[Traveller]

Yeah, it's weird but it does look like they were trying to duplicate characters and scenes from the other movies.

Ok, eagles arrived, but did Bilbo really have to say, 'the eagles are coming?' yet again? (Should be 'the eagles are late again'..) anyway.

[Gabriele]

I watched the first two on DVD over the holidays and found that I'm less bothered by the changes than I was by the LOTR movies (Aragorn falling down the Cliff of Uncanonicity, character assasination of Faramir and Denethor, Frodo sending Sam away, and a bunch of others) though I enjoyed those well enough for the visuals and most of the actors. The reason may be that I love the LOTR books and reread them regularly, while I enjoyed the Hobbit well enough and read it again right now, but it's only the second or third read; I don't love that book like LOTR, Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. So I'm less attached to the Hobbit and the changes made put it so far away from the book that I stopped comparing at some point. There's still too much CGI, though, and Legolas' stunts are overdone - there were some great action scenes in the LOTR movies, but here they are more like fun than epic (execept for that flashback of Thorin fighting Azog, uncanonical though that one may be). I think it won't work that well for the Battle of the Five Armies to have Leggy stunts instead of epic greatness, and the end of the movie seems rush things from what I've heard. Since they used the whole Appendix stuff about Erebor in the first movie, they should have tied in with Thorin's burial and Dáin becoming King under the Mountain.

But Thorin and Kili are pretty hot; that's an improvement over the long bearded dwarves in the book. I can forgive the invention of Tauriel, another stunt happy elf, because it gives me more shots of Kili.

But I'm afraid - and you're welcome to spoiler me here - that the scriptscrewers will mangle the heroic last stand and death of Thorin, Kili and Fili, and Thorin's farewell to Bilbo, for something campy. And that's some epic stuff I want, dammit.

[Tsundoku]

I have the feeling some clever sod will get all the extended versions and create a "Phantom Edit" version which will end up being 3 extralong so-so films cut down to one brilliant film.

[Tsundoku]

Sombra, on 02 January 2015 - 04:16 PM, said:

I have the feeling some clever sod will get all the extended versions and create a "Phantom Edit" version which will end up being 3 extralong so-so films cut down to one brilliant film.

Double post.

I saw it today and I stand by the above comment.

It was the shortest film but felt like the longest - although the 30 mins of ads beforehand didn't help and I can't blame PJ for that.

The decision to go more heavily with the CGI in the combat scenes I believe will be regarded in retrospect by PJ et al as a poor decision. It was like he got "George Lucas Dragon Sickness" over the CGI. When audiences find it difficult to differentiate dwarves from orcs in the mass battle scenes - you're doing it wrong. When Billy Connolly backward-headbutts half a dozen orcs in succession with no sign of impact (honestly it just looked like he was waving his head in the air) - you're doing it wrong.

Tauriel/Kili/Legolas - just no.

Too much Laketown BS and not enough Smaug!

There probably could have been a better representation of time passing rather than "everyone shows up 5 minutes after Smaug crashes and burns".

5 seconds of Beorn? Sounds like a boy band but the big guy deserved more screen time. As did the rest of the named dwarves but I trust that is rectified at least partially in the extended cut(s).

In general, too much combat wankery and too little characterisation. When there was characterisation (or at least dialogue rather than action) too much of it was wasted on unimportant stuff. LOTR got the balance pretty much right.

I think the eagles should be on a phat retainer from Gandalf for always being his go-to cavalry/taxi bitches.

I agree with those who say Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage pretty much owned it.

[Traveller]

Sombra, on 02 January 2015 - 04:16 PM, said:

I have the feeling some clever sod will get all the extended versions and create a "Phantom Edit" version which will end up being 3 extralong so-so films cut down to one brilliant film.

I would just love to be able to do this.

[Tsundoku]

Traveller, on 06 January 2015 - 08:33 AM, said:

Sombra, on 02 January 2015 - 04:16 PM, said:

I have the feeling some clever sod will get all the extended versions and create a "Phantom Edit" version which will end up being 3 extralong so-so films cut down to one brilliant film.

I would just love to be able to do this.

All you need is the digital extended versions and the appropriate editing software. Oh, and a clue. All of which leaves me out.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Saw it yesterday, it was... Fine. The whole trilogy was fine.

[Mezla PigDog]

I enjoyed it more than I thought. I was at Star Wars level of lack of emotional engagement for the final "new" movie so take it with a pinch of salt. War bats, war goats, battle pigs and a sky diving bear? I'll watch that shit.

