The Hobbit --- Let's hear what you thought of the first installment.

[cverz2]

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Ok, So I went to see The Hobbit tonight.  At first I thought " Holy cow this is a three hour movie!!".   And the beginning felt like it was going to be a THREE hour movie.  But it eventually started to get better and better.  I really loved the scene with bilbo and Gollom.  It was a long scene but fun to watch.
The second half of the movie is really action packed and I liked the way it ended giving something to think about for the next movie.

Overall I loved it. We watched the 3D version and I was happy with the way it turned out.  I haven't watched a movie in 3D at the Theaters before so I wasn't sure what to expect. I though it was going to be a bunch of in your face antics.  But it was actually just the opposite.  The 3d was actually more for depth and I really liked it.

Anyway, I would like to hear what you guys thought about it.  Critics have been hard on it from what I've read so far.  But I would like to give this Movie a 4.5 out of 5.

[techwizard]

SORRY FOR THE WALL OF TEXT. I only managed to finish listing the things I liked about it, I may have missed some with having only seen it once and it's almost 2 AM. The cons will probably come in a post tomorrow. This feels like it should be in a blog not a forum post but here goes.

To give my review's opinions credibility, I am a major fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, as well as a major fan of the Peter Jackson film adaptations of Lord of the Rings. I've read Lord of the Rings about 4 times now, and The Hobbit 3 or 4 I think. I've also read The Silmarillion at least 3 times, Unfinished Tales once, a handful of the short non middle earth Tolkien stories, the History of the Hobbit by John Rateliff, and am at book 6 out of 12 of the History of Middle Earth series. I've seen the LotR movies dozens of times at least, in many formats (VHS, DVD, Blu-Ray, both theatrical and extended editions). saw The Two Towers in theatres when I was 12 (not sure why I didn't see the other 2), and have watched a few documentaries on the books and movies as well as watching all 3 of the extended edition LotR behind the scenes a few times each. Just saying, I know my stuff now onto my review

I would give it a 4/5. It was amazing overall, and I loved it (definitely seeing it again next weekend), but there were a few key differences to the book and lore that were too different for a 5/5. Some of them I can understand why they most likely did them (character arcs, advancing the story a bit more quickly where it slows down too much for a 3 hour film, etc). That doesn't mean I have to like them

First, some pros (some of these points have counterpoints in the cons section below):

 - Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins. He fit the role to a tee, they could not have picked a better actor for it. Good morning!

 - All the references to the Fellowship movie in the prologue. That felt like I was watching some new found secret footage never released for Fellowship, which was awesome.

 - The overall accuracy to the books and lore. I mentioned there being some key differences that I didn't like (I'll get to those later), but for everything wrong there were as many or more things done right. Nearly every scene that came directly from the chapters of The Hobbit itself and not the LotR appendixes felt perfect with only minor deviations in most cases. Everything from the "good morning" scene, through to the end of the unexpected party, for example, felt like I was literally seeing the first chapter of the book word for word visually. With, like I mentioned, minor deviations (Thorin arriving late instead of in the pile of dwarves with Gandalf behind for example). The misty mountains cold song could have been longer (they only used verse 5 and 7 out of the original 10 verse song in the book)

 - Seeing the attack on Dale and Erebor by Smaug. That was really cool, one of those events that was never described in very much detail anywhere by Tolkien. This was one of the things that was "in The Hobbit book" in the sense that it was an event talked about, but it just wasn't shown in present tense. Mostly canon, and I love their interpretation of the kingdom of Erebor.

 - Elvish Cavalry. Another thing never mentioned directly in any place I can remember. With some attention to certain points in the books it's clearly implied that they used horses somewhat, if not as extensively as Men.

 - The White Council. This was something I was really looking forward to seeing, and it didn't disappoint. Though at first I did feel like everyone was being too harsh on Gandalf, afterwards I realised that's actually accurate, I just hadn't pictured it quite like that for some reason.

 - Riddles in the Dark. This was great, a little off from the original chapter but I didn't mind too much, Andy Serkis did great as gollum again of course. This also had by far my favourite scene in the entire movie, the point where Bilbo stays his hand and doesn't kill gollum. This is such a pivitol moment in Tolkien's stories, and it gave me goosebumps to see it done so well. "The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many."

 - Radagast was pretty awesome, as a character they nailed it. His maneurisms and personality were just as I imagined he would be. Rhosgobel was really cool too, I never had a clear idea in my head of what I thought it should look like, but as soon as I saw it I knew they got it.

