Adaptation by Vague Recollection

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

I didn't see any attempt to deal with this in the Hobbit films, particularly regarding Mirkwood. It wouldn't have been too difficult (and there was certainly the time to spare!) to show how big, dark, and mysterious the wood was, and how few safe things there were to eat and drink, not to mention the enchanted river.

I wonder if an issue with this kind of thing was that they needed everything to look "right" on a 3D HFR camera, which affected what they could do with sets and constructed environments that needed to look real, as well as with makeup and practical effects.

I think perhaps my biggest issue with the Hobbit films as prequels to the Lord of the Rings films is that the visuals in the Hobbit films are much more stylised and/or exaggerated. Things like:

-the Dwarves' hairdos (especially Nori)

-Azog (especially compared to the soldier orcs of the earlier films) and other CGI creations, particularly the trolls used in the final film. They tried far too hard to make those trolls look weird and visually distinctive

-locations like Dol Guldur, Rhosgobel and Lake Town, which to me look very affectedly hodge-podge or ramshackle; they look designed to look chaotic rather than looking like they've organically come to look that way. By contrast, Edoras and Minas Tirith in the films look like places that could actually exist

I think this last part is especially noticeable when comparing the elements which returned from the other films, like Hobbiton and Rivendell, to those which were designed for these ones.