One of the trolls looked like my mum's boyfriend. That killed a good 20mins with hysterical laughter and horror (the one who gets hit by the cart ridden by Bard for anyone who wants to sympathise with me).

[QuickTidal]

So I finally got a chance to purchase THE HOBBIT trilogy Extended Edition BluRay set (came out last November), and it's excellent!

In my two weeks off with my wife and newborn daughter we've been watching the movies and the appendices (we are through AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY and THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG and 3 appendices discs thus far).

The extended cut of AUJ is not too different from the theatrical one, but some KEY scenes are added back in, like showing Thranduil paying homage to Thror at Erebor (which then bleeds into Bilbo mentioning the rift between the two kingdoms and Thranduil's eventual refusal to participate in Azanulbizar at the gates of Moria, resulting in the death of Thror and the near Orcish route of the Dwarves). Old Took's party and young Bilbo which while not important to the overall tone of the piece is a lovely Shire scene (which there are not enough of in the Hobbit I feel), and a few more scenes when Bilbo is still in Hobbiton before leaving on his adventure. There is a whole dwarvish song sung at Rivendell and Bofur ends up dancing a jig on the very plinth where 70 years later the ring will sit during the Council or Elrond. There are a number of fill-out scenes with all the characters but they are minimal. There is another whole song sung by the Golbins that I don't think was in the theatrical cut.

For the DESOLATION OF SMAUG extended cut there are a number of key scenes that play into other events in the narrative, like the opening flashback in Bree where Gandalf meets Thorin at the Prancing Pony, the scene is much longer and they discuss the disappearance of Thrain at the battle of Azanulbizar...with Gandalf assuming him dead, and Thorin swearing he merely disappeared wandering the Dunland and hasn't been seen since. This is fulfilled later in a scene I KNEW was missing from the theatrical cut, when Gandalf finds Thrain at Dol Guldur. Turns out that Thrain tracked the escaping orcs from the battle of Azanulbizar to Dol Guldur where they hid and their master, the Necromancer (Sauron in his reduced form) kept Thrain in thrall, so much so that years later when Gandalf does find him, he is mad and feral...only snapping out of it when Gandalf uses magic to heal him. I feel like this should have been in the theatrical cut of the film as it gives FAR more weight to the eventual Dol Guldur confrontation between Gandalf, Galadriel, Saruman, Elrond VS Sauron/Necromancer. The only other additions to DoS are the Beorn scenes which are beefed up far more than the blink-and-you-miss-it scenes he had in the theatrical cut. They fill out his part nicely, and feel like a much longer and more involved opening set of scenes than we got in the theatrical cut.

As to the appendices, I gotta give props to the attention to detail here...the Appendices Discs start at Part 7 and go to Part 12. This is actually a continuation of the discs from the LOTR:EE set, which end at Disc 6. The packaging is nearly a perfect match to the LOTR set (only the logo for MGM is on the HOBBIT due to the legal shenanigans that went on with producing this one), with the magnetic flip cover, the map inside and tyne disc cases themselves. It's been a solid number of years since the LOTR:EE set came out, but Jackson and Co. were cognizant to make the HOBBIT set match on your shelf.

This brings me to a big reason to my post. The appendices are INVALUABLE to know what went into these films, and what trials and tribulations they had, the attention to detail, and the reasons for a lot of the choices made. Anyone who thinks this was a simple cash grab after watching these behind the scene's discs is not paying attention. Basically, the flip from 2 films to 3 came after PJ, Fran, and Phillipa decided to add in more LOTR appendices things to the first and last film, stuff like the White Council, Dol Guldur and such were tantalizing ways to put in stuff Tolkien intended but never got to insert...the problem was that it was too beefy for 2 films after that with all the Hobbit material, so they either went to 3 films or abandoned the extra material. This revelation came near the end of principal photography of the second film (which was at the time the last of the two films, THERE & BACK AGAIN) and PJ and Co. asked New Line & MGM if they could do that. So it really came from the heart of wanting to get more Tolkien-based things into the films, but not lose momentum of make things overstuffed. But this presented a second issue, and that was the middle film would be too short with the Hobbit material available to it...so they created new story points on the spot, during the pickup filming that comprised the new sections, like the Orc's attacking Laketown (searching for Thorin) and Legolas and Tauriel defending it, while they try to help Kili's poisoned wound. What I like about that is that they don't at all interfere with the Hobbit story that exists, and yet give us more action and interest and emotion to enjoy. And in some cases it even makes the existing narrative BETTER. In the book THE HOBBIT, after the Dwarves get into Erebor they hide, and eventually Smaug gets angry and leaves to go destroy Laketown...that's it. In the DoS PJ and Co. decided to have a different reason for this, while also maintaining the "bravery" of the dwarves, by having the Dwarves relight the gold furnaces, the filling of the golden statue mold of Thror, and covering Smaug in molten gold before he leaves. I just feel like that makes the dwarves seem more brave than Tolkien's narrative had them be AND gives a solid reason for Smaug to leave his horde.

