The Hobbit
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McCheese
SW: Sean, CW: Crone, GW: Wizardhawk
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Well like I said, I didn't agree with all of the changes Jackson made to The Hobbit. However, Christopher Tolkien was unhappy with how the LOTR were changed as well, and I think it's pretty generally accepted by most book fans that they were almost perfectly translated into film.
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"And what's with all these dwarves? Are you all a bunch of short kids or something? I get no respect!"
(ugh, sorry, that was bad on my part)
Yup, agree 100%. And plus Gandalf "died" then too. I think the only comedy in all the Mines of Moria scene was like the bucket falling into the well by Merry which started all the shit, and maybe like the part where they grabbed Gimli's beard so he wouldn't fall. There was no superhero flying around shit in all of that. Just so much shit felt stupid in The Hobbit. It was the same "world", but just an ultra faggier version of it. I'd bet if LOTR had been done with the same stupidity as The Hobbit, there would be no The Hobbit being filmed right now.
Sure, the hobbit was a "children's book." But the target audience wasn't 12 year olds for the movie. They should have made it with the same grit and feel of LOTR.
j00t
Silver Baronet of the Realm
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chaos
Buzzfeed Editor
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Just watched part of the Return of the King and it made me realize The Hobbit also suffers from not having enough diverse and interesting characters that people care about. I don't even remember the names of any of the dwarves. I know this is mostly story about them, but too many on screen at once, and the lack of more human-like characters, really had a major impact. Does anyone really care about a nameless dwarf dying? Besides the main guy, Bilbo and Gandalf, there was no one else I was truly interested in. Gollum was cute for a while, then I just wanted to fast-forward.
They've definitely developed character for Thorin, Balin, Fili, Kili and Bofur.
I don't really think that's a failing though, it wasn't much different in the book. Bombur was the fat one and that's really all there was to him that I can recall.
I don't really think that's a failing though, it wasn't much different in the book. Bombur was the fat one and that's really all there was to him that I can recall.
I really think that this is getting besides the point.
The reason The Hobbit failed as a movie has nothing to do with the fact that its all about a band of dwarves, it was instead simply the direction that PJ took the film in. The movie didn't fail because we don't have more 'human' characters to identify with, that is getting way to in-depth, you don't need to go deep to find the shitty qualities of the film.
exactly. you don't have to have humans on screen to give them human qualities and have people empathize with them. take "WALL-E" for example. the movie essentially is about 2 robots in love, but since they are given human traits, it totally works and is a great film. the problem with "the hobbit" is for most of the movie, because of all the comic relief, there is no real sense of danger. the dialogue also felt more forced in "the hobbit" than in the LOTR movies, and PJ did a poor job or creating any type of real empathy or connection with most of the characters on screen; something that he did brilliantly in the LOTR movies. again, people can say that the "hobbit" was more of a kids movie, but it really wasn't. it was an adventure that an unsuspecting protagonist went on who wound up becoming a hero he never thought he could be. again, i think if PJ would have taken a more serious tone with this film like he did before, and if perhaps he would have made it 1 movie or maybe 2, i think it could have been just as epic as the original. unfortunately now we're more than likely going to have 3 movies that will disappoint as much as the star wars prequels disappointed after the original 3, and that is a shame.
zombiewizardhawk
Potato del Grande
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I don't know ANY book fans who think the movies were almost perfect to the books. I really liked all three of the LoTR movies but they weren't even fucking close to the books on a LOT of stuff.
Malkav
French Madman
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McCheese
SW: Sean, CW: Crone, GW: Wizardhawk
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I didn't say they were close to the books, I said they were almost perfectlytranslated, meaning that the (necessary) changes which were made to the story/plot/characters did not hurt the movies. Taking a book and putting it on-screen without any changes to account for the different medium is idiotic. Keeping Tom Bombadil in the movies, for example, would have ended up as absurd as Radagast was in The Hobbit.
Were the LOTR movies perfect? Of course not. But they were very goodtranslationsfrom book to film. The Hobbit movie was translated between mediums much less successfully.
Muligan
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This...
Pretty much the movie was a financial success and the most prominent complaint has been regarding the way it was filmed. Each time I watched it, people left the theatre with good things to say. i'm a pretty die hard fan and went in with minimal expectations and I was pleasantly surprised. I do not feel any different than I did after watching FOTR. I'm assuming that each movie will get better.
Soygen
The Dirty Dozen For the Price of One
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Yeah, this board is brutal. I enjoyed the movie and I thought the framerate/3D stuff was awesome and look forward to seeing that used in more films. I'll be honest, though. I haven't read the Hobbit since I was about 12(25 years ago almost!) and haven't really followed the production of the movie. I'm not sure what I was expecting when I saw it, but the only disappointing part for me was the fact that we only get an eyeball shot of Smaug.
Not really sure where financial success equates to quality. Christ, people love "Honey Boo-boo" and it's quite financially sound, does that mean we cannot bash on "Honney Boo-boo"?
I walked out of the theater embarrassed for what I had seen. I literally squirmed in my seat during some parts they were so bad. Maybe I take my movies more serious than I did when I was younger, but fuck, I cannot say this movie was decent. Maybe if I hadn't been expecting something epic then I would have been happy, but really, LoTR trilogy rocked and since we all heard that they were doing The Hobbit we have been pumped. I don't think any of you can honestly say that this was an adequate follow up to what we know PJ is capable of.
Muligan
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I agree, it is just better to understand context for discussion. If we believe The Hobbit is a failure based on director decisions or trueness to the story then I or even people and this board can agree and disagree. But to say it is just a "fail" I don't think is fair. That was my point. I do agree with you in some regard to some missed opportunity and I believe we could give a line item list of how we could have made this better but eh, I'm glad its made. I read my son the books and he loved the movie so in my mind, if a child enjoyed something aimed to be a children's book then it has some level of success. Again this is all subjective and opinions...
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100% agree. I felt so incredibly douchey during so many of the scenes. Just a really bad movie.