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The Hobbit The Hobbit THE HOBBIT

What I like best about Jackson's translation of these stories into film is his ability to capture why Gandalf is so impressed with the little bitty Hobbits who are so in love with their creature comforts and have no interest in adventure and change, yet they are capable of incredible courage and loyalty.

Saw it in 2d. The filmography was excellent.

Only complaint, and not much of one at that, is while I enjoyed the familiar music from the LOTR movies, and it was appropriate in much of this movie, I would have liked one or two original outstanding tracks as it is Bilbo's story now, not Frodo's.
 
What I like best about Jackson's translation of these stories into film is his ability to capture why Gandalf is so impressed with the little bitty Hobbits who are so in love with their creature comforts and have no interest in adventure and change, yet they are capable of incredible courage and loyalty.

Saw it in 2d. The filmography was excellent.

Only complaint, and not much of one at that, is while I enjoyed the familiar music from the LOTR movies, and it was appropriate in much of this movie, I would have liked one or two original outstanding tracks as it is Bilbo's story now, not Frodo's.

I didn't even notice the music...other than the Dwarves singing and the kitchen clean up scene.
 
I loved the music.

Okay so I feel like a complete dork to admit I have not seen LOTR at all. The only reason I went to see The Hobbit was because I watched the animated version as a kid. I always loved the dragon scene at the end.

I didn't realize it was not part of the movie!!!!!!

But I did enjoy the 3-D version. Basically nostalgic for me. Perhaps one day I will see more.
 
The animated Hobbit kicks ass....but not as much as the animated Return of the King.

Bard(singing): Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom! Orcs(singing): Where there's a whip, there's a way!
 
I read that Legolas is supposed to return. Did I miss hjm in this, or is he in one of the others? Nice to see him getting work anyway.
 
I don't recall seeing him. Other than the opening scenes, this story takes place 60 or so years earlier than the Frodo adventures. Maybe Legolas is off on other adventures or still a tiny elf.
 
I read that Legolas is supposed to return. Did I miss hjm in this, or is he in one of the others? Nice to see him getting work anyway.

He's in part 2, I believe. I'll try to remember where I saw a behind the scenes photo and provide a link.
 
Wacky Reviews The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

(I saw it in 2D so I can't discuss the 3D/HFR issues.)

I enjoyed the movie. I'm glad I saw it at the cinema. It looked beautiful with the kind of production values you only get in Middle Earth. Acting was mostly very good and the action scenes exhilarating. I'll have the Misty Mountains Cold song in my head for days.

IT'S NOT WITHOUT FAULTS THOUGH, firstly, because it's the most fresh part in my mind, the ending feels anti-climatic. There's so much stuff set up that doesn't pay off at all and obviously that's to be expected in the first part of a trilogy, but it could have been more satisfying if it had went further than the end of chapter six of a nineteen chapter book.

The whole Azog character feels quite forced in, like he's just there to give this movie a villain and an arc of its own. Unfortunately he's not even the most memorable villain character in the movie and YES part of this is because he's all CGI and feels a bit like a Zedla game mini boss. You can't help commpare him to Lurtz from Fellowship Of The Ring who managed to be a much more menacing charactering with a few looks and the licking of some blood. The Thorin respecting Bilbo part was slightly cheesey too and showing the Lonely Mountain in the distance was possibly a mistake as they won't get there until the end of the second movie at the earliest.

Some of the additions feel unneccesary. There's added tension in the Rivendell scenes that reminds me of the Faramir/Frodo tension in The Two Towers. It made sense there to give Frodo a story for that movie, but it's needless here. Thorin has reason not to trust Thrandrull which will pay off, but having him mistrust Elrond doesn't add much. And as good as it is to see Christopher Lee still alive and well, Saruman's appearance is kind of ponitless and he's only there as another obstacle (and why would Saruman be against Gandalf going on the quest? You'd think he'd be happy that Gandalf's doing something that could get him killed.)

The Goblin Town escape is an excellent action scene but I can see why people are saying it goes a bit videogamey as the dwarves seem to kill hundreds of Goblins by themselves then fall for a mile on that bridge but are completely unharmed.

