AUJ and DOS: Pros and Cons Article

[jallanite]

Basically diifferent viewers view the same film differently. That will never change. That is seen in the article with Galadriel55 presents and in the comments beneath it and in the comments which follow in this thread.
Personally I didn’t even notice the unreality of the dwarves “running up and down shaky bridges for at least 15 minutes and they’re not even out of breath”. I will of course notice it now that it has been pointed out to me, but I suspect it won’t really bother me if I see it again.

I never expected the film Hobbit to be a realistic film. But I can understand that just a small difference between what a viewer expects and what he or she sees may make all the difference. The same goes for Zigûr’s comments on the encounter between Bilbo and Gollum. I thought it was well done, although it completely threw aside one of the main points in the original story, that the encounter occurs in pitch darkness.

I may expect some shocked commenter to scream, “But, but you can’t have that scene in total darkness in a movie like in the book! You just can’t!” Well I disagree, if the director uses animation to portray Bilbo’s firm outline and portrays only a hazy and unclear figure where Bilbo thinks Gollum is in relation to himself. Now maybe this wouldn’t work for most viewers. But I think it would work for me, if it was done correctly.

But then I think that Tom Bombadil could also have worked wonderfully in The Fellowship of the Ring film.

Now Benedict Cumberbatch is a very good actor and the same is true of Martin Freeman. They’ve been working together in the extraordinarily popular television program Sherlock as Sherlock Holmes and his partner Doctor Watson and so, given a good script, which is basically provided by Tolkien, it seems reasonable that they will be able to carry off what they are given superbly. The two of them are already experienced in playing off each other.

But Daniel Wood’s last line is:

It seems that Benedict is set to restore the reputation of the Hobbit films, as their perhaps, not quite so, unexpected saviour.

To me it seems that Wood might as well be saying:

The first film has Martin Freeman and Andy Selkirk’s unbeatable scene together as Bilbo and Gollum and this is more than matched by the conversation between Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch in the third film. But the rest is juvenile garbage and not worth the watching.

In short Cumberbatch is not, even in Daniel Wood’s view, through a single scene in the third film the saviour of all three films, even if the scene turns out to be as good as Wood thinks it might be.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by jallanite

I may expect some shocked commenter to scream, “But, but you can’t have that scene in total darkness in a movie like in the book! You just can’t!” Well I disagree, if the director uses animation to portray Bilbo’s firm outline and portrays only a hazy and unclear figure where Bilbo thinks Gollum is in relation to himself. Now maybe this wouldn’t work for most viewers. But I think it would work for me, if it was done correctly.

I completely agree. I think the idea that some of the things which are omitted/altered from the book "would never have worked in a film" are really things which would never have worked in a Hollywood film, which sadly has the budget needed for Tolkien adventures with none of the genuine ambition - enough ambition to adapt the books, I suppose, but not enough to not play everything extremely safely in artistic terms.

[Michael Murry]

Unless I missed something in reading the article, its author compared some scenes from a movie (or one third of one) that he had seen with some (postulated) scenes that he had not seen from another one third of a movie that no one else has seen either.

Just sticking to the rules of commenting only on the article in question.

Essentially, as I read the article, its author -- in a triumph of hope over experience -- speculated that perhaps the actor Benedict Cumberbatch would voice the pixel-dragon Smaug in such a way as to make the second third of The Hobbit: A Glacier Race less of a disaster than the first third.

Just saying ...

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by jallanite

In short Cumberbatch is not, even in Daniel Wood’s view, through a single scene in the third film the saviour of all three films, even if the scene turns out to be as good as Wood thinks it might be.

Originally Posted by Michael Murray

Essentially, as I read the article, its author -- in a triumph of hope over experience -- speculated that perhaps the actor Benedict Cumberbatch would voice the pixel-dragon Smaug in such a way as to make the second third of The Hobbit: A Glacier Race less of a disaster than the first third.

Yes– there’s a very strange leap of logic there. By his own reasoning, the writer could just as well say the “Riddles in the Dark” scene had already “saved” the trilogy.

[alatar]

As the writer implies, Jackson's Children of Hurin will complete vindicate his vision of Tolkien's Middle Earth...

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by alatar

As the writer implies, Jackson's Children of Hurin will complete vindicate his vision of Tolkien's Middle Earth...

Isn't that the one with the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz hovering over Thangorodrim?