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Thorins_apprentice
Rohan
Feb 1 2015, 9:43am
Post #1 of 63
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Anyone else find the human looking Dwarves distracting?
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This is why I really like bofa because Thorin in some scenes looks as Dwarven as ever, however i wished he had a longer beard, It ruins immersion for me the same way Thor does because he doesn't wear his helmet.Bofur just felt like one of their human ,bree villager, tavern drunk buddies more so than a Dwarf.The fact that they looked like little humans, really emphasised the fact that it had been "hollywoodised" and they didn't even bother showing variations in the Iron hill Dwarven, army either, it was so bland.Also, notice how the template of Thorins face is very similar to john howe illustrations minus the beard.So they must have had a bearded Thorin at first.
We are more connected than ever before, more able to spread our ideas and beliefs, our anger and fears. As we exercise the right to advocate our views, and as we animate our supporters, we must all assume responsibility for our words and actions before they enter a vast echo chamber and reach those both serious and delirious, connected and unhinged.
(This post was edited by Thorins_apprentice on Feb 1 2015, 9:52am)
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dormouse
Half-elven
Feb 1 2015, 11:01am
Post #2 of 63
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No, not at all. They look like dwarves to me, because....
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... when I'm watching the films I just recognise and accept them. That's Thorin, that's Fili, that's Bofur and so on.
I like the dwarf designs now and I'm fond of them as characters. It's unfortunate for you if you don't, but ask yourself what was the alternative? If the dwarves were not to be entirely CGI - imagine the howls of protest! - they had to be played by human beings and no amount of prosthetics, yak hair and padding would change the fact that you know they're human beings. As for the variations in design, I think that too was inevitable. Gimli was more a traditional dwarf but, save for a few moments in the first film, he was the only dwarf: he could be a stereotype. With thirteen of them as main characters they had to vary the design to make individuals of them. Then there are the practical considerations. Remember the agony John Rhys Davies went through because he was allergic to the prosthetics? They couldn't subject another actor to that, or so overload them with make-up that they couldn't act through it.
Willing suspension of disbelief. Sometime take a look at the opening speech of Shakespeare's Henry V, where the Chorus tells the audience that the company is about to enact the entire battle of Agincourt on a small wooden stage and he appeals to them to use their imagination to fill in what he and his fellow actors cannot supply: "Eke out our imperfections with your thoughts. . . For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings..." What can be done on stage and film is vastly different today but it's still make-believe and the audience still needs to play along.
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Macfeast
Rohan
Feb 1 2015, 11:25am
Post #3 of 63
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Your point about the Iron Hills army is a good one.
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I think the "more controversial" dwarven designs would have been easier for me to accept, had some degree of diversity also been showcased among the rest of the dwarven race, among the unnamed and unimportant background dwarves. Really, we see a great many unnamed male dwarves at Erebor before its fall, at Azanulbizar fighting to reclaim Moria, and now also from the Iron Hills... and they all seem to follow the "generic fantasy dwarf"-template, the template that PJ and team felt that they needed to break away from when it came to Thorin and Company. That doesn't strike me as very diverse, it only serves to highlight how artifical and "Hollywoodized" some of the supposed-to-be diverse designs for Thorin and Company really are. Where are all the young, beardless male dwarves? Is Kíli the only male dwarf in Middle-earth too young to grow a beard? That doesn't strike me as very believable.
If you're going for diversity, then go all out and do it right; Otherwise, it just feels artificial. Maybe instead of having the young dwarf that gets involved in a love story, and is supposed to die tragically to our mourning, be the only beardless male dwarf in Middle-earth... you could have background dwarf #26, #104, and #268, be young, beardless, and handsome, too. It's not like it would have been a hard thing to do; If anything, it would have been easier, having a few less actors to give the full dwarf-makeup treatment.
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Glorfindela
Valinor
Feb 1 2015, 12:32pm
Post #4 of 63
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In the same way that I didn't find the 'human-looking' Dwarves in FotR 'distracting'. The issue of 'a beard' is a very odd nitpick to me.
Next?
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balbo biggins
Rohan
Feb 1 2015, 1:31pm
Post #5 of 63
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I dont find them distracting, but i do find it inconceivable that there designs are so far off what dwarves should look like it was even considered. I get the need to define each charcter, but i dont think thats really what dwarves are about, I think youd be hard pushed to really diffferentiate them if you saw then with human eyes, as written they are a secretive race, and i dont think theyd be into being particularly individual for the sake of it.
if these are the male dwarves, then how do dwarf women do their hair! just doesnt add up.
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Elarie
Grey Havens
Feb 1 2015, 1:37pm
Post #6 of 63
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Yes, very, but probably not in the way that you mean
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__________________
Gold is the strife of kinsmen,
and fire of the flood-tide,
and the path of the serpent.
