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Captain Salt
Dor-Lomin
Jun 18 2013, 2:42am
Post #101 of 174
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However, an elf has certain attributes in ME, which is following the rules established
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(and were subtle compared to AUJ/DoS teaser); the man in question fell into water as opposed to bouncing and careening off stone walls, was rendered unconscious and seemed to take a while to recover (though I grant you that won was rather unlikely); and ghosts obviously aren't the same thing as dwarves - they're not corporeal, thus the rules of physics as we know them don't apply. They're also the more obvious visual/cinematic flourishes with these stunts that highlight the lack of "reality" IE, flying Tauriel.
Whether or not one likes the deviations from LotR in TH is another matter - but IMO they are quite noticeably there.
My Top 5 Wish List for "The Hobbit"
5. Legolas will surf down Smaug's neck
4. Bilbo will be revealed to a Robot
3. Naked PJ cameo as Ghan-Buri-Ghan
2. Use of not only 3D, but smell-o-vision, plus the inclusion of axes coming out of the seats and poking the audience when appropriate
1. Not only keep the claim that Thorin & Co. ran amok in Mirkwood "molesting people", but depict said incident in vivid detail!!!!!
(This post was edited by Captain Salt on Jun 18 2013, 2:44am)
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arithmancer
Hithlum
Jun 18 2013, 2:46am
Post #102 of 174
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As I suspect Ms. Boyens is also.
It is this element of the backstory I presume she references in the quote you shared. In addition, I believe she also means the battle in front of Moria. Thror was not in it in the book, being already dead, but both Azog and Thorin were there, in both the movie and the book.
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Sinister71
Dor-Lomin
Jun 18 2013, 2:56am
Post #103 of 174
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Still would have been better with the original tale which they had rights to use
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Than making up a bunch of what amounts to nothing more than professional level fan fiction Besides it was Dain who killed Azog after Azog killed Dain's father supposedly in the battle where Thorin cuts off Azog's arm. Tolkien did much better story telling IMO plus it ties in Dain who would become King under the mountain. Much Better story and ties all the elements together for the end of the story IMO condensing the dwarf goblin war just makes it seem like there was only one battle when the war went on for years which would have been much more dramatic IMO
It just fails me why not use the true story from the appendices esp when they have rights to use them. But instead they opted to make up some story that to me just doesn't make sense when compared to the original.
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Captain Salt
Dor-Lomin
Jun 18 2013, 3:10am
Post #104 of 174
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that "one", heh. Aragorn didn't really win there. :P //
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My Top 5 Wish List for "The Hobbit"
5. Legolas will surf down Smaug's neck
4. Bilbo will be revealed to a Robot
3. Naked PJ cameo as Ghan-Buri-Ghan
2. Use of not only 3D, but smell-o-vision, plus the inclusion of axes coming out of the seats and poking the audience when appropriate
1. Not only keep the claim that Thorin & Co. ran amok in Mirkwood "molesting people", but depict said incident in vivid detail!!!!!
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DwellerInDale
Nargothrond
Jun 18 2013, 4:25am
Post #105 of 174
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The Hobbit And The Physics of a Fall
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OK, a while back I was more or less forced to reveal that I work with the equations of mathematical physics due to my training as a combined mathematician/biologist. I've also been interested for a long time in this problem concerning "how much" a movie can bend the laws of physics and still be believable. There really is no simple answer; it often depends on the audience and their level of knowledge, and their willingness to suspend disbelief. A perfect example is the original Alien. I went to see it with some college friends. There is a scene where the newly-hatched alien bursts out of John Hurt's chest and runs away; the alien is the size of a small snake. Twenty minutes later, the alien is an 8 foot tall killing machine. My friend (also a biologist) and I looked at each other, like "WTF?? What the hell was that?" We were completely confused, because an organism can't just "get big" like that without consuming organic material-- where did it get the biomass?? This was a very clear violation of the laws of physics (conservation of mass). But everyone else in our group had no problem with the scene; they just assumed that the alien "metamorphosed" or some such, like a small caterpillar turning into a large butterfly (which is possible only because the butterfly has paper-thin wings).