As to detail....I'll give an example of the level of detail being very close to what they did on LOTR if not the same. Beorn, being a human but a skin changer bear and one who lives in harmony with all the creatures of the forest, his clothes were made of nothing that animals would not freely give up (like sheared wool) and plantilife...so his clothes are whole wool woven through tightly woven vines. The fact that someone sat down and thought about that fact before they made his costume is BEYOND impressive. The fact that they had to make scale doubles of everything on nearly every set (including the sets themselves) so you'd have one item that looks to be sized for a dwarf or Hobbit, and one which would be sized for humans...so, for example, the Laketown Bards-House set was built twice one in each scale.

The sheer level of effort on display here is nothing short of incredible. It's rare to see a film production get to this level of attention. Every little thing that happened on both the main direction and second unit (which Andy Serkis shot) is planned to the nth degree and shot 5 ways with multiple takes and no skimping on focus. Another example of this...they were on a tight turnaround to deliver the DoS when it became the second film, and the last sequence they needed to get done in post was the Erebor gold sequence, and Smaug's last bit of flight out towards Laketown. The post-prod team worked overnight to get this with the sound guys but it was meant to be delivered at 10PM the previous night. Until the very last minute Peter was in the chair trying to get the ending to be as solid as he could. Initially after Smaug breaks out of Erebor and shakes off the molten gold, the music plays through the scene with Smaug saying his lines "I am Fire. I am...death." then cutting back to Bilbo saying "What have we done?"...cut to black. But it wasn't sitting right with Peter...and here they are, many hours after they were meant toy have delivered the cut to Los Angeles...and it could be done...but Peter was not letting it go...so in a flip decision attempt, they decided to let the music crescendo during the line "I am fire, I am...."...and then cut the music entirely off into silence for "...death."...still in silence flip back to Bilbo delivering his line "What have we done?" also without music...cut to black. They did this in two passes in minutes (normally they would have to toy with it to get it timed right...but the master sound editor, who hadn't slept in 48 hours...nailed it in the second pass.

Anyways, to those who were lukewarm on these films and are willing to do so, find the extended editions to watch (I think you can rent them) and if you like those, give the new appendices a shot. The love and effort that went into making these is I think FAR more than anyone knew. It's certainly far more than I ever knew, and I really liked the theatrical cuts.

Just, well, well worth your time....and they hold a place of honour on my shelf next to my LOTR set.

EDIT: I should add. Idiot that I am I've never put these things together before but...

In the Appendices behind-the-scenes it's pointed out that in LOTR: FELLOWSHIP when the brand is in Moria and comes across the grave and skeleton dwarves (prior to the cave troll attack)....the tomb is that of Balin and the dwarf skeleton that Pippin pulls the crusty book away from is Ori and the book is apparently his history of their entire quest to get back to Erebor and all that happened after. That connection is going to hit me harder now when I watch LOTR having seen them both in action in THE HOBBIT.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 06 September 2016 - 02:46 PM

[worry]

I don't have the third one, but I agree the extras are nearly as interesting as the LOTR supplements. I also think the EEs improve both of the first two movies (the pacing of the first one is improved, but it doesn't become a great movie; the second one is drastically improved all-around though), but I haven't seen the third EE. The big question is, do the added scenes make the third movie any good?

[QuickTidal]

worry, on 06 September 2016 - 08:14 PM, said:

I don't have the third one, but I agree the extras are nearly as interesting as the LOTR supplements. I also think the EEs improve both of the first two movies (the pacing of the first one is improved, but it doesn't become a great movie; the second one is drastically improved all-around though), but I haven't seen the third EE. The big question is, do the added scenes make the third movie any good?