 - SAURON IN HUMAN FORM, if only a shadowy figure and known so far only as the Necromancer (accurate to the book). I hope now people will start to finally get that Sauron was not "just a giant firey eye on a tower". He actually spent most of his life in an Elf or Human-like form, until the ring was cut from his hand and most of his power gone with it (including his ability to take physical form). One of the mightest of the Maiar, corrupted by Morgoth during his early days in Valinor when he was still on the side of good. There is much more depth to him than the films (and even the Lord of the Rings book) show.

 - Related to the previous note, Dol Guldur was cool. I'm glad they threw in the Witch King too, because that's accurate to the books. Though i'm not sure how i feel about him being made of fog/smoke, That's not right.

 - The music was amazing, I'm so happy they brought Howard Shore back for this. The new themes were great, and the subtle (and not so subtle) themes from LotR mixed in at certain points really helped to keep an ongoing connection between the two film trilogies.

 - 9 years of improvements in CGI really showed with many effects being much better than the LotR effects of the same type. Of course so many of the scenes were shot on location and with real sets/models. Weta really does an amazing job at keeping the quality high with physical props, sets, costumes, and makeup, while giving it that modern flair with intermixed CGI.

 - As a first time viewer of a 3D movie, I was thoroughly impressed. This felt exactly how I would expect 3D to be done properly, with careful use in most scenes to do nothing more than add depth to characters and make you feel like everything is tangeable. There were of course the occassional gimmicks, birds flying out of the screen, pine cones feeling like they were going to hit you in the face, things like that. Luckily they were used sparingly, and I didn't feel like they were detrimental to the experience. Unfortunately I missed out on the 48 FPS version (sold out), I'd really like to experience that just to see what it's like. Overall though, the regular 3D felt like it really improved the visual quality of the film in my experience, compared to standard films. I don't really think it's worth the premium on top of an already expensive movie ticket though, the movie is still going to be great no matter what version you see it in. I recommend paying the extra only if you've never seen 3D before, or you're a big fan of the books/movies and want the best version. If you just want to see the movie, I'm sure it looks fine in standard format and the movie itself is the same. One thing to note though is that this was actually filmed in 3D 48 FPS, none of it was post production, which from my understanding makes a huge difference.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

Rabbit sled...

That is all.

[techwizard]

i hadn't gotten to the cons yet i didn't hate that, but they definitely took a few too many liberties with radagast

[nupoile]

I just got back from seeing The Hobbit. My own wall of text is forthcoming.....

[cverz2]

I'm actually thinking about going to see it again, but this time in the special 48 3d

[nupoile]

The quick review: Yes! I liked the movie! Go see it yourself or see it again! I’m going to. More thoughts below.



Unbeknownst to cverz2, but knownst to techwizard and I, he has created an outlet for two big time Tolkien fans, right here, on a video game collectors forum.

Like techwizard, I’ve been a pretty big fan of Tolkien’s legendarium. I feel I should point this out because it certainly affects how I look at this movie. Here’s a rundown of where I come from on this; Starting at somewhat of a young age, I’ve read the main LotR and Hobbit books many, many times, listened to the audio books, read The Sil a couple of times, read about half of the HoME books, read Tolkien’s other writings, watched the animated Hobbit many times, saw all three LotR movies at the midnight showings when they came out, saw them a few more times in the theater, watch the extended edition movies every year, own multiple variations (editions)  of the books, name all pets, pc hardware, in game characters and the like after Tolkien’s characters and place names. I used to spend a bit of time in very serious Tolkien forums on the internet. We have a very nice framed map, under glass, of Middle Earth in our house. There are real sword replicas from the movies in our house. And to top it off, I married someone named after a character in The Lord of the Rings.

[img width=700 height=525]http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8079/8290243114_e54cb32131_c.jpg[/img]

Does that help my Tolkien internet cred?

How about my general movie cred? I like movies. There was a time when I would go to big multi-screen theaters and had seen nearly every movie, at least twice, for months on end. We own hundreds of movies on DVD, VHS and CED. I used to have a movie review site with one of my close friends who owned more movies than many movie rental stores I’ve been to. I’ve watched 5 movies in one day many times. I have watched 10 movies back-to-back once and 22 movies (James Bond Series) in under 54 hours. I like to watch movies.

Bringing all this up seems silly, but I think I am kinda an outlier when it comes to having an opinion on a movie made in the Tolkien universe.