Still, nothing is as annoying in this as the way the Army Of The Dead was done in Return Of The King and I still enjoy that movie on rewatchings so I doubt I'll end up HATING THIS when I watch it back.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Having Ian Holm narrate the opening is a good idea. Actually showing him is fine (though could be left for the Extended Edition really) though he looked different than he did in Fellowship (younger if anything.) But then it keeps going on and Frodo walks by like Boba Fett and you think it's over but then he starts talking and setting up stuff that happens in Fellowship (must be confusing for casual viewers?) and then you notice he looks a bit weird so yeah I don't know why this was in the movie.

Sylvester McCoy was a good as Radagast and I liked the sick animals part and even the rabbit sled, though his "distraction" of the wargs looked a bit silly.

Rock Monster part, even though it was beefed up from the book, was good and not as long as people ON THE INTERNET were making out (same with the opening in the Shire actually.)

Why did the Great Goblin have a ballbag hanging off his chin? Distracting. His final line fell flat too.

Gollum sequence was EXCELLENT, best part by far (and almost word for word the same as the book JUST SAYING.)

I wish the eagles had said "we're just flying you this far as a favour BUT YOU CAN FUCK OFF NOW" at the end so that people on the internet wouldn't complain.

Benedict Cumberbatch put in a powerful performance as that shadow.

SO YEAH it was good and I'm glad I saw it but I STILL THINK it should have been TWO MOVIES.
 
NERD QUESTION: As it's Radagast who discovered the Necromancer in Dol Goldur in this version, how did Gandalf get the key and the map?
 
I think I mentioned the comedy being a bit lame and stuff like the Goblin king's "that'll do it" line before being killed is a prime example. It made the killing of loads of foot soldiers seem really jaunty and a right laugh, and the dumb mile long drop on the bridge followed by the king landing on the dwarves reinforced that. It just made the film feel inconsistent in tone. Some directors are brilliant at switching seamlessly from one emotion to another and some aren't.
 
Yeah that line got literally no reaction in the cinema (ALSO IT WASN'T IN THE BOOK, JUST SAYING.)

ALSO, I just remembered something from the book I missed in the film: Gandalf speaking in the troll voices to fool them into arguing for longer.
 
Yeah, Gandalf's troll impersonation should've been there. I was really looking forward to it. Guess Jackson wanted to build up Bilbo as the unexpected hero earlier than Tolkien deemed fit. But at least the flaming pinecones stayed. And Thorin is painted as more of a bad-ass who will sacrifice for others than he was in the book. Again, guessing he wants to set up certain emotrions for later events. I guess I can forgive him a bit of alteration to deal with the time limits of a movie. It's not like he has almost nine hours to work with or anything...

I'm torn. I simultaneously loved it but really want to smack Jackson aside the head. I'm irked at the number of seemingly unnecessary changes that were made but hey, at least it'll be easier to tell if my students read the book or just watched the movie.
 
I've been rereading the book and I hope he doesn't do that "dwarves introduced to Beorn" scene in the movie because that would take up too much time (I guess it's in the book to teach children how to count or something.)
 
NERD QUESTION: As it's Radagast who discovered the Necromancer in Dol Goldur in this version, how did Gandalf get the key and the map?

I was also confused by this. I didn't mind that they changed it so Radagast discovers what's going on at Dol Guldur but I then was left not knowing how Gandalf got the key and map. I mean the only explanation that comes to mind is that he did go to Dol Goldur and met Thrain but that it was made to look abandoned. It is not very well explained at all.

I loved it by the way. It has it's flaws no doubt but I really enjoyed it. I will write my review tomorrow. (really)
 
Shitty movie.

Im not surprise you people like it,i mean yankees like football and baseball.

What kind of idiot follow that kind of lame shit?

I like it the ending trought,DAT DRAGON is going to kick some ass.
 
Excellent post! I struggle to be that contradictory and illogical over a couple of paragraphs. He manages it in the last two sentences. Genius!

I particularly like the use of "DAT DRAGON" which I assume is a reference to our TWIHARD MF joke. To be contradictory, confrontational and reference some of the MF tropes really shows that this poster should stick around and lambast us more!
 
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