To the physics of a fall: a number of people have been upset with the one scene in "The Hobbit" (Goblin Town) because they thought that it violates the laws of physics. The Dwarves "...fall thousands of feet and walk away without a scratch". Was this scene completely ridiculous? After hearing all those criticisms, I went back and re-watched the scene. To my surprise, nothing of the sort happens. I think the description of this scene has grown in the telling so much that even people who saw the movie and had no problem with it are beginning to believe the description. To understand the scene you need to know several things about the physics of falling, so here goes:
First, some posters above were confused about whether a Dwarf would fall more slowly than a full-sized human. The answer is no; neglecting air resistance everything falls with the same acceleration in a gravity field. However, one very important point of being a dwarf is that with their much lower mass, they can fall a longer distance than a human without getting hurt. I first saw this when I was only 5 years old, when I watched my 4-year-old brother fall straight out of a tree and land on his back. He was shocked but unhurt. If a dwarf were one-half the size of a normal human, he would weigh 8 times less than the human, not just half as much, because mass scales to the power 3 of height. You can drop a mouse down a mineshaft and it will land unhurt. In the physics of scaling, they say that after a 100 foot fall, "A mouse is unhurt, a man is broken, and a horse splashes". It may seem incredible, but if Bilbo were 3 feet tall and the same shape as a 6 foot, 72 kilogram man, he would only weigh 9 kilograms, less than 20 pounds! (I always use this example with my students).
Still, a "thousand foot fall" would have certainly killed all the Dwarves. But watch the scene frame-by-frame. First, the party are standing on a 3-level wood bridge connected by wooden supports. That detail was really easy to miss, but it's important. Second, the bridge only ever free-falls for 3-4 seconds at a time; between those times it smashes against the cavern walls or slides down a slope, which greatly slows the speed of falling, and the 3 collapsible levels absorb a lot of the force of the collisions. From the time it took them to fall, I would estimate a range of 300 to 600 feet, no more. The last part looks scary, because Oin looks over the edge and sees what appears to be a sheer 100+ foot drop. However, when we see the bridge fall the last 100 feet, it actually just becomes wedged between the narrow cavern walls, and it lands on a big pile of debris, not on the stone cavern floor. And the Dwarves haven't come through "without a scratch"; half of them are knocked unconscious, and you can see the scratches on Nori as they help him up.
Finally, the Great Goblin: he falls onto 3 layers of wood from the bridge, breaking the bridge beams, which would have absorbed most of the force. If you've ever seen one of those "karate demonstrations" where the guy lays on a bed of nails and they put a 200 pound block of stone on top of him and then hit it with a sledge hammer, you might be really impressed that he doesn't get hurt; actually it's a trick, because the stone block's mass absorbs all the force. You can do it at home by carefully placing an anvil, say, on your hand and then hitting it with a hammer. If the anvil weighs a lot you'll barely feel it.
So my opinion was that "Goblin Town" was definitely a "Perils of Pauline / Indiana Jones" type scene, with deliberately exaggerated action, but it certainly didn't "break the laws of physics", any more than movies like "Skyfall", where they use the old chestnut of guys having a fistfight while running on top of a train (you'd be immediately blown off the train by the wind speed).
Don't mess with my favorite female elf.
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Escapist
Mithlond
Jun 18 2013, 4:37am
Post #106 of 174
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Good! A Physicist! Now we have the answers.
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So do you think the mushrooms were necessary for breaking the fall or was that a random detail?
I did miss the scrapes on Nori. That would make a difference!
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Elessar
Doriath
Jun 18 2013, 4:45am
Post #107 of 174
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That was a rather cool lesson. I learned something new today. 
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bborchar
Nargothrond
Jun 18 2013, 4:57am
Post #108 of 174
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...but I definitely felt the same way about that scene- it didn't look that farfetched to me when I first watched it (or any time after). Science rocks ^^
「さようなら、ミスターホームズ」〜アイリーンアダラーのメール
「ベルグレービアの醜聞」
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Ataahua
Forum Admin
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Jun 18 2013, 5:13am
Post #109 of 174
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Yes, science rocks - and science geeks rock more than most.
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Thank you for this, DwellerInDale! Have you thought about packing this up into a short paper and sending it to spymaster@theonering.net for posting on the home page? The physics of The Hobbit would be a great contribution to a wider audience. 
Celebrimbor: "Pretty rings..."
Dwarves: "Pretty rings..."
Men: "Pretty rings..."
Sauron: "Mine's better."
"Ah, how ironic, the addictive qualities of Sauron’s master weapon led to its own destruction. Which just goes to show, kids - if you want two small and noble souls to succeed on a mission of dire importance... send an evil-minded beggar with them too." - Gandalf's Diaries, final par, by Ufthak.