Fortunately for me, techwizard did such a good job with his write-up, he saved me much writing. For the most part techwizards thoughts are also mine. I’m just going to add a few other things, but I would have also covered much of what was said above.

The Wife and I saw the movie in 3D, regular frame rate, with a 4K projection. I plan on seeing it at least once more in the theaters but in 3D, high frame rate, with Atmos sound. I’ve seen three movies now in theaters in 3D. The Hobbits use of 3D was good, I think this way of filming big budget movies is so new we shouldn’t expect it to be better than this. But there was Avatar. I don’t know how the first modern movie in 3D was also so good at doing 3D but it was. In the end, I think it is kind of a fun gimmick. If you go to movies in the theater for that “thrill ride” experience, see it in 3D. If you go to involve yourself in the story, you are going to like the 2D version as much.
With The Hobbit there is kinda a wrinkle in the 2D/3D question. This movie is also available in a higher frame rate than normal and to see that, you have to watch it in 3D. I haven’t seen it at the higher setting yet, but really want to.

One reason to see it again and at the high frame rate is that there is soooooo much to look at. As an aside, I think too many movies nowadays are too much eye candy and not enough everything else. There is a lot to like about The Hobbit but if there wasn’t, there would at least be all that awesome scenery and special effects to check out. For this, I would think, the movie deserves to be seen in the best possible quality.

If you haven’t seen this movie at the theater yet, be forewarned, before it starts, there are 137 trailers for new movies. I counted. But, if you are into sci-fi, you are in luck! More than 100 of those trailers are for sci-fi movies!

Radagast. Not as annoying as Jar Jar Binks. I suppose this is one interpretation of this character and arguably an accurate one. It is not the way I would have written him into the movie. And the rabbit sled? Seems more of a Narnia sort of thing to me. Over time and repeated watching’s Radagast’s scenes will really grate on me I’m sure. I have no complaints about the actors skill just the way his character was integrated into the movie. Remember, not as bad as Jar Jar, but than, I did bring up that comparison didn’t I?

If I had another downside to this movie it is the way it flows. It’s not really fair to give this movie a regular review as it really is more like 1/3 of a movie. As there will be two more movies and they are essentially making one big long movie, any review of the first one is really just a review of the first act. That being said, The Hobbit has weird transitions and flow which the book does not. I think this is because they tried to get nearly everything from the book into the movie, commendable for sure. Having so many scenes to get to led them to compress all the non-action, non-exciting parts to short bits to get to the exciting parts. One of my wife and I’s main complaints is it’s lack of character development. Since I am, obviously, going to buy this movie, I think over time I will miss the smaller moments which lead to why we like Bilbo and Gandalf and the dwarves. My hope is this will work itself out with the other two movies and any scenes they add to the inevitable extended version.

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One other thing, as I have been such a big fan of this story for so long, I have to deal with having already lived with these characters, many, many times. I’ve laughed, been worried and excited for Bilbo and the gang so much, I think it took some of the excitement out of the movie for me. How does techwizard deal with this I wonder?

There were so many scenes, like when the group was trying to escape the goblins, I kept thinking, “video game, this so looks like a video game.” With such a small IP as this, it doubtful they will ever make one though…..

Bilbo’s character was pretty darn good. Well written, directed and acted.

I think I will cut off these random thoughts here. I could go on. I want to go on. Techwizard, put up the rest of your thoughts so I can write about them 

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Oh, and I didn't marry my wife because she had a name from The Lord of the Rings, it was just a happy coincidence.

 

[techwizard]

what's your wife's name? 

i'll try to write up the rest of my thoughts on it tonight, give me some time to try remembering everything i wanted to say i meant to get back to this monday night and never did. also i think i have that same map, is it the sort of parchment style crinkly map? i've got another one too from the game Lord of the Rings War in the North Collector's Edition which is actually a lot nicer...good quality cloth, in a scroll format with the ends of the scroll being arrows.

this map:

[img width=600 height=454]http://behance.vo.llnwd.net/profiles/50483/projects/2573335/0387efd26daac85226606a294c97c152.jpg[/img]

also just looked at your bookshelf, if you ever come across it you should pick up a copy of the 1991 hardcover one volume version of LotR, illustrated by Alan Lee. i found one at my library's booksale and it's a really nice edition, plus Alan Lee's drawings sometimes directly influenced scenes in the peter jackson movies so it's cool to see the comparisons.