(Old Icelandic Fe rune poem)
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Spriggan
Tol Eressea
Feb 1 2015, 1:43pm
Post #7 of 63
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I'm not sure what else dwarves would look like
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Other than small humans, just as hobbits do and just as elves look like humans with pointy ears.
Certainly I'm not sure what beard length or headgear has to do with looking human or being distracting, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding something?
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Pandallo
Rivendell
Feb 1 2015, 1:48pm
Post #8 of 63
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I found their looks to be fully unique and as mentioned elsewhere the alternative is just silly. 13 grizzled looking folks without being able to tell them apart sounds like a failure of an idea right there and then.
The reason Bofur in particular was let off that way was because they wanted Jimmy Nesbitt to be able to fully express himself in ways that couldn't be done with fuller prosthetics. Fili looked like a wonderful example of a young Dwarven prince, the only thing lacking "Dwarven" about Thorin was the lack of a longer beard, but the appendices of AUJ explains this by saying that he keeps his beard short in remembrance of what happened to his people. By BotFA you can tell that his beard has grown a fair amount and it does make him look like a venerable king of his people.
Kili is the only odd one out and I'll admit he's a little jarring, but that's the only one one as such, and I don't mind that so much, he clearly had facial hair, a larger nose, and larger hands. It fit well enough. He may just be developing slower than his brother and Ori.
We can ask why Boromir, a man of Princely stock has such a rough accent. We can criticize the Hobbits for not looking "Hobbity" enough in the original trilogy, this is just another bit of nitpicking I find.
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AshNazg
Gondor
Feb 1 2015, 2:07pm
Post #9 of 63
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The dwarves in many Snow White adaptations worked fine //
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balbo biggins
Rohan
Feb 1 2015, 2:14pm
Post #10 of 63
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I 13 grizzled looking folks without being able to tell them apart sounds like a failure of an idea right there and then.
but hobbits dont have individual hair styles ! frodo sam merry and pippin , all of them are practically identical. its about ACTING. its almost like PJ used the seven dwarves as inspiration,its a very simplistic way to go about it.
if you lined 13 random men up theyd be pretty much the same.
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AshNazg
Gondor
Feb 1 2015, 2:23pm
Post #11 of 63
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They don't all look alike! You don't have to put axes in their heads and give them stupid hats just so we can tell them apart. Unless you cast one person to play all of the dwarves then the audience will have no problem knowing who's who.
The easiest way to get around this is cast more recognizable actors as the dwarves, that way people can immediately identify everyone. But even that isn't entirely necessary. We tell faces apart all of the time in films, just because they all have beards doesn't somehow make it impossible to identify them.
On top of this is the fact that it's not even necessary to identify them. Other than Thorin, Balin, Fili and Kili. The others are interchangeable background characters, that don't really influence the story, and it doesn't matter or hurt the experience if the audience gets them mixed up. In fact trying to individualise them probably does more harm as it makes it harder for the audience to identify which ones are important and deserve the attention and which can just be ignored. They see a huge mass of individual characters and become overwhelmed at the concept of trying to follow every single one. Whereas if you introduce them as a single mass the audience knows that this is just the company. And the bright blue one with the silver tassel and gold chain is the important one.
(This post was edited by AshNazg on Feb 1 2015, 2:30pm)
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Noria
Gondor
Feb 1 2015, 2:52pm
Post #13 of 63
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I enjoy the variety and appreciate the aesthetics.
Rather than making these mostly background characters indistinguishable or eliminating them entirely, PJ chose to keep them and characterize them visually, with just a few lines and moments each. IMO that's great, much better than 13 Gimli's. They remain background characters for the casual viewers but for the devoted fans they are individuals. They are also a formidable force.
Kili is the least Dwarf-like but I don't care.
I had to see FotR twice before I could tell Merry and Pippin apart even though I was a long time book fan and quite familiar with the two characters.
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AshNazg
Gondor
Feb 1 2015, 2:56pm
Post #14 of 63
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Are you implying that LotR would have been better...
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If Merry or Pippin wore a stupid hat or had facial hair so that we could tell them apart? 
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Feb 1 2015, 2:59pm
Post #15 of 63
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Other than small humans, just as hobbits do and just as elves look like humans with pointy ears.
Certainly I'm not sure what beard length or headgear has to do with looking human or being distracting, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding something?
Dwarves would not be just scaled-down humans. They would be not just be shorter, but broader and more stocky and tending towards stronger features. A Dwarf would probably be at least half-again as heavy as a dwarfish Man of the same height (it is no wonder that Dwarves are supposed to be poor swimmers; their higher density would make them sink like a stone).
I think that the beard issue is a matter of respecting Tolkien's description of Thorin and the other Dwarves.
"The Great Scaly One protects us from alien invaders and ourselves with his fiery atomic love. It can be a tough love - the “folly of man” and all that - but Godzilla is a fair god.
