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Jacob0407
Registered User
Dec 22 2016, 7:37pm
Post #1 of 30
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Hobbit trilogy positives?
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What did Peter jackson get right with the extended trilogy of the hobbit movies?
(This post was edited by Jacob0407 on Dec 22 2016, 7:38pm)
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wizzardly
Rohan
Dec 22 2016, 9:03pm
Post #2 of 30
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Howard Shore's music wasn't bad...
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and Gandalf's costume looked pretty good.
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DainPig
Gondor
Dec 23 2016, 1:36am
Post #3 of 30
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Soundtrack, acting, the background, characters, special effects (specially in AUJ).
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Kilidoescartwheels
Valinor
Dec 23 2016, 3:37am
Post #4 of 30
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PJ nailed the casting - even characters I didn't care for, like Alfrid, I can't fault the actor one bit. And some of them (Freeman, Armitage, Lee Pace) were just so PERFECT that I can't imagine anyone else playing the part.
Other positives would be costumes and set designs, and IMO the decision to include the Dol Goldur subplot greatly enhanced the story. I understand that not everyone will agree with that, but many do. I would also say that the vast majority of the "Best Scenes" came from the book, starting with "Good Morning" and ending with the auction. Smaug was beautifully rendered, definitely the best CGI in the movie. His attack on Laketown at the beginning of BOT5A was worth the cost of admission! I would say one other positive, knowing again that not everyone agrees with me. The ice fight between Thorin & Azog was both incredibly original AND well-choreographed. In fact, I think the entire fight scene at Ravenhill was just really well done. Yeah, okay, nothing I haven't said before many times, sorry 'bout that!
I'd say I've entered my second childhood, but I never left the first!
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Silmaril
Rohan
Dec 23 2016, 10:05am
Post #5 of 30
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The beginning is great (until Radagast's appearance), and some scenes in Rivendell, but that was it for me.
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Bracegirdle
Valinor
Dec 23 2016, 2:34pm
Post #6 of 30
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It had Hobbits and Elves and Orcs, oh my! //
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‘. . . the rule of no realm is mine . . .
But all worthy things that are in peril . . . those are my care.
For I also am a steward. Did you not know?'
Gandalf to Denethor
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dormouse
Half-elven
Dec 23 2016, 5:05pm
Post #7 of 30
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His decision to go ahead and direct, saving an embattled project at the eleventh hour....
The locations, whether real or effects; the artistic teams behind designing sets, characters, props, costumes, set dressing and so on....
The casting - all spot-on
About 80 - 90% of the adaptation and writing, both in scenes taken directly from the book and in created scenes...
Working with Howard Shore again for the music...
The decision to go for three films...
Creating some moments of pure magic, visually and in terms of acting, writing, running through all three films. I could give you a list, but once I've started it will become a very long list..
Seems to me that's pretty good going! 
For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood and every spring
there is a different green. . .
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KW
Rivendell
Dec 23 2016, 6:35pm
Post #8 of 30
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As someone who mostly dislikes them..
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The moments that I enjoy or admire have a fleeting nature to them. Always in those moments the storytellers/performers will throw in a bunch of other stuff that turns it into a muddle for me and/or walks over the specific stuff I am appreciating just then. The introduction of Gollum is one of those moments. For a moment you feel the weight of the mountain surrounding this cavernous scene and Gollum's excitement to play a game along with that really evokes the atmosphere of the location and the character. Unfortunately a lot of other stuff in how that scene is performed/written etc. quickly ends up sabotaging that effect for me. But that bit, at least for a moment is a very evocative combination of visual and script and performance. Even though I have very little interest in seeing the movies again that portion of scene is one that I would happily revisit, regardless of my criticisms.
The Frodo and Bilbo stuff doesn't belong in this movie. It doesn't just feel out of place to me but it's structural impact ends up being pretty negative for me. But, on its own it is a really fun scene and I can appreciate the desire to include it. So bad choice for movie but enjoyable in isolation.
(This post was edited by KW on Dec 23 2016, 6:36pm)
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wizzardly
Rohan
Dec 23 2016, 9:01pm
Post #9 of 30
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Even the best scenes of this disaster are tainted with the overall foulness of the production as a whole.
