you choose the anemic 'slimmed down' 200-300 page version, or the two ton tome with glossy pictures 'straight from the movies?'

<Note that you need to end of that last sentence dramatically, as you would if you saw the book inside its special storefront marquee.>

One looks like a screenplay while the other the real deal.

"Dad, why did that Tolkien guy leave Azog out of his version?"

Scary...

And thinking along those lines, The "Original" Hobbit would become "the children's adaptation". :eek:

Your discussion reminds me of this (which you've probably all seen before, but it always makes me so happy):

http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/upl...rry-potter.jpg

On the subject of pessimistic thoughts...

You win. :D