I'll check back in after we get through it.

[Tsundoku]

A quick-and-dirty summary of the chaos of The Hobbit production:

https://www.news.com...ec685eabd44e441

[worry]

That's strange. The MBotF is literally 'plagued by Chaos' and people seem to love it.

[Tiste Simeon]

worry, on 21 September 2019 - 07:59 PM, said:

That's strange. The MBotF is literally 'plagued by Chaos' and people seem to love it.

Fairly sure those pulling the cart in Dragnipur aren't too enamored by being plagued by chaos...

[worry]

Then why do they stick around?

[Tsundoku]

They're married to it. You know, "the old cart and chain".

[Morgoth]

Tsundoku, on 21 September 2019 - 12:31 PM, said:

A quick-and-dirty summary of the chaos of The Hobbit production:

https://www.news.com...ec685eabd44e441

No wonder they were terrible. I Imagine Del Toro could have made something interesting, rather than the directionless CGI-fest that came out of the chaos in the end.

[QuickTidal]

Morgoth, on 24 September 2019 - 07:59 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 21 September 2019 - 12:31 PM, said:

A quick-and-dirty summary of the chaos of The Hobbit production:

https://www.news.com...ec685eabd44e441

No wonder they were terrible. I Imagine Del Toro could have made something interesting, rather than the directionless CGI-fest that came out of the chaos in the end.

Some of these comments in the article are a little shaded one-sided without the broader picture in mind though.

This one: Even though everything was basically primed and ready, by 2010 the project hadn’t actually been given the official green light — which was necessary for calculating the budget.

Has the hidden unsaid add-on that Del Toro wanted the entire cast and crew and production of the Hobbit...AND also wanted everyone from LOTR to reprise their roles. The budget calculations for that alone would have made it a big hurdle for studio money. Note that the green light came bare months after Del Toro walked and Jackson signed on to direct...which to me reads that once Del Toro's requests on an already strained budget summary were out of the way, the movie was greenlit with the main cast and a few mainstay reprisals of roles.

I think Del Toro gets off WAY too easy in the press for this. Yes, there were financial issues that stemmed deep into the studio itself, but Del Toro's demands for the movies seemed like they were asking for an astronomical budget when New Line was simply not able to offer that up to him in the state they were in.

Also this: Instead, he and his team were left doing 21-hour days in a desperate bid to reshape Del Toro’s unique vision to fit Jackson’s.

Is key to understanding the end product. Jackson is left not only reworking bits of a script that was mostly already finished to fit a more unique vision, but he had no time for long rewrites or anything but retrofitting an existing pre-production. As such I would put good money down on the notion that what you see on the screen in those films is what Del Toro had planned as seen through another directors work...and the CGI comes down to the much tighter shoot schedule as a result of the delays and Del Toro dropping out (read simply: Practical effects take time and money that Del Toro had already used/wasted).

And what blows my mind is Del Toro balking at spending 6 years in NZ instead of 3...meanwhile the distance to his next film (PACIFIC RIM) was almost 6 years anyways. He may as well have done the HOBBIT trilogy (especially because PACIFIC RIM was largely MEH). But let's also be clear, for production on what was two films that morphed into three...that length of time is not remotely unheard of. Jackson was 7 years start to finish on the LOTR trilogy. So Del Toro balking at 6 is just him being obstinate and not wanting to commit to the multi-film schedule that was normal. This is a guy who outwardly flip flops from idea to idea, production to production. He always has. He's the directorial equivalent of ADHD. So am I surprised that he walked from The HOBBIT? No. Is the end result on him more than Jackson? I'd argue that's a yes.

TL;DR Hot Take: Studio issues and Del Toro walking off the project are more responsible for how THE HOBBIT turned out, than Peter Jackson who I feel did the best with what was available to him in the time allotted.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 24 September 2019 - 12:59 PM

[Abyss]

At root, two talented directors, experienced crews, and the source material was solid enough to work from. We should have gotten a HOBBIT movie (maybe, MAYBE, two) that rivalled the LotR films for awesome or at least hit the same level.

Instead, we got crap.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 24 September 2019 - 02:16 PM, said:

At root, two talented directors, experienced crews, and the source material was solid enough to work from. We should have gotten a HOBBIT movie (maybe, MAYBE, two) that rivalled the LotR films for awesome or at least hit the same level.

Instead, we got crap.

I agree that splitting it into three films was a mistake.