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KW
Rivendell
Dec 24 2016, 1:40pm
Post #10 of 30
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That does probably sum up my overall opinion more succinctly and colorfully than I could.
But just to clarify for the sake of the thread my post probably came off as more slight and backhanded than I had intended. It was more like, "Well, given my personal opinion on the movies overall it can be tough to separate out the parts that I enjoy for comment. But if I were to pick one there is stuff in that Gollum section that I find really striking and praiseworthy."
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Thrain II
Lorien
Dec 24 2016, 4:42pm
Post #11 of 30
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the casting is spot-on. The extended editions are great until the company is captured by the Elves in Mirkwood. After that it goes downhill, more and more as the trilogy progresses.
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Noria
Gondor
Dec 26 2016, 2:18pm
Post #12 of 30
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PJ got many things right but here are just a few of my favourites.
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World building: like LotR, a great deal of effort was put into world building, into creating a Middle-earth that is entirely convincing. The production is beautiful to look at and to hear. PJ transports me to M-e in his movies and I love it.
Casting and acting: as with LotR the producers showed a real gift for casting, sometimes making unexpected choices of actors who ended up really enhancing the movies. I doubt that they could have afforded big stars but the movies are the better for it. Most of the acting is excellent.
The decision to expand the Hobbit world and make it part of the geo-political universe of LotR. The inclusion of the Dol Guldur subplot as well the Thranduil/Legolas/Tauriel and Bard/Master/Laketown stories make the movies more interesting to my mind, though I am not fond of all aspects of the Dol Guldur strand.
The special effects: I had no more problem with PJ using state-of-the-art special effects for The Hobbit than I did when he used what was then new in LotR. I know that retro is in right now, as in vinyl records, and “practical” special effects, but as a person who spent the first half of my life listening to the snap, crackle and pop on recordings and watching spacecraft models fly on strings, I’ll take digital.
And the music.
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StingingFly
Lorien
Dec 28 2016, 11:23pm
Post #13 of 30
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Most of the cultures and weaponry, particularly the dwarves...
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...'Misty Mountains Cold' was brilliant! Why they went away from that tone and theme I will never know, but that really captured the plight of the dwarves in a way that the book didn't even grasp. The Company was a bit too eccentric, but it was fun getting to know them...while they were on screen.
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Salmacis81
Tol Eressea
Dec 31 2016, 4:57pm
Post #14 of 30
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Some of the casting choices...
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...like Martin Freeman, Lee Pace, Ken Stott, and obviously Sir Ian McKellan.
Also, I liked the idea of including the Dol Guldur stuff, even though I didn't really like the end result (with Gandalf the Maia being steamrolled by Sauron while Galadriel the Elf was able to single-handedly banish him).
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1924
Bree
Jan 6 2017, 4:37am
Post #15 of 30
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but the main thing is that while they are not as good as LOTR, they are still very good escapist entertainment movies that expand the Middle Earth world well
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Gandalf the Green
Rivendell
Jan 9 2017, 1:12am
Post #16 of 30
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There's some superb acting, I'll say that. Especially performances given by Richard Armitage, Martin Freeman and of course Ian McKellen. The music didn't hurt, much to like there. The ending of BOFA was wonderful. The Mirkwood scenes were enjoyable and mostly well done, as was the Battle of Azanulbizar (excluding the way it butchered some of the lore). I could list some other things but yeah, I'm going to take a look at some FE and see from there.
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AlexanderLegroux
Registered User
Jan 25 2017, 5:25pm
Post #17 of 30
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Review The Battle of the Five Armies
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Richard Armitage did a good job playing gold crazed king, the dwarves' make up and costumes were amazing, Graham Mctavish does a good job of appealing to his gold crazed king's conscience, and produces a heart rending performance in the Dwarven Mountain. The battles scenes were good, but I felt that Thurin's duel with the Orc King was a little too dramatic. There was a twist where the Orc king is dragged under the ice by a weight attached to his arm and then manages to jump out from under the ice some how. Like Lord of the Rings these films have chosen a realistic medieval setting for the film, the orc king doing something physically impossible takes us out of the scene. An epic battle does not need to take very long, the battle between Gandelf and the Balrog in the Fellowship of the Ring took a couple of minutes when being recounted in a flash back. Keeping the action scenes short and sweet allows for contrast , something that Tolkien does well. Smaug's defeat at the beginning of the beginning of the film is very good. The CG is effective as is the voice over for Smaug.
