The Desolation

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by alatar

That's what I'm saying - that it looked wrong. Her face was facing a different direction - not to get too technical.

And you probably do.

Well...technically I don't recall that the camera ever showed how they were facing at all. All I remember is an increasingly uncomfortable set of close ups on their faces.

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

Well...technically I don't recall that the camera ever showed how they were facing at all. All I remember is an increasingly uncomfortable set of close ups on their faces.

I was playing close attention to the scene, being forewarned, as I was wondering how much 'explaining' I would be doing afterwards to my children.

"Well, ya see, when an Elf is helping a Dwarf with a leg wound, it's common for said elf and dwarf to..."

[William Cloud Hicklin]

"When an Elfie and a Dwarfie love each other very much...."

[alatar]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

"When an Elfie and a Dwarfie love each other very much...."

That was the phrase I was looking for!

And, listening to the unabridged FotR, Gimli surely had the glowing hots for Galadriel. So much so that he was ready to murder Eomer, and was excited to get a message from her, even if it were about his death.

[MCRmyGirl4eva]

As this movie was a Peter Jackson film, with a book he was stretching into three films, I went in with low expectations and therefore was able to enjoy it. The only thing that really irked me was the scene with the spiders.

Bilbo was supposed to save them there, that was his big scene when HE felt that he earned his way into the company, and that was taken from him. That really irritated me, because the whole first movie revolved around getting the dwarves to accept him, so they should have left the scene where he accepted himself.

Also, the RAMPANT CGI. There were scenes where NOT A SINGLE THING WAS REAL. (Okay, maybe this was the big turn-off for me.) And really, what they did with Azog and Bolg was terrible.

The gold scene was a little ridiculous, but I'm able to excuse that when I picture Benedict Cumberbatch twirling in a motion-capture suit, so...

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by MCRmyGirl4eva

As this movie was a Peter Jackson film, with a book he was stretching into three films, I went in with low expectations and therefore was able to enjoy it. The only thing that really irked me was the scene with the spiders.

Jackson, Boyens, et al are simply inept screenwriters and would be flayed alive if they wrote fan-fiction on some of the writing sites I have submitted work on. Bilbo, ostensibly "The Hobbit" as the film title implies, has been so minimized and shunted from his status as main character that scenes like the spider attack and his dialogue with Smaug were so modified as to make them virtually unwatchable.

Originally Posted by MCRmyGirl4eva

Bilbo was supposed to save them there, that was his big scene when HE felt that he earned his way into the company, and that was taken from him. That really irritated me, because the whole first movie revolved around getting the dwarves to accept him, so they should have left the scene where he accepted himself.

Crucial points in the book, like the spider and dragon scenes were completely denuded of the humor inherent in the story, and that is a literary crime. Bilbo did not get to insult the spiders, nor, as you made clear, actually "save" the Dwarves, that was kept for the character-insert Tauriel and her beau Legolas (who behaved in such a Matrix-like fashion that someone in the audience yelled out "Neo is the one!"). The dreadful Mirkwood set (the worst fake trees in movie history) only took about 5 minutes to get through (add 10 for the spider fight), and skipped the poisonous river sequence, sleeping Bombur, the white hart and deer, the silvan feast and other points of interest just so that Jackson could belabor the story with his own inane plotpoints.

In addition, the movie completely ignored BASIC TOLKIEN: DRAGONS 101. What does one never do with a dragon? Never maintain eye contact! Bilbo stupidly kept taking his ring on and off and revealed himself to the dragon. What a stultifying idiotic turn. Let's not even mention the entire dialogue between Smaug and Bilbo was lost in tobogganing around on mile high piles of coin (which were actually the billions of skulls left over from the City of the Dead scene in Return of the King painted gold), and then a half an hour worth of more insipid chase scenes around Erebor culminating in pouring molten gold (enough to fill the Nile from the Sudan up to the Suez Canal) on a dragon with a furnace for a belly.

Dumb. Just plain dumb. What a waste.

[Blindlyleaping]

I have a whole bunch of reasons why I hated DOS, but everyone else pretty much summed up my thoughts so I'll just say something else I haven't seen-

While the LOTR movie trilogy wasn't perfect, by far, I felt it captured a more 'real' feel to it. The antagonistic characters felt like they were an actual threat and not just movie magic, and I personally think its because of the practical effects used in the original trilogy vs The Hobbit soon to be Trilogy.

The monsters seem so much more.. heavy and actually there. It makes the combat feel harrowing, because its real people interacting with one another instead of painted over actors with Cgi.

The Hobbit's choreography may seem more flashy, but to me, its fluffy garbage. Adversaries are dispatched with such ease that the real weight of it is lost, it feels like a hack and slash videogame cutscene. The heroes never look to be in any danger and that kills it for me. Battle should be heavy and gruesome and terrible, not whimsical and fun!

And just a minor gripe, if I'm remembering correctly- Do all the other river-guarding elves just straight up die in Bolg's attack during the barrel scene? It seems really crap to me to have these ancient warriors die in like 2 seconds of screentime, and I would have liked to see an interpretation of what soldiers would have done in that situation. Would they have grouped together and tried to form a wall? A wedge? Retreated? I dunno about you others, but ancient battle tactics really tickle my fancy and it upsets me that PJ, a majority of the time, seems to think that amounts to running around solo and swinging wildly.

Also, if Tauriel is Captain of the Guard you'd think she'd have a lot more compassion for ElfGuard1 and ElfGuard2 who she maybe has known for a few hundred years and definitely has known longer than Hunk!Dwarf.

Captain of the Guard, indeed! Elfguard3 just got his nose bitten off by an orc but our responsible captain is too busy chasing tail and getting the prince into mortal danger to manage her own guard.

Also, I started playing a game called "spot the LOTR moment". An example in DOS is when Kili is shot with a "morgul shaft". The same exact effects happen in this scene and the Boromir death scene from FOTR, it actually made me laugh because its so spot on it almost feels like a parody.

And my concluding thing- even the design feels radically different and unimpressive compared to LOTR (and again I think that is in part to the lack of practical effects) Could you imagine like, Boromir standing next to The Goblin King from AUJ? Or Aragorn next to just a human character like Alfred from DOS? I can't. Its like LOTR and TH are separated by a thick line of Cartoony-ness and CGI overuse that pervade choreography and art direction and it just ruins it utterly- For me.

(Ps. Long time Lurker, first time poster!)

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by alatar

I was playing close attention to the scene, being forewarned, as I was wondering how much 'explaining' I would be doing afterwards to my children.

"Well, ya see, when an Elf is helping a Dwarf with a leg wound, it's common for said elf and dwarf to..."

Dynasties have been started in this way...and far be it from me to point out that Robb Stark's downfall was started by almost this exact situation.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

So we can expect Kili to die not before the gates of Erebor, but at his wedding-feast which is actually a cynical ambush plotted by Thranduil......

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

So we can expect Kili to die not before the gates of Erebor, but at his wedding-feast which is actually a cynical ambush plotted by Thranduil......

Pretty much.