[techwizard]

edit:lol when i first tried posting this the website went down for a few minutes.

Most of my complaints are to do with changes from the book, but I try to stick with the changes that I actually didn't like. There were a lot of changes that I felt weren't Canon, but didn't break the story, and some I actually liked (adding all the LotR appendixes material for example). Minor dialogue changes, certain points being sped up, things like that are ok with me.

 - Azog was killed by Nain during the battle of Azanulbizar, not just injured by Thorin. Thror was never at that battle, he was killed the same way as in the movie, by the same orc, but at an earlier time. His death was what started the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, not ended it.

 - Therefore the Orc party lead by Azog shouldn't be in the movie at all, because their sole reason for chasing the Dwarves was Azog wanting revenge.

 - I didn't like some aspects of Thorin's personality. They made him much too aggressive, and antagonistic against Bilbo. It felt a lot like some of the bad parts of Aragorn and Faramir's characters in the LotR movies. In general he was good though, just some things he said didn't feel like something he would have in the books (sending Gandalf away? what?)

 - A little bit of a continuity error, Bilbo starts writing in the Red Book his story (There and Back Again) at the start of the book. In the extended version of Fellowship he also started at the beginning of the Red Book with the LotR prologue section "Concerning Hobbits" though. It doesn't matter in comparison to the theatrical release of Fellowship, but it doesn't work with the extended version...though that's sort of the Fellowship's fault, not The Hobbit's.

 - The reason for Gandalf leaving before the Troll scene was all wrong, it wasn't an arguement with Thorin. He was just supposed to have snuck off to do some scouting on his own. Why all the unneccessary antagonism against Gandalf?

 - The Troll scene had too many minor things wrong that added up to me not liking it as much as I wanted to. The Trolls taking ponies was wrong to begin with, but then they were only maybe 100-200 metres away? How did they take the ponies and not notice the dwarves (dimwitted as they are they weren't that stupid), or more importantly how did the dwarves not notice them? They were supposed to have only seen a fire in the distance and all debated over what to do about it, not just fili, kili, and bilbo noticing it and deciding on their own what to do. Also it was "hoot twice like a barn owl, and once like a screech" not barn and...whatever else the other one in the movie they said was that I can't remember now lol, I just remember it wasn't a screech owl. Anyway, with the ponies not being taken in the book Bilbo wasn't focused on saving them, he was just watching and deciding what to do (as well as being terrified at seeing 3 large trolls). And I don't like how it essentially became a battle, instead of the dwarves coming up one by one and being caught by the Trolls sneakily hiding in the trees (besides Thorin only). Then Bilbo buying time with the counterarguements, instead of Gandalf from the trees pretending to sound like each of the Trolls to troll them (pun intended ).

 - Radagast. My opinion on him is similar to Nupoile's, I felt they really nailed his character and the actor did a great job, but I really didn't like the way they actually used him in the film. Everything looked great about him, and what was going on around him with the darkening of Greenwood and the evil spiders. Then he had the weird moment with sucking the "bad voodoo" (for lack of a better term) out of the hedgehog. Somehow this makes the spiders stop their attack, and I just felt like that part was a bit of a stretch. Then he goes to Dol Guldur...oh boy. I have to say, I loved that scene in every way except for the fact that it was Radagast going there. This should have been Gandalf, and it was supposed to be where he found Thrain (Thorin's father) who gave him the map and key in the dungeons of the Necromancer. So it should have happened before the first scene of the main story, or in a flashback. Otherwise though that was an awesome scene and I really liked it. Then he escapes to go find Gandalf and warn the Council. So he leaves Mirkwood and...suddenly he's across the Misty Mountains hundreds of leagues away meeting Gandalf and the Dwarves before they even got to Rivendell? This felt really implausible to me, or at least the distance was not conveyed well at all. I have to say I didn't mind the rabbit sleigh, I thought it was a nice touch to add that special something to his character. It only got bad in the scene where he is distracting the orc/warg raid away from the Dwarves.

 - This scene with the orc raid mentioned above, it was just so wrong in so many ways. First off again the orcs shouldn't have been there at all. Then we have Radagast running laps around them with his Rabbit Sleigh, so instead of leading them away, the Dwarves constantly are nearly getting seen again (until they actually do get spotted) which makes the whole thing seem stupid. After all that, the Dwarves escape, Elvish cavalry come up and kill off all the orcs anyway. So Everything that happened was made completely pointless because if they had been able to hide long enough the Elves would have rescued them anyway. Also that there weren't that many warg riders, the Dwarves face much higher numbers in the goblin caves and survive, why couldn't they just hold their ground and fight? I wasn't ok with this scene.