Ataahua's stories
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Captain Salt
Dor-Lomin
Jun 18 2013, 5:56am
Post #110 of 174
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I was obviously referring to the CGI spectacle here, not the source material
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which is another conversation entirely..
As i pointed out today in the courtesy thread, we can not all "get over it" - we're going to have to disagree.
Anyway, it's a moot point now - but physics aside, I maintain that these scenes are disappointing as set pieces - perhaps if they'd been shot with real people rather than mostly cgi, so to as better approximate LotR/the appearance of real life it would have been a different story.
My Top 5 Wish List for "The Hobbit"
5. Legolas will surf down Smaug's neck
4. Bilbo will be revealed to a Robot
3. Naked PJ cameo as Ghan-Buri-Ghan
2. Use of not only 3D, but smell-o-vision, plus the inclusion of axes coming out of the seats and poking the audience when appropriate
1. Not only keep the claim that Thorin & Co. ran amok in Mirkwood "molesting people", but depict said incident in vivid detail!!!!!
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DwellerInDale
Nargothrond
Jun 18 2013, 6:01am
Post #111 of 174
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Thanks, I'll consider doing that (+ 1 more tidbit about scaling)
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Another little tidbit about scaling: trolls are impossible (given normal physics / biology), because the strength of bone and muscle increases as the square of your height, but your weight increases as the cube (3rd power) of your height. If the trolls were twice as tall as a man, they would weigh 8 times as much, and the force on their leg bones would cause them to immediately break. A good example is Yao Ming, 7-foot-6 Chinese NBA star, who was forced to retire due to recurring broken bones in his feet. He wasn't unlucky-- he was just too tall for the strength of his bones. Of course, Tolkien's trolls don't bother me; it's just fantasy, right? Maybe troll bones are made of some different material!
Don't mess with my favorite female elf.
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The Mitch King
Nargothrond
Jun 18 2013, 6:34am
Post #112 of 174
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Though I am cellular and evolutionary biology :)
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Ataahua
Forum Admin
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Jun 18 2013, 6:49am
Post #113 of 174
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*channels Mr Burns* "Excellent."
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Celebrimbor: "Pretty rings..."
Dwarves: "Pretty rings..."
Men: "Pretty rings..."
Sauron: "Mine's better."
"Ah, how ironic, the addictive qualities of Sauron’s master weapon led to its own destruction. Which just goes to show, kids - if you want two small and noble souls to succeed on a mission of dire importance... send an evil-minded beggar with them too." - Gandalf's Diaries, final par, by Ufthak.
Ataahua's stories
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dormouse
Gondolin
Jun 18 2013, 8:02am
Post #114 of 174
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I tried to say the same thing in a post yesterday, but as a historian and not a scientist I didn't have the - well - science to explain it. I just felt from watching the scene rather than reading posts about it that it had a logic behind it. Despite all the criticism I'm sure the people who animated the fall put a lot of thought into the practicalities of it, to make it work on screen.
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ElendilTheShort
Mithlond
Jun 18 2013, 9:29am
Post #115 of 174
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had the feel and credibility of a Scooby Doo action sequence. It was one of many aspects of this movie that was childish which is strange because with all the violence I would not consider it a childrens movie.
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elostirion74
Nargothrond
Jun 18 2013, 10:33am
Post #116 of 174
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Basically Goblin Town escape is a scene consisting of events that don´t seem to matter
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For me this scene doesn´t work as a consequence of the conception of the scene and the execution of it, most importantly what I felt to be the lack of care, discipline and emotion.
First of all I´m not fond of this kind of sliding, plunging, slashing scene in films in general - it´s not like that scene was unique to AUJ. These kind of scenes just seem so overdone and generic, like they are heaping effects and actions/events on top of each other with no sense of discipline, none of the individual events seem to matter or to be treated with real care. As a consequence I´m not involved, and when I´m not involved I get bored.
Feeling that there is a genuine sense of discipline and care to the way a specific scene is executed is really vital for me to be able enjoy it and this is severely lacking in the Goblin Town escape scenes IMO.
I´m aware that technically the animators and the crew behind the film probably put quite a deal of thought into it, but when they are unable to make anything stand out, I don´t think they were particularly successful with their choices.
