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Chen G.
Gondor
May 21 2020, 2:23pm
Post #201 of 255
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Nothing is verboten, but some things aren't looked favourably upon
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Belittling acclaimed filmmakers is one of them.
(This post was edited by Chen G. on May 21 2020, 2:26pm)
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Solicitr
Gondor
May 21 2020, 2:31pm
Post #202 of 255
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Michael Bay is "acclaimed"? 
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
May 21 2020, 3:08pm
Post #203 of 255
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He was obviously referring to PJ.
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(This post was edited by Paulo Gabriel on May 21 2020, 3:09pm)
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
May 21 2020, 4:31pm
Post #204 of 255
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Okay, folks, let's stop this sub-thread right here.
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Before it devolves further.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
May 25 2020, 11:10pm
Post #206 of 255
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PJ's Hobbit is a very intelligent movie. Maybe, but not consistantly. Gags like smoke coming out of Radagast's ears might play well in a Loony Tune, but not so well in a live-action movie that isn't an outright parody. We also have characters surviving without serious injury falls that should have killed the hardiest Dwarf. Then there is Jackson's fast-and-loose attitude for matters of time and distance, with characters seemingly taking only a couple of days to make journeys that should take weeks (I'm looking at YOU, Legolas and Tauriel).
I think those are rather minor points, but you are free to think differently...
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
May 26 2020, 1:01am
Post #207 of 255
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I think those are rather minor points, but you are free to think differently...
I wouldn't call characters pulling off stunts that would be impossible without teleportation (or at least the power of rapid flight) a minor point, but to each his own.
#FidelityToTolkien
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
May 29 2020, 3:52am
Post #208 of 255
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I think those are rather minor points, but you are free to think differently... I wouldn't call characters pulling off stunts that would be impossible without teleportation (or at least the power of rapid flight) a minor point, but to each his own.
...how many in the general audience would care or notice such things. People like Transformers, they don't care about physical plausibility, let alone geographical plausibility (of a fictional land, nonetheless). And Elrond already did this in ROTK when he travelled from Rivendell to Gondor in a relatively short amount of time. Do you take issue with this Elrond thing as well?
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
May 29 2020, 2:41pm
Post #209 of 255
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...how many in the general audience would care or notice such things. People like Transformers, they don't care about physical plausibility, let alone geographical plausibility (of a fictional land, nonetheless). And Elrond already did this in ROTK when he travelled from Rivendell to Gondor in a relatively short amount of time. Do you take issue with this Elrond thing as well?
It doesn't matter to me what the general audience can be expected to know; it's enough that I know and I find it a bit insulting that Peter expects me to just accept this. At least with Elrond, we don't have a clear idea of when he left from Rivendell (for Rohan, not Gondor--though he doesn't seem to have continued on with King Theoden's forces to Gondor).
#FidelityToTolkien
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Solicitr
Gondor
May 29 2020, 4:55pm
Post #210 of 255
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I would have hoped that any film of Tolkien's work would be aimed at a somewhat higher intellectual plane than Transformers.
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skyofcoffeebeans
Rohan
May 29 2020, 8:55pm
Post #212 of 255
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Agreed. These aren't the same things at all
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And I don't care if the general audience doesn't care. It looks dumb.
One doesn't have to reach quite this far to depend the worst parts of these movies. It's ok to like the Hobbit movies and admit that some parts are not that great.
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Chen G.
Gondor
May 29 2020, 10:04pm
Post #213 of 255
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The key is not losing the forest for the trees.
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
May 30 2020, 1:22am
Post #214 of 255
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And I don't care if the general audience doesn't care. It looks dumb.
One doesn't have to reach quite this far to depend the worst parts of these movies. It's ok to like the Hobbit movies and admit that some parts are not that great.
...yet I see nothing ''dumb'' about this, especially as the same has been done in the earlier trilogy, which is ironically so ''acclaimed'', by, and I quote, ''people who apparently have never seen a decent adaptation or a decent war movie''.
Re the first point: ''Now, there are all kinds of technical and logistical problems in the sequence, such as how Viggo, Orlando, and John got from Dunharrow to Umbar without any horses (unlike the books, all the horses run away and don't come back) but I suppose if Elrond can ride across mountains and hundreds of miles in a day or so, then they can run all the way to the coast in a couple hours. (Or they borrow zombie horses, I guess.) But those are really inconsequential, compared to the big problem at the center. And that is that there are no living Men to be rallied, no villagers, no fisherfolk, no POWs to free from the oars of the Corsairs' dromonds, no local lord to bring his own soldiers to the aid of Gondor — none of the rest of the people whose absence Pippin's companions in Gondor didn't lament after the arrival of allies which didn't happen in the movie. So, since they couldn't handle the politics of Middle-earth, J/B/W were forced to come up with some other solution to the problem. And that was to make the Dead utterly mundane''.
(This post was edited by Paulo Gabriel on May 30 2020, 1:23am)
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Solicitr
Gondor
May 30 2020, 5:08am
Post #215 of 255
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There are gradations. As in "dumb" and "dumber."
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
May 30 2020, 9:12am
Post #216 of 255
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that there is a point in which it becomes so ''dumb'' (by this definition, anyway) that there is no point in ''scaling'' it. Does it matter whether a 20 kg weight is dropped from a height of 100 or 200 metres on someone’s head? It will kill him either way.
