"Well, at Least the Second Hobbit Movie... (spoiler). " Topic

…Isn't as Bad as the First.

"People don't usually think of The Lord of the Rings as an apocalyptic series, but it was. As much as it was a fantasy story about a world populated with elves, dwarves and orcs, it was about that world ending in fire and blood. Whatever we learned about the rich histories of Middle-earth and its diverse civilizations, there was always the sense that it existed in the service of something larger, and more ultimate; that it had always been building towards this final, fateful story.

The Hobbit always had more modest aims. It was a 300-odd-page children's book with a plot that read a bit like a D&D campaign of moderate difficulty. If the Lord of the Rings trilogy was the tale of a tiny person who had the biggest adventure of all, The Hobbit is the story of numerous tiny people who had … some relatively exciting times. Sure, it has adventure, intrigue, and a dragon — but on the Lord of Rings Richter scale of epic fantasy, it rates about a 5.0. This isn't a story about saving the world. It's about a bunch of dwarves on a side-quest for some loot. And there's no shame in that; the real shame is that it's not allowed to be that alone.

Like many franchise films, director Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug suffers from what I call crisis creep: the tendency for each successive film to justify its existence by being bigger, darker and more epic — forever escalating like a narrative Shepard tone that inevitably yields diminishing returns. If Spider-Man saves the city, Iron Man has to save the country, the Avengers have to save the universe, and Thor has to save all the universes…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

If Spider-Man saves the city, Iron Man has to save the country, the Avengers have to save the universe, and Thor has to save all the universes…"

Its a question of scale. Spider man is a street level hero like Daredevil or Power Man and Iron Fist. They take care of the low level street thugs. Iron Man is more of a national hero that is loosely associated with the federal government/shield. He takes on the bigger fish. The whole point of the Avengers is to assemble a team of heroes that can take on villains that are too powerful for a single hero. They are better equipped to take on villains that threaten the universe. Thor being a god and all is better equipped to save everything.

As for the Hobbit, I stopped relating it to the actual book when they added a third movie and had to pad the other two films with extraneous story lines to justify a third movie. They are two separate entities at this point.

I don't bleeping care what the critics say: I really liked the first movie, and I'm looking forward to the second one.

Second was okay but first was better. Pace was way too frantic.

Second was okay but first was better. Pace was way too frantic.

Wow…

I was hoping for a little better. From a story perspective, I had a low opinion of the first movie. Your assesment Doc does not exactly fill my heart with hope.

No, do go see it. Parts of it are quite good. Beorn and his house are well done, though very different from the book -- a good example of what I mean by pacing. In the film the Company runs into the house, chased by the Big Bear. In the book they appear in pairs as Gandalf tells a story.

The dragon is well done, and so is his vast hoard and the caverns of the dwarves generally -- though the ACTION therein becomes over the top.

Bard the Bowman and Laketown are well done.

The elf chick who is apparently too low class for Legolas (per his father the king) seems to be falling for Kili. Which I assume means she will die in Five Armies along with kili and Fili. But I THINK Tolkien might approve, he who wrote the tale of Beren and Luthien (which names are on their tombstones). If a human can take up with an elf princess, I suppose a dwarf can! (A TALL dwarf, as the elf lady notes.)

I agree with Doc's assessment. It's an fun movie, and some bits are terrific, like the interaction between Bilbo and Smaug, Bilbo fighting the Spiders, and (despite its departure from the novel) the barrel escape sequence. The character of Bard is somewhat changed, but not too egregiously (though as an archer, I was disappointed in their take on the black arrow).

I didn't like the Fili/Tauriel bit at all. But I suppose it's there to explain Legolas's continuing dislike for dwarves at the forming of the Fellowship— you might have a sore spot if you lost your girlfriend to a dwarf! (Can you imagine the elf locker room razzing? "Yo, Legolas— guess you had to "le' go" your "lass!" Hahhahhahhahhah…) Either way, it's clearly the Boyen-and-Walsh moment in the script, and comes across like the sort of bad fanfic written by middle-aged women who've gotten bored with their husbands. Expect "Fifty Beards of Grey" to come out soon. (Heck, one scene between the two had the sort of lighting and camera angles you'd expect from a chick-flick sex scene— gaaaaaah.)

But despite that, and the absurd battle in the Mountain, I had a good time.

Here's the thing— if you see this, expecting to get the book, you will be sorely disappointed (or possibly ticked off). If you go see it expecting to get a spectacle movie with lots of great effects and roller-coaster action scenes that still mostly follows the plot and theme of the book, you'll have a good time.

It's not The Hobbit Tolkien wrote, nor The Hobbit I read as a child, nor The Hobbit I would have filmed… but in the end, it's still The Hobbit. Bilbo is Bilbo, Gandalf is Gandalf, Thorin is Thorin, Balin is Balin (etc.), and Smaug is Smaug.

Most telling for me— in the movie theatre around me, I heard the laughter and gasps of children throughout. I can't imagine that Tolkien would have been at all displeased by that.

Good post Parzival. I saw it last night with two other people. One who knew the basics of the story and one who is very strict when it comes to interpretation of a classic. One loved it because it had most everything in the story and the other hated it because it was nothing like the story.

I thought it was a pretty good movie but probably one that reflects our times when it comes to what constitutes an epic movie. Apparently you can't be epic without being saturated with action scenes. It's not just a fault with this movie. Perhaps the most celebrated "thinker" of all time (Sherlock Holmes) is seen in today's movies as using his brain to get him an advantage so when the action scenes come about he wins.

My biggest disappointment:

During the real story Bilbo transitions from a mild mannered hobbit to a pretty good character to have on an adventure. Even taking over leadership of the party at times when no one else has any idea what to do. He does this through being smart and using his brain to figure things out. His sword and the ring are tools he falls back on when forced to. They are not the primary means at which he accomplishes things. In this movie, Martin Freeman does a good job of bring some of the intellectual aspects to the character but for the most part it's the sword and ring that dominate/determine the course of action he takes.

The story of the Hobbit is about Bilbo's growth/change. The movie is about telling a story that has many of the aspects of the original but misses the point more than it hits it.

meh.

One of the high points for me in the first movie was "Riddles in the Dark." Here Jackson outdid himself. As well, "An Unexpected Party" was particularly well done. Other parts of the first movie (in SMCs words) meh.

So I am looking forward to seeing the Smaug bit. Hopefully PJ will have brought his 'A' game for that alone. I can't imagine, from the clips I have seen, that I will absolutely love anything else. Like maybe. Action film. Not book. That will be my mantra.

The movie is about telling a story that has many of the aspects of the original but misses the point more than it hits it.

A recurring theme for Jackson-Boyens writing.