A clear sign of the lack of attention to the individual details of the scene is the ease and carelessness with which the dwarves seem to push and shove the orcs aside, like they are just a mass of items standing in line to be executed. Go right and cut off a head, go left and cut off an arm, use a boulder to take out many orcs at once etc, it all happens in such quick succession that I never get a sense of the emotions of the characters I´m supposed to care about. Are they afraid? Are they readying themselves for a hard fight, taut like bowstrings? Do they seem like they summon all the energy they can to escape and can we see it in the way they handle their weapons? In my opinion we see nothing of this, and therefore it´s difficult for me as a viewer to actually care.
There are a few individual details that are done with a sense of finesse and humour, like Gandalf gently beheading a terrified orcs, or Gandalf´s encounter with the Great Goblin, but such moments are few and far between.
When Bilbo fights the watcher-orc on the bridge everything feels completely different. You feel his confusion, his lack of experience with a sword, his desperation in trying to save himself. Everything in that scene felt like it mattered and like it was executed with a sense of care and detail.
I also contrast the goblin town scene unfavourably with the fight with the trolls. In the fight with the trolls you have the individual responses of each troll, showing anger, pain (often in a fun and endearing way), the dedication the different dwarves towards each other, visible in both their faces and their actions and you´ve got Bilbo trying to duck and pursuing his own scheme to free the horses in the middle of it all.
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Otaku-sempai
Elvenhome
Jun 18 2013, 11:43am
Post #117 of 174
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Any chance you have a source of that info? Because I too have considered it factual, but come to think of it, only because it is said on the extras of the EE. I've read quite a bit on Tolkien, and never really found a quote of him explicitly stating that.
I'm not sure what you are asking about.
'There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.' - Gandalf the Grey, The Fellowship of the Ring
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Otaku-sempai
Elvenhome
Jun 18 2013, 11:57am
Post #118 of 174
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Tolkien does not explain "plotholes" away with magic
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I'm also a student of language myself, and I've taught English before in other countries (and have learned some myself). Doesn't mean I can't look something up or ask around. Tolkien wanted to write a world built around his strengths - mythology and language. He was the one who decided to explain away plotholes with "magic" instead of reality. Do I have problems with this? Not really, because I just take the "magic" part at face value, and when I see the movies, I also take the "magic" part at face value. If you don't want to do the same, that's absolutely fine...but that doesn't mean that the books did a better job of it than the movies.
Magic is an essential element of Tolkien's Middle-earth. The Elves take magic so much for granted that they don't even have a word for it. I am not aware of any plotholes that he explains away with it though. The Orc-chieftain did not throw his spear at Frodo, he struck the Ring-bearer with a thrust of the weapon. I could argue that the Mithril shirt absorbed some of the energy of the thrust while Frodo was just lucky that the Orc hadn't pressed his attack harder. No special magic required here (although in this case, plate mail might have served Frodo better).
'There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.' - Gandalf the Grey, The Fellowship of the Ring
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Jun 18 2013, 12:03pm)
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Otaku-sempai
Elvenhome
Jun 18 2013, 12:10pm
Post #119 of 174
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Presumably, Troll-bones are thicker than human bones...
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By your logic, elephants, hippos, giraffes and rhinoceri are also impossible. You are assuming that Trolls are too structurally similar to human beings to be able to stand, but that need not be the case.
As for the biology of Dwarves, I've always assumed that they are somewhat more dense than humans and therefore possess a greater mass relative to their size. They would probably be very poor swimmers since they would likely tend to sink in water. Whether such a difference in density would matter in a fall, I could not say.
'There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.' - Gandalf the Grey, The Fellowship of the Ring
(This post was edited by Otaku-sempai on Jun 18 2013, 12:16pm)
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bborchar
Nargothrond
Jun 18 2013, 12:29pm
Post #120 of 174
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I'm also a student of language myself, and I've taught English before in other countries (and have learned some myself). Doesn't mean I can't look something up or ask around. Tolkien wanted to write a world built around his strengths - mythology and language. He was the one who decided to explain away plotholes with "magic" instead of reality. Do I have problems with this? Not really, because I just take the "magic" part at face value, and when I see the movies, I also take the "magic" part at face value. If you don't want to do the same, that's absolutely fine...but that doesn't mean that the books did a better job of it than the movies. Magic is an essential element of Tolkien's Middle-earth. The Elves take magic so much for granted that they don't even have a word for it. I am not aware of any plotholes that he explains away with it though. The Orc-chieftain did not throw his spear at Frodo, he struck the Ring-bearer with a thrust of the weapon. I could argue that the Mithril shirt absorbed some of the energy of the thrust while Frodo was just lucky that the Orc hadn't pressed his attack harder. No special magic required here (although in this case, plate mail might have served Frodo better).