(This post was edited by Paulo Gabriel on May 30 2020, 9:13am)
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The Dude
Rivendell
May 30 2020, 11:52am
Post #217 of 255
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Last time I looked you were a defender of "The Hobbit" films. Your line of argument here seems to be that "nothing dumb" exists in those films (1) but if it did it would exist in equal measure in the "LotR" trilogy (2), so everyone who prefers the latter over the former must then be a hypocrite (3).
Well, accusation of hypocrisy on their own always form a weak basis to build as the foundation of one’s case; whether it comes to political, cultural, or philosophical arguments. Criticizing the “LotR” films for dumbing down things does not really help the “Hobbit” films in any way. And I would not call solicitr a huge fan of the original trilogy to begin with, so you basically arguing against a strawman here.
The point where we have to agree to disagree, it seems, is you believe that there is no difference whatsoever in the frequency and quality of slapstick/dumb scenes between the original trilogy and “the Hobbit” films, whereas others (solicitr and me included) consider this to be slightly reductive.
PS: Aragorn and the Grey Company never made it to Umbar. Their destination was Pelagir.
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skyofcoffeebeans
Rohan
May 30 2020, 8:08pm
Post #218 of 255
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There is no degree of comparison in the absurdity of Legolas defying gravity via falling blocks onscreen vs the offscreen travels of other characters on horseback or on foot. It is an untenable point to make and an absurd basis for a defense of what is almost objectively a very low point, if not the lowest point, in Peter Jackson’s filmography.
We don’t have to love everything about the things we love. It’s ok for there to be flaws. I don’t see you defending your love for Legolas defying gravity, just tearing apart the validity of other people’s opinions of it.
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Noria
Gondor
May 31 2020, 12:35pm
Post #219 of 255
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In LotR, both book and movie, Legolas is able to walk on top of deep snow without sinking, just one of the things about Elves that defy the laws of nature that we know. Tolkien wrote them that way.
So, why should the laws of gravity, already contravened in the case of snow, apply strictly anywhere else where an Elf is concerned?
With those qualities of Elves lurking in the back of my mind, I had no difficulty accepting Legolas’ stunt with the falling stones. Like most of his feats, it amused me.
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Solicitr
Gondor
May 31 2020, 7:47pm
Post #220 of 255
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then why didn't Thranduil's Elves, or Haldir's force at Helm's Deep, perform each like Marvel superheroes? They would have mopped up the orcs in jig time. But, no, Legolas and Legolas only was, apparently, bitten by a radioactive giant spider.
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Paulo Gabriel
Lorien
Jun 1 2020, 4:40am
Post #221 of 255
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Thank you for sparing me the time...
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to counter more absurdities.
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Noria
Gondor
Jun 1 2020, 12:30pm
Post #222 of 255
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then why didn't Thranduil's Elves, or Haldir's force at Helm's Deep, perform each like Marvel superheroes? They would have mopped up the orcs in jig time. But, no, Legolas and Legolas only was, apparently, bitten by a radioactive giant spider.
I can't argue with that except - cinema.
But my original point stands.
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Chen G.
Gondor
Jun 1 2020, 5:53pm
Post #223 of 255
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I kind of like Legolas' superhero moments. I just think they need to be delivered in greater moderation than was the case in The Battle of the Five Armies.
You can have the walking up the crumbling tower moment in isolation (I happen to think its really cool) but when its delivered as the cherry on top of Legolas' bat-riding, tower-leaping, Troll-riding shenanigans, it gets just a bit too much.
But otherwise? I like Legolas having one or two Superhero moments per film: its fun, and it adds a dash of superhero/martial arts into films which are already such an enjoyable cocktail of genres.
Its also nice when occasionally they DON'T go big with him, like when he has what's really just a street brawl with Bolg in The Desolation of Smaug: just one more reason why that film's the best.
(This post was edited by Chen G. on Jun 1 2020, 5:57pm)
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FrogmortonJustice65
Lorien
Jun 1 2020, 7:59pm
Post #224 of 255
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that the Legolas v. Bolg fight feels grounded in a way that some other fight scenes in the Hobbit trilogy do not. Legolas v. Bolg is kinetic and brutal in a way that recalls Aragorn vs. Lurtz and some other LOTR moments. Same with Thorin v. Azog in TBOFA.
Ranking the Hobbit films is difficult for me. DOS is probably the most exciting from start to finish, and has a very quick tempo and roller-coaster feel. But the first film adapts many great moments from the book very well and I appreciate its emphasis upon Bilbo and the dwarves. I'm inclined to think that TBOFA is the weakest but the last 30 minutes or so are very good, and the final scenes are excellent. And Armitage gives his best performance in this film, I'd say.
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Chen G.
Gondor
Jun 1 2020, 8:18pm
Post #225 of 255
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About the same as what I think
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The Desolation of Smaug is the best "ride" from start to finish. That said, its also a film that genuinely asks "is this quest worth it? Is it a noble idea to begin with? Is it a wise endeavor?" and, right up to the cliffhanger ending, avoids any form of easy answer, which I love.
You couldn't do that with The Lord of the Rings, and indeed very few films of this kind have ever tried to do so, and those that have mostly came across as a strawman.
The Battle of the Five Armies is the weakest in many respects, but because it contains so many of the climactic and truly powerful and poignant moments of the trilogy, I would say that elevates it over the first film.
(This post was edited by Chen G. on Jun 1 2020, 8:19pm)
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