The opening scene with Gandelf in a prison reminds us of The Fellowship of the Ring, Sauron and his ring Wraiths are chased away by Tauriel, Thranduil and Saruman who has yet to be corrupted by Sauron. I felt that the part of the town's deputy was written for an audience younger than fifteen. Billy Connoly ably plays Thorin's cousin, the jovial voice over is very effective. Somehow riding a giant boar into battle seems fitting. One of Thorin's friends manages to free him from Smaug's cursed gold and lets him fight along side his his Cousin Dain. The film ends with Bilbo trying to reclaim his posessions after being presumed dead by the other Hobbits. His home is emptied of posessions and he is left with a couple of paintings of family members, which he straightens showing us that he has not become corrupted by the ring.
One thing that stuck me as odd was that Thorin and Kili both look very human unlike the rest of the dwarves, I would be interested to know the thinking behind this. I did not believe the love story between Kili and Tauriel, Evangeline Lilly can cry on cue, but I feel that we need to have more in the way of courtship to make this believable. Martin Freeman reacted to the decapitation of one of the dwarf carvings, this was quite good, something that I have seen him do in the Office where he plays the dead wood, and he manages to inject a little comic relief into the proceedings in this film. “I might be a thief but I like to think I am an honest one.”
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Smaug the iron
Gondor
Jan 25 2017, 6:37pm
Post #18 of 30
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the orc king doing something physically impossible takes us out of the scene. It is physically impossible for a human but maybe not for an Orc as big as Azog.
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Gandalf the Green
Rivendell
Feb 4 2017, 12:53pm
Post #19 of 30
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It's even more physically impossible for a big orc, I would argue.
Not the breaking the ice part, but being able to jump underwater in the first place.
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Feb 4 2017, 2:04pm
Post #20 of 30
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...the channel was shallow enough to enable Azog to push off of the bottom. Otherwise I agree.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
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Glorfindela
Valinor
Feb 5 2017, 12:28am
Post #21 of 30
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There were some promising things in AUJ
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I'd say that there were quite a few positives, like:
• Good choice of some actors, especially (for me) Richard Armitage, Sir Ian MacKellen, Balin and Bilbo.
• Some amazing scenes and settings, like the Smaug scenes, Beorn's home, Bilbo's home at the beginning, the Eagles, Erebor at the beginning, Thorin's fight on the ice, Thorin's struggle with himself in the last film, the Battle of Az.
• Some amazing small moments, such as the bit with the tapestry in the second film; Gandalf talking to Bilbo; the Raven – all very nicely done.
• The costumes.
Such things have to be balanced against all the supremely awful things, though, such as the totally misplaced crass stupidity and vulgarity, Orlando Bloom idiocy, romance rubbish, the fact that the films failed to portray a 'world' in the way that FotR did, for instance. I was thinking about it today, but a lot of the settings looked fake, like stage sets – I'm not sure why this is, whether it is anything to do with the way the filming was done. Also the fact that so many things were left out (notably a proper, well-explained and longer ending and giving a real role to Beorn in the final film) in favour of the gross or simply senseless moments. Altogether, the films ended up quite disjointed and didn't have the flow of the LoTR films.
(This post was edited by Glorfindela on Feb 5 2017, 12:31am)
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LittleHobbit
Lorien
Feb 6 2017, 4:44am
Post #23 of 30
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Would this sort of ''physics-defying'' scenes, if cut from the film or otherwise explained ''scientifically'', make the naysayers like more this trilogy at all? I doubt it, somehow. 
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Feb 6 2017, 2:56pm
Post #24 of 30
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Even if we can explain this scene (Azog erupting from the water), it still looks and feels wrong. The explanation doesn't satisfy me, and I suggested it.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
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Otaku-sempai
Immortal
Feb 6 2017, 2:56pm
Post #25 of 30
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Even if we can explain this scene (Azog erupting from the water), it still looks and feels wrong. The explanation doesn't satisfy me, and I suggested it.
"He who lies artistically, treads closer to the truth than ever he knows." -- Favorite proverb of the wizard Ningauble of the Seven Eyes
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