"That spear-thrust would have skewered a wild boar!" Exact words, in the book and in the movie. My point was that they never said anything about Mithril "absorbing impact". We're just supposed to go along with it because "it's magic". It's a plot hole that bothered me when I first read it, but I got over it. There are so many plot holes in The Hobbit you can drive a bus through them, but because it's a children's book, he gets away with it. The biggest plot hole in that is Gandalf leaving for no discernable reason and not saying why. If you want to say that it's explained in the appendices of LotR, that's fine- but then you can't argue that the movie doesn't require extra source material because then you're saying that it doesn't stand on its own.
「さようなら、ミスターホームズ」〜アイリーンアダラーのメール
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Otaku-sempai
Elvenhome
Jun 18 2013, 12:37pm
Post #121 of 174
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Actually, Gandalf's absence is explained in 'The Hobbit'
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Okay, I'll give you the spear-thrust. Frodo should have been more seriously injured than he was. However, one does not need to reference the Appendices to explain Gandalf's absence from when he departs from the company at Mirkwood until he reappears in the encampment of the Elves and Men. Gandalf explains what he was up to during the journey back to the Shire, when he and Bilbo stop at Rivendell. Bilbo either misremembered some details or else Gandalf talked around them while in the hobbit's presence, but he did speak of a council driving tne Necromancer out of southern Mirkwood.
'There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.' - Gandalf the Grey, The Fellowship of the Ring
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bborchar
Nargothrond
Jun 18 2013, 1:04pm
Post #122 of 174
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Okay, I'll give you the spear-thrust. Frodo should have been more seriously injured than he was. However, one does not need to reference the Appendices to explain Gandalf's absence from when he departs from the company at Mirkwood until he reappears in the encampment of the Elves and Men. Gandalf explains what he was up to during the journey back to the Shire, when he and Bilbo stop at Rivendell. Bilbo either misremembered some details or else Gandalf talked around them while in the hobbit's presence, but he did speak of a council driving tne Necromancer out of southern Mirkwood.
I was actually trying to say that when he leaves in the book, he doesn't tell us why and we never see why...we get a very short explanation of about 2 sentences at the end of the book and a better explanation in the appendices of LotR. But you can't make a movie that way- people would be screaming "WHERE'D HE GO???" then entire time (kind of like I was at the book). In The Hobbit book, it just feels like a plot device to get Gandalf out of the way so Bilbo can babysit the Dwarves (and that's really how it felt when I was reading it).
「さようなら、ミスターホームズ」〜アイリーンアダラーのメール
「ベルグレービアの醜聞」
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DwellerInDale
Nargothrond
Jun 18 2013, 1:06pm
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The scaling / giant humans argument applies only to bipedal animals. Elephants and other massive animals need to have much more proportionally thicker legs, and must walk on four legs. The trolls are more or less human in their proportions (well, at least humans that I've seen leaving buffet restaurants) so their legs would still break if their bones were made of the same material as most animals.
Don't mess with my favorite female elf.
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Noria
Hithlum
Jun 18 2013, 2:09pm
Post #124 of 174
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After reading so many complaints about the bridge scene, I've watched it several times on DVD and I agree with you totally about the sequence of events, though I know nothing of physics and defer to your expertise. The entire chase sequence, including the bridge fall, was obviously carefully constructed.
I feel the same about the Dwarves and Bilbo falling into the Goblin trap - it seems to me that they do more sliding and bouncing than falling until the very end.
And when Bilbo falls into the chasm, first he grabs a rope for a few moments, then slides a bit down a wall and then ends up in the giant mushrooms, all of which is meant to have broken his fall, I have assumed.
Besides having lower gravity, are Dwarves not tougher in the fiber than humans anyway?
Dweller, it truly would be a service to the community if your excellent summation was posted as an article.
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entmaiden
Forum Admin
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Jun 18 2013, 2:52pm
Post #125 of 174
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I think the subtlety is a matter of preference
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We don't know that Aragorn didn't bounce off rocks before he hit the water - all we see is him lying in shallow water with a couple scratches, after the fall is completed.
Those scenes bothered me as much as the Hobbit events, but I realize that not everyone feels the same. The Legolas snow-boarding makes me cringe every time.
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