 - Minor complaint but I didn't like that Gandalf deferred to Galadriel. Doing that to Saruman makes sense, but not to Galadriel.

 - This next complaint isn't fully valid, it's just something I had hoped for. I actually hoped to not have the scene with the giants throwing boulders around. It always felt out of place in the book, and is not always considered canon with the rest of Tolkien's legendarium anyway. So yes, it was supposed to be there to be in line with The Hobbit, but I had hoped it wouldn't be. They did take it way farther than the book did, and turned the giants into rock 'em sock 'em robots while they were at it.

 - I have no major complaints about the goblin caves, only to point out that Bilbo wasn't supposed to be separated from the dwarves so soon, but that was hardly a big deal. The action with the dwarves was much more over the top than necessary, including the rollercoaster ride at the end, but I didn't hate it. oh and I thought the part of riddles in the dark where gollum seems to disappear and his voice is heard everywhere was a bit cheesy, but otherwise that was a great scene.

 - and lastly, the scene where they run up the trees to escape the wargs. in terms of the actual playout of events in this scene, it wasn't that far from the book and was pretty good. not at the start at least. the major problem was again, the orc party with Azog. that wasn't the reason for the wargs and orcs being there, it was supposed to be a meeting between them to plan an attack on Men in the area, that the Dwarves, Bilbo, and Gandalf just stumbled upon. Of course Azog being there led to a much more dramatic fight than it should have been, and they pulled a total Aragorn "took a little tumble off the cliff" moment with Thorin's fake death by nearly being eaten. It would have been a much better scene without that unneccessary drama. I still liked it besides that though. Not a fan of them bringing back the convienent moth messenger to the eagles again though, pretty much every time that happened in the LotR movies and now the Hobbit movie, it was supposed to have just been a chance encounter.

As much as this is a long list of complaints, I still really liked the movie and thought the good much outweighed the bad.

[bombatomba]

I'm off to see it this or next weekend.  I heard the worst part was the nine minute Star Trek preview in the beginning of the movie.  One of the Giant Bombers (Ryan Davis, maybe?) said it made him think about Star Trek the whole time.

[cverz2]

If you haven’t seen this movie at the theater yet, be forewarned, before it starts, there are 137 trailers for new movies. I counted. But, if you are into sci-fi, you are in luck! More than 100 of those trailers are for sci-fi movies!

Ha Ha, I feel this way every time I go to the movies. 

Great reviews guys, I love hearing other peoples ideas on this.  I consider myself a big fan as well, I don't have all the books or swords or maps.  But I do have a life size Legolas in my Man Cave.  I found it at a yard sale for 1.00.   

[techwizard]

that's...cool? 

jk, for $1 i would probably have picked it up too  but there are other characters i'd much rather have...the movie version of legolas was hardly more than eye candy for the girls, and a few over the top stunts.

[cverz2]

that's...cool? 

jk, for $1 i would probably have picked it up too  but there are other characters i'd much rather have...the movie version of legolas was hardly more than eye candy for the girls, and a few over the top stunts.

yeah I bought it from a girl at a yard sale and I almost feel borderline gay for having it.  LOL  But it was 1.00 and it's LotR.

[techwizard]

saw it again yesterday, reminded me of a few other things i didn't like. gandalf talking about the 5 wizards...that was supposed to be a secret known only to them, and he was supposed to be mad at saruman in lotr when he revealed that to the group that arrived at isengard. also the mention of the witch king during the white council meeting. they said he was killed and barried, which is completely wrong, and the way they talked implied that "angmar" was his actual name, when it was just the place he ruled for a time. and lastly, when thorin confronted azog during the tree scene at the end, they used the music from lotr that was always clearly the Nazgul theme, so it felt very wrong to be used for a confrontation between dwarf and orc.

still like it overall though

[Arrngrim]

You guys are some hardcore fans!   Basically, I'm a casual fan of Tolkien.  I thoroughly enjoyed the novel "The Hobbit" as a young teen, and never read the LOTR novels.  The new Hobbit was a great watch, and I am eagerly looking forward to the next one.  I honestly went in thinking I'd see the whole thing in one sitting (how naive of me!), since I watched the cartoon as a kid and thought surely it would just be a single movie.  LOL