"Godzilla is totally accepting of all people and faiths. For it is written that liberal or conservative, Christian or Muslim or Jew, straight or gay, all people sound pretty much the identical as they are crushed beneath his mighty feet." - Tony Isabella, The First Church of Godzilla (Reform)
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Old Toby
Grey Havens
Feb 1 2015, 5:00pm
Post #17 of 63
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Not only did I not find it distracting....
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but I found how they were portrayed superb, and I could be taken further into the story because I could now tell each of them apart as individuals. I never once thought of any of them as human beings. Looking back, I think it was both brave and incredibly creative for the team of dwarf-designers to come up with looks that were both unique and non-stereotypical.
"Age is always advancing and I'm fairly sure it's up to no good." Harry Dresden (Jim Butcher)
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Glorfindela
Valinor
Feb 1 2015, 5:03pm
Post #18 of 63
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Which is exactly what we have got
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There are very good descriptions of how the shorter and broader effect, with a bigger head than in humans, was achieved in the AUJ DVD appendices. It works for me – apart from in the case of Kili, who IMHO does look too human.
I fear that some would not be satisfied unless we got the cartoony, relatively characterless, Noddy-type Dwarves in Tolkien's Hobbit.
Dwarves would not be just scaled-down humans. They would be not just be shorter, but broader and more stocky and tending towards stronger features.
(This post was edited by Glorfindela on Feb 1 2015, 5:05pm)
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Brethil
Half-elven
Feb 1 2015, 5:38pm
Post #19 of 63
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Very good Elarie! Quite right. //
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Spriggan
Tol Eressea
Feb 1 2015, 5:44pm
Post #20 of 63
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Out of interest, you will have to remind me of the relevant quotes.
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But these are not things which Tolkien troubles to emphasise in TH. Indeed the only one that springs to mind is the relative description of hobbits as being less stout and stocky than dwarves, though we cannot assume anything too extraordinary as Bilbo describes the feature which would prevent him being mistaken for a dwarf as being his lack of beard, not his body shape.
But the defining feature of dwarves is their height, as far as I can see. Tolkien certainly seems to feel no particular additional description is required in introducing the creatures in the text - he simply calls them dwarves and the audience, it seems, is expected to recognise that.
I'm never quite sure what "respect" means in this context, but for me beard length is no more important than coloured hoods or little bells. I can't see what difference it makes.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Feb 1 2015, 5:46pm
Post #21 of 63
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What human looking Dwarves?
I presume that Fili and Kili were meant (and to a lesser extent, Thorin).
"The Great Scaly One protects us from alien invaders and ourselves with his fiery atomic love. It can be a tough love - the “folly of man” and all that - but Godzilla is a fair god.
"Godzilla is totally accepting of all people and faiths. For it is written that liberal or conservative, Christian or Muslim or Jew, straight or gay, all people sound pretty much the identical as they are crushed beneath his mighty feet." - Tony Isabella, The First Church of Godzilla (Reform)
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KingTurgon
Rohan
Feb 1 2015, 5:46pm
Post #22 of 63
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there were only 4 Hobbits we needed to (5 if you count Bilbo) in LOTR.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Feb 1 2015, 5:49pm
Post #23 of 63
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I'm writing from memory, Spriggan.
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Go back to the first encounters between Elves and Dwarves in The Silmarillion. The weight estimate is just that--an estimate.
"The Great Scaly One protects us from alien invaders and ourselves with his fiery atomic love. It can be a tough love - the “folly of man” and all that - but Godzilla is a fair god.
"Godzilla is totally accepting of all people and faiths. For it is written that liberal or conservative, Christian or Muslim or Jew, straight or gay, all people sound pretty much the identical as they are crushed beneath his mighty feet." - Tony Isabella, The First Church of Godzilla (Reform)
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Salmacis81
Tol Eressea
Feb 1 2015, 5:53pm
Post #24 of 63
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...was the fact that some of the Dwarves just looked like really short Men (Kili, Bofur, Thorin to a lesser extent), while others were completely OTT looking (Nori, Oin, the Dwarf who found the Arkenstone in the AUJ prologue). Gloin, Balin, Dwalin, and Bifur (minus the axe) looked just about perfect for Dwarves IMO, and all are easily distinguishable from one another without having to temper their "Dwarvishness". And I didn't much mind Fili's appearance after a while, I think he looked plausible as a young Dwarf. Jackson didn't bother making any of the Elves, Men, or Hobbits so outlandishly different from one another in any of his films, so I don't know why he felt he had to do it with the Dwarves.
And I don't buy the argument that some had to look more human in order to get the audience to sympathize with them, because Ken Stott was able to show more emotion through his layers of prosthetics than the rest of them combined.
(This post was edited by Salmacis81 on Feb 1 2015, 5:58pm)
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Never_Underestimate_A_Dwarf
Rivendell
Feb 1 2015, 5:54pm
Post #25 of 63
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For all we know, Kili could have some kind of hair growth disorder - we shouldn't mock him. Must be damaging to a dwarf's self esteem to be beardless.
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